Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Ghost lot.



I don't know what these are, but I know they are parking Nissan Leafs there. So I guess they must be Nissans.

I'm not sure why, but when a parking lot has all the same type of car - that catches my eye. At least I have the number of the place so I can track it down on land. This is technically the approach to the bridge. It's a lot bigger than the pictures represent. It has a good wall of trees in a lot of areas.

1 comment:

  1. Capital of Texas RefugeeSaturday, May 26, 2018 8:19:00 PM

    Who on earth would want a Nissan Qashqai/Leaf (a.k.a. the Kumquat)?

    Jeremy Clarkson was right: they're horrible vehicles especially for being on the high end of that market segment.

    If you're going to buy a cheap vehicle without significant towing capacity, cargo capacity, or even reasonable mounting options for a trailer hitch, why not just buy a Kia Soul instead?

    At least the Kia Soul has the distinction of being the most trouble-free vehicle in the US market, even above Porsche, although if you've driven one a bit you'll see why: few frills, mostly austere functionality, and a number of design compromises that are more than a bit annoying.

    You can't actually fold the back seats all the way down in one, just for starters, and there's no option to remove the back seats because the seat backs provide the bulk of the cargo hauling platform.

    If you don't mind hauling your cargo around at a 10 degree angle, it's probably acceptable, but for those who actually want to move the aquarium partly loaded, it's not quite so good.

    Then there were the steering modes: sporty, normal, and something else. I don't remember what something else was because I had a rental and because I thought it had more steering wheel slop to it than a 1980s Cadillac. Normal had a little bit of steering irritability to it, while sporty actually seemed like they'd used the computers to firm up the steering wheel so it'd be tolerable to drive on freeways. But it wasn't nearly as good as having a hydraulic steering system -- the hydraulic feel was being faked 100%.

    But even as inconvenience-loaded (despite being mostly problem-free) that the Kia Soul happens to be, it's not nearly as annoying as the Nissan Qashqai/Leaf. I've rented one of these and it's even more horrible.

    The Kia Soul I can defend because the base model is under 20k USD, and at least for that it provides good value.

    The Nissan Kumquat I can't defend because it starts at over 20k GBP ... and it feels like it's an even cheaper car!

    So Nissan, would you please stop making the Nissan Kumquat and while you're at it, stop making the Sentra and the Sunny, two cars (i.e., the same car) that are unbelievably even worse? KTHX BAI! :-)

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