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America's Cars Are Suddenly Getting Faster and More Efficient (bloomberg.com)
Kyle Stock and David Ingold, writing for Bloomberg: Sometime in the next couple of months, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon and its 808 horsepower will show up in dealership windows like some kind of tiny, red, tire-melting factory. Yes, 808 horsepower. There's no typo. Last year, U.S. drivers on the hunt for more than 600 horsepower had 18 models to choose from, including a Cadillac sedan that looks more swanky than angry. Meanwhile, even boring commuter sedans are posting power specifications that would have been unheard of during the Ford Administration. The horses in the auto industry are running free. We crunched four decades of data from the Environmental Protection Agency's emission tests and arrived at a simple conclusion: All of the cars these days are fast and furious -- even the trucks. If a 1976 driver were to somehow get his hands on a car from 2017, he'd be at grave risk of whiplash. Since those days, horsepower in the U.S. has almost doubled, with the median model climbing from 145 to 283 stallions. Not surprisingly, the entire U.S. fleet grew more game for a drag-race: The median time it took for a vehicle to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour was halved, from almost 14 seconds to seven.
Who would have thought??
But because car, it'll annoy all the usual cynics on /. and Arstechnica.
The ultimate result of letting people make their own choices. Government control of choices is one way to counteract this -- i.e. make it illegal to make "bad" choices. Then the question is who gets to decide which choices are "bad" -- which is generally the government -- which is chosen by the people who would generally like to make there own choices...
As long as we have a *functioning* democracy this really isn't a major issue. If something is deemed to be in the public good, then disallowing people to make choices that adversely impacts the public good is perfectly reasonable (e.g. disallowing smoking in buildings, since those of us who don't smoke don't need to be getting lung cancer or emphysema from those who do). If we don't like the regulations, we can replace those who passed them with someone else. Conversely, if we don't like the absence of regulation, we can elect someone who will impose some (common?) sense.
This all presupposes we have a functioning democracy, and not the plutocracy we've had the past 20 or 30 years, nor the kleptocracy we have now, but the point remains: much of the regulation we have is good, some is not, and some is missing, and these things are correctly addressed by applying pressure to our elected officials accordingly, and not adhering to blind-faith dogmas of "regulation is bad, government is evil" or "regulation is good, government is good" idealogies, because either can be true depending on circumstances, details, and context.
When speaking of sedans, I would actually argue they weigh less (heck, even the latest F150 was built out of aluminum, and weighs significantly less then F150's of yore) and their engine displacements are significantly smaller then cars from the 60's/70's. Heck, a 2.0 liter engine (fairly common nowadays) is easily able to pump out 250HP/250 lb-ft of torque, even if that HP measurement takes into account all of the additional loads/devices on the engine -- which equates to a 122 cubic inch engine. Can you imagine a American muscle car from the late 60's bragging about it's 122 cubic inch engine.
We do.
A 4-cyl turbo engine today easily makes more HP than a carb V8 of the 70s. AND it does so while getting much higher MPG.
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The Challenger is a lot of things, but unless you're comparing it to an aircraft carrier I don't think "tiny" is a good adjective for it. Part of why it needs an 808 HP engine is because it weighs ~400 pounds more than the Ford Mustang that it competes against in the same class.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Would agree in general, but the struggle is that a modern car that can accelerate more quickly then older cars are prevalent across the spectrum -- i.e. technology has made smaller cars/smaller engines much more performant. In addition, it is much harder to make the argument that a car next to you capable of accelerating faster then a typical car from the 70's is causing you direct harm, unlike second hand smoke.
Fortunately, turbo tech has improved as well. Modern designs have surprisingly little lag. The Ford EcoBoost designs are especially good.
Very bad choice using 1976 as the comparison date. For a better clue tou need to go back before 1971.
1976 was at the end of a notorious low-point in power thanks to the US auto manufacturers responding to new emissions regulations and the 1973 oil crisis:
Example of just Corvettes:
1969: least powerful (base): 300HP Most powerful (LS7) 460HP
1975: least powerful (base): 165Hp Most powerful (L82) 205HP
What USA do you live in? Between hopped up pickup trucks and luxury SUVs, the "cars" on the road around here are bigger than ever. And how many people do these private buses carry? Usually one.
808 hp in a country with 70-75-80(-85) mph speed limits,
What will happen with american built high power cars when - perhaps even by committing a crime - being pushed to the max speed? (breaking apart?)
Because its no such big deal to put much power into a car, the problem of aerodynamic lifting forces come into play interacting with shock absorbers.
The space between the street and your cars under-floor at high speed can make out the difference between driving and flying,
because more distance to the road = more air being pushed under the car = lifting your car off the ground.
So a bump on the road can send you flying, and I don't think american highways are designed for speed like the german "Autobahn".
Just saying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Depends what you consider "similar class"
Tesla claims they compete with Mercedes S class, BMW 7 series, etc. In those classes the Tesla is about the same price, so you can't buy "a lifetime supply of gas" with the difference as there really isn't a difference.
Now if you decide to compare the Model S to a Civic or something, sure, you'll always come out cheaper with the Civic, but it's not really a good comparison.
That said, Tesla's comparison isn't right either, but honestly, there simply ISN'T a comparison for the Model S, it's got worse interior quality than a $30,000 Kia, but it has more advanced driver assistance tech than a $100,000 luxury car. It also has the acceleration of a $1,000,000 supercar, and the cargo capacity of a large SUV, which obviously comes with worse handling than the supercar, and the cargo layout is far from optimized. It's actually really hard to place in a "class" at all. It really boils down to what you want in a car, it may be the best thing you've ever found, or a huge disappointment.