What a crap name for a car.
Why would the pick a name already associated with another (lamer) transport product?
Just more evidence for my ongoing conspiracy theory that car companies actually don't want people to buy electric or hybrid vehicles. They have to be seen to be making an effort, but actually they prefer to just keep making/selling the same old internal combustion cars.
They also seemingly make all hybrids and electrics unnecessarily ugly, expensive and with reduced performance from what they should be easily able to achieve.
Um... Porsche (a few models are offered hybrid now), Fisker (Karma), Honda (the CR-Z is actually a reasonably sporty looking and affordable piece), and Tesla (S and formerly the Roadster) all make fairly good looking electric/hybrids. As to performance, since efficiency is king in most hybrid implementations, performance will often get reduced. Until batteries get the energy density that's at least somewhat parity with petrol/diesel, all battery powered vehicles are going to be a bummer when you run the pack out. Since Hybrids have to have the worst parts of both petrol/diesel and battery powered cars... well, there's not much to be done there outside of more research.
Pardon me as I may be feeding a troll, but this kind of stuff annoys me.
As someone who used to commute via bicycle and motorcycle, I understand your vitriol against cage drivers.
As someone who commutes by cage now (partially because of bad cage drivers), I'll say "whenever bad cyclists quit flaunting the rules and antagonizing pedestrians and cage drivers, complaints about bad cage drivers will be more valid.".
Complaining about bad drivers and claiming the sainthood of the two wheeled set, particularly when bad cyclists just as annoying to pedestrians and cage drivers for much the same reasons you're annoyed by bad cage drivers, is just uncalled for.
An example: Is lane splitting legal where you're at? Not here, yet it happens all the time. Seen motos in the bicycle lane here too, another no-no.
How many times do pedestrians get buzzed by cyclists where I'm at? Often enough that I sometimes rant about it.
There are plenty of bad examples on both sides. The only reason that cyclists complain is a sheer statistical thing: There's significantly more cages on the roads than there are two wheelers, thus the likelihood of finding a bad driver goes up accordingly. Granted, the two wheel op goes home in a box of some sort (ambulance or casket) when someone screws up, but that's the risk you take.
Instead of wishing for less cages on the road, or wishing more cage drivers DEAD, why not try and educate those around you a little more? Maybe, just maybe, you'll make a difference, that ulcer in your gut will go away, and you'll be happier when you do enjoy your two wheeler of choice.
Then any restraint of those human rights would need a constitutionally and legal valid reason.
Your point is valid, but the government will never give a damn about breaking laws unless there's somebody to enforce those laws.
Constitutionally, that's Congress, which means nobody. Maybe a few representatives not in POTUS' party might mention something, but POTUS is more likely to be impeached for hiding an affair than for starting unprovoked wars or suspending habeas corpus.
The Constitution is a curious historical artifact that no longer has any practical meaning.
This is part of the reason for the 2nd amendment. The framers knew that at some point the governance may need a solid kick in the pants to remember where they belong.
To say that the Constitution is "a curious historical artifact that no longer has any practical meaning" is a matter of opinion. There are many that hope to return the governance to something that resembles what was lined out by that very document. The current administration has no interest, and there are many in the legislative branch that seem to not care either, but there is a swell of support for this.
As someone who uses Tomato on a pair WRT54GLs (mesh network in the home for lan parties), I can saw without reservation that I feel that it would hit 95-99% of what most people want out of their home network. The hardware is still good if a bit dated and the Tomato firmware blends all the control into a very nice GUI. Shell access for power users as well.
Assuming fail-safes are in place for malfunctioning sensors. As cheap as some things are made these days, I find the promise of sufficient redundancy highly suspect.
The second sentence after the one you quoted: "In order to improve performance, the internal combustion engine may at times be engaged mechanically to assist both electric motors to propel the Volt." Just like the Prius.
With your last sentence you have expressed a large part of the problem: Standardization. The manufacturers can't agree on a PLUG for recharging (though I have read that several came to some sort of agreement on one, but it didn't include all manufacturers) currently, much less an entire battery configuration. Plus a "standard battery" that can currently be produced that's big enough to deal with distances longer than city driving will be quite large, limiting your design options.
It is a damn shame that the volt didn't live up to its marketing. It's GM's version of a Prius, not a "series hybrid" where the gas motor is completely disconnected from the drivetrain.
I suspect this is feeding a troll, but I also suspect more than this one actually shares this view.
Believe it or not, the motorheads that actually look into this stuff WANT electric cars. Having full torque from rev one all the way up to the maximum potential of the engine would be a panacea. Neck snapping acceleration could be the NORM, not the exception. The simplification that the electric drivetrain would bring would also be wonderful. Assuming the packaging of the power plant is small enough, or can be flexibly packaged, you put the thing anywhere you want and put electric motors at the diff or on the wheels. You don't have to worry about where to store a cubic meter of engine/transmission in one place. The properly designed electric car brings HUGE design advantages. You can make truly beautiful and/or functional things with much less concern about "how can I shoehorn enough engine in here?".
The current problem with the electric car is energy storage. Batteries suck compared to petrol/diesel. Gas/go doesn't happen with batteries. Range is problematic, and even if you did get 300 miles out of a single charge, it's still 2-4 hours (in an ideal world, even) to do it again. Weight is problematic.
And finally, The US doesn't have the corner on petrol powered vehicles. Last time I looked, most of the most desirable cars came from Germany (Mercedes, BMW, Bugatti, Audi), England (Aston Martin, Rolls Royce), and Italy (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini). I don't recall ANY of them making electric cars either. As a matter of fact, the only "mass production" electric cars that I'm aware of have come from US companies: GM (EV1) and Tesla (Roadster). I could be wrong on the latter, tho.
But, yaknow... if all you want to prove is how witty you can (not) be by taking shots at people who love cars and happen to be from a certain country, that's fine too.
The robot soldier is actively being worked on as we speak. It's kind of skechy tho, because there's analysis, intuition, and logical leaps that humans can make that machines can't do well yet. Once the hardware for the robot soldier is worked out (possibly within our lifetime, if the current pace of development continues), I suspect we'll see remote control (like the unmanned drones) while some really smart people work out the software for IFF and the like.
I suspect the poster is tacitly admitting that their analytical skills may not be up to the task of taking apart an entire nation's economic structure for analysis. I'm kind of on their side on this one: This is not an intractable problem, but it's far from trivial for someone to armchair.
I've seen the ratings suggest such things. Not often, mind you, but a few times. Lock-up torque converters have made the auto as efficient at highway/motorway speed as manuals. Perhaps design has been evolved to lock up the TC between shifts now too (in the past, the TC lockup would only happen in high gear.), which would also contribute to the efficiency in town. Someone closer to the industry would have to speak to that idea, tho.
CVTs definitely appear to have an advantage, seeing as how it can keep the engine in it's torque band all through the acceleration process.
I am curious as to the weight difference between the options: CVT, Regular automatic, dual clutch, and regular manual. I haven't seen any data about that. My gut tells me that there's a weight advantage with the regular manual as it doesn't have near as much in the guts, but the others could be built lighter because the shifts would be predictable as they are controlled by hardware instead of direct user input. As with all things efficiency related: less weight means less work and less power required to do what is requested.
Slashdot Mirror
What a crap name for a car. Why would the pick a name already associated with another (lamer) transport product?
Just more evidence for my ongoing conspiracy theory that car companies actually don't want people to buy electric or hybrid vehicles. They have to be seen to be making an effort, but actually they prefer to just keep making/selling the same old internal combustion cars.
They also seemingly make all hybrids and electrics unnecessarily ugly, expensive and with reduced performance from what they should be easily able to achieve.
Um... Porsche (a few models are offered hybrid now), Fisker (Karma), Honda (the CR-Z is actually a reasonably sporty looking and affordable piece), and Tesla (S and formerly the Roadster) all make fairly good looking electric/hybrids. As to performance, since efficiency is king in most hybrid implementations, performance will often get reduced. Until batteries get the energy density that's at least somewhat parity with petrol/diesel, all battery powered vehicles are going to be a bummer when you run the pack out. Since Hybrids have to have the worst parts of both petrol/diesel and battery powered cars... well, there's not much to be done there outside of more research.
Stig for president!
Funniest comment in thread.
The makerbot website is misbehaving currently, but IIRC it's something like .25mm
Pardon me as I may be feeding a troll, but this kind of stuff annoys me.
As someone who used to commute via bicycle and motorcycle, I understand your vitriol against cage drivers.
As someone who commutes by cage now (partially because of bad cage drivers), I'll say "whenever bad cyclists quit flaunting the rules and antagonizing pedestrians and cage drivers, complaints about bad cage drivers will be more valid.".
Complaining about bad drivers and claiming the sainthood of the two wheeled set, particularly when bad cyclists just as annoying to pedestrians and cage drivers for much the same reasons you're annoyed by bad cage drivers, is just uncalled for.
An example: Is lane splitting legal where you're at? Not here, yet it happens all the time. Seen motos in the bicycle lane here too, another no-no.
How many times do pedestrians get buzzed by cyclists where I'm at? Often enough that I sometimes rant about it.
There are plenty of bad examples on both sides. The only reason that cyclists complain is a sheer statistical thing: There's significantly more cages on the roads than there are two wheelers, thus the likelihood of finding a bad driver goes up accordingly. Granted, the two wheel op goes home in a box of some sort (ambulance or casket) when someone screws up, but that's the risk you take.
Instead of wishing for less cages on the road, or wishing more cage drivers DEAD, why not try and educate those around you a little more? Maybe, just maybe, you'll make a difference, that ulcer in your gut will go away, and you'll be happier when you do enjoy your two wheeler of choice.
Unrelated, but damn that kid can bomb.
Then any restraint of those human rights would need a constitutionally and legal valid reason.
Your point is valid, but the government will never give a damn about breaking laws unless there's somebody to enforce those laws.
Constitutionally, that's Congress, which means nobody. Maybe a few representatives not in POTUS' party might mention something, but POTUS is more likely to be impeached for hiding an affair than for starting unprovoked wars or suspending habeas corpus.
The Constitution is a curious historical artifact that no longer has any practical meaning.
This is part of the reason for the 2nd amendment. The framers knew that at some point the governance may need a solid kick in the pants to remember where they belong.
To say that the Constitution is "a curious historical artifact that no longer has any practical meaning" is a matter of opinion. There are many that hope to return the governance to something that resembles what was lined out by that very document. The current administration has no interest, and there are many in the legislative branch that seem to not care either, but there is a swell of support for this.
Until Apple deems your WunderApp against their TOS.
There's a pork joke in here somewhere...
As someone who uses Tomato on a pair WRT54GLs (mesh network in the home for lan parties), I can saw without reservation that I feel that it would hit 95-99% of what most people want out of their home network. The hardware is still good if a bit dated and the Tomato firmware blends all the control into a very nice GUI. Shell access for power users as well.
I think the idea is that composted in this manner it doesn't STAY in the landfill taking up volume.
Assuming fail-safes are in place for malfunctioning sensors. As cheap as some things are made these days, I find the promise of sufficient redundancy highly suspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn#Back_burning
The second sentence after the one you quoted: "In order to improve performance, the internal combustion engine may at times be engaged mechanically to assist both electric motors to propel the Volt." Just like the Prius.
With your last sentence you have expressed a large part of the problem: Standardization. The manufacturers can't agree on a PLUG for recharging (though I have read that several came to some sort of agreement on one, but it didn't include all manufacturers) currently, much less an entire battery configuration. Plus a "standard battery" that can currently be produced that's big enough to deal with distances longer than city driving will be quite large, limiting your design options.
It is a damn shame that the volt didn't live up to its marketing. It's GM's version of a Prius, not a "series hybrid" where the gas motor is completely disconnected from the drivetrain.
Might I submit that you don't want a *currently produced/produceable* electric car, for all the reasons I lined out in my post?
You are correct, I had forgotten about the Leaf.
This is correct. Mea culpa.
I suspect this is feeding a troll, but I also suspect more than this one actually shares this view.
Believe it or not, the motorheads that actually look into this stuff WANT electric cars. Having full torque from rev one all the way up to the maximum potential of the engine would be a panacea. Neck snapping acceleration could be the NORM, not the exception. The simplification that the electric drivetrain would bring would also be wonderful. Assuming the packaging of the power plant is small enough, or can be flexibly packaged, you put the thing anywhere you want and put electric motors at the diff or on the wheels. You don't have to worry about where to store a cubic meter of engine/transmission in one place. The properly designed electric car brings HUGE design advantages. You can make truly beautiful and/or functional things with much less concern about "how can I shoehorn enough engine in here?".
The current problem with the electric car is energy storage. Batteries suck compared to petrol/diesel. Gas/go doesn't happen with batteries. Range is problematic, and even if you did get 300 miles out of a single charge, it's still 2-4 hours (in an ideal world, even) to do it again. Weight is problematic.
And finally, The US doesn't have the corner on petrol powered vehicles. Last time I looked, most of the most desirable cars came from Germany (Mercedes, BMW, Bugatti, Audi), England (Aston Martin, Rolls Royce), and Italy (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini). I don't recall ANY of them making electric cars either. As a matter of fact, the only "mass production" electric cars that I'm aware of have come from US companies: GM (EV1) and Tesla (Roadster). I could be wrong on the latter, tho.
But, yaknow... if all you want to prove is how witty you can (not) be by taking shots at people who love cars and happen to be from a certain country, that's fine too.
You're a few millenia too late. You can do this if you wish: make a better mousetrap. Of course at that point, you'll be REPLACING the rich.
The robot soldier is actively being worked on as we speak. It's kind of skechy tho, because there's analysis, intuition, and logical leaps that humans can make that machines can't do well yet. Once the hardware for the robot soldier is worked out (possibly within our lifetime, if the current pace of development continues), I suspect we'll see remote control (like the unmanned drones) while some really smart people work out the software for IFF and the like.
That's quotable. Thank you.
I suspect the poster is tacitly admitting that their analytical skills may not be up to the task of taking apart an entire nation's economic structure for analysis. I'm kind of on their side on this one: This is not an intractable problem, but it's far from trivial for someone to armchair.
I've seen the ratings suggest such things. Not often, mind you, but a few times. Lock-up torque converters have made the auto as efficient at highway/motorway speed as manuals. Perhaps design has been evolved to lock up the TC between shifts now too (in the past, the TC lockup would only happen in high gear.), which would also contribute to the efficiency in town. Someone closer to the industry would have to speak to that idea, tho.
CVTs definitely appear to have an advantage, seeing as how it can keep the engine in it's torque band all through the acceleration process.
I am curious as to the weight difference between the options: CVT, Regular automatic, dual clutch, and regular manual. I haven't seen any data about that. My gut tells me that there's a weight advantage with the regular manual as it doesn't have near as much in the guts, but the others could be built lighter because the shifts would be predictable as they are controlled by hardware instead of direct user input. As with all things efficiency related: less weight means less work and less power required to do what is requested.