Someone set off a fad. Now a Delaware man has paid US$675,000 for the number 6. And he would have paid more. It’s yet more confirmation that the market for collectibles is booming in the face of a looming depression. The link has a great summary of the proceedings at the auction – very exciting.

I’m trying to think what might be next. Perhaps phonecards might make a comeback, or Angora goats.

Any ideas?

I don’t drink coffee, but I do carry a water bottle pretty much everywhere, and if you’ve read some of my reviews you might remember that it annoys the hell out of me when a car doesn’t have a place to put a water bottle. In fact, I would seriously consider not buying a certain vehicle if it didn’t have a place to put my H2O, even if it used more fuel per 100km.

While people care more about fuel economy now than three years ago, according to Forbes cup holders still matter more. And that’s not going to change until hybrids are the same price as regular cars. Currently it takes between 3 years and several hundred years (e.g. if you buy a Lexus hybrid) to pay back the saving. Consumers look at that and then start craving coffee. There’s the problem. Unless it’s worth significantly more in consumers’ pockets, you’re fighting an addiction, and thus a losing battle.

One would assume that a lot of Porsche’s customers live in downtown London. Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London has hiked the congestion charge from £8 to £25 per day for cars that have a larger pollution footprint…cars like Porsches. Residents used to qualify for a discount down to 80p per day, but now not even they are exempt. This means that some Porsche drivers could be paying £9125 per year (about NZ$24,000). Is this political suicide for Livingstone? We’ll have to wait and see. Here’s Porsche’s press release Porsche announces intention to start judicial review process against Mayor and Transport for London over unjust 3000% congestion charge increase Porsche Cars Great Britain has announced its intention to make an application for judicial review of the proposed extension in the London congestion charge, which will see the cost of driving some cars in the capital rise from Porsche announces intention to start judicial review process against Mayor and Transport for London over unjust 3000% congestion charge increase Porsche Cars Great Britain has announced its intention to make an application for judicial review of the proposed extension in the London congestion charge, which will see the cost of driving some cars in the capital rise from £8.00 a day, or just 80p if they are residents in the congestion zone, to £25.00 a day. Porsche believes the proposed increase in the congestion charge for Band G cars is unfair, that the increase — 3025% for Central London residents – is ‘disproportionate’ and that it will do nothing to achieve the stated aim of decreasing emissions in central London. Commenting on the Porsche action, Andy Goss, Managing Director of Porsche Cars GB, said, “A massive congestion charge increase is quite simply unjust. Thousands of car owners driving a huge range of cars will be hit by a disproportionate tax which is clear will have a very limited effect on CO2 emissions.” Porsche will be writing to the Mayor this week. The Mayor will then have 14 days to respond to Porsche. If the Mayor fails to respond to Porsche’s letter or refuses to reconsider his plans, Porsche intends formally to submit its application for judicial review at the Royal Courts of Justice summary of the judicial review process is given in a separate document to accompany this release). Mr Goss added, “Not only is this rise completely unfair to many drivers, but it will also damage London based-businesses of all sizes, and successful people from across the world will start to think twice about basing themselves here if they think they are going to be used as cash cows for City Hall. The proposed increase will be bad for London as a whole and will send out the signal that it is not serious about establishing itself as the best place in the world to do business.” .00 a day, or just 80p if they are residents in the congestion zone, to £25.00 a day. Porsche believes the proposed increase in the congestion charge for Band G cars is unfair, that the increase — 3025% for Central London residents – is ‘disproportionate’ and that it will do nothing to achieve the stated aim of decreasing emissions in central London. Commenting on the Porsche action, Andy Goss, Managing Director of Porsche Cars GB, said, “A massive congestion charge increase is quite simply unjust. Thousands of car owners driving a huge range of cars will be hit by a disproportionate tax which is clear will have a very limited effect on CO2 emissions.” Porsche will be writing to the Mayor this week. The Mayor will then have 14 days to respond to Porsche. If the Mayor fails to respond to Porsche’s letter or refuses to reconsider his plans, Porsche intends formally to submit its application for judicial review at the Royal Courts of Justice summary of the judicial review process is given in a separate document to accompany this release). Mr Goss added, “Not only is this rise completely unfair to many drivers, but it will also damage London based-businesses of all sizes, and successful people from across the world will start to think twice about basing themselves here if they think they are going to be used as cash cows for City Hall. The proposed increase will be bad for London as a whole and will send out the signal that it is not serious about establishing itself as the best place in the world to do business.”

We reported on Project Kahn’s director Afzal Kahn spending a big chunk of dough on the UK plate ‘F1′, and an Australian auction by Shannons that did quite a disappointingly low trade in Queensland plates, but now we’ve got the sale to top all sales. A businessman from the emirates bid 52.2m dirhams, over twice the 25.2m dirhams paid for plate number ’5′. The buyer, Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri said he didn’t buy it as an investment, but did expect the value to double within two years. He currently hasn’t decided which of his (presumably many) cars he’s going to use it on. At least the money is going to a good cause – it’s distributed to a fund that helps victims of car accidents

210kW is a fair amount of grunt. That’s how much less power the Kia Picanto I picked up this morning has than the Audi S5 I dropped off. But, you save $120,000 as well, the Picanto being only $17,000.

While the S5 would burble along in town in sixth, the Picanto could barely manage Franklin Road’s hill in third. Despite this, for general around town frugal motoring you could do a lot worse than the Kia, especially seeing as it comes standard with ESP, ABS and aircon.

Of course, don’t expect to fit that much in the boot, but it’s so economical you could afford to make two jour

I came across a great piece by Stansberry Research a couple of days ago about ethanol. I’ve usually found the Stansberry crew to be right on the money when it comes to research about commodities, so here’s a snippet regarding ethanol and whether it’ll solve the petrol problem, and whether we should convert coal to diesel.

Q: How does ethanol refining offset the need for crude oil refining? — N.R.

A: It doesn’t. In 2006, we used 17% of the U.S. corn crop to make just 2% of the fuel supply.

In fact, we can’t produce enough ethanol to meet the goal of 35 billion gallons set by Bush. We can produce about 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year using current technology — we produce about 20 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

However, gasoline is only 50% of what refineries produce. Ethanol can’t replace jet fuel or diesel fuel or fuel oil.

The other problem with ethanol is getting it from the refineries to your car. Ethanol is highly corrosive, so pipes and tanks must be made of stainless steel. That’s expensive. Ethanol’s also hydrophilic (it loves water), so it requires special handling to keep it from absorbing water.

There is a great article debunking some of the “green” myths about ethanol in the February 2008 issue of Technology Review. Here are some highlights:

¢ 54% of the energy in ethanol is offset by the fossil fuel used to process it.
¢ Another 24% is offset by the energy used to grow the corn.
¢ Ethanol’s actual greenhouse gas emissions are only 15% to 20% less than gasoline.

Once cellulosic ethanol can be brought to commercial production, we’ll see significant (82% to 85%) reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, it’s not commercially viable yet. As I mentioned last week, the only real impact the U.S. can immediately have on crude oil usage is to cut gasoline usage by driving less, and driving smaller cars with much higher fuel economy.

However, we like our hulking vehicles too much for this to happen.

Q: I’ve heard that the technology for the conversion of coal to oil is already in use profitably in other countries… and that the U.S. has a near-limitless supply of coal. Why do we not focus on this source of energy? — D.E.

A: The Germans pioneered the Fischer-Tropsch process (to convert coal to diesel fuel) during World War II. The country had abundant coal reserves, but little oil. Sasol — a $30 billion South African company — has used the process to produce fuel for years.

The process is not difficult. However, oil was so cheap for so long that there was no need to convert coal to liquids. Now that oil prices are in the stratosphere, Fischer-Tropsch might get some extra attention.

Modern chemical engineers have succeeded in adapting it to produce clean fuels — not just diesel. The Air Force test flew B-52 Bombers and a C-17 Globemaster on a blended synthetic fuel of liquid coal and natural gas last year. And scientists at my alma mater, Penn State University, tested a helicopter using a blended fuel that was 50% liquid coal in March 2006.

I think liquid coal is probably a better fit for our current infrastructure than ethanol (see below). That’s because it’s essentially “plug and play” technology. We can make it using existing refining infrastructure — with some retrofitting. And we don’t need a lot of new construction to use it.

The big question is: Will we be driving on it in the near future? It doesn’t look that way right now… None of the big oil refiners — Chevron, ExxonMobil, Sunoco, or Valero — has plans to retrofit their refineries.

However, the military sees strategic merit in having and using a domestic fuel supply, so I expect it to make an appearance on military bases within the next couple of years.

Source: Stansberry and Associates