I checked out the Fisker web site. Did you know that the windows in the Fisker are made from sand and can be recycled? Golly. No wonder it's so expensive.
One problem I see (assuming that you have to finance it). I'm guessing many banks will not finance a car like this. In 2005 when I bought my MINI Cooper S, Eastman Savings and Loan (Kodak's bank) would not finance even 50% of the car's purchase price. The reason? It is too "exotic" (their words). Sigh.
Re:I guess you could call it a ...
on
A Requiem For Saab
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· Score: 1, Informative
I agree completely. Back in the "olden days" cars had personality that was appropriate to the country of origin. This was fun and added to the car freak experience. No one would mistake a German car for an Italian one: impossible! Now the country of origin is considered irrelevant or something to hide. This lack of diversity is as helpful to the auto industry as lack of genetic diversity is to agriculture. Everyone feels they have to use the same optimal approach, the same strain of wheat, or the competition will be able to charge a dollar less and have a dollar more profit. This news about SAAB is sad. I guess I should have bought one when I had the chance.
Charlie Stancampiano -
BMW M5/
BMW 2002tii touring/
MINI Cooper S/
Suzuki SV650 naked/
BMW R1200R/
Prius (wife's car so don't blame me!)
My favorite example of this is the professor who started his problem solving by exclaiming, " Let us approximate a horse to be a sphere...".
Given a choice between the economists who pooh-pooh the physics-style modeling of something on their turf and a model that gets the right answer, I'll go with the physicist on this one. It has been said that an economist is someone who, if you don't know a phone number, will estimate it for you
I second the motion that BMW speedo indication is intentional. Owner for 40 years so I know. All BMW speedos read high. Even my MINI reads high by 2mph at 60. Prius is exactly right though.
Many cars without turbos have such a one-way valve. At light throttle openings the manifold vacuum is passed to the brake booster vacuum reservoir. If you floor the throttle, the manifold vacuum vanishes, but the vacuum in the booster remains (because of the check valve) and the brakes still retain their power assist. If you insist on pressing the brakes many times with the throttle open, eventually the power assist will go away and the brakes will become VERY difficult to use. It is not true that a wider throttle opening will make the brakes easier to apply.
Exceptions to this are BMWs that have hydraulic pumps that are also used to run the power brakes (1984 733i which I once owned was like this). In that case, the power assist was present as long as the engine was running (and even when it wasn't due to a backup pressure reservoir).
Speedo in our Prius agrees exactly with side-of-road radar displays. GPS indicated speed is exactly what the speedo shows. There is no 5% error as far as I can tell. GPS is exactly right! "Horribly inaccurate" is just wrong.
You are right that there is no dipstick, but there is an on-board sensor system to check the oil level so it's incorrect to say there is no checking the oil at all. There is also no way that an electronic system can be as reliable as a dipstick, so I'm not in favor of this high-tech solution to a non-problem. If the engine is overfilled, there is no way to tell and you have to take the oil out, measure it and put it back in. This is dumb.
I have a 2007 Prius subject to the recall. The mats are held down via two hooks that stick out of the floor at the rear edge. I find it hard to believe that they could slide forward at all. What I really don't understand is how the car continues to accelerate when people have both feet on the brakes. I have tried this with two BMWs - floor the throttle and step on the brake. The brakes win every time. The Prius also is an underpowered vehicle so it should be even easier to stop. This makes me think the brakes don't work at the same time the throttle is wide open. That would be bad... Also, with a keyless push button engine start, it is not obvious how to turn the car off; you can't just take out the key.
I have two motorcycles and riding is fun, but 90% of the time I can't use them. Either the weather is bad or I have something or someone to carry. Savings on gas is irrelevant given how expensive tires are. Wife's Prius is cheaper to run than the bikes. If you want to save money you have to go for a scooter. The Tesla is so expensive it makes my MINI look practical. The electrical engineer in me cringes at the thought of 7000 Li-Ion batteries (for reliability reasons).
Bought one for my wife some years ago. Never again. Full of crapware and misleading Sony hardware specs. It will only boot from a $300 Sony CDROM; well no. The $80 Sony mouse will only work on Sony laptops with WIN98; well no again. I'm tired of all their BS and screwy restrictions. No Sony computers, no Sony TVs, no Sony cameras!
Perhaps we need a satellite spacebot that goes around collecting trash. After all, what environment does not benefit from a little light housekeeping? It's the green thing to do! This idea sounds like a great opportunity for a bit of private enterprise. Instead of "Pigs in Space" it would be "Goats in Space". After enough junk is collected, it could be auctioned off to collectors, brought down to a landfill, crashed into the ocean or rained down on Osama.
And what are the rules of salvage in space anyway?
Other than Dynamism.com this computer is curiously devoid of any place you can actually buy it. And what happened to the optional built in GPS and HDTV tuner???
No. Lithium is more active than potassium. Potassium more active than sodium. Perhaps I should say "reactive". Any chemists feel free to help me out here!
Just so I understand the laws of electric car physics: Lone individuals in their barn can build a 200-mile electric car, but no major player can do this. If someone tries to buy said home-made electric vehicle it is "not available" or "it will be in production next year..." I get it.
At the time of the break even point the inverter circuits will need to be replaced. I don't recall if there are batteries involved in this installation, but they will need replacement also. Someone is going to tell you about replacing those old inefficient solar cells. Break even point? Never. The price of oil-fired energy will be adjusted so that solar homes are never cost effective. You might feel morally superior to regular people though. Cheaper to buy a Prius.
As an electrical engineer I find this depressing...
In Hawaii, electricity is generated from imported oil and naphtha. It is expensive electricity, but even on a tropical island there is little solar use. Geothermal energy costs the same as the oil-fired kind so why bother?
When I started working at Kodak in 1983 I had to use a Tektronix Basic computer with 32k memory and 8-in floppy drives. The language would only allow variable names that were two characters so you would have names like V9 or A2. Of course after a while you ending up using I1 and O0 so on a dot matrix printout the code was unreadable.
On a PDP-11 I used FortranII. If the program was too large I would get "Fortran Start Fail" error messages and would remove lines of code until it ran. Occasionally I would have syntax error messages like "Error 142 on line 629" and find that there was no line 629... (Insert Twilight Zone theme here.)
There are a million serious uses for telepathy or communicating with aliens. Doesn't mean it exists. Nearly all announcements like this are designed to generate venture $. Fake stuff.
Bernd T. Matthias, the famous scientist who worked on superconductivity for many years, would have said, "Make me a cable!". This implies that if the material can't be formed into a wire, you can't do much in the way of practical power transfer. I suspect there isn't enough Europium in the Universe to do anything useful.
I have found MINI service to be really excellent in my area. However, there appears to be multiple sets of error codes. I bought a ScanGauge to read the error codes in my 2005 MINI. When the supercharger bypass valve flaked out, I could retrieve a P-code error code that I could look up, but the dealer doesn't use those OBDII codes to fix the car. There are an entirely separate set of codes that can only be read by MINI diagnostic equipment at the dealer. So if I tell the dealer that P1346 was detected, it means nothing to him.
Two helpful hints: Don't reset the codes just before going to the dealer. If something breaks; he can't diagnose anything without the code being set. If the car dies, don't just sit there and don't necessarily drive in limp-home mode. Reboot by turning it off and then start it up again; it might recover long enough to get someplace safe.
Slashdot Mirror
and I have a bluetooth phone where all the file transfer functions have been locked out. Thanks Verizon!!!
I checked out the Fisker web site. Did you know that the windows in the Fisker are made from sand and can be recycled? Golly. No wonder it's so expensive. One problem I see (assuming that you have to finance it). I'm guessing many banks will not finance a car like this. In 2005 when I bought my MINI Cooper S, Eastman Savings and Loan (Kodak's bank) would not finance even 50% of the car's purchase price. The reason? It is too "exotic" (their words). Sigh.
I agree completely. Back in the "olden days" cars had personality that was appropriate to the country of origin. This was fun and added to the car freak experience. No one would mistake a German car for an Italian one: impossible! Now the country of origin is considered irrelevant or something to hide. This lack of diversity is as helpful to the auto industry as lack of genetic diversity is to agriculture. Everyone feels they have to use the same optimal approach, the same strain of wheat, or the competition will be able to charge a dollar less and have a dollar more profit. This news about SAAB is sad. I guess I should have bought one when I had the chance. Charlie Stancampiano - BMW M5/ BMW 2002tii touring/ MINI Cooper S/ Suzuki SV650 naked/ BMW R1200R/ Prius (wife's car so don't blame me!)
Ralph Kramden's wife.
My favorite example of this is the professor who started his problem solving by exclaiming, " Let us approximate a horse to be a sphere...". Given a choice between the economists who pooh-pooh the physics-style modeling of something on their turf and a model that gets the right answer, I'll go with the physicist on this one. It has been said that an economist is someone who, if you don't know a phone number, will estimate it for you
I apologize for the bad joke, but I'm getting "troll" and "bad karma" because of this? I just thought it was funny. Tough crowd. And I'm a "he".
Customer: Well, could I have her scam instead of the baked beans then? Waitress: You mean scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam and scam? Choir (intervening): Scam! Scam! Scam! Scam! Lovely scam! Wonderful scam! Scam sca-a-a-a-a-am scam sca-a-a-a-a-am scam. Lovely scam! Lovely scam! Lovely scam! Lovely scam! Scam scam scam scam!
I second the motion that BMW speedo indication is intentional. Owner for 40 years so I know. All BMW speedos read high. Even my MINI reads high by 2mph at 60. Prius is exactly right though.
Many cars without turbos have such a one-way valve. At light throttle openings the manifold vacuum is passed to the brake booster vacuum reservoir. If you floor the throttle, the manifold vacuum vanishes, but the vacuum in the booster remains (because of the check valve) and the brakes still retain their power assist. If you insist on pressing the brakes many times with the throttle open, eventually the power assist will go away and the brakes will become VERY difficult to use. It is not true that a wider throttle opening will make the brakes easier to apply. Exceptions to this are BMWs that have hydraulic pumps that are also used to run the power brakes (1984 733i which I once owned was like this). In that case, the power assist was present as long as the engine was running (and even when it wasn't due to a backup pressure reservoir).
Speedo in our Prius agrees exactly with side-of-road radar displays. GPS indicated speed is exactly what the speedo shows. There is no 5% error as far as I can tell. GPS is exactly right! "Horribly inaccurate" is just wrong.
You are right that there is no dipstick, but there is an on-board sensor system to check the oil level so it's incorrect to say there is no checking the oil at all. There is also no way that an electronic system can be as reliable as a dipstick, so I'm not in favor of this high-tech solution to a non-problem. If the engine is overfilled, there is no way to tell and you have to take the oil out, measure it and put it back in. This is dumb. I have a 2007 Prius subject to the recall. The mats are held down via two hooks that stick out of the floor at the rear edge. I find it hard to believe that they could slide forward at all. What I really don't understand is how the car continues to accelerate when people have both feet on the brakes. I have tried this with two BMWs - floor the throttle and step on the brake. The brakes win every time. The Prius also is an underpowered vehicle so it should be even easier to stop. This makes me think the brakes don't work at the same time the throttle is wide open. That would be bad... Also, with a keyless push button engine start, it is not obvious how to turn the car off; you can't just take out the key.
I have two motorcycles and riding is fun, but 90% of the time I can't use them. Either the weather is bad or I have something or someone to carry. Savings on gas is irrelevant given how expensive tires are. Wife's Prius is cheaper to run than the bikes. If you want to save money you have to go for a scooter. The Tesla is so expensive it makes my MINI look practical. The electrical engineer in me cringes at the thought of 7000 Li-Ion batteries (for reliability reasons).
but something with 7000 batteries that cost $100k and can only hold two people is just not viable transportation. Nice toy-not a real vehicle.
Bought one for my wife some years ago. Never again. Full of crapware and misleading Sony hardware specs. It will only boot from a $300 Sony CDROM; well no. The $80 Sony mouse will only work on Sony laptops with WIN98; well no again. I'm tired of all their BS and screwy restrictions. No Sony computers, no Sony TVs, no Sony cameras!
for Mythbusters. I can hardly wait for the YouTube video.
Perhaps we need a satellite spacebot that goes around collecting trash. After all, what environment does not benefit from a little light housekeeping? It's the green thing to do! This idea sounds like a great opportunity for a bit of private enterprise. Instead of "Pigs in Space" it would be "Goats in Space". After enough junk is collected, it could be auctioned off to collectors, brought down to a landfill, crashed into the ocean or rained down on Osama. And what are the rules of salvage in space anyway?
Other than Dynamism.com this computer is curiously devoid of any place you can actually buy it. And what happened to the optional built in GPS and HDTV tuner???
So how does this work if one of the terminals (cathode) does not conduct electricity? Inquiring minds want to know how air can be a cathode.
No. Lithium is more active than potassium. Potassium more active than sodium. Perhaps I should say "reactive". Any chemists feel free to help me out here!
Just so I understand the laws of electric car physics: Lone individuals in their barn can build a 200-mile electric car, but no major player can do this. If someone tries to buy said home-made electric vehicle it is "not available" or "it will be in production next year..." I get it.
At the time of the break even point the inverter circuits will need to be replaced. I don't recall if there are batteries involved in this installation, but they will need replacement also. Someone is going to tell you about replacing those old inefficient solar cells. Break even point? Never. The price of oil-fired energy will be adjusted so that solar homes are never cost effective. You might feel morally superior to regular people though. Cheaper to buy a Prius. As an electrical engineer I find this depressing... In Hawaii, electricity is generated from imported oil and naphtha. It is expensive electricity, but even on a tropical island there is little solar use. Geothermal energy costs the same as the oil-fired kind so why bother?
When I started working at Kodak in 1983 I had to use a Tektronix Basic computer with 32k memory and 8-in floppy drives. The language would only allow variable names that were two characters so you would have names like V9 or A2. Of course after a while you ending up using I1 and O0 so on a dot matrix printout the code was unreadable. On a PDP-11 I used FortranII. If the program was too large I would get "Fortran Start Fail" error messages and would remove lines of code until it ran. Occasionally I would have syntax error messages like "Error 142 on line 629" and find that there was no line 629... (Insert Twilight Zone theme here.)
There are a million serious uses for telepathy or communicating with aliens. Doesn't mean it exists. Nearly all announcements like this are designed to generate venture $. Fake stuff.
Bernd T. Matthias, the famous scientist who worked on superconductivity for many years, would have said, "Make me a cable!". This implies that if the material can't be formed into a wire, you can't do much in the way of practical power transfer. I suspect there isn't enough Europium in the Universe to do anything useful.
I have found MINI service to be really excellent in my area. However, there appears to be multiple sets of error codes. I bought a ScanGauge to read the error codes in my 2005 MINI. When the supercharger bypass valve flaked out, I could retrieve a P-code error code that I could look up, but the dealer doesn't use those OBDII codes to fix the car. There are an entirely separate set of codes that can only be read by MINI diagnostic equipment at the dealer. So if I tell the dealer that P1346 was detected, it means nothing to him. Two helpful hints: Don't reset the codes just before going to the dealer. If something breaks; he can't diagnose anything without the code being set. If the car dies, don't just sit there and don't necessarily drive in limp-home mode. Reboot by turning it off and then start it up again; it might recover long enough to get someplace safe.