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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."
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.
Nate
Gas - It's not a liquid.
... or solid =P (or plasma and possibly others. The idea was mostly to separate it from gasoline.)
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
..nuff said.
1000 hp of Postage Stamp, disappearing under a dustsheet in some collectors exclusive lockup garage near you soon.
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?
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
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)
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
It will exempt from road tax and congestion charging :)
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.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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.
The road has got me hypnotized. ...
(one more radar lover gone).
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The thing is can you plug it in and use it for short distances on just electric?
No, now go back and RTFA.
Tomorrow is another day...
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
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.
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)
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.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.
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.
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Have gnu, will travel.
...was not a hybrid Ferrari going past.
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
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.
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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.
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.
[...] 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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
What about Bose-Einstein condensates?
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.
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*
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.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The BMW isn't really comparable - it's a performance car. A real comparison would be the other 3-series models, which run 28+.
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.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
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.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
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.
They should all be banned by IP address. Their accounts deleted.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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??
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.
you're a retard. gas = gasoline, pedant.
It doesn't use batteries, it uses a kinetic (ie. flywheel) system of energy storage.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
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.
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
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I bet you can't order it in any color even closely resembling green.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
And, by the way, other Touareg owners have managed to achieve as much as 45MPG on long distance trips.
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).
No sig today...
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
God, I love watching some pretentious anonymous get make aspirations to entertainment value
????
*bag of wine gums*
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
That's slightly ambiguous, but I agree with what you most likely intended: Americans are indeed fucking stupid.
http://www.metalnerd.com/cat09.htm
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
Bacon dipped in maple syrup.
I am John Hurt.
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson? Is that you?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Otherwise, to this non-American, you just look like a child playing with a Tonka toy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
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.
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
Why is it that people making hybrids usually seem to need to make them look stupid?
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?
hypermileage is great, people do it in the prius too and get 70+. talking about gov't definitions here, and comparing apples to apples.
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".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Additionally, the term "hp" as used in the story refers to "horsepower", not "hit points".
Hit points are capitalized as "HP" not "hp"
You must be a big fan of TV news programs then.
FIA allows cars to use electrical or mechanical KERS
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.
Exactly. Here's what I said:
It's not really a hybrid. It's a super-car with KERS
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.
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.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Really? I might get one myself and only drive it 1,000 km per year.
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.
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.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Same or better MPG as a Prius,
... and no range anxiety to deal with.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
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.
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
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.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I can't wait to pick up Hitch HY-KERS in this.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
...you should have stated it in terms of a car analogy! Your mistake.
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
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..
My first thought was "Awesome! Ferrari developed a car with a gas turbine engine!" Imagine my disappointment when I realised they meant "gasoline"...
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.