My thoughts from the SF Auto Show

I sat in a lot of cars and talked to quite a few people at the show today. Here's what I saw ...

I'll knock out the Volt first - Wow. What a disappointing car. I'll put it to you straight folks, the rear seating in the Volt is positively dismal. I don't care how you slice it, it is B.A.D. I dialed the front seat for marginal legroom for me, behind, the legroom and headroom is atrocious. What a cramped interior. Some lady was talking to a rep saying, geeeez, the car costs $43,000 ?? The seating up front is fairly good although not much extra headroom with the sunroof. Not as much as Prius with sunroof. There wasn't much interest in it when I was looking at it either. How embarrasing it would be to pick up some friends you can barely fit in the back. Sad.

The Leaf. I took two laps around the indoor track in it. Absolutely quiet while driving that thing. It's a fabulous little car. The specialist explained modules can be replaced in the traction battery when it's older. IOW, it can repaired, not just replaced. I can see why people are buying Leaf. It's a peach.

iMiEV - Well, I sat in the driver's place. Egads. The seating for me is as bad, maybe worse than 2nd gen Prius. Don't mean to be rude, but it's sort of a hideous looking front end on that car.

Prius and Prius v. First, they did not have a 2012 regular Prius, only 2011. Tons of interest in Prius v. Many, people checking it out, some repeatedly. Prius was also being checked out heavily. I sat around and answered a few people's questions about them. The most common question was - what about the battery? I told them, it is warranteed for 10yrs/150k miles in CA, that I talked to a guy over lunch who has 145k trouble free miles on his 2004 Prius and that some have reported over 200k mi on original battery.

CT200h - There's more than meets the eye here. If your looking for awesome seating, this is it. Its power seat seems as good as BMW 528i seat minus the little shelf that extends for longer thighs. Interior is just beautiful in that car. There is some useful room in the backseat. Need to scoot up front seat a tad, but, it's better than volt in both headroom and legroom.

Speaking of BMWs. Had a good sit in both a M3 and 528i. These cars are so upscale. Interiors are so fine. But, to me they are way expensive and just conventional cars.

Insight - when I went by it, no people were checking it out. Honda better do something with that thing in a few years.

The Chrysler Jeep Dodge area was kinda sad. It looked like the most behind the times gaggle of cars at the show. I sat in some Jeep Compass but noticed it had only a sad little 2.0 L 4 cyl engine rated at 23 city / 27 highway. Yuck.

Mazda3 has gotten a significant update for 2012 with Skyactive technology. IIRC, they had ratings of about 27 city / 35 highway for the GT Mazda3 hatchback. big improvement.

Sat in a Fiat 500. Yuck. No headroom. Handle on the seat height adjuster seemed really cheap. I didn't like it.

Sat in Cadillac CTS wagon. Something like $75k. Had genuine labeled Recaro seat. They seemed a bit obtrusive on bottom bolsters. The rep was talking about the 575 HP engine. oh yay.

Oh, was drooling over some McLaren MP4. something or other. OMG, Burgundy. Drop dead gorgeous.

They had a Fisker Karma. That is a big car. It's like 197" long.

Tesla was a no show. Why didn't they bring a model S?

what else... Hyundai Elantra Touring is a pretty impressively laid out hatchback. Generous legroom up front and decent in back too.

I didn't see any Fords that interest me, but they had a Focus Electric on the platform.

 

On SF Auto Site there was no Tesla icon among the other mfrs and I'm quite sure I didn't miss them. I hear ya, I missed out on the GDE. I'll be there next year!

One interesting bit is Leaf fast charges from empty to 80% in 24 minutes.

Funny, but I didn't see Mercedes. Guess I missed them. Didn't get into the BMW 7 series. I was reading down the price list of the $47k base model 2.0L twin turbo 528i (i think) and the add ons. Holy smacks they are expensive!!

They had several Jaguars open, $100k cars. Was waiting to cop a sit, but they were full and quite popular. Left to go eat.

I enjoyed the array of pre 1950's cars. Some of them were so huge, but they had little room for occupants.

The Ferraris were awesome. I would like to drive an F430

 

Bentleys, and Aston Martins ... Rodeo Drive stuff.

I've got a thing for the Lamborghinis