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VikingSkull posted:The cars that are starting to surprise me with reliability is the Charger, though. We're starting to see Hemi Chargers come through with 300k+ on the clock. I knew the Hemi was a great engine having owned a car with one, but I never thought the Charger was going to be like a new version of the Panther chassis Fords when they came out. A lot of the moving parts on the LX Chargers are from Mercedes. Merc doesn't quite have the reliability rep it used to but all of the Dr Z-infused Chryslers seem to be high-endurance runners.
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Nov 22, 2012 14:27
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Not like it helps that much but think how horrendous your blind spots would be with that '4-door coupe' C-pillar and no glass
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Dec 12, 2012 19:04
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The squircle fenders are part of the current GMC design language. I guess spreading them to the Chevy saves on tooling cost. Honestly at this point you wonder why GM still maintains two separate truck brands. The HIDs in both look like bad aftermarket jobs but the GMC does integrate them somewhat better. I would assume that buried under the "truck engine" marketing is an implicit suggestion (regardless of merit) that "truck engines" are heavier duty / longer-lasting under load, specifically to prep the battlespace against the next-gen of significantly lightened small-displacement Fords. The talk of high-revving high-HP engines in a half-ton or bigger truck sounds really misguided to me.
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Dec 14, 2012 16:58
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PT6A posted:Maybe it comes from living in Canada, but I never did understand the point of a truck without 4WD or the ability to haul large amounts of whatever. Why put up with the inherent disadvantages of a pickup with few, if any, of the clear benefits? It's a cool novelty, I suppose, but I can't imagine actually buying one. You used to be able to buy a 2WD truck with a bed low enough that a person of normal height could easily load heavy items from the side without having to lift them very far. Even ignoring El Camino-style truckcars, 2WD trucks just weren't hugely taller than regular passenger cars. These days (and especially with the demise domestically of actual 'compact' pickups) this is essentially impossible. An example shamelessly stolen from TTAC:  The Lightning and other lowered 'sport' trucks have compromises ('sport' suspensions tend not to be very compliant under load) but they're surprisingly useful for actual truck stuff. Lowering also reduces drag and can give better fuel economy. The beds aren't that small and many customers who stay generally on-road never see conditions requiring 4WD. It's a little silly that you can't just get, you know, a smaller truck, but that's the consequences of CAFE.
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Dec 15, 2012 17:22
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Yeah, I don't think most airline passengers have a clue as to the extent of either the autopilot's use and ability or the amount of decision-making and autonomous adjustment fly-by-wire systems are making even when the pilots are 'flying' the plane. Hell, I doubt most drivers understand the extent of involvement their ABS and traction control already have. When it comes to cars the prevalent opinion seems to be "My home PC crashes, if I have a PC drive my car, it'll crash too, only for real!" Which is silly, but the carmakers don't help themselves by putting in buggy ICE systems that occasionally crash.
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Dec 20, 2012 07:14
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Raw_Beef posted:A little confused at a automotive enthusiast forum posters defending removing the driving experience and turning us all into passengers. What percentage of drivers would you say are both: - completely uninterested in driving outside of getting from point A to point B - utterly outclassed in driving skill by the AI from an early version of Grand Theft Auto
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Dec 20, 2012 07:36
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Wombot posted:So, the future is now. The future is when these systems build enough confidence that people just let them drive themselves. You just have your car drive you to work/store/etc while you sleep/read/do your hair. Start rolling in micro/macro traffic prediction to improve efficiency, safety and reduce transit time. Knowledge of routes leads to intelligent carpooling even with complete strangers, for more efficiency savings and traffic reduction. At some point people realize having their own car is pointless and instead rent them zipcar-style, dispatched from repositories as needed and returned for maintenance and care. The safety stuff is just to get the automation foot in the door, and no, there's no reason why you can't manually drive your big guzzler V8, you just generally won't want to.
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Dec 29, 2012 21:06
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sports posted:the F150 is just a bloated obese version of the barely sensibly-sized ones present in 2000. I dearly miss the what should have been labeled "full-size" Ranger. The Ranger, the other light trucks and reasonably sized half-tons were killed by CAFE regs. Considering it has to be ridiculously huge, I think the styling of the Atlas is done pretty well. The headlights in particular are well done and elegant. I think it's a nice step away from the 'make everything look like a big rig' look that the full-size truck market has been afflicted with for a decade. And it doesn't have squircle lights or JC-Whitney vents all over it
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Jan 16, 2013 04:36
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Specifically if you want to look at lead acid batteries, the equations are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93acid_battery#Electrochemistry The equation is driven by converting lead and lead oxide to lead sulfate when discharging and back to lead/lead oxide when charging. Short term, you will damage the anode and cathode beyond the point of no return before you consume the available acid. An Israeli company is experimenting instead with just 'gas' stations swapping out the entire battery pack. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place if you're not familiar.
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Jan 23, 2013 10:37
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KozmoNaut posted:Google "Cambridge crude". People have been working on this idea, using a liquid anode and cathode. Unfortunately the energy storage capacity isn't that great yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_reforming The problems, as stated, are that the more fuel agnostic you get the more complex the facility and the higher temperatures you need. Both are obviously bad for mobile apps. On the other hand, you could stick an agnostic fuel cell in your apartment parking lot / entrance to your neighborhood, have it provide electricity to same and generate excess hydrogen for your car. Or stick it in places where hydrocarbons are generated as waste (waste water treatment plants, industrial processes) to be carbon-neutral. In the short term it's more efficient to have all that bulky heavy reforming in one place rather than carrying it around in your car.
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Jan 23, 2013 11:04
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Really the holdup is infrastructure. We have a poo poo ton of gas stations and the logistics are in place to keep them supplied. LPG is considerably less common, hydrogen even less so. An awful lot of people can't get an electrical extension cord to their parked car, and even if they could, once you get past a couple early adopters, the power supplies to most buildings and neighborhoods aren't set up for the load.
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Jan 23, 2013 19:40
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West SAAB Story posted:Every single one of these "better fuel" arguments tends to be of the same line: Solar panels got cheap because the manufacturing methods are very similar to those for making large LCD televisions. And the solar industry is heavily, heavily subsidised back and forth - not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. I forget where you're from: US (from wikipedia): quote:According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2010, subsidies to the solar power industry amounted to 8.2% ($968 million) of all federal subsidies for electricity generation.[16] UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/01/solar-panel-demand-subsidy-cut Aus: http://www.energymatters.com.au/government-rebates/solar-credits-australia.php And of course the rumors of Chinese government funding the dumping of the panels on Western markets. Solar still has significant technical issues to overcome and I don't think it'll ever move beyond niche applications. You're not going to be pushing your car with power from solar, any time soon, if ever.
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Jan 23, 2013 20:32
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The problem with the MKZ is that it's an upmarket Fusion, but the Fusion has already been moved fairly upmarket. The ES and A4 may be upmarket rebadges of cheaper cars but they're nowhere close to being the flagships of their brand. Lincoln needs a luxury flagship platform that's not a rebadge, or at least not such an indistinguishable one, and it hasn't had one in years and years.
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Feb 4, 2013 04:03
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You would expect a point of diminishing returns. Audis are good examples of the 2.0t genuinely being as good on power, better on weight and fuel economy than the NA V6. The 328i is still a fairly small sedan and a 2.0t can be enough. The Fusion and Sonata are both bigger vehicles, and 1.6t in a full-size sedan is probably pushing it too far. I'd heard good things about the turbo Escape, though.
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Feb 5, 2013 17:14
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Aren't Elise sales numbers a complete disaster? It would seem shooting for similar paper specs at a higher price gambling on cachet is a risky gambit.
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Feb 13, 2013 04:32
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That burgundy wagon looks pretty dang nice. The grille/lights/hood are a bit too Chrysler 200, but the side view ain't bad at all, even with that silly fender vent.
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Feb 19, 2013 12:14
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Internet Meme posted:You didn't have to do that, back in the day. In the muscle car era (arguably the heyday of american car culture), a high school kid could get enough cash to buy a brand new SS after a few summers of work. Now... You'd be lucky to get a loan on an econobox. No, they could not. They were driving 10-20 year old cars back then, too. Case in point, a base model stripper Chevelle SS in '70 was $3312. Corrected for inflation that's about $21k. That's a car designed and marketed as much as possible to that young male "going to get my rear end shot off in 'nam so better buy a hot rod now" crowd. That doesn't include a rear defrost, it doesn't include an AM radio, it doesn't include power steering and it certainly doesn't include AC. Realistically equipped models would have been at or above $30k adjusted. That is as out of the range of a high school kid on a part time job back then as it is now, even before you figure that credit was much harder to get. Even loaded, you're obviously also not getting airbags, ABS, traction control, crumple zones or even IIRC 4-wheel discs. The car companies have neither the obligation or the interest to make cars that used car buyers might want but new car buyers don't and won't pay for. That FD RX-7 might be a wonderful car for the price people are willing to pay for it now, but it's a great example of a car not enough people were willing to pony up enough for new, so it was dropped. If new car buyers don't want an engaging car, if they'd rather have EPS and an extra 1 MPG than steering feel, if they want a slushbox in their Corvette so their left leg doesn't get tired cruising the strip, that's what the carmakers are going to poop out. The reality is, the youngest generation isn't sold on owning a car at all let alone showing enthusiasm for high performance.
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Feb 20, 2013 10:17
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Cat Terrist posted:I used to yell at kids to get the gently caress off the lawn. Now..... they are all inside playing them computer games and posting on that MyBookbirdie thing It's not too far off. When people talk about the musclecar heyday, having a car and showing it off was a key part of the male mating ritual. That has largely moved to digital. The bang for the buck (heh) of a car in terms of chances to get you laid has plummeted dramatically.
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Feb 20, 2013 23:03
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Coredump posted:Well back then the median wage was higher for people too. I'm pretty sure in the US if you adjusted minimal wage to match inflation, back in 1968 you were making $10.50 in today's dollars. People had more buying power back then. In 1968 the work force barely included any women. Cut out half your labor pool and make the other half support a household on a single earner's salary and the value of labor will unsurprisingly jump. Dudes flush with military deployment cash making questionable decisions with their money has been a thing since wars were fought with spears, and is very much still a thing today. (I bought a poorly thought out literbike with mine.) Military base parking lots are packed with all sorts of crazy metal, often procured at insane prices and/or lease conditions that make a $40K Altima sound reasonable. The military gives mandatory training telling people not to overspend on cars, and it doesn't work, and the bases are surrounded by predator dealers. Harley, Jeep and probably many others also offer deals (which may or may not be) through the PX and other channels so you can impulse buy while you're still deployed and pick it up when you get home. Saying that someone who survived Vietnam had some loose spending money afterwards is not the same as saying a '70s high school kid could afford a fancy new car; they were still getting Grandma's hand-me-downs. If they're lucky it was a 15-year old Wildcat.
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Feb 21, 2013 15:33
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Seriously that is jarringly bad. The front end is one thing but the meltydoor side view is a disaster.
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Feb 23, 2013 08:13
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Tricky Ed posted:I definitely dislike the design, but it's kind of nice to be able to look at a new car and feel some emotion about its styling. I guess I'd rather be disgusted than bored? The Multipla (I think that's the name) was very much a product of the styling of its time. Stick a contemporary Ford Ka on one side and one of the sillier Renaults / Citroens on the other and it doesn't look out of place at all. I don't know what you would put next to that Cherokee that would make it look less strange, other than a non-contemporary meltystyle Santa Fe, or a Juke, and the Juke's design language is awful too.
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Feb 23, 2013 10:58
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That's probably as flattering an angle as you could get because it hides all the bizarre curves. And it almost works. But it doesn't, because of that foolish chrome surround around the lower grill. It ends up looking like a snake resting its head on an unhappy frog, or two separate cars crushed together. If that chrome surround is a high-level trim option and the regular trim has it in black it will look immensely better.
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Feb 23, 2013 12:38
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All the other domestic brands are pulling off retro while still handling aero. The new pedestrian safety regs means everything has to have a big flat face anyway.
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Feb 23, 2013 14:01
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Cream_Filling posted:Hmm, nope, still worse. straight door lines straight door lines meltydoors TTAC thinks this isn't really for American buyers who have the 4-door Wrangler and probably some Dodge thing to pick from anyway, and that it's for Euro buyers who love swoopy melty poo poo. Is Fiat bringing Jeep over to Europe in any big way?
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Feb 24, 2013 23:44
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It's neat in a batmobile sort of way but hard to see any Lamborghini DNA in the design. Maybe Lambo needs a distinctive color like Ferrari red.
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Mar 4, 2013 22:28
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BabyMauler posted:How many times has Rowen Atkinson written off his McClaren so far? I want to say 3 or 4. He probably drives it by sitting on the roof and pulling ropes tied to the controls Also with regards to the printable cars, initial manufacturing is interesting but I wonder about the other end, if once the car's service life is through if it can be easily dissolved and/or recycled instead of cluttering up a junkyard forever. Like instead of having to ship it to China to be resmelted or whatever you could just hose it down with solvent.
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Mar 7, 2013 04:51
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It's a distinctly worst-case test against a target that doesn't move or deform at all like hitting another car would - more like one of those monolith Aussie telephone poles. I don't get the vibe it's a common at all crash scenario, not even remotely in the ballpark of the usual 'slam flat into the rear of the car in front of you' type scenario. The test ends up being another dickwaving bullet carmakers can throw in their ads after they figure out how to game the exam. The extra development, materials, weight etc etc to 'shrug off' those tests doesn't come for free, and would be far better spent, for instance, on active protection systems to avoid the crash in the first place. None of the IIHS tests allow the car to automatically dodge. Now if the IIHS had a test simulating a deer that jumps and mostly clears your hood right before eating your windshield, that might have real merit.
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Mar 9, 2013 16:29
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CornHolio posted:Would you really want the car to "automatically dodge" an accident? Having the car 'automatically dodge' by undoing inadvertent lane changes, maintaining distance and stopping if the car in front stops, etc is exactly the direction the industry is going. Single-vehicle accidents into immobile objects should be the easiest ones to avoid. Throatwarbler posted:Oh cool this again. None of the tests are mandatory or impact the car's sellability. If you want to go Galt and buy a car with poo poo crash test ratings on purpose there are plenty of Nissans and VWs on the market for you to choose from, no one is stopping you. It absolutely impacts(!) the car's sellability, and beating these sorts of tests are part of why we had the Yank Tank enormous SUV fad, because what self-respecting mother wants to haul little Timmy to soccer practice in a car that only got four stars. The end result is bigger, heavier, dumber, less fuel efficient vehicles that bring overall road safety down. And c'mon, man, no one 'goes Galt' and buys a new car.
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Mar 9, 2013 16:53
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The easiest accident to survive is the one that never happens. I did some half-assed Googling for crash rates; the NHTSA has easily accessible data on fatality-causing crashes, but not total crashes. The good news is that despite licensed driver, registered car and millions of vehicle miles per year numbers all going up, fatal crash rates are going steadily down. But with that data you can't tell if the improvement comes from a reduction in deaths per wreck or a reduction in wrecks overall. It's perhaps not realistic that this data would even exist, since many wrecks don't even get reported. Nevertheless if the NHTSA is going to mandate ABS / TC / other driver aids (which are all good ideas) it'd be nice to see the data behind it. What the NHTSA data does clearly claim is that > 30% of fatal wrecks are DUI-related and that during last-call hours at night this goes over 66%. So a car that can autonomously drive its drunk-rear end owner home or at least correct for his bigger mistakes should have a much greater fatality reduction effect than reinforcing the passenger compartment corners. E: also some of the YouTube vids being posted are of the small overlap test and some are the much easier moderate overlap test, just be aware when comparing
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Mar 11, 2013 03:15
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angryhampster posted:Because people remember this garbage: The people that remember that garbage won't buy a Buick, period. Or possibly any GM. The people that will set foot in a Buick dealer will appreciate legacy names. Also that claim Throatwarbler quoted that the DDCT won't need major service over its lifetime sounds an awful lot like previous cars' lifetime coolant claims. A guy I work with bought a 1.4 Dart recently, he seems to like it, but his priorities were fuel economy and gizmos, and I think they put a lot of cash on the hood.
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Mar 13, 2013 03:57
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A lot of that added weight is also NVH dampening, which is why older cars sound noisy as hell now
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Mar 13, 2013 05:11
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Bob NewSCART posted:Do you guys think that eventually as the horsepower of most pedestrian as well as sports and super cars increases, FWD will be phased out in favor of AWD? I mean, it's safer in bad weather, it's better at putting power to the wheels, it can handle(if done well obviously) ridiculous amounts of horsepower, etc etc. Adds weight, uses extra gas, can reduce interior room and complicate packaging. Safety benefits are rather dependent on a good set of tires. I think you'll see engine size shrink for fuel efficiency / weight while maintaining current or almost-current power levels than you'll see regular cars go a whole lot higher on HP. AWD or not, 300+ hp is too much for most chassis and most drivers. You might see AWD come into favor for mixed chemical / electric propulsion with each system driving a different set of wheels, but most hybrid systems seem to be sticking to both driving the same set right now.
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Mar 13, 2013 20:14
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What would be the point of spending the money on super-fancy seats in a Mustang if you'll only ever need the edge
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Mar 15, 2013 18:34
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You guys are such Debbie Downers, clearly they're just giving the engine a temporary home while they put the finishing touches on the new Fiero Re: Chevy SS, while I wouldn't put it past GM management to think it, there'd be something awful sad to say about Caddy brand image if GM was seriously worried about a Chevy poaching their customers.
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Mar 19, 2013 10:15
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DJ Commie posted:If there were 20 million electric cars each pulling 1500W to charge at night, that's 30GW of load, which is a lot when you think the entire generating capacity of California is 92GW. Night is a low draw time, but you'd have to have a charger controller network able to understand the power grid's status and shift chargers on/off the grid when capacity was an issue. You can put small, clean generators on branches of the grid. Like every neighborhood would have a fuel cell or two at the entrance. Runs off NG, makes extra hydrogen for hydrogen cars, powers house A/C during the day and charges cars at night. Minimal infrastructure upgrades to the main grid needed. South Koreans are already starting to do this by putting cells in larger apartment buildings and the Japanese are doing a sort of microgrid variant as response to the widespread blackouts after Fukushima. You're right that Nuke long term is the only baseload option but moving that juice through the grid requires significant transmission upgrades as well.
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Mar 24, 2013 01:56
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DJ Commie posted:Doing cogeneration and grid enhancements for electric cars would probably be easiest in cities like NYC, where there already is steam transmission networks and underground cabling infrastructure. Agree with what you're saying, and cogen is already a Big Thing in colder parts of Europe. The thing about personal transit is, a lot of people approach it with already decided 20th century solutions (i.e. specific mass transit plans) for political reasons while the 21st century answer is increased videoconferencing / tekecommuting. (You don't have to work out of the home, more and more people are working out of leisure spaces like coffeeshops and pubs.)
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Mar 24, 2013 20:53
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Cream_Filling posted:Eh screw that, I hate excessive character lines. Give me a '67 Continental over a CLS any day. Note how these cars have approximately the same amount of sheetmetal above both the front and rear wheels. Now look at the CTS render: blk posted:
That is one seriously tall rear end end. I wonder what rear visibility is like.
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Mar 26, 2013 03:21
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Here's the complete CTS 
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Thinking about hitting up the New York Auto Show this weekend. Any cars really worth the trip for this year?
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Mar 27, 2013 00:53
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kimbo305 posted:What haven't you seen? I thought both the C7 and Viper were gonna be there. Neither were at the Boston show I'm really not sure. I'd like to see the new A3 but Audi's already said they're not bringing it. Maybe some new Mazdas? The high-zoot sports cars all tend to be behind ropes, so you can't sit in them and check out the interior, ergos or sightlines.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:17
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MN-Ghost posted:I was looking at that today. It does look fun. Almost 300 HP in a nice, neat little package. Looks good too. Shame the hatchback isn't coming to the US. We're getting the A3 Sportwagen. If it's anything like the last gen A3/S3 the difference is mostly an ECU reflash.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:24
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