Slashdot Mirror

• I like cars, and it's clear they do too
• I trust their testing, which they do a good job of explaining
• most of all, they're endlessly entertaining, especially when they're testing some goofy vehicle like an airplane tug or a fire-fighting tank

I look forward to every new issue just to see what they'll do next.

• I like cars, and it's clear they do too
• I trust their testing, which they do a good job of explaining
• most of all, they're endlessly entertaining, especially when they're testing some goofy vehicle like an airplane tug or a fire-fighting tank

I look forward to every new issue just to see what they'll do next.

• I like cars, and it's clear they do too
• I trust their testing, which they do a good job of explaining
• most of all, they're endlessly entertaining, especially when they're testing some goofy vehicle like an airplane tug or a fire-fighting tank

I look forward to every new issue just to see what they'll do next.

Car & Driver got over 121MPG out of a Honda Insight.

Personally, I'm interested in hybrids but not for fuel efficiency reasons. I'd like to see auto makers combine the output from different energy sources into all-wheel acceleration of a normal car... it would be extremely cool to see that technology in a small, sporty car.

Because 51% of vehicles sold the last few year were light trucks or SUV's which are not regulated as to their fleet average fuel economy?!?

Actually, trucks are regulated by CAFE, it's just that they fall into a different segment and have a lower standard than cars.

CAFE has really become a complicated mess? Under CAFE, Chrysler can classify the PT Cruiser as a truck, because of the way the seats fold and create a flat cargo floor. The PT Cruiser convertible, OTOH, has to be classified as a car.

More info

Almost all cars have positive lift coefficients. Spoilers can counteract this to a degree, but you won't find a production car with a negative lift coefficient-- everyone is so impressed with the G35 because it has a neutral lift coefficient in the front stock.

From Car & Driver:

We've told you about the G35's careful race-car-inspired aerodynamics (C/D, March 2002). Its low nose, steeply raked windshield, and nearly flat undercarriage return an impressively low drag coefficient of 0.27, with zero aerodynamic lift in the front. If you add the Aero package ($550) that comes with a large rear wing and more underbody trickery, that number drops to 0.26 and brings total lift to zero.

I remember driving my old Saturn SC1 at high speeds; it had a particularly bad amount of lift despite the factory rear spoiler. Near the top speed of 105MPH, steering would become quite light, the suspension would be poorly loaded, and braking would be less effective.

Nah...That's a pussy truck. Someone should have used one a Caterpillar 797 For more info about the truck that hauls 360 tons check out the article from car and driver a few years back. While it certainly rule out any chances of sneaking up on an enemy in combat, I think it could probably take whatever bumps/dips/light trucks it encounters in stride.

Who Asked for the Lawyer Screen?

None of the cars in this test will give you full control until you agree with their company lawyers. In some, you must do so every time you start up. The screen opens with a warning that such devices in cars are unholy distractions. You must click on "I agree."

Navigation systems work best when they show you where to go; that means some sort of display. Does any other in-car feature need such detailed visuals? Probably not (forget e-mail in cars). Yet the latest luxo crop has become screen dependent, to the point of ruination in the 7-series BMW.

"It wouldn't be that bad if they changed a few things." That's from the staff's most ardent 745i defender. The majority of us think iDrive, as BMW calls its computer interface, needs a clean-sheet redesign.

BMW tried to take over control of HVAC, audio, chassis settings, trip info, navigation, etc., with a screen. You make your choices with a single knob that turns, toggles, and clicks; it's a mouse substitute. Worse yet, the company forced ordinary controls into some contortion of the knob thing; for example, you must select the part of the seat you want to adjust by pressing a button, then twist or toggle a knob to make it move. Okay, but what was wrong with the old way?

In fact, the 745i has buttons and rockers scattered about the dash that let you adjust HVAC and do very basic radio/CD changes without using iDrive. But they're so haphazard in their logic that they only add to the annoyance.

We've given iDrive 18 months to persuade us. It failed. Now the F is in ink. Fearless prediction: The 745i will take a beating on resale.

BMW's pickle is made worse by the fact that it's all by itself at the irritating extreme. The Jaguar and the Lexus are very friendly; they have touch screens, surely the easiest input method, and they provide full HVAC and entertainment control without the screen. In fact, you needn't agree with their lawyers if you don't use the navigation.

Audi and VW are almost as screen-centric as BMW, but they have a critical improvement: Separate buttons, well-labeled, bring up the various menus. Their graphics are also vastly superior to BMW's. We find them relatively easy to operate, particularly the VW's.

Like Jaguar and Lexus, Mercedes doesn't force you to use the system for trivial jobs, but the basic controls operate on their own quirky logic.

The lawyers are right: Screens are distracting. And the friendliest cars depend on them the least. --PB

Odd that you should mention such examples

I too hate Linkin Park (and Korn, Limp Bizkit, and any other nu metal band) and Slipknot, and I too listen to Nampalm Death and Morbid Angel, among other good metal(and hardcore) bands. Oddly enough, I drive a Camry.

Anyone who has done research into cars and realizes that there is a pretty much 0% chance you will need a car that can A) do 0-60 in a blink of an eye or B)Go "offroading" in your SUV (certain models excluded, I understand offroading in Jeeps, and older model Broncos and Blazers) will pretty much be drawn to two options A) Camry or B)Accord. NOT because they are marketed well, but because in NUMEROUS reviews they plain outscore the competition.

Really and truthfully, I'm not a car guy either, I just want the best value for what I'm paying for, but MORE importantly, I apply that same want for value out of music. Besides the $750 - $150,000 that the RIAA says the latest N*sync Song is worth, what is it really worth, do you feel enlightened, did you learn something, were you motivated? NO. Now, listen to Shai Hulud's "That Within Blood Ill Tempered", and tell me that it's not at least somewhat enlightening.

Odd that you should mention such examples

I too hate Linkin Park (and Korn, Limp Bizkit, and any other nu metal band) and Slipknot, and I too listen to Nampalm Death and Morbid Angel, among other good metal(and hardcore) bands. Oddly enough, I drive a Camry.

Anyone who has done research into cars and realizes that there is a pretty much 0% chance you will need a car that can A) do 0-60 in a blink of an eye or B)Go "offroading" in your SUV (certain models excluded, I understand offroading in Jeeps, and older model Broncos and Blazers) will pretty much be drawn to two options A) Camry or B)Accord. NOT because they are marketed well, but because in NUMEROUS reviews they plain outscore the competition.

Really and truthfully, I'm not a car guy either, I just want the best value for what I'm paying for, but MORE importantly, I apply that same want for value out of music. Besides the $750 - $150,000 that the RIAA says the latest N*sync Song is worth, what is it really worth, do you feel enlightened, did you learn something, were you motivated? NO. Now, listen to Shai Hulud's "That Within Blood Ill Tempered", and tell me that it's not at least somewhat enlightening.

"Just about every" does NOT include Car and Driver . I, for one, don't give a damn about the gripes that radartest guy does (he does say at one point that the V1 is 'too' sensitive, sheesh). I do like having some sort of idea where to look for the police, which is one of the reasons I chose what I did...

Besides, If you wanna get the latest/greatest, you don't have to do a forklift upgrade with the V1 - you send it in and they upgrade the code in it. That, I can live with.

I'm sure the Escort is a fine unit, but I do prefer my V1.

On the Car and Driver website (www.carandriver.com), there's both a Lincoln Flash ad, and a Cel-Phone Flash ad, that BOTH pop up, bouncing around, filling your screen with so much crap, and of course both close boxes are hidden way up in the right corner, its the most annoying thing i've ever seen i think.

Imagine if you went out and bought that F150 and afterwards found a piece of paper sitting in the back seat saying that by driving the truck you thereby agree not to resell it to anyone else or publish negative reviews about it. You'd think that was the stupidest thing you've ever heard. It sounds equally stupid when you find such papers in boxes of software you already own.

Not the same thing the parent-parent is talking about.

It's more like if you go to a Ford dealership to buy an F-150, but in order to buy the F-150, the dealer makes you sign a purchase agreement that says that you will agree not to resell it or publish negative reviews about it. If you refuse to sign the purchase agreement, the dealer refuses to sell you the truck.

This is *quite* legal and *quite* binding and is used everyday, for instance, when magazines such as "Car and Driver" buy a vehicle before they go on sale to the general public for purposes of review.

When reading the article, one part in particular jumped out at me:

A mandatory portion should be set aside for marketing. Detroit will face a tremendous hurdle of consumer acceptance, and it should take full advantage of Madison Avenue's skills to convince the public that fuel cell cars aren't just viable, but desirable. This isn't a fantasy. Toyota's Prius, the first mass-produced gasoline/electric hybrid car, has sold more than 100,000 units since its 1997 debut, proving that the public will embrace a radically different automobile.

Is the Prius really a radically different automobile from the view of the consumer? It has the same sort of range as a traditional car, and you still have to fuel it up like other cars. The only radical differences I can see are its gas mileage (which is not always what it's cracked up to be) and the higher cost of repairs. I'm hesitant to extrapolate from its acceptance to the acceptance of a car that runs on entirely different fuel, and requires a now-nonexistent fuel infrastructure.

The article says that Car and Driver refer to the BMW 745i's knob as a "miracle knob". C&D actually has a fantastic article on iDrive, which Frank Marcus referred to as "The Boss" and even compared to Windows (click the link for the entire article, it is much longer):

As for The Boss, it's really a mouse by another name. And you'd better make friends with it because it's the go-to knob for most of your entertainment, navigation, and "settings" needs (clock, trip computer, adjustable shocks, etc.). It has substantial say over HVAC, the phone, and numerous other options as well.

Let's say you want to tune in Rush Limbaugh. (Caution: The voice in the dash has no privacy policy, and I wouldn't trust it to keep any confidences.) Okay, you can toggle The Boss in eight different directions: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW. For the entertainment screen, go south. After three or four seconds, you'll get a menu. Rotate The Boss as you watch the orange square move around the screen. When it surrounds AM, press The Boss.

If the station is preset, rotate to SCAN and press. Otherwise, rotate to MEMORY and press. Wait for a new screen. Rotate to M AM and press. Now rotate again to MANUAL and press. This activates the frequency display. Now you're all the way up to what would have been your starting point if you were driving, say, a 1949 Ford with those needlessly complex knobs.

If, during the above, your interfacing had been momentarily distracted by your driving, i.e., the road ahead, the frequency display probably timed out (it stays live for eight seconds). Naturally, you've already started rotating for the station, which has taken you away from MANUAL. So take your eyes off the road, find it again, and press. Now rotate to tune.

If we applied such labor-saving innovation to all our daily jobs, by supper time we'd almost earn enough for breakfast.

The dash still has knobs for temp and fan, and there's a rocker on the wheel for radio volume. How did these complexities escape the tyranny of the control center? In an odd quirk of logic, the CD-player buttons also do part-time on the radio.

I'm reminded of Windows, which always gives two or three ways of doing everything. This BMW has at least three ways of setting radio volume and, counting CD buttons, several station-tuning methods. That sure sounds like "unnecessary complexity" to me. The carrot for learning Windows? You can talk to most computers. Do motorists really want to learn a special language so they can talk to a BMW? We'll see.

VW Phaeton link 1
VW Phaeton link 2
VW Phaeton link 2

*g*

Oh, and about your question, yes.
Read this: ROAD TEST: How We Won the Insight Fuel-Economy Challenge. Without Cheating. Much.

"the city's traffic-engineering department decided a three-second yellow was too brief for the lefts and increased the time to four seconds. Bam! Violations dropped 73 percent at left-turn intersections."

"Mesa and Lockheed have rigged the cameras to favor themselves."

"the city's traffic-engineering department decided a three-second yellow was too brief for the lefts and increased the time to four seconds. Bam! Violations dropped 73 percent at left-turn intersections."

"Mesa and Lockheed have rigged the cameras to favor themselves."

The problem is the "line" that the red-light camera uses to decide when you're in the intersection is not indicated on the road surface.

Yellow light timing has also significantly decreased over the last few years.

Read this for more info on this cash machine.

If this ends up like DC's other camera programs I'm not so sure it would be a good idea. Recently DC started a program with red light cameras and more recently cameras linked to radar systems, some that are installed in cars and moved to different locations daily. In fact the speeding radar systems are forcasted as a major revenue stream for the city. This becomes a problem when streets speed limits are set artificially low (anybody who drives on western ave b/t river and conneticut ave knows what Im talking about), or the grace period that you have till you are running a red light is decreased. This Article from Car and Driver magazine details how the red light cameras in one small town were tweaked to produce more revenue. I'm wondering if next they would start using the surveilance systems to target people for jaywalking, littering, loitering, and who knows what.

Just for reference, doing the 1/4 mile in 9.8 seconds is faster than a specially modified 777 horsepower Viper (which took 11.4 seconds). And, to give you an idea about how much horsepower that Viper has, consider that a Honda Accord has 150 horsepower.

Alex Bischoff

The dragracer is an important ideographic image in American culture. He is defined by his sleek car and fast speeds, but he is also defined by the clouds of smoke that trail behind him as he burns rubber. Will a "clean" electric car cast the same fiery clouds of masculine brimstone in his wake? Will manufacturers be able to overcome the perceived impotence of electric vehicles?

Well, the "burning" of tires comes from the friction between the tires and ground. But more important is the sound of gas vs. electric cars. I consider myself a bit of an enthusiast, and the sound of a car's exhaust can make or break a driving experience. Car manufacturers put considerable import on the exhaust sound. Ferrari certainly doesn't hide this fact; there was an article in C&D a year or two ago about it. I'd be more than willing to bet that manufacturers are willing to sacrifice a few horsepower to get the sound of their exhaust just right.

Prius info here and here . I think it's better looking than the Insight, myself -nme!

Car and driver did a road test of the Insight here. One of the things they said is that the seats are not the comfortable for long trips.

Car & Driver had a side-splitting story about an attempt to travel coast-to-coast in a natural gas-powered car a few months back.

It was no picnic, and the guy's lucky he didn't blow himself up, but real drivers would do the same. It points out the importance of infrastructure, even for something so universally available as NG, and the pain that goes with being an early adopter.

Although there are many people out there spinning comely stories about the wonderfulness of hydrogen and fuel cells, the harsh reality is that hydrogen makes economic sense now or in the foreseeable future.

Car and Driver had an excellent set of articles exposing these realities a few months ago, and talking about what's possible in the lab vs. the real world.

Check out:

Hydrogen, cleanest of all no-pollution myths.
By PATRICK BEDARD (August 1999)

and

Fuel-cell miracles and urban sprawl.
By BROCK YATES (August 1999)

and this article, which points out the extraordinary staying power of a continually improving internal combustion engine:

The Survivor
News of the demise of the internal-combustion engine is greatly exaggerated. Again.
By PATRICK BEDARD (December 1998)

Add to this that one big 3 automaker has pointed out how electrics are both hideously expensive and subsidized by thier makers by remarking that, " the absolute cheapest way for us to get batteries for an electric car is to go buy one from Toyota and throw away the car." Somehow I don't think Toyota would let them do that for very long...

Bottom line: We still use gasoline engines because they are teh best technological solution to the problem. They may not always be, but they are likely to remain so for the next several decades, anyway.

Although there are many people out there spinning comely stories about the wonderfulness of hydrogen and fuel cells, the harsh reality is that hydrogen makes economic sense now or in the foreseeable future.

Car and Driver had an excellent set of articles exposing these realities a few months ago, and talking about what's possible in the lab vs. the real world.

Check out:

Hydrogen, cleanest of all no-pollution myths.
By PATRICK BEDARD (August 1999)

and

Fuel-cell miracles and urban sprawl.
By BROCK YATES (August 1999)

and this article, which points out the extraordinary staying power of a continually improving internal combustion engine:

The Survivor
News of the demise of the internal-combustion engine is greatly exaggerated. Again.
By PATRICK BEDARD (December 1998)

Add to this that one big 3 automaker has pointed out how electrics are both hideously expensive and subsidized by thier makers by remarking that, " the absolute cheapest way for us to get batteries for an electric car is to go buy one from Toyota and throw away the car." Somehow I don't think Toyota would let them do that for very long...

Bottom line: We still use gasoline engines because they are teh best technological solution to the problem. They may not always be, but they are likely to remain so for the next several decades, anyway.

Although there are many people out there spinning comely stories about the wonderfulness of hydrogen and fuel cells, the harsh reality is that hydrogen makes economic sense now or in the foreseeable future.

Car and Driver had an excellent set of articles exposing these realities a few months ago, and talking about what's possible in the lab vs. the real world.

Check out:

Hydrogen, cleanest of all no-pollution myths.
By PATRICK BEDARD (August 1999)

and

Fuel-cell miracles and urban sprawl.
By BROCK YATES (August 1999)

and this article, which points out the extraordinary staying power of a continually improving internal combustion engine:

The Survivor
News of the demise of the internal-combustion engine is greatly exaggerated. Again.
By PATRICK BEDARD (December 1998)

Add to this that one big 3 automaker has pointed out how electrics are both hideously expensive and subsidized by thier makers by remarking that, " the absolute cheapest way for us to get batteries for an electric car is to go buy one from Toyota and throw away the car." Somehow I don't think Toyota would let them do that for very long...

Bottom line: We still use gasoline engines because they are teh best technological solution to the problem. They may not always be, but they are likely to remain so for the next several decades, anyway.

...and drives his Ferrari to work.

TedC