Plug it in, Baby!

I was invited to check out two prototype models of Chevy’s upcoming Volt plug-in electric vehicle today. I can safely say nobody has ever offered to let me drive a pre-production vehicle before so I jumped at the chance.

These cars were handmade in at GM’s design factory and are in town during the Olympics (GM is a vehicle sponsor). The fit and finish (and even some of the tech) wasn’t final yet as they are still tweaking the designs at this point.

It’s the first fully electric, plug-in vehicle and it was a lot of fun to drive. We were in a parking lot with a little track made out of cones around it and were able to get it going at a pretty good clip. Definitely ‘peppier’ than I was expecting.

I really like the idea of being able to simply plug the car into a normal wall outlet (you actually plug it into a box that plugs into the wall). It can currently go approximately 64 kms per charge running in practically silent electric mode. It will cost just under a $1 a day to charge the vehicle.

The driver’s dashboard:

The centre console:

This is what happens when you get the Volt up over 88 mph:

They even have an iPhone app that allows to you monitor many aspects of the vehicle as well as unlock/lock, start and charge it all remotely.

It’s all tied into the OnStar system. A free demo version of the Volt ‘Experience’ app is already on the (US) App Store if you want to check it out yourself…search for “OnStar Experience”.

I was also able to attach a camera to the windshield to get some driving video. Because it was a prototype, with a custom paint job, the engineers didn’t want me to attach the camera to any painted surfaces. I didn’t want to be the guy that damages a very expensive prototype either.

Here’s the resulting video with a cheeky soundtrack I added by Basement Jaxx that I think GM should licence for the Volt’s promotion:

It was a pretty cool opportunity to check out this pre-production vehicle, chat with a couple of the engineers who designed it and for the chance to drive it. I’ll be curious to see what changes get made when they finally put it into production next year. It’s supposed to hit the Canadian market in mid-2011.

You can view the rest of my photos on Flickr.

Thanks to GM Canada for letting me drive their prototype…I didn’t crash it either!

Yes, I’m ordering an Apple iPad

Bad jokes about the name aside, I’ll be ordering an iPad just as soon as they are available:

I’ll probably order the 32gb model with 3G radio. Not 100% sure I’d use the 3G network option but I’d rather have the option…especially since it’s unlocked – which is a big deal by the way. This could also be foreshadowing of the next iPhone device. The fact they even mentioned ‘unlocked’ is huge.

More later…like when real humans actually get their hands on it.

Update: This guy nails it with a great post on the iPad as well as a lot of things on the internet.

12×12 Photo Collage

After a great wrap-up dinner with the 12×12 committee last night, I got inspired to play with all the entries and made this:

I highly recommend checking it out full size.

It was made with the Photo Collage tool that I wrote about previously….such a fun little tool.

While at dinner, we discussed the next details behind the next 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon…stay tuned as once we nail down a few more details, we’ll spill the beans…let’s just say you won’t need a winter coat for the next one.

Fat Gecko Mini-Mount

Over the holidays, I got to check out a friend’s Go Pro HD which really blew me away since you can put it just about anywhere thanks to its numerous mount options, waterproof housing and wicked wide angle lens. Unfortunately it’s about $300 and I just can’t justify that right now but I still wanted to be able to have some fun with the cameras I already have and attach them to different things to shoot HD and timelapse videos.

So this weekend, I picked up a Delkin Fat Gecko Mini-Mount (Amazon link although I bought mine from London Drugs):

It’s a beefy suction cup mount for attaching your camera to all kinds of things…like your car:

I know what you’re thinking…but this mount is much more robust than the $12 mount I found on ebay (which I overloaded).

I wanted to try it out with some ’safer’ positions first that I could keep an eye on but after spending some time today with it stuck all over my car, driving at different speeds (including taking it on the highway) I trust it to carry my smaller cameras like the Kodak Zx1 and even my trusty Nikon P6000 pretty much while attached in any position to my car, inside or out. Driving from my home to downtown (about 30 minutes on the highway) over all kinds of turns and bumps resulted in no problems with the mount…it’s solid.

Here’s a video showing some of the different angles I shot during my ‘test drive’ today:

The mount also comes with an extension arm which lets you get out and away from the attach point better so I’ll be trying that next. I also need to dig out my wide angle and fisheye lenses to make the field of view on the Zx1 even wider.

UPDATE: Found my fisheye lens and added the extension arm to the Fat Gecko….the results are pretty awesome:

Warning: Vehicle Transforms into Robot

I stumbled across this sticker and figured it was the perfect addition to my car (along with my FSM badge):

It makes me smile everytime I see it…and judging from the smiles on people following behind me (and pointing), it was a good investment. Now if only I could get my car to make the ‘transformer’ sound via my key fob, it would be perfect.