Ferrari Unveils World's Fastest (and Most Expensive) Hybrid

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Fred Meier reports that Ferrari has unveiled its fastest car ever, a nearly 1000 hp. gas-electric hybrid dubbed LaFerrari that does 0-62 mph in less than 3 seconds, 0-124 in less than 7 seconds, 0-186 mph in 15 seconds. "We chose to call this model LaFerrari," says Ferrari's President, Luca di Montezemolo, "because it is the maximum expression of what defines our company – excellence. ...Aimed at our collectors, this is a truly extraordinary car which encompasses advanced solutions that, in the future, will find their way onto the rest of the range." LaFerrari is the company's first hybrid and has a system that incorporates technology developed for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One race car's KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) setup. In LaFerrari, the hybrid (HY-KERS) version uses a 6.26-liter, non-turbo, V-12 gas engine rated at 800 hp coupled with a 163 hp. electric motor for a combined rating of 963 hp. A second, separate electric motor drives the power accessories."

Comments

Not a gas-hybrid

[aliquis]

So it's a petroleum/gasoline-electic hybrid.

Not gas powered.

Gas - It's not a liquid.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[aliquis]

Gas - It's not a liquid.

... or solid =P (or plasma and possibly others. The idea was mostly to separate it from gasoline.)

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[MightyYar]

I know this site has an international audience, but did anyone really think that this thing ran on some non-specific, presumably flammable "gas"? In the US, "gas" is the most common way to refer to gasoline/petrol. We would call a CNG vehicle a "natural gas" car, and propane or hydrogen would be referred to as just propane or hydrogen.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[rossdee]

The summary was translated into American, as were the performance figures (of course most slashdoters should know that 186 miles is 300 kilometres because of c

The thing is can you plug it in and use it for short distances on just electric?

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

We should also make clear that this is an automobile. The term "car" is ambiguous and may give rise to the misconception that this vehicle must be pushed or pulled, perhaps in series, by a locomotive.

Additionally, the term "hp" as used in the story refers to "horsepower", not "hit points". This is not to imply that 1000hp means that the automobile will be pushed or pulled by one thousand actual horses; merely that the power is roughly comparable.

If you can imagine the resources necessary to stable and feed one thousand horses, this is an incredible engineering feat indeed! Not to suggest that engineering alone was responsible for the construction of this automobile -- indeed, one can imagine mathematics, robotics, welding, and any number of other disciplines were involved in harmony. But likely not music theory, regardless of the ambiguous term "harmony" I employed mere seconds ago.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[AmiMoJo]

I was about to say the same thing. I assumed it was hydrogen or something like that.

In any case it looks like hybrids are the new performance frontier for cars, with EV like acceleration.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Te LaFerrari uses the same V12 that is used in the current F12berlinetta and that car uses Premium fuel. The Ferrari Enzo Ferrari (the LaFerrari's ancestor) used premium fuel you could find at any Shell as well.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...you expect grammar nazis to care about logic? Really? You must be new here.

As for TFA frankly ALL hybrids might as well be toys for the rich because if you remove all the government subsidies? The math just doesn't work. The problem is we haven't had a real breakthrough in battery tech in years and the lithium batteries just don't make economic sense. From the tests I've seen depending on where you live and whether you own a climate controlled garage (because of differences in temps affecting battery life) you are looking at 5-7 years on the battery. Now from what I read the batteries in something like the Leaf or Prius cost around $20,000 to replace yet thanks to government subsidies these cars only cost $24k-$39k depending on feature set so already you have a car that is gonna be practically worthless on the used car market (because the battery costs more than the used car is worth) and any economist will tell you its the used car market that seriously hurts our fossil fuel numbers, currently the USA averages 14MPG and that is because of all the poor folks in used cars on the road.

So while we need to invest in R&D of new battery tech frankly at this point in time hybrids and electrics are just money sinks, all that money sank into subsidizing hybrids is just money pissed down a rathole. If you truly wanted to put the USA on a path of energy independence what you would be better off doing is putting that money into a "people's car/truck" that ran on diesel (so you could later on switch to bio-diesel if the tech becomes viable) with a minimum of 38 MPG for the truck and 45 MPG and a price target of under $30k, THEN you could do a "cash for clunkers" and other subsidies to get the poor out of the older gas guzzlers. If you were to do this with the current national MPG being 14 you could cut our fuel usage by half (figuring in that some will not switch) while having something that would actually make economic sense. With economies of scale you could probably make the vehicles profitable and as the years went by and more and more of the used market was filled by these higher gas mileage vehicles the savings would continue to rise.

But hybrids are just a symptom of a larger disease, the fact that subsidies end up becoming entrenched and continue long after it has been shown not to be economically viable. Just look at ethanol, it causes higher food prices, damages engines, yet we continue to shell out all this money on a tech that has proven to be a dead end because so many in the agra business lobby to keep it. What we need is to spend our money wisely on tech that works economically and hybrids just aren't there yet.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[gagol]

The thing is can you plug it in and use it for short distances on just electric?

No, now go back and RTFA.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

As for TFA frankly ALL hybrids might as well be toys for the rich because if you remove all the government subsidies? The math just doesn't work.

The same applies to gasoline combustion vehicles. If I could sue GM, Ford and Toyota out of existence for the harm they've caused people, then they'd be out of business. Instead they're protected by courts.

That isn't even counting the aircraft carriers and other military operations.

But hybrids are just a symptom of a larger disease, the fact that subsidies end up becoming entrenched and continue long after it has been shown not to be economically viable. Just look at ethanol, it causes higher food prices, damages engines, yet we continue to shell out all this money on a tech that has proven to be a dead end because so many in the agra business lobby to keep it.

Ethanol only damages engines that aren't prepared for it, in the same way engines that aren't prepared for gasoline would be damaged by it. Complaining about it is foolish, and your claims about higher food prices caused by ethanol are not substantiated, and you ignore the purpose is to avoid damaging lungs. How much should breathable air be worth?

What we need is to spend our money wisely on tech that works economically and hybrids just aren't there yet.

What we need to do is spend our money wisely and not just bury our heads in the sand and pretend that gasoline works without costs that are very extreme, yet ignored because they don't hit you right in the face.

Maybe you like propping up dictators around the world while sucking up to Exxon Mobile, but not everybody else considers that to be economically viable.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[aliquis]

I think they are just called "gas hybrids" here in Sweden when they are actually biogas hybrids and hydrogen hybrids when they are hydrogen gas hybrids, or something such. Which doesn't make any sense either.

Personally for me though I was wondering whatever it was actually running on gas of any sort which would be different for a Ferrari or whatever it was running on gasoline. I don't think "gas-hydrid" tell (for me), gasoline-hybrid would. So I had to check it up. Whatever it was obvious or not for everyone else I don't know.

I don't really understand why there's two different words used in different "styles" of English/countries both using English ("I speak American damnit!" ;D)

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like the Leaf, is a pure electric and not a hybrid, as such it has a bigger and more expensive battery, although still less not as expensive as the figure you gave, and I'm sure the price will come down a bit before most of them actually need replacing. For the Prius the replacement battery is much cheaper, for an older model it will cost somewhere in the region of $2500 - $4500 (figures sourced from here.)

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

given it's a Euro manufactured car it was a reasonable confusion since we actually use the word gas to mean gas...

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[fredgiblet]

I woudlnt' count on it. China is cutting back on exports for rare earths, other sources are coming online, but battery costs will likely stay high for a while.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[smash]

What you want at the moment is a VW Golf TDi. Same or better MPG as a Prius, goes like stink (considering what it is), no battery to worry about and it's a nicer car inside and to drive. However, just a week ago or so, some guys claimed a breakthrough with graphene for use as batteries. Which could make hybrids or even full electric cars actually viable.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[femtobyte]

Uhhh...you expect grammar nazis to care about logic? Really? You must be new here.

As for TFA frankly ALL hybrids might as well be toys for the rich because if you remove all the government subsidies? The math just doesn't work. The problem is we haven't had a real breakthrough in battery tech in years and the lithium batteries just don't make economic sense. From the tests I've seen depending on where you live and whether you own a climate controlled garage (because of differences in temps affecting battery life) you are looking at 5-7 years on the battery. Now from what I read the batteries in something like the Leaf or Prius cost around $20,000 to replace yet thanks to government subsidies these cars only cost $24k-$39k depending on feature set so already you have a car that is gonna be practically worthless on the used car market (because the battery costs more than the used car is worth)

Unfortunately, you seem to be reading "studies" put out by FUD-spewing shills. Most of the "facts" in your analysis are simply incorrect.

(A) "the lithium batteries just don't make economic sense": the Prius and Honda hybrids use NiMH batteries, not Lithium tech (which is coming into use in newer vehicles, e.g. Tesla and Chevy Volt); focusing on Lithium while bashing the Prius shows your ignorance of the subject.

(B) "you are looking at 5-7 years on the battery," "practically worthless on the used car market": the Prius was introduced in Japan in 1997, and on the world market in 2000. They aren't dropping dead on the road --- real life longevity/reliability is quite high, with a decade and a half of data to back it up. Feel free to check actual used car prices to see whether a Prius is "practically worthless."

(C) "...batteries in something like the Leaf or Prius cost around $20,000 to replace yet thanks to government subsidies these cars only cost $24k-$39k": many ridiculous (and intentionally deceptive) estimates of "OMG huge gov subsidies" are floating around with no basis in fact. They are usually based on highly faulty economics, e.g. dividing (Gov. subsidy for building big new factory)/(# of batteries produced per year) to produce "scary" numbers, while ignoring that the factory will continue producing batteries for decades. Actual Prius battery replacement from Toyota is ~$4k, and might need to be done (if ever) after ~300,000 miles.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[AK Marc]

The hybrid is a means of harnessing the energy "lost" during braking. That's what the point was for all the economy-based hybrids. If the car doesn't meet some arbitrary line you wish to see, the issue is the car is too much car for economy. You sound like all the luddites pushing against tech because the benefit isn't enough for some arbitrary and irrational minimum cost of change.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[AK Marc]

China is increasing exports of rare earths. What they are cutting back on is exports of raw materials. If you build it in China, you can export it. They are using trade restrictions to help prop up the manufacturing business, since the US economy tanking under 40 years of conservative leadership (except for Clinton balancing the budget for long enough for Bush to sell us out), we aren't buying enough stuff.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

God I love watching two pseudonymous people go at it without citations of any kind. It's like watching pro-wrestling. You know it's fake, but it's a great show and you can't help but cheer for your team.

*popcorn*

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Bartles]

Maybe you like propping up dictators around the world while sucking up to Exxon Mobile, but not everybody else considers that to be economically viable.

Actually the more sucking up we do to Exxon Mobile and other non-dictator directed energy firms, the less we have to prop up dictators around the world.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I replaced my 2001 Prius battery pack at 9 years for $1,500. That was me taking out the back seat, disconnecting the battery, unbolting it, screwing it to a pallet and telling them it's ready.....then the opposite. The dealership wanted $3,000 but would have provided the old battery design while the one I received was rebuilt from new generation battery cells.

I've heard over and over the outrageous claims of $10K+ for a new battery by the clueless. Toyota since 2004 has a 10yr warranty on the batteries in the standard Prius.

If you are talking about the lithium batteries in the Leaf or plugin Prius then the $10,000 range is probably correct but you are also talking more about electric cars than the lighter hybrid like the standard Prius. But all these cars are super efficient, little to no polution out the pipe, and are very quiet and enjoyable to ride or drive. All of which has value to some. Just as a Porche has different value propositions from a VW Beetle. Should the government be subsidizing non or lightly polluting vehicles is another topic but the fact is they do and air quality has been improved from it.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. Find out where their leases are.

It isn't in Freedonia.

Then consider their own immediate conduct which stole a page from Big Tobacco.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[TubeSteak]

[...] and any economist will tell you its the used car market that seriously hurts our fossil fuel numbers, currently the USA averages 14MPG and that is because of all the poor folks in used cars on the road.

Where do you get your numbers from?
I found a NY Times article that said this:
"The average on-road fuel economy of all vehicles in 1923 was 14 m.p.g., the report said, compared with 17.4 m.p.g. as recently as 2008."

Now, the only reason for low fuel economy averages are large trucks/SUVs.
They drag the averages down for everyone, though the new 6-cylinder models have lessened that effect.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a horse is more like 3-5 hp. Yep. WTF.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. You lump a Prius and Leaf in the same category as having a $20,000 battery pack when one is 10x the size of the other?

You're right that they don't make economic sense right now, but batteries have made huge strides in the last 10 years. A hybrid battery may cost $2-3,000 to replace, but the equivalent amount of power os available in better batteries for ~$800.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Bose-Einstein condensates?

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[DrFalkyn]

Uany economist will tell you its the used car market that seriously hurts our fossil fuel numbers, currently the USA averages 14MPG and that is because of all the poor folks in used cars on the road.

No, its because of all the trucks, SUVs and otherwise inefficient cars on the road. I just bought a used 1996 Toyota Carolla with 230k miles on it. I checked my gas mileage (mixed city/freeway) at 26 MPG on my last fill up.

My friend who drives a 2008? BMW M3 told me gets 23 MPG.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Music theory is indeed used by Ferrari and other high end manufactures. Not just the tuning of the exhaust lengths for performance, but also for musicality. Additionally the understanding of resonance is critical to the design of the cabin environment.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

God, I love watching some pretentious anonymous get make aspirations to entertainment value. It's like watching Fox News. You know they're either insane or hypocritical, but the remote control is too far away.

*candy apple*

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes. Because in the US, the oil companies receive no subsidies. No depreciation allowances, no US military as bodyguard, none of that.

Fuck off.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is a troll, but I'm thankful that the patronizing author didn't us the term 'USians'.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[blackraven14250]

The BMW isn't really comparable - it's a performance car. A real comparison would be the other 3-series models, which run 28+.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[HornWumpus]

Depending on your level of mechanical aptitude and finances you want between a 3 and 20 year old Honda Civic. Parts are cheap, easiest to work on in the history of cars. Tuner parts are also cheap, if your into that sort of thing.

VWs are hell to work on. You definitely _don't_ want one of those in it's maintenance prone years.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

What you want at the moment is a VW Golf TDi. Same or better MPG as a Prius

What is the source of your data? I cannot find any data that has a Golf diesel getting better milage than a Prius, not even websites that collect real-life data provided by owners.

From VW Canada’s website:
2013 Golf 5-door TDI: city 6.7 L/100km, highway 4.6 L/100km

From Toyota Canada’s website:
2013 Prius: city 3.7 L/100km, highway 4.0 L/100km

Considering how much of most people’s driving is city rather than highway, that’s not even close.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[gumbi west]

There is about 20% more carbon (energy/emissions) in diesel than is gasoline. This means that you have to deflate diesel fuel economy by the same to get an even carbon comparison.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was talking about how many bottles of hp steak sauce could fit in the trunk (Whoops! I meant to say boot). Oh, and the story meant to say litres, I think. After all, if you spell it "liter", you probably meant to say 382 in^3 instead?

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[donscarletti]

I know this site has an international audience, but did anyone really think that this thing ran on some non-specific, presumably flammable "gas"?

If you want to say something like "I just have half a tank of gas" or "step on the gas", this would be inferred by most English speakers anywhere to refer to whatever fuel the vehicle runs on, probably "gasoline", "petrol" or whatever you want to call it, even though its not widely used outside of America. In British and British-like English dialects, gas-powered unambiguously means LPG or Natural Gas, but I think it's common knowledge when an American says "gas" they don't really mean it, so this won't cause much confusion.

But when you're talking about what fuel an exotic engine runs on, then using "gas" to mean "gasoline" is just as completely wrong in American English as it is in any other dialect. The reason for this is that in contexts of other common engines types such as "gas turbine", "COGAS" or "gas powered semi-automatic" (a simple piston engine) all run on different fuels.

The point is, this Ferrari does not have a simple off-the-shelf engine and we should not have to make assumptions about what it runs on. If the author wants to say "gasoline" they should type that, "gas" being a phase, not a type of fuel.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[FishTankX]

First of all, even 2002 priuses are still doing well on original batteries according to this AOL auto article.

http://autos.aol.com/article/toyota-prius-reliability/

Second of all achieving 38MPG in a truck sounds impossible unless it was the size of an old volkswagen caddy. An F-150 with a highly tuned diesel might get 25 combined, if lucky.

That being said diesel is excellent technology. Strong (electric) hybrids are too. Hydraulic hybrids even better, due to the lack of materials harvested in extremely environmentally harmful ways in their construction, and they don't require any materials exclusive to a particular country. They might be able to be constructed with all US harvested materials, even.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[mister2au]

I'd concur with most of that ...

We have a decent number of Prius taxis in my part of the world ... with heavy city driving and hence a lot of battery cycling, the battery seem to last between about 200,000 and 350,000 miles - I'd say 300,000 miles is a fair estimate of average life ... very much in line with a typical gasoline engine anyway

Replacement costs seems to be even less than $4k ... often under $3k

Overall running costs (fuel and maintenance) is said to be roughly half of the typical large sedans used

However, I am genuinely curious from the original poster's rant about subsidies - who is subsidising the Prius? Is it a rant at US motor companies and their subsidies, or US hybrids (Tesla & Volt), or hybrids in general which is the why it was phrased??

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say you're probably right about you can get from a horse for a few minutes or maybe a little longer but a "horsepower" is probably accurate for the work you can expect from a horse over the course of it's shift. Remember Horse where literately the engines of industry. You can gallop a horse for a while but he'll take you further if you let it trot. So I think Watts guessed pretty well for what he was going for which how many horses one of his engines could replace.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[noh8rz10]

you're a retard. gas = gasoline, pedant.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[jkflying]

It doesn't use batteries, it uses a kinetic (ie. flywheel) system of energy storage.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, he said mpg, secondly who cares. Learn to read.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[noh8rz10]

I'm going to say something insightful, so get ready for mod points. different countries measure car fuel economy different ways. so people compare the US evaluation of a Prius against a German evaluation of a Golf, and they're like zOMG! but if you look at the same source, eg fueleconomy.gov, you'll see that the golf diesel is rated at 34mpg and the prius is rated at 50mpg.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[smash]

I'm talking real world - top gear tested it, various other motoring mags have tested them. In the real world, they get as good or better mpg than a prius. The green-ness is even more apparent when you take into account how toxic batteries are to make and dispose of.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[0100010001010011]

VWs are hell to work on. You definitely _don't_ want one of those in it's maintenance prone years.

What year are those. I definitely want to avoid them on my 1998 and 2003 that I've had no problems with. (282k mi and 152k mi, respectively).

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[0100010001010011]

You know that Canada only gets 1 engine for the TDI, the same one that America gets.

The 'new golf' TDI gets 74.3 mp imperial gallon and 85 mp imperial gallon ( 3.3L/ 100 km) highway.

Combined the Prius gets 72.4 mp imperial gallon.

It gets even better when you compare the Prius to the Polo (which has a more comparable interior space), it gets 80.7 mp imperial gallon combined.

Considering how much of most people’s driving is city rather than highway, that’s not even close.

Gross generalization there?

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Malc]

The story seemed to be saying that they'd developed something radically new, so yes, it did seem that they were talking about a car running on natural gas. The word "gas" as a replacement for "petrol" is so uncommon that that wasn't the first thought that crossed me mind.

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[richard.york]

That's not true at all. I drive a 2011 Jetta TDI, bigger than a Golf. I get 52 MPG U.S. quite easily on the highway and around 42MPG in the city. The Golf certainly gets the same or better, being a smaller and lighter car. Been driving it for almost two years, the mileage has actually improved as its total miles driven have increased. I also have a Touareg V6 TDI, a 5,000 pound SUV, and it gets 25-30MPG, 30 on the highway and 25 in the city, which is the same as the gasoline engine Passat it replaced.

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[richard.york]

I think 38MPG could be achieved in a pickup truck of that size in the very near future quite easily. I drive a 2012 VW Touareg V6 TDI, and achieve between 25 and 30 MPG. This is a 5,000 pound SUV capable of towing up to 7,500 pounds. On the highway if I don't lead foot it, I can easily achieve 30MPG. In the city, it stays at or slightly above 25MPG. I can see technology improving enough to squeeze out another 10MPG.

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[richard.york]

And, by the way, other Touareg owners have managed to achieve as much as 45MPG on long distance trips.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Joce640k]

WTF.

The original horse use to set the standard was a pit pony - very small so that they could go down coal mines (which was the environment where the people who invented steam engines lived/worked).

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

Meh, don't care if its a Honda or VW myself as I'll never give up my Ford Ranger. Its a gas pig but built like a tank and on the Ranger forums I've been told the Vulcan V6 can easily rack up 300k-400k before needing a rebuild and then you can get another 300k easily. Every time I ask questions and list the specs of the Ranger I always get "Hey...you wanna sell it?" because those Vulcans are supposed to be real sweethearts, easy to work on, dependable as hell, just rock solid and I got one in a practically mint 99 Ranger with less than 120k on it.

But this is why I always put down "people's car/truck" because there are many of us that need/want a truck and won't switch to a car no matter how good the mileage. No way in hell I could go back to riding so damned low to the ground, every time I ride in a car it feels like I'm in a damned go-cart after 24 years of driving trucks, just no way I could go back to driving cars. If all I cared about is mileage my mom has a nice Taurus she never drives that gets nearly 30MPG but it feels like I'm 2 inches above the pavement, no thanks.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Watt also made the power less so that he would not get any complaints about requiring a bigger engine when it went into a pit for pumping duty.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this site has an international audience, but did anyone really think that this thing ran on some non-specific, presumably flammable "gas"?

Yes, yes I did. When you live somewhere where gasolene is referred to as petrol and it's not uncommon for cars to be fuelled by Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), that's exactly what I thought.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Ginger Unicorn]

God, I love watching some pretentious anonymous get make aspirations to entertainment value

????

*bag of wine gums*

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[michelcolman]

That's slightly ambiguous, but I agree with what you most likely intended: Americans are indeed fucking stupid.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[0100010001010011]

http://www.metalnerd.com/cat09.htm

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[walshy007]

For a second I thought it was running liquefied petroleum gas. Which is usually a combination of propane/butane that actually does power some cars. The term 'gas' is used for gaseous substances mostly outside the US. :P

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[lightknight]

Bacon dipped in maple syrup.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[sycodon]

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson? Is that you?

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[drinkypoo]

VWs are hell to work on. You definitely _don't_ want one of those in it's maintenance prone years.

Most people won't work on their own car anyway. What they want is a TDI built in Wolfsberg. VW built in Mexico equals shit. VW built in Germany equals quality. I don't claim to know why this is, but it is a fact.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[drinkypoo]

Meh, don't care if its a Honda or VW myself as I'll never give up my Ford Ranger. Its a gas pig but built like a tank and on the Ranger forums I've been told the Vulcan V6 can easily rack up 300k-400k before needing a rebuild and then you can get another 300k easily.

My 7.3 ford has an aftermarket turbo kit and 360k on it. It runs like a mad bastard. I get up to 20 mpg on the freeway, but not on the mud tires I'm running now. It is pathetic that we don't have small pickups with small diesels in them.

No way in hell I could go back to riding so damned low to the ground, every time I ride in a car it feels like I'm in a damned go-cart after 24 years of driving trucks, just no way I could go back to driving cars

Going back and forth between a lifted F250 and a stock 300SD is quite an eye-opener. The visual range is nice, but being in comfort is much nicer. Where I live, though, if you drive anything but a classic Mercedes you're gonna have a bad time. You need handling to dodge the worst of the potholes, but you need something that can float because every bit of road is bumpy. Enter the W126 300SD, which gets up to 30mpg freeway, and which has a long hood and crumple zones. No airbag in mine, either.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't use rare earths in lithium-ion or nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

And rare earths aren't rare, it is just that China produces them cheaper than anyone else because they don't care about polluting their environment.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[tehcyder]

The only people who should drive trucks are truck drivers, which is to say people who need them for their jobs.

Otherwise, to this non-American, you just look like a child playing with a Tonka toy.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Westwood0720]

Actually, a horsepower has something to do with how much weight a horse can pull in like 2 seconds or something. This goes back fifteen years ago when I was in high school. When I get home I'll have to look it up again.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Westwood0720]

I found it (that was a quick search). I knew it was something like this:

"The mechanical horsepower, also known as imperial horsepower, of exactly 550 foot-pounds per second is approximately equivalent to 745.7 watts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[Stax]

re-read the parent post. It has nothing to do with actual fuel economy, and everything to do with how govt's define and evaluate average fuel economy. His point is that you need to compare like test results, not disparate standards.

Your personal experience, while representative of your actual gas mileage, represent yet another standard for comparison.

capiche?

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[noh8rz10]

hypermileage is great, people do it in the prius too and get 70+. talking about gov't definitions here, and comparing apples to apples.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[MightyYar]

But when you're talking about what fuel an exotic engine runs on, then using "gas" to mean "gasoline" is just as completely wrong in American English as it is in any other dialect.

No it isn't. We all go to the "gas station" here. When you are talking cars in America, gas is gasoline. We do have CNG, LPG, and LNG cars here (and trucks - most UPS trucks, for instance), but no one would call those "gas powered".

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[painandgreed]

Additionally, the term "hp" as used in the story refers to "horsepower", not "hit points".

Hit points are capitalized as "HP" not "hp"

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[ceoyoyo]

You must be a big fan of TV news programs then.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[charles2678]

The green-ness is even more apparent when you take into account how toxic batteries are to make and dispose of.

Umm. Lead-acid batteries are toxic as hell, but those aren't the ones used in electric vehicles. Li-Poly isn't bad at all.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[HornWumpus]

Until the first step in 'replace brake master cylinder' is something other then 'remove front bumper' VW's aren't even considered.

VW/Porsche/Audi consolidated their product line. Now they all perform like (1200 single port) VWs, are maintainable like Porsches and have parts availability like Audis.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[HornWumpus]

You clearly need to spend some time playing in the mud. It's great fun for adults and children both.

That said: Driving your 4x4 daily forces too many compromises on the truck. God damn 'mall utility vehicles' high center as soon as the road gets even a little rutted.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Vrtigo1]

I recently bought a Prius and was very concerned about battery life before I purchased it so I did a fair amount of research. You're absolutely correct in your figures stating battery replacement from Toyota is about $4k, but on Priichat I've seen folks talking up aftermarket / refurb battery places where you can replace the traction battery for closer to $2k, so you're definitely on track with battery replacement being a low concern.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this site has an international audience, but did anyone really think that this thing ran on some non-specific, presumably flammable "gas"?

That is exactly what I thought, all the way up to reading your post (I didn't actually read TFA (yet) of course).

Until that time I had mostly been annoyed by the usage of mph in combination with numbers that are impossible to remember.

All culminating in the fact that I have now decided that enough is enough, and after reading slashdot integrally for 14 years, that from this day on I will only read slashdot articles in the "it.slashdot.org" subdomain. I don't usually get annoyed by the general american public's displays of moronity, but a self titled nerd site actually using 0-62 mph instead of 0-100 km/h?

International audience? Don't make me laugh, nobody outside Texas can follow these summaries anymore.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

1 inch? Dude are you high? You ever rode in a Ranger? Its high enough that a 6 foot guy like me can just slide into the bucket, no climbing up or down required. When you have elderly relatives you'll be damned glad you got that extra height too, hell of a lot easier to get an elderly person out of a vehicle that is at standing height than to try to pull them out of a ground dragger.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

I take it you have never been to AR, or as we call it "The pothole state". Putting better shocks is pretty much SOP around here if you don't want to bounce around like a kangaroo on crack, although I went for the harder shocks as I never cared for the whole "floating" thing, makes the ride a little too loose for my tastes.

And I agree its a damned shame which is why I'll be driving that 99 Ranger until the wheels fall off it. To me the Ranger/S10/King Cab size trucks were just perfect, not so big or as gas sucking but not so small you couldn't carry a decent load. My oldest boy feels the same and was constantly bugging me and my dad to borrow our trucks, boy you should have seen the look on his face when dad drove up in a Midnight Blue S10 and said "Here ya go boy, now quit asking to borrow my truck LOL!"

But you really can't beat a small size pickup, easy to park and get into tight spaces, will haul just about anything your family could ever need to haul, and they were just well built trucks. The one I had before the Ranger was a 92 King Cab and I ended up with nearly 400k of hard miles on it before she finally threw a rod, my neighbor saw me in the Ranger and said "Is that King Cab still around? wanna sell it?" and damned if he didn't just drop the engine out a crunched Sentra in her and handed it to his boy who is driving the far out of it.

And you and my dad would probably get along really well, for while he keeps a Ranger at the shop for the employees to use he has been driving nothing but F series for 20 years now. Like he says "You just can't go wrong with a Ford F series when you need a good work truck" and considering how much electrical gear he hauls I'd say he knows what he is talking about. The only thing either of us have had to replace in our Fords is the ball joints which when you are talking potholes you can bury a goat in? One set of ball joints every 150k miles really ain't bad at all. Shame it doesn't get better gas mileage but there is no way I'm giving up my Ranger.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

I haul everything from band gear to furniture in mine, the cost of having to rent a truck every time I need to haul something would eat up any savings I would see from having a car with better gas mileage. Maybe where you are at you have an easy way to haul loads but around here you either need a truck or know somebody with a truck or you'd be screwed.

And allow me to say as an American? I don't see how in the hell y'all fit in them little cracker jack cars. I swear I'd have to cut the roof off the damned thing to get in it, too damned tall and lanky for them little go carts you folks drive. Of course at nearly $4 a gallon the gas ain't cheap in a Ranger but when you are mostly doing short hops it ain't bad, about $15 for a round trip to the state capital.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[DrVxD]

Same or better MPG as a Prius,

... and no range anxiety to deal with.

Re: Not a gas-hybrid

[FishTankX]

Alright, i'm willing to cede that you might be able to get some stellar numbers out of your Touareg, but aren't the EPA numbers still 20/29 city/highway?
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/32632.shtml

According to this, EPA standard fuel economy is still 23MPG combined. This is what i'm pointing towards when I say that it will be difficult to impossible to get to 38MPG in a truck with current crash standards. If i'm not mistaken there's not been a single truck that broke 30MPG in the new EPA testing methodology.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[0100010001010011]

I'm all of a whole 0.5" shorter than you. I don't ever remember having to 'climb down' into my vehicle. I sit down just like I sit into anything.

Plus the 2" is to the geometry, it lifts a bit more.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=264494

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this site has an international audience, but did anyone really think that this thing ran on some non-specific, presumably flammable "gas"? In the US, "gas" is the most common way to refer to gasoline/petrol. We would call a CNG vehicle a "natural gas" car, and propane or hydrogen would be referred to as just propane or hydrogen.

Honestly, based on the article, I though the car was running on natural gas. City buses already do, so I thought why not -- it's not like this thing was that practical anyway.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Crosshair84]

The same applies to gasoline combustion vehicles.

How so? The Federal Highway Trust Fund is routinely looted for mass transit projects, meaning car users are paying for mass transit riders.

If I could sue GM, Ford and Toyota out of existence for the harm they've caused people, then they'd be out of business. Instead they're protected by courts.

Translation: The courts keep throwing my bullshit lawsuits out.

What harm are you talking about? Henry Ford alone did more to improve the life of the working man than every Union leader combined. By giving the working man access to cheap transportation, horses and transit were too expensive for them to afford, they were no longer hostage to living in tenements within walking distance to the local factory. They now had options. Instead of having to work for the factory 1 mile or less from home he could drive to any factory or employer within 20 miles of home. Instead of having the choice of one or two employers, he now could have over a dozen possible employers to chose to work for and those employers had to compete to get the best workers. The company store became a distant memory as workers could drive to other stores to buy what they needed at competitive prices. If conditions in one local area became bad they could easily pile all their important belongings into the car and drive somewhere else.

Have there been negatives from the advent of the automobile? Certainly, but you're going to have one hell of a time making the case that the overall effect has not been positive.

As for subsidies for roads, I agree, lets get rid of them. But subsidies for roads only amount to about a penny per passenger mile. Increasing gas taxes a few cents would mean the elimination of road subsidies. Mass transit however is subsidized by tens of cents per passenger mile, sometimes close to a dollar per passenger mile. Eliminate subsidies there and mass transit would dissapear almost instantly.

http://www.buses.org/files/Summary%20-%20Federal%20Subsidies%20for%20Passenger%20Transportation%20final.pdf

http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=5002

What we need to do is spend our money wisely and not just bury our heads in the sand and pretend that gasoline works without costs that are very extreme, yet ignored because they don't hit you right in the face.

Nobody is saying that gasoline doesn't have costs. However, it is the best technology that we have today. What are these "extreme" costs you keep spouting off about? Environmental damage? Yea, there's that, but the West has that that largely under control. Any alternative is either unworkable or causes more environmental damage than what we have now. What are you suggesting? That 5 billion people just sit down and die by not using fossil fuels for transportation? What is your alternative?

Personally I see Alge diesel being perfected sometime in the next few decades, we have at several hundred years of fossil fuels of all types left so there is time. Throwing money at projects trying to do the equivalent of, building a 747 in the year 1908, are just going to be a waste. There are plenty of other problems that need to be addressed using technology we already have. Expand road capacity where needed to reduce fuel wasted in gridlock. (Make sure this is done only with user fees so the mass transit twits can't bitch.) Employ congestion pricing to reduce traffic during peak times. Build new Generation III nuclear reactors so we can retire or at least be less reliant on our old Generation II reactors. Reprocess the waste to get the long half life useable fuel out of them, the 3% left that is waste can be easily buried for the 300-400 years it takes to decay to save levels. Encourage Gasoline/CNG dual-fuel vehicles to take advantage of the abundance of natural gas in the US. Any number of things can be done with current technology in the US that are far more cost effective.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

Dude look at the pics you provided, see the one with the bikes? Now look at how the TOP of the headrest is even with his dick and he isn't even standing up straight. That means he HAS to go DOWN to get into the seats, no other way unless he has some powered lift kit.

Now compare that to my Ranger which has NOT been jacked, I put stiffer shocks but they didn't raise the height any, height wise its stock. If I were to stand by the truck, just as he is doing in that pic? The headrest would be about where my CHIN is, not my dick. This means that all I have to do is slide sideways and I'm in the vehicle, no going up or down required. Again not only is the extra height more comfortable on me, I trashed my left knee in a bike wreck ages ago so when the weather is nasty not having to climb is a Godsend, but for my elderly relatives like my mom it can mean the difference between going to her doctor's appointment or not. My oldest has an S10 that is the same height as that car, she can't get in and out of that because its TOO LOW for her to get out of without literally being pulled out and stood on her feet, with my Ranger she simply puts her feet on the ground and she is practically standing already, all she has to do is shift her weight from the seat to her feet.

So I'm sorry but a 1 inch lift isn't even close, you'd need more like 6-8 inches to equal the height of a late model Ranger.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

This is why I said this "problem" could be solved VERY easily, just build a "people's car/truck" that gets a minimum of 38 MPG for the truck and 45 MPG for the car and make them both diesel as there are several projects on the board to make diesel a renewable resource and if any of those pan out? You'll already have the population ready to go. And this is doable NOW as building a small Ranger sized truck and Focus sized car that runs on diesel and gets good gas mileage is VERY doable,many diesel engines get close to and a few over those figures so its not much of a stretch, and by THEN using subsidies and a "cash for clunkers" program you could do something about the poor folks in used gas hogs which is why the current MPG for this country is a lousy 14 MPG. A people's car/truck program would cut our usage in half by getting rid of all those old gas hogs poor folks drive because that's all they can afford.

But mass transit died in the states FOR A REASON, because our culture simply isn't designed for mass transit. Look at the cultures like Japan where mass transit is wildly successful, you have a society built around conforming and order and obedience to authority, that is the complete opposite of America. Here all it would take is a couple of douchebags to ruin it for everybody which surprise surprise is exactly what happens, and frankly we are just too damned spread out (which I would argue is a GOOD thing, packing Americans in like rats is a recipe for disaster) to make busing and other public transports viable. Would I give up my truck if gas hits $10 a gallon for a bus? Nope, I'll just drive less and borrow my mom's beep beep when I need to go on long trips.

The sad part is sensible ideas like mine will NEVER be implemented because the AGW tent has been taken over by leeches like Al Gore and Goldman Sachs who have set themselves up to make fortunes off gaming the system while making sure they have to bear none of the cost thanks to shell corps. I mean when you have the same clown that wrote the "rules" on credit default swaps, aka worthless pieces of paper, writing the rules for carbon credits? You should know the platform has been hijacked by the scammers. Frankly this is why I support those against AGW, not because I don't think it would be smart to cut down on our usage of fossil fuels, as I honestly think they are more useful for plastics than they are as a long term viable fuel source, its because the ideas that would actually work have been thrown out because the leeches can't make fortunes gaming the system with something like a $20k "people's car" that would make a difference.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Crosshair84]

Actually not even that, only one train line in Japan is profitable. Tokyo to Osaka. All the other lose money. Even in Europe they drive only a few percentage points less than Americans do in terms of miles per year. Roads and cars are so much cheaper than trains. If you need fast, you have airplanes, if you need cheap you have buses. Passenger rail in most areas is as obsolete as vacuum tube computers. Sure they are cool to look at in museums though..

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[EnglishDude]

My first thought was "Awesome! Ferrari developed a car with a gas turbine engine!" Imagine my disappointment when I realised they meant "gasoline"...

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

Sorry about how long its taking to respond, the oldest was having hell getting his online games to connect so guess who has been doing diagnostics at 2AM?

But if its anything like the bus lines here I can see why, frankly I rode it for 3 whole days before I ended up borrowing a work truck from my dad and paying out the ass for the gas rather than ride the damned thing, it was all junkies and bums and stench, oh my. I wouldn't wish having to ride mass transit on my worst enemy it was dingy and a good 25% of the people on it stank, literally reeked like they hadn't bathed in months (which looking at them? They probably hadn't) and the fact that several had such the stench of meth leaking out their pores i was just waiting for them to have a full fledged freak out and try to attack someone right then and there.

So while I didn't mind car pooling or renting a car when I needed to I wouldn't go back to riding the bus for all the tea in China, its just not a good way to get around.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Crosshair84]

I was thinking along the lines of the many for-profit intercity buses between cities, they are just fine. Intracity busses, yea, they aren't that great to ride even here in ND.

People here will drive anything that will physically move rather than use the bus. Only people I have ever seen on it are the elderly or blind. Heck, one guy I knew when working retail would rather walk than take the bus, even when it was -20F.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

Damn when you'd rather walk in -20f weather (how in the hell do you even stand that man? When its 30f outside we are bundled like Eskimos and only go out when we have no choice) than ride the bus? Them is some shitty buses. Never rode the city to city bus, where I'm at that bus stops at 2 dozen little podunk towns between here and the state capital so I hear its a 2 hour drive to the capital whereas if the traffic isn't too bad i can be in the center of the capital in under 45 minutes. Plus you can't smoke on a bus and I want a cigarette dammit LOL!

But you are a brave man to live in ND, that is just too fucking cold for this southern boy. Where I'm at we are actually listed as a sub tropic climate zone, we get less than 3 weeks a year of sub 40f weather (and we hate every damned minute, while kids were cheering how we had a white Xmas every adult was going "WTF? This isn't supposed to happen!") and the rest of the time its hot and sunny. You gotta learn to deal with the humidity but since a side effect of all that humidity is excellent crops and these great farmer's markets where you can go get fresh fruits and veggies that were picked that morning for cheap? Meh the AC can always cut down on the wetness of the air.

As I tell my yankee friends when they are shocked at out 115f summers "It really ain't hard to cool off on a scorching day, you got shade, sweet tea, AC in your car,lake not 30 minutes away, its not hard at all. When its -20f outside I don't give a shit how much you bundle up you ARE gonna be fucking cold and miserable, no way around that." Hell of a lot easier to cool off when its hot than it is to stay warm when its bitter cold which is why I could never understand why anybody would choose to live in a place THAT fucking cold.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Reziac]

Heh, I've lived where it's regularly -50F and where it's regularly +120F. Admittedly heat is easier to deal with but as to why people live where it's cold...I'm between houses moving back to the cold, cuz there are more crazy politics where it's warm. It's either give up the easy climate or give up my profession and my life's work, thanks to an invasive "progressive" gov't and its minions.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

You ought to look at AR and TN, we pretty much hate politics and we make it clear that other than fixing roads and shit we prefer our politicians to STFU and get out of the way.

Of course the downside is places where you actually need the government to step in, like our frankly shitty broadband coverage? not gonna happen. That is why we'll get fiber 20 years after everybody else gets it.

But if I was going in any direction it would be farther south, I hear Costa Rica is quite nice and warm year round. No way I could stand being in a place that even had 30f temps for any length of time, much less -50f. Of course having a couple of blown joints from a bike wreck that don't react well to cold or wet certainly weighs in, being born and raised in the south me and cold? Not ever gonna be friends.

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[Reziac]

I'm a dog breeder/trainer... few years ago TN got roped into the larval form of anti-breeder legislation courtesy HSUS. So far they've failed to sucker MT into it, and MT is where I grew up. So... back to MT for me. (Hatched in ND, which has more uniformly cold winters, tho doesn't hit the deep lows MT can. Then again, what with the chinook cycles, MT only has more than two weeks of winter at a time in Jan., and can be 70 and pheasants nesting already in Feb.) Got a knee that ain't real pleased about moving back to winter, tho... I hear ya there!

Dunno about Arkansas' polyticks but the humidity and the twin-engine mosquitoes would do for me in a hurry. I've lived in MN so have experienced both!

Re:Not a gas-hybrid

[hairyfeet]

The skeeters are down in the bottoms, stay out of the bottoms and the skeeters ain't any worse than any other place. of course the upside of those skeeters is the feed some monster bass, you can go down in the bottoms and watch them jump out of the water gulping up skeeters so its a trade off, cover yourself with deep woods off and you can get some damned nice fish for a nice fry up but I sure as fuck wouldn't live in the bottoms, I stick with the hill country, beautiful man made lakes like Greer's Ferry and its nice and warm.

As far as dog breeding? As long as you don't mistreat the animals or raise them in filth which you don't strike me as the type to do that kind of cruel shit you'd have no worries here. My mom had a couple of dog breeders shut down over the years but in both cases they were just being fucking monsters to the animals, one mom rescued was a little pekipoo that had half a dozen broken ribs and teeth filed down to the nerves, just evil shit. But we have plenty of breeders here, especially the prize winning hunting dogs and quarter horses and as long as the animals are treated well? Its all good, we are VERY anti-government here. That is why many can't understand why we elect dems for local politics and we're a red state, but our dems make most national reps look like liberals, only difference here is the dems do care more for the poor which we here in AR support but we do NOT care for government getting in our faces and the dems here know that so they STFU and do what we put 'em there for, fixing roads and other basic services.

So good luck in MT but that is just too damned cold for me, here it stays warm enough I can still bebop around on stage and play rock star on the weekends but no way in hell could i take them MT winters, my left knee is just too shot. Here if you get more than a week of sub 40f temps people act like its the end of the world, I swear you can't move in the grocery stores as you'd think we were about to be hit by something the magnitude of Katrina LOL. But our "cold snaps" like we are having now are in the high 40s/low 50s and a good 10 months out of the year its above 55f, lots of sun, just lovely weather.

Can't wait.

[RNLockwood]

Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot, suddenly is spotted in my rear view mirror fish-tailing and spinning towards me as the driver attempts to slow down and miss me. It'll be the experience of a lifetime. Of course I may not see this for the rest of my life.

Re:Can't wait.

[__aaltlg1547]

Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot, suddenly is spotted in my rear view mirror fish-tailing and spinning towards me as the driver attempts to slow down and miss me. It'll be the experience of a lifetime. Of course I may not see this for the rest of my life.

If you do see it, it's likely to be for the rest of your life.

Re:Can't wait.

[timeOday]

Massively overpowered cars don't fishtail and spin anymore - at least they don't need to unless the owners choose to turn off the electronics. In the last 5 years, I've watched the motorcycle magazines shift from being very leery of fly-by-wire (or even fuel injection, 10 years ago), to dismissing aging models based mainly on the inferiority or lack of traction control, wheelie control, ABS, and dynamic throttle response. Now real-time suspension tuning is the big thing. Ferrari is obviously deep into F1 where the allowable degree of automation is a matter of constant debate and rule changes every year, so their street cars probably have more electronic control than their race cars do.

Re:Can't wait.

[0111 1110]

Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot

So you claim to be an idiot then?

Re:Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha yeah he probably should have worded that better.

Re:Can't wait.

[whoever57]

They don't? Or perhaps the driver had turned off the electronics.

Re:Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Covered in depth. Turned off the nannies, rand new car with mostt likely the brand new rubber on them with armor all from the dealer, and in the rain...

Re:Can't wait.

[CncRobot]

Next best thing

Re:Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money buys a lot of things, but one thing it doesn't seem to cover is common sense. Shame that cars this expensive don't come with a three year contract with a professional driver paid in advance. (If you can afford a Ferrari, then it shouldn't be a problem to pay $60K a year for somebody that actually knows what they're doing when it comes to driving.) Also such a program would help the car retain its value a lot better as it's less likely to get wrapped around a tree because some football player or celeb wants to show it to their friends after clubbing and being sky high and/or drunk off their ass while texting on a cellphone. (Those kind of people seem to make the new every other year or so, but you wont see me shedding any tears over them. Then again those overpaid Darwin Award winners are probably doing society a favor.)

Re:Can't wait.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Massively overpowered cars don't fishtail and spin anymore

That depends on how much cough syrup Justin Bieber and his pals have been chugging.

Many massively overpowered cars suffer from the mechanical fault of a loose nut behind the steering wheel, where the drivers have more money than driving skills.

Re:Can't wait.

[newcastlejon]

You think people buy Ferraris because they're in a hurry? The point is to drive it oneself. You know, for fun.

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

So you claim to be an idiot then?

You've heard that Porsche owners are compensating for something.

Perhaps driving a Ferrari on the freeway turns you into an idiot, just as owning a Porsche makes your dick fall off at the very moment that you finish up the paperwork.

(I would not want to be the person responsible for picking up all of the cast-off penises at the Porsche dealer, but if I were I'd not own anything better than a Chevy, just to be safe.)

Re:Can't wait.

[0111 1110]

I've never heard that, but I have heard that people who drive trucks: pickups, SUVs etc are compensating for the size of their equipment. People with small cars don't seem to compensating for anything.

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

Assuming that the steering wheel is (eventually) mechanically connected to the tie rods, and that the electronics cannot add unrequested throttle: Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

I dare say that this is do-able on any surface, even with the most front-heavy FWD car you can get your hands on.

It really has nothing at all to do with being massively-overpowered, and everything to do with the fact that they're still just cars that ride on 4 wheels. Neither fancy automatic braking, nor throttle reduction, nor magic transmissions, nor AWD, nor instantaneously self-adjusting suspensions will fix the two (related) scenarios that I describe above.

In other words: Put an idiot into a car that "can't spin," and he'll do it anyway, same as a decent driver who is putting effort into making it happen. This shouldn't be surprising (and really has nothing to do with the reluctance of the motorcycle press to accept technological change).

Weight transfer FTW.

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

I think folks with ridiculous and useless pickups (useless around here, anyway: this is flat country), with lift kits and silly-huge tires, and exhaust stacks run up through the bed suffer from a different sort of malady: Their equipment might be fine, but they're so obese that they haven't been able to see it for themselves in years.

Re:Can't wait.

[PopeRatzo]

That depends on how much cough syrup Justin Bieber

Don't you talk bad about Justin Bieber.

Re:Can't wait.

[HornWumpus]

'Small penis' has been the standard throwaway shot for as long as man has had words for 'small' and 'penis'.

It is indeed thrown around in relation to any expensive or large car being compensation. Expensive small cars definitely fall into that category.

IMHO all brand new cars fall into that category.

Re:Can't wait.

[jkflying]

Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

Nope, they route torque to the front wheels and it will understeer instead. Braking induced oversteer/spinouts is non-existent as well, because the moment the back starts sliding out the brakes are released to bring it back in. And all of this is happening hundreds of times a second, so that little patch of gravel/oil/dirt isn't going to cause an issue either. You have to try pretty hard if you want to spin out a car with full 4WD/ESP/ABS/ACRONYM.

Re:Can't wait.

[jkflying]

Not true, the Greeks saw having a small penis as a sign of virility.

Re:Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the parent couldn't think of anything good to say about the talentless, badly dressed, trumped-up little prick.

Re:Can't wait.

[deadweight]

I hit a wet exit ramp that also had a fair amount of oil spilled on it. My BMW DSC system stabilized the car at a seemingly impossible tail-out angle and it must have looked like I was the best full-opposite-lock drifter EVER to an outside observer. It was pretty wild feeling the brakes being applied selectively to hold the angle and feel the throttle control shift from me to the car. All I had to do is steer.

Re:Can't wait.

[drinkypoo]

Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

The car knows that the driver is flicking the wheel left, so it brakes the right-rear wheel to compensate. All vehicles sold in developed nations now must legally be equipped with ABS, traction control, and yaw control. Even some years ago it was said that with all the computers on you pretty much could not get the new Corvette to spin out. You could still drive it off a road if you went too fast, but that's something else.

Re:Can't wait.

[stdarg]

There's also a group of men who drive "plain" cars because they are absolutely terrified at being called out on having a small penis. They'd rather avoid the whole situation and not call attention to themselves.

Then there are the people who have normal dicks but are obsessed with penises. They think it's the only thing that counts, and that every other type of competition is actually a sham to avoid direct penis competition (which they think about all the time). Men compete to look better in whatever way they can, and whatever way will attract the mate they want.. whether intellectual competition, art/poetry/writing, salary, car, clothes/shoes, physique... it's all the same, but appeals to different types of girls. But this person sees a guy driving around in an awesome car that goes really fast and is fun to drive, and they immediately start thinking about that guy's penis. It's really weird. They see a guy dressing really well and carrying new shiny gadgets, symbols of a good job and financial success, and they think "Oh man, imagine the dick on that guy.. I can just picture it.. I could probably wrap my hand around it completely it's so thin hehe. Yeah I'm imagining it in my hand right now! What a loser that guy is."

Re:Can't wait.

[tehcyder]

I've never heard that, but I have heard that people who drive trucks: pickups, SUVs etc are compensating for the size of their equipment. People with small cars don't seem to compensating for anything.

BCSD: big car, small dick. Personally, I drive a Mini.

Old joke.

Re:Can't wait.

[tehcyder]

You've thought about this subject for far, far too long.

There are few things as dreary as a repressed homosexual.

Re:Can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should make sure youre accelerating fast enough to be going the speed limit buy the time youre off the onramp and on the goddamn freeway. If you choose to be an obstruction, don't blame the flow.

Re:Can't wait.

[RNLockwood]

I'm not sure that would make me feel better...

Re:Can't wait.

[DocSavage64109]

Tell that to the driver of the Ferrari F-458 whose video is on msn.com's home page today.

Re:Can't wait.

[DrVxD]

the most front-heavy FWD car you can get your hands on.

I ran a Saab 9000 for a while back in the late 90s, and that was about as front-heavy as a car can get (and, of course. FWD).
And yes, you could coax it into truly epic oversteer - although you'd really got to be trying.

Big old barge of a car it was - and loads of fun.

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

(somehow I rather expected you to respond to this...)

You're right (and I am surprised to learn) about the fact that cars must now include ESC, which (obviously) includes traction control and ABS.

That said, here's another old BMW story: My 1995 E36 has ASC+T, which is an early incarnation of modern ESC.

1. It might be fine with normal driving. The car doesn't go sideways at reasonable speeds, as long as one's foot is nailed to the accelerator -- but who nails their foot to the accelerator when not being pedantic about testing things when those things appear to be going awry? (The system can retard spark, apply brakes individually, and close a secondary throttle body -- but cannot ever add more air since the primary throttle is cable-operated.)

1.1. Remember, "reasonable speeds."

2. It stops working above about 100km/H (I imagine this limitation is improved/eliminated by now), and indeed I have gone unexpectedly (and otherwise uneventfully) sideways 'round a curving exit ramp near my house in cold weather with dry pavement when I was going rather faster than that...with the system on.

3. It's trivial to fool the system even at parking lot speeds on snow or ice with the Scandinavian flick, or obvious variations. The car predictably goes sideways, and all you can do to keep it under control is steer appropriately and/or plan ahead before executing the maneuver. This, even with new stock-size skinny Blizzaks on 15" wheels. I've turned the car more than completely around with the system enabled, using nothing more than throttle and steering inputs.

3.1. I've also unexpectedly lost the tail of the car with changing road camber, the original automatic tranny, and the system fully engaged: Turning left onto a street at a higher-than-advisable speed, crossing the crown of the road really pissed things off. (Countersteering was necessary; if the car were behaving totally neutrally, it would not have been; the radius would simply increase...and I'd have wiped out one or two parked cars.) (See my note about idiots, which I occasionally am myself.)

4. If it behaves this way in winter parking lots at normal speeds, it must also behave the same way in situations with more grip at higher speeds: Indeed, I haven't had much issue getting the tail out with the system fully on with dry pavement, though I do not have a place to safely test it more thoroughly at high-ish speeds. (The car is mighty grippy, in and of itself.)

5. I've since eviscerated the secondary throttle body because I felt it was always way too heavy-handed in its application, hence making it even easier to put the car sideways and while maintaining some aspects of other features that I do like (traction control, for one).

6. Therefore, I've got experience with the car in three different ways: Normal, completely off, and eviscerated. (I also have experience in the same exact car with both an automatic and a manual transmission for the first two cases.)

7. The Scandinavian flick isn't any different between these different modes of operation.

So, those are my observations. Here are my questions:

1. If the tail doesn't come around, what happens instead? If I pilot a car with the most advanced ESC system possible into a turn at a speed at which it is impossible to maintain road adhesion, what happens? Understeer? Oversteer? A combination of both, causing a lovely 4-wheel drift and increased radius? ("Nothing exuberant" is not an option: Momentum, mass, gravity, etc. -- something's got to give.)

2. If I deliberately piss the car off (Scandinavian Flick), what happens?

2.1. (Remember, the Flick is something that requires the vehicle to be approaching the limits of grip to begin with, else one just looks stupid and/or winds up leaving the edge of the road.)

3. Long, protracted exit ramp with a poorly-banked 270-degree turn. Far faster than advisable, car so-far behaving neutrally but near its physical limits. Lift the throttle. What happens ne

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

Aye - the Saab (any Saab, AFAIK) is designed for this.

You remind me of my own 90's car: I drove a base-model Chevy Beretta. Also FWD and extremely front-heavy, and with no rear sway-bar to help balance things: Its natural tendency was severe understeer.

It took years of practice, but I eventually learned how to force that car to behave normally, and even oversteer predictably with late braking and mostly by just paying attention to every little bit of feedback the car offered and resisting the temptation to fuck with the handbrake.

I went through a lot of front tires and brakes on that car while learning to fudge the dynamics of it and properly threshold brake at speed. The ABS was broken and disabled, and until I badly flat-spotted two sets of very new tires within a month, I thought I liked it that way because it was more visceral. (I fixed the ABS not long after that because it was cheaper to live with it, than without it.)

Smoking pads, nonexistent brake pedal from boiling brake fluid, caliper pins' lube turned to glue from heat, breaking steel belts in tires, AND triple-digit speeds on sleepy country roads? Check.

I learned the fuck out of that car. I'm surprised I lived through it, and that fire was never involved, but I did that sort of driving every day for years. (I only really wrecked once: Going backwards through a ditch into a field of corn stubble at 80MPH, all I broke was one tire (broke the bead seal) and one rear wheel bearing. I remember that the quiet sound of the radio was deafening after landing, I didn't stall the motor, and that the deputy who showed up helped me put the spare on and didn't bother charging me with anything.)

And that was great adolescent fun, but now I prefer my much heavier RWD car with 50/50 weight distribution and good ABS brakes. It is, incidentally, exactly the same model year as the Beretta was, but it is so much better at everything that I will never understand its limitations in the same way as that cheap Chevy as long as I constrain myself to public roads.

Whenever I commanded the Beretta to do the impossible, it taught me a lesson and I learned from it.

And whenever I command the BMW to do the same, it pretty much just does it. Lessons are few on the roads we've got around here, with that car: It behaves itself very well.

It is, therefore, much less fun...but also much faster, and much safer. I'd like to think that perhaps I am finally growing old and simply driving more cautiously, but: The Chevy was a bit less than $15k new in 1995 while the BMW was a bit less than $50k in that same year. And if anything my average speed 'round a turn increased significantly when I went from the Beretta to the 325i. It's a much better car, but it just isn't as much fun...

*shrug*

Re:Can't wait.

[adolf]

Yes, it can work remarkably well. I had my car do that on a fast left turn from one road to another after a short rain that left the road greasy: Once I crossed centerline, the crown of the road threw the back end out. The car fixed itself -- all I had to do was stay on the throttle and steer. The magic brakes, engine output reduction, and various sensors handled the rest.

It was awesome, especially so since I wasn't expecting it at the time. I just spun the wheel to opposite lock and then aimed torward progress.

But if you're in a cold climate, please try the Scandinavian flick sometime in an empty, safe, and familiar lot. My money says that with enough idiocy (or enough careful practice), the car won't be able to fix it for you. And that you'll eventually be able to skid the car at least 180 degrees, with all systems on, using nothing but steering and throttle input.

After that, without much creative thought, it should be obvious that these maneuvers/control inputs can happen at any time, given the unpredictable nature of the surrounding world and all of the other idiots/skilled drivers out there.

It's easy in my E36 BMW with ASC+T to put the thing into a ridiculously long drift, or force it to turn completely around, now that I've learned how. But previous to my careful experimentation, it seemed like magic intervention when it worked well, and terrifying when it couldn't and I expected it to.

Please do these parking lots maneuvers, if able, whether or not you'd like to discuss the point. If nothing else you'll learn more about how your car works in less-than-ideal situations, which is always a good thing, and that will help keep you and others alive longer, and your car and other cars out of the body shop. :)

[Note to all, and disclosure: Keeping ASC+T on and fully active has never made any real driving situation involving speed worse, in my experience, than not having such assistance. My point is not that it does not help, but instead that it cannot absolutely prevent an idiot or a skilled operator from making a car misbehave in terminal ways ("spin") as was previously alluded to. My point is not that the system is without merit; but just that there are limits, as there must be in any system governed by physics.

I've modified my car to keep some of the aspects of the system that I like and remove others that I don't like. I did this in a reversible fashion after fully exploring everything that ASC+T has to offer, and have no intention of returning the system to stock form because I like it better this way.

(And yes, I once got stuck in deep mud with ASC+T switched on and the car in stock form: It refused to budge, or even really attempt to budge, even with the throttle fully open. I hit the switch to turn it off, the rear wheels immediately sent up a pair of rooster tails, and I was on my way with two new ruts in my back yard to show for it. But even that's not real driving involving speed...)]

Cheers.

Re:Can't wait.

[deadweight]

The DSC system my car had is different I think. The E-46 series DSC combined ABS, Traction Control, and rate gyros to correct yaw. I think the E-36 only had the first two parts. It really worked quite well. If you turned it off for more fun the ABS part still stayed active. Just like you discovered, sometimes you need to turn it off for ice/snow/mud or the car just sits there. The one way to "trick" it was to downshift and let off the gas mid-corner. It had a hard time correcting for that right away and you could get the rear end out some. Also obviously the laws of physics still exist and you could wreck the car if you REALLY put some effort into it. My new car - a Mazda3 - has a similar system. It has one flaw - it doesn't seem to really get understeer that much. You can easily go wide off a corner understeering and it won't do much about it. One day I took a 90 degree corner onto an (empty) 3 lane road and held enough throttle to slide over to the far lane. The stability control kept the car lined up but did not chop my power. I do wonder about kids learning to drive. My mother got a turbo corvair for her 16th birthday and it must have made an impression on her. I got a LOT of "NEVER let of the gas in a turn and don't even THINK about the brakes" when I was learning to drive. Today it would be more like "the magic car will fix it, you don't need to know why it does what it does".

Re:Can't wait.

[drinkypoo]

That said, here's another old BMW story: My 1995 E36 has ASC+T, which is an early incarnation of modern ESC.

ESC is a lot better than it was in 1995, true story.

1.1. Remember, "reasonable speeds."

Remember, it's illegal for you to drive at unreasonable speeds.

2. If I deliberately piss the car off (Scandinavian Flick), what happens?

In your car, you probably die. In a modern car, it knows what you're doing before the road does, and does something about it.

(Please remember that the whole point I'm trying to counter went something like "modern overpowered widgets don't spin because of X", which I maintain is a blanket statement that is, and will remain, both grounded in bullshit and bullshit in and of itself.)

Modern overpowered widgets don't spin because the driver pushes on the accelerator pedal, unless he has all the mumbo-jumbo disabled, at which point it's again his problem.

Re:my first time

[aliquis]

True story: I was eating chocolate ice-cream while reading this story.

Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[viperidaenz]

At 14L/100km... and can't run in electric-only mode because they don't want it to, even though it technically could and the prototypes did.
It's not really a hybrid. It's a super-car with KERS.
Also, this was reported last week.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[mister2au]

Its a grey area, but I'd call it a hybrid due to:

The 60 kilogram battery pack in the cabin floor is charged during braking and also when the gas engine is producing more torque than needed to move the car, in which case that torque is converted to energy and stored.

It is not just KERS and it is electrical not mechanical ... IMHO, a hybrid but barely so ... although i understand other peoples definitions given it cant run electric only

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[mjwx]

At 14L/100km

For a 6.2 Litre engine, that is not thirsty.

We're going to see a few more of these soon, Honda are releasing a hybrid NSX and Toyota are releasing a hybrid Supra. Its kind of sad to see these venerable sports cars being turned into hybrids.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[aliquis]

Just skip the batteries and do a gasoline engine powering a generator which run water hydrolysis which combust hydrogen gas and oxygen which run a generator which run an electric motor and you've got yourself a gasoline-water/hydrogen and oxygen-hybrid!! With really poor performance per gallon values. AWESOME! (Feel free to throw in a pump, a dam, a boiler, a condensator, a water fall and a turbine to for good measure)

In this case however it's likely less about consumption and more about torque or possibly a combination of the two.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you have never driven or ridden in a properly built electric car then. The acceleration blows the ICE cars away. Sports cars will be turned more and more into electric cars and be amazing. It is tough giving up the roar of the ICE though. It's so much a part of the mystique and drama associated with the muscle car.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[edremy]

Why? Seems to me to be a good idea- electric motors have gobs of torque even at standstill (Hence the use in locomotives) Why not put a second engine in that performs best where the V12 is at its worst? So long as you can keep the weight of the system down enough it should be a big win.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[mjwx]

Why? Seems to me to be a good idea- electric motors have gobs of torque even at standstill (Hence the use in locomotives) Why not put a second engine in that performs best where the V12 is at its worst? So long as you can keep the weight of the system down enough it should be a big win.

Because sports cars are meant to be light and have good handling. Sports cars typically have low torque because of their low weight.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[mjwx]

The acceleration blows the ICE cars away

Then you haven't driven any sports cars then.

A supercharged/turbocharged (such as a TSI) will accelerate a lot faster. Hell, even naturally aspirated engines will hold their own.

Not to mention the cost of the increased weight on handling. But you compared muscle cars to sports cars, there's a world of difference between the two. Muscle cars are designed to go fast in a straight line but you can forget about corners, sports cars are designed for speed and handling.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[jkflying]

Accelerate faster? Are you on crack? You get instant torque from 0 RPM. No power band. No time lost on shifting gears. No vibration, no reciprocating components about to fail at any moment.
Don't tell me electric cars have less torque:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_drag_racing#Cars.2C_1.2F4_mile

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[drinkypoo]

Ferrari hasn't built a sports car in years. They only build supercars and hypercars now. You have to go back in time to get a sports car out of them. The F40 was the last car which at least straddled the line, it was really stripped down for pure sports.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[viperidaenz]

FIA allows cars to use electrical or mechanical KERS

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[viperidaenz]

Hang on, your posting this on a story about a 'hybrid' super car, the fastest to 200mph ever built, saying ICE only cars are faster? It's also lighter than your average sedan at a little over 1200kg. Its about 100kg heavier than the old F40 from the mid 80's, yet is full of air bags, ABS, traction control and other safety equipment. It probably even has a radio, perhaps air conditioning.

Re:Worlds most thirsty hybrid

[viperidaenz]

Exactly. Here's what I said:

It's not really a hybrid. It's a super-car with KERS

"Aimed at our collectors.."

[Anonymous Coward]

..nuff said.

1000 hp of Postage Stamp, disappearing under a dustsheet in some collectors exclusive lockup garage near you soon.

Re:"Aimed at our collectors.."

[Anonymous Coward]

The benefit for Ferrari here is they don't need it to perform exceptionally well or have it be reliable with constant use.

As long as it doesn't catch on fire on the way to, or back from, the local café....

Re:"Aimed at our collectors.."

[newcastlejon]

Collectors

Who are they kidding? This might as well be a one-off for Jay Leno.

Re:"Aimed at our collectors.."

[guacamole]

I am sure we'll see a few pictures of these crashed by spoiled sons of Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes.

Re:"Aimed at our collectors.."

[HornWumpus]

I'm going to be checking http://www.wreckedexotics.com/ weekly.

Re:"Aimed at our collectors.."

[DrVxD]

Jay Leno's going to be disappointed if it's a one-off - I expect Nick Mason to be at the head of the queue

Must wear Leisure Suit

[Anonymous Coward]

The Laferrari? Really?

Looks meh to me

[PeDRoRist]

Even the name sounds cheesy. The tech behind all this is probably nothing to scoff at, but the looks are just not what I used to like about Ferrari. I'll have a 250 GTO over this anyday (yeah that's more than 10 times the price, I know)

Re:Looks meh to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the name sounds cheesy.

Sure, unless you're Italian.

I wonder what kind of car maker thinks in Italian and has a customer base that doesn't actually give a crap about the name anyway.

For Londoners

[Anonymous Coward]

It will exempt from road tax and congestion charging :)

Re:For Londoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the size and propensity of attachment of a traffic ticket for that thing, assuming the 0.00001% status of the owner.

Corrections for your title

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't the world's fastest hybrid, it isn't even verified if it is the world's fastest production (The McLaren P1 will likely claim that title) and hybrid race cars have existed since 2003 with Courage Competitions and Pescarolo's various hybrid LMP2 and LMP1 race cars. Also KERS has been in Formula One cars for quite a while. The McLaren P1 may be more expensive as well.

Gas mileage

[DaveAtFraud]

Odd that neither linked story tells us what kind of gas mileage to expect. I'd hate to buy one of these and then find out I can't afford to drive it.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Gas mileage

[newcastlejon]

When it comes to the cost of fuelling a Ferrari, if you have to ask you can't afford it.

Re:Gas mileage

[Ezubaric]

When I first heard about this, I googled a news report that said 16mpg (cannot remember if Yank or British mpg). I cannot be arsed to find the link now, though.

Re:Gas mileage

[Anonymous Coward]

If money is any concern you may also want to ask how much it will cost to fix a bumper when a shopping cart dings it in the parking lot.

As a guess, probably more than both my cars combined.

Re:Gas mileage

[Flere Imsaho]

Just a guess from looking at the interior shots, but this is a track-day car and isn't for daily commutes. It has that spartan low-weight-is-everything look to it. I doubt gas mileage will be of concern to owners.

Re:Gas mileage

[adolf]

16MPG? That sounds fairly excellent for such a beastly machine that can actually generate downforce (which can never happen for free).

Even cooling this thing must be a drag (literally), and the big tires themselves eat huge amounts of energy just in overcoming rolling resistance. Everything about the car (including the hybrid aspect, which seems more about performance than economy) seems to indicate that it should be very, very thirsty.

For a totally unfair comparison: My old straight-6 BMW averages about 20MPG with somewhat-spirited mixed driving, and gets about 26 on the highway (it used to be a bit better on the highway, but the diff gearing is currently "wrong" due to other changes). It's got a reasonable drag coefficient, doesn't generate meaningful downforce, cooling it is fairly easy since there is nowhere near as much waste heat, the tires are not so big nor nearly so sticky, and it has far less than half as many functional moving parts (and around 1/5th the power of the Ferrari).

At 16MPG, if that is indeed the number, it sounds like they've done a wonderful job with efficiency: It is certainly not a concept that was cast to the wind when they designed it.

Re:Gas mileage

[DaveAtFraud]

Ah, so I guess getting some snow tires is probably out of the question. Too bad. We just got about 8 inches of snow on Saturday.

Maybe I could keep for summer driving. I wonder if there is an option for a trailer hitch....

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Gas mileage

[DFurno2003]

mod this +6 funny plz k thx bai

Re:Gas mileage

[Discopete]

If you can afford 1 of the 499 that they are planning on producing, I'm pretty sure you don't give a rats behind what the gas mileage is.

Re:Gas mileage

[smi.james.th]

Ferrari's hypercars are super exclusive. If you were buying one of the 499 that they're making, they would have already contacted you to let you know ;)

Incidentally, IIRC, this isn't like a regular hybrid in that you can let it run on the electric motor alone, that would turn the engine off which would defeat the point of a V12 Ferrari. It's basically just an upgraded F1-KERS system. I guess the engine might turn off in stop-start traffic, but other than that, no.

Re:Gas mileage

[M. Baranczak]

Do you happen to know how hard it is to mount a cargo rack on the roof? Some of the newer cars don't allow you to just use a generic rack, you have to buy a special one from the factory for like 400 bucks. If the Ferrari is like that, I'm definitely not getting it.

Re:Gas mileage

[coxymla]

Lifetime ownership costs of cars like this are approximately $1/km. Might have been $1/mile, it was a while since I read it.
Fuel cost is negligible compared to that.

Re:Gas mileage

[guruevi]

If you can afford this car, you can probably afford someone to go to the store for you in their own Volvo 200

Re:Gas mileage

[maxpo452]

I would be guessing that if you afford to buy this car you automatically afford to drive it. Cheers

Re:Gas mileage

[Shinobi]

Joke about roof boxes, but here's an image of a Lamborghini with one:

http://www.baikbike.com/wp-content/uploads/lightning.jpg

Re:Gas mileage

[gl4ss]

your gas costs would be like one sixth of the insurance...

Re:Gas mileage

[MyGirlFriendsBroken]

Erm, thats a Koenigsegg Agera

Re:Gas mileage

[DrVxD]

I guess the engine might turn off in stop-start traffic, but other than that, no.

Unlikely - this is a hybridisation for extra performance, not fuel economy.

Re:Gas mileage

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is a concern, then you can't afford to own one

Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[chuckugly]

Maybe Jeremy won't hate this one. Then again, it's not likely to be all that economical so not gonna get into the diamond lane without a second person.

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[aliquis]

I wouldn't be so sure about it.

Also, Tesla Roadster:
http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-reviews-tesla-roadster_206233.htm

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not Jeremy Clarkson but... The Tesla Roadster isn't a hybrid, or comparable in any way really to a 1000hp track day Ferrari.

They both have four wheels I guess.

(I am quite interested in the Model S on the other hand.)

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you mix economical with high performance ferrari? It's hybrid because of higher torque, not becuse of economy ffs.

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally car companies made a hybrid worth loving.

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

(I am quite interested in the Model S on the other hand.)

I'm more interested in the Ferrari than the Model S. The technology behind the Ferrari will have a greater change of winning Le Mans than the Tesla.

Re:Finally Top Gear can love a Hybrid

[aliquis]

It's not a gasoline car though.

And not running on gasoline is the reason they hate all other cars.

Brenda Lee coming on strong

[Mister Liberty]

The road has got me hypnotized. ...
(one more radar lover gone).

Re:Brenda Lee coming on strong

[Anonymous Coward]

its Brenda Lee's "Coming on String" - the song on the radio

combined rating

[Osgeld]

so um for them to be combined they have to work in tandem right?

for a computer analogy (since the article is on cars) its like saying my 2GHZ server on the other side of the house combined with my 4Ghz quad core means I have a 6Ghz computer, even though my server is working its ass off on demand, while my quad core sits there with a thumb up its ass showing a copy dialog box

Re:combined rating

[O('_')O_Bush]

There are three motors, one driving the electronics (like an alternator) and two putting power to the wheels. The wheels don't care how they get powered, and neither does the rolling road used to measure HP/BHP (derived).

And no, your analogy isn't quite right. HP is a measure of power, just like FLOPs ( not GHZ). It would be equivalent to saying you have a 1 TFLOP server, and a 2 TFLOP server, and given a task that has a combined output for both (like the rear wheels) have 3TFLOP of computing power.

Re:combined rating

[Osgeld]

wrong dude, that electric motor is not assisting 100% of the time, neither is the gas motor

its in stages

so you get X hp from the electric, and Y from the gas

if they were both on at the same time THEN you would get a combined HP, but they are not, its marketing bullshit, something I would think an ultra premium brand is above as it treats their customers as utterly stupid

Re:combined rating

[jkflying]

You can get them both working together in bursts, just not continuously.

Re:combined rating

[gl4ss]

well yeah, except that you can actually use the motors in parallel to make the car accelerate faster to solving a straight line problem that can't be parallelized. though it might leave you paralyzed faster.

Re:combined rating

[gl4ss]

kers is all about saving energy from braking to be emptied when you need fast acceleration...

Re:combined rating

[drinkypoo]

Both motors will open wide if traction permits. This will almost never happen. That doesn't mean it won't happen. The customers of that ultrapremium brand can afford to pay someone to understand the car for them.

never

[Anonymous Coward]

Never have I seen, on this site, so many people reading TFA.

Re:never

[HornWumpus]

They should all be banned by IP address. Their accounts deleted.

Hmmm...

[olip85]

So a 800hp gas engine coupled with a 163hp electric motor is a hybrid. I'll put a battery and a small fan on my two-stroke lawnmower for when it's hot and I'll have a hybrid too.

Re:Hmmm...

[DrVxD]

Only if you charge the battery from the two-stroke (or the brakes)

gaming the rules....

[smash]

Ferrari now get to slap a green "hybrid vehicle" sticker on la Ferrari, even though it likely gets about 10 mpg. It's not REALLY in the spirit of it, is it.

Re:gaming the rules....

[synapse7]

Is there any mention of being green? I figured the sole purpose was for the extra 163hp, and because they can.

Re:gaming the rules....

[Nelson]

They can. They have to in F1.

This, the P1 and the new Porsche 918 use electrics because of the insane torque... They are upfront about it, a Ferrari is about performance, not green.

Re:gaming the rules....

[locopuyo]

idk, 10 mpg is a pretty big improvement over 8 mpg.

Can I drive this ...

[PPH]

... in the carpool lane? On account of it being a hybrid vehicle.

Re:Can I drive this ...

[timeOday]

Nope, not in California anyways. There is no way the Ferrari would come even close to meeting the tailpipe emissions requirement with that engine. "Hybrid" is not an automatic qualification.

Re:Can I drive this ...

[PPH]

But then nobody orders a Ferrari without the hot blond passenger option. So the diamond lane will still be OK.

Re:Can I drive this ...

[DrVxD]

Dunno about your carpool lane - but you'll certainly be able to drive it in the London congestion zone without paying congestion charge.

That whooshing sound...

[WallaceAndGromit]

...was not a hybrid Ferrari going past.

Re:That whooshing sound...

[DaveAtFraud]

It looks like /. needs a sacasm tag. Check out the other responses. Sad.

Cheers,
Dave

Finally a car that can sprint like a cheetah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheetah also == "0 - 60 mph in under three seconds"

I have no doubt

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it disappointing or exciting, the ease of which some behaviors can be predicted?

Obligatory Car analogy

[dutchwhizzman]

See this as using both your CPU and your GPU working at brute force cracking a hashed password. Your CPU is used for generic functions like powering the steering and air con, as well as using the surplus power to do some driving the wheels. The real powerhouse is your GPU with 12 parallel cylinders optimized for driving the wheels.

Not Green

[dutchwhizzman]

I bet you can't order it in any color even closely resembling green.

The looks

[Quila]

Why is it that people making hybrids usually seem to need to make them look stupid?

Re:How the fuck is this "News for nerds"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive us Father for we have sinned.

We look forward to you instructing us in the future about what is really appropriate for us to view.

Re:costs of cars like this are approximately $1/km

[DocSavage64109]

Really? I might get one myself and only drive it 1,000 km per year.

Summary tells everything except what's important

[Vrtigo1]

I had to Google to find out that it only gets 16-17 MPG. At that stage I'd have to ask "what's the point"? At any rate, MPG is probably pretty low on the priority list of someone seeking to buy a Ferrari.

so um, great

[RivenAleem]

I can't wait to pick up Hitch HY-KERS in this.

Well, clearly...

[WallaceAndGromit]

...you should have stated it in terms of a car analogy! Your mistake.