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The thing I can't understand is if the cross bracing is used to improve the partial tests why won't it stop too fast in the full frontal test.

The amount of cross bracing required to spread the partial impact across the whole front crumple zone would render the crumple zone completely rigid.

Ever worked with a collapsing stand? A brace can be designed to be strong enough to hold an elephant from one direction, yet collapse with a push of a finger in another. Just design the brace to provide strength side to side on the car, not lengthwise. It doesn't have to provide structural strength/resistance to impact. What I'm picturing them being used for is to transfer force. Picture two lines that represent the sides of the car. When an impact occurs, the lines collapse depending on the impact forces and their strength. Their strength is calibrated to protect the passengers up to a impact of X velocity, more or less without injury.

Obviously if you only impact ONE of these lines with the same amount of force it'll collapse faster. If you used the full distance for the prior test, the whole line will collapse, indicating penetration into the cabin and injury to passengers. If you fatten up the lines to the point that only 1 line is sufficient for the impact, an impact against 2 will result in too much shock to the cabin.

So let's add some bracing - put an X attaching from the front of the lines to about the midpoint of the opposite. Heck, you can have a number of such X's running the length. Now run the simulation again - when both lines are hit with equal impact, they collapse equally and the bracing does nothing. But if only 1 is hit, once the one line collapses to the point that it hits the bottom of an X, it has to start dragging the 2nd line with it, transferring impact energy to the other side of the vehicle. BTW, the bracing is designed to be strong tensile(pulling), not compressive force(pushing). It'll collapse easy, but pull hard. The second line will probably bend sideways, but this is still an opportunity to dump energy and can be designed for.

If you look at the video of the crash test you see that up to the front wheels is crushed which is where the frame starts there is not a lot of crumple space left, so I'm assuming they don't have much energy absorption left.

You haven't seen enough crash images of modern cars then. I've seen images of 'walk away once they cut you out' accidents where the wheels(and engine) had been pushed underneath the cabin. If the front wheels are still mostly in the proper spot they have like 2' left.

Take, for example, how the Volvo S60 did. Now, not the same test(still looking), but note how the wheel comes completely off. Want the no offset picture?

Also, small overlap test seems to be more about having the car push itself sideways a bit, keeping the cabin out of the impact, but allowing it to proceed past the impact point.

Also, found this: "Tesla determined it would meet the NHTSA front crash test with a 5-star rating and “Tesla then analyzed the Model S to determine the weakest points in the car and retested at those locations until the car achieved 5 stars no matter how the test equipment was configured.” In other words, Tesla expects to perform at a 5-star level no matter how much or little offset in the actual crash. Or better."

According to this article from 2012, the average purchase price of a new car was $30,748 and increasing.

Seeing as that's about half the MSRP, I suppose it's not totally out of reach.

Personally I have no idea why people spend this kind of money on a car. My last brand new car (I don't usually buy brand new, but they had a lot of incentives) was about $16k (cdn), and I considered that a lot. A car is not an investment.....

Burnt out houses, neighborhoods leveled with just empty lots and streets. I've worked in the area and it's hard not to be depressed sometimes.

It's being used as a dumping ground for toxic waste and if you want to see America's decline, just drive through the city. You can see homes where there's been a fire yet you see signs that people still live there. Houses with sagging roofs that look like they're ready to fall down.

The old Packard plant is still there. I visited it on one of my last trips. It's been abandoned (except for one section on the far end) since 1958 and they're still arguing how they'll clean it up. It looks like the county is finally going to auction it off, but who'd buy it? I looked at it and remembered all of those Packard V12s that powered PT boats in WWII, a lot of those engines even live on believe it or not...

There's a lot of history there and it's still a good place to visit. I especially like visiting the Henry Ford Museum and all around Detroit there's a lot of built up areas, Troy, Dearborn that seem relatively normal.

Not quite. First, "EVs produce lower global warming emissions ... even when the electricity is produced primarily from coal in regions with the “dirtiest” electricity grids."
Next, most EVs are sold in California, state in which only 8% of electricity comes from coal. Furthermore, 39% of plug-in drivers have solar panels on their home/garage.

Better Place, a chain of battry swap stations in Denmark, just went bankrupt.
http://green.autoblog.com/category/better-place/

http://www.twike.com/

Or buy one from Neiman Marcus?

http://green.autoblog.com/2006/10/06/neiman-marcus-tries-on-some-green-for-the-holidays-christmas-bo/

It's at least better looking than the Aptera.

I especially take offense with this argument:

"When manufacturers discontinue a brand -- such as Pontiac, Mercury, Oldsmobile or Saturn -- auto dealers still remain to help the customer,"

In reality, if Tesla were to go out of business, individual mechanics would open shop assuming there was a business demand. If there wasn't any demand, then it wouldn't matter if the sale originally involved a dealer or not. (Unless said former-dealer was unclear on the concept of business.)

Exactly. The dealer model hasn't exactly helped Fisker any - while all the dealers remain, they all want exorbitant amounts of money to do any work on the vehicle. And an independent group has surfaced offering support for the vehicles regardless - but of course, you still have to pay.

Now you have the result of owners having paid thousands more because of the extra middle man - and certainly the extra middle man didn't help Fisker's profitability any, either.

Saturn failed for many reasons, but having a single price wasn't one of them. The brand became so successful that it was taking customers away from Pontiac and Chevrolet which, similar to this article, griped dealers trying to sell those cars.

Then there was the fact that they lost money on every car sold and when they ran ads during the Super Bowl, didn't have cars available for people to look at after they saw the ad.

Here are three articles which give a bit more depth to what I just said:

Businessweek

Christian Science Monitor

autoblog

I'd love to get one of these in the US. 373 HP and 576 LB-Ft. of torque while getting almost 40 mpg? Yes please.

It won't happen though, because for some reason everyone in the US hates diesel cars, so manufacturers don't even bother with importing them.

All I want is a diesel sports sedan with manual transmission. My only choice right now is the Jetta.

Ask and ye shall receive.

If that comes true, it will be awesome, but I admit to having gotten somewhat skeptical after probably 10 years of "by this time next year" from Audi, BMW, etc.

All I want is a diesel sports sedan with manual transmission. My only choice right now is the Jetta.

Ask and ye shall receive.

That's not quite true

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/03/10/uk-appeals-court-dismissed-teslas-bbc-top-gear-lawsuit/

Tesla Motors' efforts to clear allegations of reduced range on its electric cars just took another hit. A British appeals court dismissed a libel lawsuit filed by Tesla against the BBC's Top Gear show. The court rejected Tesla's appeal of a court decision last year that struck out its "libel and malicious falsehood" case against BBC. Tesla had asserted that the popular British automotive TV show had faked a scene that appeared to show a Tesla Roadster running out of power, which the Palo Alto, CA-based automaker said caused sales to drop.

Top Gear road tested two Roadsters in 2008 around a track - much more like racing conditions that typical day-to-day driving. Drivers tested the electric sports cars for acceleration, straight-line speed, cornering and handling. Top Gear claimed the car ran out of power after 55 miles - much lower than the automaker's estimated range of 200 miles. The TV show's review wouldn't have misled "a reasonable viewer" into thinking that the Roadster's range was less than the company's estimate under normal driving conditions, said Martin Moore-Bick, an appeals court judge in London, in his decision.

Tesla claimed it had lost $171,000 in lost sales as a result of the show's review of the car, and were well below the level of sales in the United States and European Union. Tesla's lawyers argued that the comments were defamatory because it had "intentionally or recklessly grossly misled potential purchasers." Judge Moore-Bick disagreed, saying the comments did not libel Tesla. Viewers would recognize that Top Gear's high-speed track testing was quite different than a normal driving style, he said.

Inaccurate media coverage can cost Tesla Motors much more than $171,000, according to CEO Elon Musk. He said that the "fake" report by New York Times writer John Broder on reduced range during his Model S road trip may have wiped out as much as $100 million in stock value for Tesla Motors. Musk asserts that the article resulted in several cancelled orders, probably costing Tesla "a few hundred" Model S purchases.

Mr Moore-Buck chucked out Tesla's libel lawsuit because "Viewers would recognize that Top Gear's high-speed track testing was quite different than a normal driving style, he said"

The problem with this is that it's a horrible piece of PR on the part of Tesla. Firstly Top Gear are petrol heads and very sceptical of electric cars and it was dumb to give them a car to review. Having done that it was even dumber to sue them for libel for making a negative review. All Tesla have ensured is that journalists will simply not review their cars in future. Plus of course they lost - if the object of a libel suit is to make it clear that the criticism was false they failed.

If you're making something new and different it is probably better to get reviews - even slightly negative ones - than have people ignore you. You can see this with Windows Phone. Windows Phone is really different from Android and iOS, even philosophically because it is much less based on installing applications and much more based on using the device out of the box.

Now Microsoft have screwed up the marketing big time but one thing they did do right was to hand our review phones to people who were previously presumed to be confirmed Apple users and then let them publish reviews that were at best mixed. Sure you can have a marketing person explain all the cool features and they'll end up in the review but you probably need to let them mention the negatives too. If you stopped that it wouldn't have been convincing.

Tesla are selling a funny product compared to most cars - the acceleration is stellar by all accounts and it would have been easy to get a petrol head to cover that in a positive way. They're always going to whine about

Google sees self-driving cars in 3-5 years; Washington, insurers not so sure:

Average price of a new car in the U.S. = $30,748

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/04/11/average-price-of-new-cars-hits-all-time-record/

And it totally makes sense that to drive a hundred grand luxury car that you'd have to take only the direct routes, not the ones you may actually want to take. This is a gigantic failure of useability.

Every car has its constraints, you wouldn't try to drive a Ferrari across a muddy field, so when you buy an electric car with limited range, you drive within the limits (with a comfortable cushion). Just because a car is expensive, doesn't mean it's practical for all situations, even a $400,000 car can be stopped in its tracks by a simple speed bump.

It's funny that you used the Fiesta as your counterpoint; Ken Block doesn't seem to mind pitting his Fiesta against Porches in rallycross events. I think this strengthens your analogy - not every car is built for drag racing, you've got to use it for what it was intended.

Nitromethane? There are a variety of fuels out there that can be bought in bulk for cars in the seven second bracket... VPImport, Methanol, add good squirt of NOS. How about we switch the argument to range then, how many LeMans cars are running for 24 hours on batteries? Plus the summary (you did read the summary right?) said "electric-powered supercars" how many Lambos, Ferraris, Bugatti do you see being driven to work? How many for grocery shopping? Tesla roadster runs 12.7 quarter... so Subaru WRX times... wow! Street car running sub 7 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwF-kr91uxU http://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/22/videos-worlds-fastest-street-car-drives-1-200-miles-whips-off/

So you are one of those jerks who is constantly speeding up/slowing down and, as a result, forcing others to do so at times when it harms their gas mileage by causing more congestion and/or making others apply their brakes.

Thanks and one day soon may you misjudge or drop you attention for a few minutes and cram your car and your empty head under the underride guard on the truck you're drafting behind and thereby improve the gene pool.

Screwed that link, didn't I.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/15/nissan-leaf-profitable-by-year-three-battery-cost-closer-to-18/

I think this fits in fine with the American concept of pricing for vehicles in its class

Make no mistake, this is no chevy volt. It's a performance luxury sedan that happens to be electric

On the topic of the Karamas, they've had a series of fire issues. Including one recall that may or may not have solved all of the issues.

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/12/29/fisker-officially-recalls-karma-over-battery-safety-issue/
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/12/fisker-flambe-second-karma-spontaneously-combusts-w-video/
http://www.insideline.com/fisker/karma/uncertainty-surrounds-fisker-karma-fire-automaker-contends.html

I think this fits in fine with the American concept of pricing for vehicles in its class

Make no mistake, this is no chevy volt. It's a performance luxury sedan that happens to be electric

On the topic of the Karamas, they've had a series of fire issues. Including one recall that may or may not have solved all of the issues.

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/12/29/fisker-officially-recalls-karma-over-battery-safety-issue/
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/12/fisker-flambe-second-karma-spontaneously-combusts-w-video/
http://www.insideline.com/fisker/karma/uncertainty-surrounds-fisker-karma-fire-automaker-contends.html

For some cars, like Tesla, if your main battery dies (i.e. drains itself), you will have to buy a new $40,000 battery that is not covered by warranty.

And does the new Tesla Model S use the same battery? I find it unlikely due to the price.

For some cars, like Tesla, if your main battery dies (i.e. drains itself), you will have to buy a new $40,000 battery that is not covered by warranty.

Start importing cars made for the european market. We have loads of those cars here.

Pretty much this. Later this year VW will release a 73 mpg Golf. They'll sell a lot of those, which will make room under the corporate umbrella for a whole bunch of 30 mpg cars.

Start importing cars made for the european market. We have loads of those cars here.

Pretty much this. Later this year VW will release a 73 mpg Golf. They'll sell a lot of those, which will make room under the corporate umbrella for a whole bunch of 30 mpg cars.

Start importing cars made for the european market. We have loads of those cars here.

The article (yeah, I read a bit), doesn't seem to give much info about the charger that is going to be in use: is it going to be DC Fast Charging with a Combined Charging System (what a name) , CHAdeMO or something new?

That's not new. No smiles in Ohio, either-- I renewed my license over a year ago, and was quite firmly instructed that smiles were not allowed in drivers license photos because it screws up the facial recognition software.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10249834-71.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/05/27/states-adopting-no-smiles-policy-for-drivers-licenses/
http://www.webanswers.com/legal/why-can-t-you-smile-in-your-drivers-license-picture-84ffba

It was Akio Toyoda himself was involved with the transaction.

As for who else knew of this deal, I'd suggest you look at the various newspaper articles that discussed the investment by Toyota into Tesla.

In fact the Governator himself was at the ground breaking with Mr. Toyoda and Elon Musk, as can be seen in the photo with this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37358614/ns/business-us_business/t/tesla-toyota-give-jolt-nummi-plant/#.UFVoi1GaVRQ

I can't help it if you've been living under a rock, and neither could the GP poster.

There's not a single car for sale that gets 54mpg on the highway.

Here is a link listing 15 from 2009. http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/02/report-all-of-europes-15-most-fuel-efficient-cars-get-better-t/ All sold in Europe. So there may be some market impediment to good mileage in cars in the US, but it ain't physics.

Not sure why the 'gizmag' photos-only link is offered when you can watch video of it over here.

The think actually springs a leak in the video. I'd like to see the longer version were it catches fire. :)

I thought you were joking, then I watched the clip :/

Not sure why the 'gizmag' photos-only link is offered when you can watch video of it over here.

The think actually springs a leak in the video. I'd like to see the longer version were it catches fire. :)

Isn't this roughly BMW's track trainer? http://www.autoblog.com/2007/12/11/bmw-330i-races-around-the-top-gear-track-without-a-driver/

Seems like it did impressively well on the top gear test track, but a 330i is much slower than a TTS... (Clarkson does mention you can fit it to a M3 though)

I'm wondering why no one makes a 'dimpled' car, a la Mythbusters. Seem like a good idea for a fiberglass 'kit car' manufacturer.

According to http://green.autoblog.com/2011/03/11/nissan-leaf-sales-3657-four-times-more-chevy-volt/ the Leaf has sold 3,657 units - worldwide. 173 in the USA.

Umm, that number is from an article from over a year ago, back when Nissan was so back ordered that we were still four months from getting ours despite being one of the first pre-orders. Do you seriously think they sold only 173 in the US up to that point because nobody wanted one? Hell, there are now three just in my neighborhood.

According to http://green.autoblog.com/2011/03/11/nissan-leaf-sales-3657-four-times-more-chevy-volt/ the Leaf has sold 3,657 units - worldwide. 173 in the USA. Perhaps that meets with Nissan's very, very modest sales projections but it's not exactly setting the world on fire, is it? According to http://www.usrecallnews.com/2011/11/chevy-volt-fires.html the batteries in the Volt have a fire risk and the car could be facing a massive recall. That can't be good for sales. I like your ideas of where to put chargers though. Having them at movie theaters, public parks, park-and-rides, etc. would be a great idea. Anywhere that people tend to leave their cars for more than an hour would be a good candidate for a charger I think. Perhaps the single biggest barrier to mass adoption of full on electric cars is psychological. People need to know that there is a charging station somewhere other than home. Not all car trips are planned in advance. People might forget to plug the thing in at night. Then what? I think the magic number is 200 - 200 miles on a single charge that is. Maybe some batteries can already do that, I'm not sure. But at that kind of efficiency you don't even have to plug it in every day in many cases, depending on your driving habits of course. I wonder about the feasibility of integrating some sort of solar charging panels on the roof of the car to provide a trickle charge of sorts as your drive?

This technology IP "war" is ridiculous. If motor manufacturers had the same intent there would only ever be one model with an IP registered "internal combustion engine"

Read it and weep.

[...]Ford independently developed its own hybrid system at the same time Toyota was doing its own. The basic architecture of both systems is the same and both are based on the concepts developed and patented by TRW engineers in the late 1960s. When Ford introduced the Escape Hybrid, Toyota went after the Blue Oval for infringing on its patents. Ford had patents of its own on the technology that Toyota was using. Eventually, the two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement that gives both companies the right to build their own systems. Such cross-licensing agreements are common in these kinds of cases [...]

Film at eleven.

Meanwhile, Turn signal neglect results in over twice as many crashes as distracted driving, but nobody gives a shit because it's not a new scary technology used by the damn kids ruining everything.

Yes, failed. Actually, they're failing, but that -let's be honest- equals to having failed as a newcomer to the American automotive market. Unless they can pull a Hail Mary, they're as good as finished IMHO. Only a matter of time.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/27/fiat-500-sales-in-u-s-not-meeting-expectations-amidst-marketing/

Yeah, the increase in smug levels around San Francisco ruined any chance for the electric VW microbus to take off.
http://green.autoblog.com/2006/09/23/vw-builds-an-electric-micro-bus/ ...props to South Park...

Vic Gundotra would be giving out Mercedes-Benz S-Classes: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/09/google-exec-praises-magical-software-working-in-his-mercedes-b/

It's not a security update. This update is more like a complete rewrite and has very little to do with Microsoft. You see, for their first attempt Ford decided to outsource the project to a company called BSQUARE who put the UI together using Adobe Flash Lite. For some reason, the results were slightly less than stellar.

Anyway, the preliminary reviews of the new version sound promising so I am at least a little hopeful. I am still quite frustrated, however, that I've had to deal with such awful software for well over a year on a brand new vehicle that cost almost $40k.

I mean Microsoft has SYNC. Google has google-car. Android has a rear view mirror. OnStar does unlocks.

Apple should adapt Siri (and yes OSM too) into a rear view mirror. Heck for that matter, affix an iPad en leu of a rear-view-mirror. Then [here comes the shameless plug] put in a speed-aware cruise control.

-cellurl

Gee, it's almost as if you can treat your workers better and pay them more when you're not forced to keep thousands of goldbrickers on the payroll.

Audi did this in 2008 ... (the link is just some short enough FA that showed at first Google results page)

"Oh you say my gas vehicle doesn't work too well at -40 either?"

I regularly drive my gas vehicle at -40. Works fine so long as we plug it in at work to keep the engine warm enough to start easily.

"I'm sure an electric car will fail in 3 years too"

Last I read Honda Civic Hybrid owners were suing Honda, supposedly because the batteries were failing so fast that Honda reprogrammed the computer not to use them much so they'd survive the warranty period... wihch made them pointless.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/16/hondas-fix-for-prematurely-dying-civic-hybrid-batteries-hurting/

I have a 2008 Civic Hybrid in Calgary and the update was applied in January 2011 iirc. I was getting 46.6 mpg on a good tank (the mission was to always get the L/100km to read 5.0 not 5.1).. Now it's around 33 mpg with winter, new tires ( http://www.goodyear.ca/tire/assurance-fuel-max/ which you would think would be good...?) and the firmware update all worked in. It went in for a B12 service a month or two ago and after that, the car now revs to 2500 rpm pretty frequently. Thought it was another update like that, but they explain it with just a replacement to air filters.. Ugh..

Although there's also this story: http://ca.autoblog.com/2011/12/21/honda-extends-2006-2011-civic-hybrid-warranty-over-gas-leak/ which I don't know if that helps.. When asked about that a couple days after that was posted, the Honda service rep I had didn't know anything about it. Could be a Canada difference too. (For whatever reason [sales], only the US got 2009-2011 Civic Hybrids.. I'm still waiting to see about test driving a 2012 Civic Hybrid. My car is paid off though so no need to do anything)

Annual cost:
50MPG = $990
21MPG = $2,357

Here is info about this minivan that is banned in the USA:
http://www.car-emissions.com/cars/model/volkswagen/touran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Touran
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/touran-gp-ii/which-model/compare/interior?p=2
http://www.green.autoblog.com/2010/04/12/volkswagen-intros-updated-touran-minivan-51-1-mpg-with-bluemoti/

Moreover, CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles are insanely expensive because thise politician-corporate chimera caused every CNG part insanely expensive! For example home refueling station (tiny box that allow to refuel CNG car at home) costs about $7000 (seven thousend). Now you understand how this bust#rds make american to be slave by poitician-corporate mafia.

Nissan Leaf does 0-60 in 7.0 seconds. Chevy Volt does 0-60 in 8.5 seconds. Tesla made a conscious decision to build some performance acceleration into their car. It fits into the "sports luxury sedan" niche. That's a niche marketed toward people of means, hence my description of it as a rich person's toy. It's not a car one would buy for purely practical reasons.

The summary is a little misleading. This is not a "major upgrade," it is a complete rewrite of the MyFord Touch system. You see, for their first attempt, Ford decided to outsource the project to a company called BSQUARE who put the UI together using Adobe Flash Lite. For some reason, the results were slightly less than stellar.

Anyway, Microsoft itself is supposedly helping with the rewrite and Ford is doing the rest in-house (without Flash) so those of us who have been dealing with this awful system for the last year are at least a little hopeful.