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Auto Industry's Fastest Processor Is 128Mhz
afabbro writes "GM stated that the 2011 Buick Regal will have the auto industry's fastest processor: 128Mhz, and 3MB of flash. 'Three meg of flash memory and 128MHz clock speed doesn't sound like a lot in terms of computing power until you consider the environment these controllers have to live in. Our controllers are made to operate reliably up to 260 degrees (127C) and down to -40 degrees (-40C) for the life of the vehicle.'"
It's a special use, being more like a very powerful microcontroller, it only needs so much power, and it has to last. While the average life of a car is nearly 10 years, it's not so terribly uncommon to keep a car going for almost 20 years, in contrast very few 20 year old PCs are still in regular use, I think a lot of people would be very hard pressed to find a ten year old computer being used daily, and PCs don't have to worry much about environmental factors.
If the system is flex-fuel, it has to be able to take any range from 0% (occasional exemption from ethanol) to 85% ethanol. There is no control over what what the next tank will have, and you'll have some residual, making your ratio almost constantly varying.
I thought most of ethanol's benefits were pretty reasonably debunked, at least corn ethanol anyway.
His 1952 MG also crumples up like a soda can in an accident, whereas your Corolla is stuffed to the gills with crumple zones, traction-control gizmos, and eight thousand-odd computer-controlled airbags. On the other hand, it also weighs twice as much as the MG and handles like it, so good luck avoiding an accident that he could.
On the bright side, you probably don't have to keep a fire extinguisher in your car to put out the daily wiring harness fires.
Really? This is your response to my comment on ethanol? I wonder if you're trolling. But anyways, I'll bite in case you aren't. For instance, the main reason corn ethanol is even financially palatable is because of US government subsidies.
Corn ethanol's environmental benefits are shaky at best if you're interested in reduction of CO2 emissions.
When you factor in all the energy needed to raise the corn and make the ethanol, it makes very little new energy, some estimates suggest that there is no new energy being made, basically as little as one gallon's equivalent being made from one gallon's equivalent burned to make that gallon.
Other plants can be used to make ethanol, but it's not being done widely. When cellulosic ethanol is workable on a mass scale, then the value of ethanol production might change to something that's of a net benefit to society.
And how is the environment of a built-in GPS really significantly different from the ECU? [...] Perhaps it's not expected to be fail-safe...
But that's the whole point, isn't it? Your vehicle isn't a useless lump of metal and plastic if your GPS unit fails.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Summarising, a modern turbodiesel is inherently about 25% more efficient than an equally modern gasoline engine. With old and crude designs like, say, carb hemi V8s, the Diesel has more like a 2:1 advantage. The remaining 5% comes from the fuel.
Sheesh, kids today. Get off my lawn.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."