Car Shopping - a Rare Bird

Hawk and I continue car shopping. It's become nearly an imperative since our old, 2008 model year car was given the automobile equivalent of "Get your affairs in order" by the car doc a few weeks ago. We got a second opinion from an independent mechanic, who concurred. It seems too expensive to keep fixing the old car relative to the cost of buying a newer one.

We really like our current car, a 2008 BMW 135i convertible we bought used in 2012. We named her "Hawkgirl". Now that she's near the end of her useful life we'd like to replace her with something as similar as possible. The challenge is, Hawkgirl is a rare bird.



The successor to BWM's older 1-series is the newer 2-series (shown above). The change in the number is mostly a marketing choice, not a mechanical difference. The car is pretty much the same size: a 2+2 convertible, which works great for us. We only ever use the small back seat for carrying extra stuff. And it looks beautiful, and has great comfort, features, and performance.

While the 240i is the most direct replacement for our 135i (similar engine configuration) we're finding we actually prefer the smaller engine of the 230i. The smaller engine has gotten better over the years; it now delivers punchy acceleration that meets our needs. And it costs thousands less.

But like I said, Hawkgirl is a rare bird. BMW's 1- and 2-series cars never sold in huge volumes, and the convertible sold fewer copies than the coupe. BWM has already ended production of 230i/240i convertibles for the 2021 model year and is discontinuing them. There are literally only a handful or two of new 2021 models at dealers in the US right now.

Fortunately we'd prefer a gently used car to a brand-new one, so we're not limited to shopping the last dozen or so cars nationwide. But unfortunately there aren't exactly a lot of used vehicles either. Not only has it long been a low volume seller but right now the used car market is really hot. Used cars are getting snapped up quickly, at prices noticeably higher than in the past.

To put some numbers to this: in the whole metro Bay Area this weekend there were fewer than 8 cars matching our basic search criteria. None of them matched our pickier preferences. Because finding the car we want is hard we're starting to cast a wider net. Yesterday and today we've called down to dealers in Los Angeles, 350-400 miles away. We might be doing a weekend road trip to buy a new car in the near future!

California continues to lead on reducing Covid-19

It's been a few weeks since I charted Coronavirus statistics. Coincidentally it's also "Tier Tuesday", the day when California publishes a weekly update of county level statistics and color-coded risk categories. Here's I chart I adapted from https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/:



The big news in comparison to my last chart three weeks ago is that the population in the lowest risk tier (yellow) has increased to almost 44% of the state population. Three weeks ago it was 28%. The geography in the chart can be a bit deceptive.... If you just eyeball the area covered by each color it looks like most of the state is orange. But several of the biggest, densest population centers— specifically Los Angeles, Orange County, and half the Bay Area— are in the yellow tier.

Winning at Data Transparency

In chatting with colleagues today I was reminded how special this level of data access is. California has been publishing these charts weekly for several months now so I've grown accustomed to having them. I take them for granted. But other states have pretty much nothing... nothing publicly available and so easily accessible, anyway. When I shared a live view of https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/ on my screen in a meeting people living elsewhere in the country oohed and aahed.

"But wait," one of my Covid-skeptic colleagues said after a moment. "All those pretty colors mean nothing if they're just made up. What's the data behind them?"

"That's the great thing," I explained. I walked through how the site a) defines a set of several key metrics being measured, b) specifies the numerical thresholds of those metrics for each color category, and c) provides a clickable map county-by-county showing how each county scored on each metric.

No other state I'm aware of has anything like this. And it's not like it's even hard. Months ago in Florida a single state employee starting putting together statistics like these. The state fired her. Then she continued the effort as an unemployed volunteer. The state sued to make her stop. Florida is, of course, led by staunch denialist Governor Ron DeSantis. The denialists complain that policies without data are bunk, but they're the ones thwarting the collection and publication of data so they can make up rubbish and claim it's just as valid as science.

Lowest New Infection Rate

It's not just data transparency California's winning at. We've also got the lowest new case rate of any state— a lead we've maintained for several weeks now. Per The New York Times's Coronavirus in the U.S. California leads all 50 states and the District of Columbia with a daily average over the last 7 days of 3 new cases per 100,000 residents. California's 3 compares to a nationwide average of 7. The hardest hit states at the moment are Colorado, Wyoming, and West Virginia, with averages of 15, 14, and 14 respectively.

June 15 in Sight

California's governor, Gavin Newsome, said weeks ago that he wanted to lift Covid restrictions in the state by June 15. That wasn't a political promise; it was a statement of desired outcome. He cautioned that the numbers had to support it. Well, the way the numbers keep trending down while leading the country increases the likelihood that return to normalcy will come about on June 15.