Fair enough, it's well documented that in a lot of cases it can increase stopping distance? It depends on the car and system being used too. The main thing is that it can't be relied upon to always give you shorter braking distances and shouldn't be relied upon for that as you say. Turning off the traction control for acceleration is a lot easier to understand than the issues involved with braking anyway. I can't turn off the ABS in my car, and I wouldn't want to even if I could. I don't mind turning off the traction control when it's nice and dry though, otherwise my car sometimes bogs down under harsh acceleration and can cause problems when the car doesn't react as I was intending.
40% is a massive amount of energy needs to be put in one place. I don't know what the heck you're talking about with 'residential' users, or why you think that commercial drivers don't need safe or durable vehicles. Delivery van drivers are some of the craziest you see driving around, probably second only to Taxi drivers.
I agree that we are very reliant on cars these days, but personally I like that. I do feel guilty about wasting oil, but I don't feel bad about wasting energy - we're getting plenty of that from the sun, and we just need to keep finding convenient and more efficient ways of collecting it, storing it and reusing it. Electric cars are a good idea. A self-driving system of electric cars may be an even better idea from a safety and efficiency point of view (kind of like in minority report where you just call a car and it takes you where you want to go), but people like driving too much otherwise we'd already have systems like that. There's a lot of ways we could be making the world a better place, but it just needs a completely new attitude like you say - from government, business and consumers. It is not easy to change even one of those attitudes, let alone all 3 at the same time.. you just have to try to guide things in the right direction.
A typical American 4 seater sedan sure, but if standard family cars weigh that much over there then they have plenty of 'excess weight' too. See my reply to fishbowl below.
You should visit Europe sometime, you probably would be amazed just how how small the roads, cars and cities are over here.. I expect somewhere like Japan would be even more crazy. When I went to Canada I certainly couldn't believe how wide the roads and parking areas at the sides of the roads were.. I guess if you have a lot of space you may as well use it though.
He's also arguing with a person who lives in a country (UK) where the equivalent of an American 'sedan' has 5 seats, and will usually only weigh about 2 tons (4409lb) at most. According to Wikipedia my mum's Accord only weight 1.3tons (2866lbs), and that was a comfortable family car by UK standards. I don't think I've even seen a car over here that can only seat 4 people, unless it's a 2 seater or a Smart ForFour.
A Dodge Ram weighs almost 2.9 tons (6350lbs). Americans are just used to big, fat bloated cars. That's the excess weight I speak of.
Well, there are connections to hook up when you hook up the trailer anyway, so you could just have the ECU disable the electric drive for when it was in cab-only configuration. It's a pretty good idea:)
Others have pointed out that pickups are one of the easiest type of vehicle to install extra batteries into without losing space, and being able to deal with the extra weight. There is just also the issue with how common pickups and other trucks are in the US, so even if people kept their psychological block of not moving to to smaller vehicles (I'm talking about the ones who have trucks just because they can rather than because they need them, before people start whining again), it would still provide a bit of a benefit.
I used to think it wasn't the fastest way to stop, but was told on my 'advanced driving' skid pan training course that it was, and so just believed them. We were taught to pump the brakes on a non ABS car there anyway to avoid obstacles. I'm not an engineer so no I don't know the difference between those 2 types of friction? I would get that on wet ground it would be best to keep the tyres rolling to avoid aquaplaning, and the same type of idea for loose surfaces.. on a smooth dry surface would it really be any faster to pump the brakes rather than just lock them though?
It's not BS, it's pretty well documented. ABS is designed to keep your wheels moving so that you can still steer while braking (rather than just having them lock, where you often stop quicker but just go squealing in a straight line, into whatever you were braking to avoid), so that you can avoid the obstacle you've panick-braked to avoid hitting, or attempt to steer round the corner you entered too quickly.
Nice to see why it is useful to turn off traction control in the snow above too, as it doesn't really sound like 'common sense', just as most people think that ABS has shorter stopping distances (I used to a few years back). My car dealer mentioned the TC button as good for turning off in the snow and my engineer buddies were all thinking I was nuts when I mentioned that!
I turn the traction control off in my car occasionally if I want to do a bit of "spirited driving" as they say, otherwise sometimes the car completely cuts out power as I quickly move into 3rd gear for example. This is on a manual (stick shift as you guys say) of course.
No, I've never avoided an accident (especially on roads equivalent to a highway) by 'speeding up'. If there is a 30 car pileup ahead of you, how can you? If someone is too close behind you ("tailgating"), slow down to encourage them to pass. You should be checking your mirrors all the time anyway, so don't give me any crap about only noticing at the last minute. I can't envision many real life scenarios where speeding up over 80mph is going to be useful. Not many of us get into situations like Indiana Jones or James Bond where people try to crush us with large objects or start shooting at us. Over here at least, large vehicles (articulated trucks and the like) are legally limited to 50mph and the drivers obey those limits.
If this system restricts basic acceleration then yes you'd have slightly more of an argument, but based on speed, there really is no reason to be going that fast. Yes, I regularly drive that fast or faster myself, but I most certainly don't do it as a safety precaution.
Some models of Focus are meant to be very good to drive (the ST for example has 222hp, and they're going to be offering a 260hp tune-up package next year), and for several of the last few years the Focus has been regarded as the finest handling front wheel drive car around. I'm not sure if any other car has taken its crown recently, I've not been following the hot hatch market for a couple of years now. Sure a rear wheel drive vehicle would be more entertaining, but if someone is that worried about their kids driving, they're hardly going to be getting them a Mustang..
Completely OT post here, and perhaps you don't want to know (feel free to stop reading just now if you want:D ).
I'm reading my second Robert Anton Wilson 'self help' type book (and have the Illuminatus! trilogy sitting on my desk ready to read at some point). I hadn't realised that he was dead until today, and on a wikipedia article saw that it was mentioned that/. had raised a fund to help the guy. I then found the story, found that I'd actually commented on the story and had a conversation with you about donating and healthcare, his books kind of being prescribed geek reading and such (I usually have problems when it is implied that geeks have to be clones who all read the same literature, repeat the same in jokes etc - sometimes it's nice to have a brotherhood, but if everyone is the same is gets boring - especially when people think my jokes are quotes:p ).
Somehow I just happened to read Prometheus Rising in spring this year - perhaps from a reference on slashdot, but I think it was after just looking at books on Philosophy and happened to see Prometheus Rising on Amazon. Great book. Most likely it was one of the main factors in making my mind receptive to change and allowing me to renounce my Christianity in March this year (which I consider a Good Thing despite the invisible stress it has put on a few of my relationships).
I've added you to my friends list anyway, and apologise if I was appearing rash and hotheaded in my attitude towards this guy. It's pretty strange considering my attitude before, but he has done a lot for my life post mortem, and had my financial situation been the same as it is today (I'm getting paid a lot better than I was in early 2006), I definitely would have donated money to help him. I wasn't even aware until today that many slashdotters would have read his books - he has some seemingly crazy non-scientific new agey beliefs alongside the rest of his astute observations on humanity and psychology. He did take a couple of quotes from the bible rather out of context in Prometheus Rising, which made me wonder how accurate he was on other areas where I am less informed, but as I said overall it was good for helping me free my mind from some of its previous programming, which is why I started reading "Quantum Psychology" today:)
I don't exactly know why I'm telling you - it just seemed appropriate to mention it after seeing our fossilised conversation like that and thinking how much everything has changed since then. I have no idea what to believe these days, but I'm enjoying the journey and letting my mind think and learn again, rather than constantly having to make excuses for my beliefs to assuage the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing as I saw more evidence for the validity of evolutionary theory, and saw the poor condition of the Church and Christians around me. The world makes much more sense now, despite the fact that I still don't understand it.
Maybe they should just do a high-def remake and call it quits, eh?
Agreed, I'd buy it.
I don't think it was just about the story, I was totally psyched for the game because of all the cool technological stuff it had as well. Back then it was ground-breaking for me with its physics (objects floating and such) and graphics. It still did some things better than Half-Life 2 and the like do today. I'm sure the developers of HL could make more complex inventory systems, modifiable weapons, interactive keypads, lock picking, stealth and all that good stuff, but Deus Ex did everything, and it did it well. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 are probably the closest thing out there today, but still not quite as good (too arcadey for my liking, and I hate how contrived the bosses are).
I don't remember the stealth being quite so easy, even with invisibility nanites or whatever, and I think those big robot guys could see your heat signature so I always found it tense (just as I found Operation Flashpoint tense, though I realised either near the end or afterwards that you could crawl under the enemies' faces in the dark and they wouldn't see you.. I spent a lot of time in that game just crawling through woodlands and such because I was frickin scared of being seen).
I believe it, internal combustion engines are very inefficient things, I just haven't looked into the whole electric cars issue for a while and I'd just woken up when I wrote this:p Other people here are quoting around 80% efficiency for power plants and 20% efficiency for combustion engines, but even the distribution system of sourcing fuel for electricity is far more efficient than that of gasoline (especially in the case of renewable power, obviously).
So the power is cleaner, but only as long as she actually charges this thing from the grid and doesn't just use the internal engine the whole time, otherwise she's running a false economy. She talks of getting upwards of 100mpg though so she must be running off the grid, but I wonder how much the electricity costs per mile.. she certainly won't make back the cost of installing this device unless she runs for over 10 years, and until the consumer sees a real return on their investment, they're not going to be rushing out to convert their cars into a hybrid anytime soon.
All those rigs transporting gas and diesel for one, sure.
America has very poor public transport compared to us here in the UK, there are hardly any buses, so don't give me that shit! Besides - I hate travelling on buses, planes or trains when I can drive (I much preferred driving to France than spending hours waiting at the airport to taking the short plane flights to and fro). I know that isn't very 'green', but the fact is that with a car I don't have to plan when I'm taking my journeys, and I don't have to worry about luggage limitations and so on. If the car is full then the whole journey is probably more efficient than using a half filled bus anyway, and certainly more efficient than flying even when you take the channel crossing into account.
No, I don't always take the car for every journey, I often walk the mile or two to the cinema rather than drive these days. That's more just to get exercise than to be green, but every little helps.
Electric motors have great torque, so there should be no trouble pulling a trailer, no matter how much you put your tongue in your cheek.
I wasn't saying all vehicles should be single seater (though seriously, why not when it comes to commuting?.) It is well known and easily observable that there are a lot of "soccer mom" types with SUVs who have absolutely no need for them. One of the women in our office has 2 kids but a 7 seater minivan. The amount of little old ladies or old men I see driving fscking massive Mercedes tanks and SUVs is insane (I notice them mostly because they are driving badly to begin with, and I am more wary of large vehicles than littler ones that are less likely to kill me if they t-bone me). A lot of old people over here have little cars too, so not all old people drive tanks, but in the US pretty much everyone drives what would be considered at least a medium sized car over here in the UK.
Nobody can deny that a lot of people don't need the size of car they drive for the majority of the time. Even I probably only really need 2 seats in my car (I have 5) - when I go on journeys I could easily borrow a different company car.
I was even considered getting a motorbike again. Unfortunately my last one got stolen right from the car park (parking lot) - I then found out my city is the worst for motorbike theft in Scotland (yeah it's a small country, but we have a lot of disgruntled youths, known as 'neds' or Non Educated Delinquents), if not the entire UK. Once I move somewhere with its own garage then I can get a bike without worrying though.
Okay, I had a quick glance at TFA;) Seems she is actually serious about being green, so perhaps she just chose a popular type of vehicle as a kind of shock factor to show people that large vehicles can get better mileage too, but most people wouldn't spend more on a fuel reducing conversion than they would spend on fuel in the life of the car (hint: that's what she did), so I don't see the point in her plastering it all over the car other than as a publicity stunt.
What can I say, I'm just a negative person, and the general nay-saying attitude of slashdot doesn't really help! *shrug* Personally, I'd have chosen a better car to begin with if I had that kind of cash to burn. Someone will hopefully get a good second hand deal on the vehicle at least when she moves onto her next toy..
I never actually owned on, but I've driven a few as company cars, including small amounts of offroading in Defenders. The defender is indeed meant to be something like a 1950s design. I don't suggest that they are the best (though I'm sure the new ones are more clever, and they are capable of a lot if you know how to drive them - there are courses for Landrover/Rangerover driving down in England where you do some crazy shiat). I wouldn't be suprised if Subaru or Mitsubishi do a better FWD system. I've never been a big fan of Subarus but that's just because my dad had an Evo VI and since then I've always thought Imprezas looked like ass compared to the Evos, and that kinda had a halo effect on all Subarus for me:)
Oh, Deus Ex could most definitely hold its own as a great game without tacking on any more stuff, but you did get extra abilities as the game progressed - same as most other RPGs. I was just pointing out that it's a standard RPG formula which other types of games are now happening to copy heavily with things like the PS3 Trophies and whatever the things are that the Xbox does.
I'd always heard that you couldn't actually save Paul, and it was certainly nigh on impossible in Realistic mode so I didn't try for long as I assumed it was just like any other game and it was 'meant' to happen. I didn't realise how special it was. I should have just played through on medium difficulty or something to experience the story (my younger brother played it through many many times, often not even bothering to complete it). I loved it mostly for the amazing graphics and physics, I doubt I've read any of the literature that I've heard it commonly has references to (I must have been only about 14 or 15 at the time it came out as well, and I've always been more into fantasy novels like Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Saga than real world or sci-fi conspiracy novels).
I don't feel condescended in any way btw. I didn't realise Tong's lab was at the end of the game, maybe I was closer to completing it than I realised (my dad overwrote my save game by mistake and I really didn't want to go through the game on realistic difficulty again - it was crazy difficult:/ ).
I have indeed driven FWD cars in snow, and I do know how to drive a vehicle too, as well as the theoretical benefits of FWD/RWD/4x4. Yes if you lose traction you lose steering as well on a FWD vehicle. That requires you to be spinning the tyres though. I have traction control on my current car, it's very necessary due to the torque involved (it's a diesel) - the TC can kick in even in 3rd in damp conditions, and it's easy to spin the tyres in the dry in 2nd. The tyres are over 8 inches wide which is pretty wide for a small hatchback.
To lose traction in just the rear wheels in an RWD vehicle again simply means you're accelerating so much that you lose traction, or you are slowing down causing weight to shift forward and losing traction at the back.
If you're in a 4 wheel skid then it doesn't really make a difference what type of vehicle you're driving though, and the types of skid I was talking about doing in the landrover were full 4 wheel skids. They may have been down to driver error sure, it was a few years ago and I have improved my driving since then, but the fact is that you have more momentum to deal with in heavier vehicles, so you have to be more careful in icy conditions because the grip is pretty much dictated by the surface and not by your tyres (I'm not sure how much of a part the tyres will play, but all I know is that my landrover had appalling braking even in the wet and would lock up far too easily).
4x4 is obviously the best for grip, I was just relaying my personal experiences as sucking when it comes to a large 4x4 vs lighter FWD cars. You have to bear in mind that this isn't in hardcore snowjunky land, it's in a place where people only deal with snowy conditions for about a month a year. I've spoken to people who have used RWD vehicles here in the snow and they suck for going up slopes for example, unless you put sandbags in the back to get a bit of traction. FWD works better by default because the engine is right over the wheels pushing down and giving better traction. So technically while FWD doesn't sound good on paper, it's still a good inbetweener for poor conditions, but in awful conditions I'd prefer a 4x4. These days you can actually get small 4x4 vehicles anyway, I think they'd be the best of both worlds.
You have the same idea of what a 'truck' should be as I do, I have learned from replies that this thing is actually a compact SUV, which makes mildly more sense for skiing at least, but it still is a poor offroader so it's most likely just for display. You'd think she would get a Porsche Cayenne or something though, they're at least meant to be not bad offroad as well as on it, but I guess the in thing these days is pretending to be green.
Yeah I forgot about power stations being far more efficient than the internal combustion engine, and probably overestimates just how much power would be wasted due to leakage of the batteries (unless perhaps she leaves the vehicle plugged in while she's away on her skiing trips). If she doesn't use the grid at all to power up the vehicle I'm still not convinced she'll be gaining much apart from through the regenerative braking.
I wasn't saying that hybrid is a bad idea in all situations, but personally I'd prefer a fully electric vehicle and have the option to get a roadside recharge or something in an emergency. I live in a small country (Scotland) so it's not so much of a big deal (unless I went up the west coast where there isn't much of a population so it would take hours to get a rescue vehicle along, but I wouldn't be doing such a big roadtrip in an electric only vehicle anyway..), electric only wouldn't work so well in North America, with the massive mileage most people have to do. I'm pretty sure I could walk right around the perimeter of my city in less than a day - it's not quite the same somewhere like Houston though! And that's just the cities, nevermind the distance between cities..
Just checked, you're actually right. It must be pretty small: the kerb weight for the Escape is only about 100-150 kilos heavier than my 'small' hatchback since even small cars are becoming so stuffed with airbags these days (and my car is a diesel so the engine is pretty heavy for the size of car..). Which makes it seem even more like she was just wanting something to ponce around in rather than actually needing an SUV to carry lots of equipment or go offroading. I know, I'm a cynical old man. What can I say, I'm almost 25..
I am aware that there is a need for these vehicles, and I've not done 'serious' offroading regularly, but I have been round a few fields (not just boring flat fields, ones with large rocks, ditches and so on, good fun) in a landrover (company vehicle that I was borrowing over winter), and in a farmer friend's landrover up and down some craaaazy inclines (with lots of people in the back and no seatbelts.. whacked my teeth off the spare tyre.. ouch!).
So I know that these vehicles have their places among professionals and even those who live in the country or just like a bit of fun occsionally, but considering she is a pro skier she probably travels a lot to other countries/continents and can't even bring this vehicle with her anyway. The amount of money she's spent converting this thing shows that she could have afforded a more serious offroad vehicle if she actually needs one. Have a look at http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f32/ford-escape-off-road-capabilities-2376.html . Sounds like Escapes suck for 'real' offroad work. I'd want a decent Landrover or perhaps something like a Hilux if I was going to do serious offroading (seen the Top Gear episode where they drive a kitted out Hilux to the north pole? Awesome stuff)
IMO 'trucks' usually only have a front row of seats which will fit about 3 people. In this case the car seems to be an SUV which yes will fit up to 7 peopl. Most normal 'family' cars seat 5 people (and not always in cramped conditions either). This woman needs a 7 seater SUB just to go skiing? I used to go snowboarding in my mum's Accord, it would fit in 2 snowboards, a set of skiis and 3 people with a couple of the back seats down, and yes it got up a very steep Scottish mountain road - though it was being cleared regularly for access to the ski centre, but still not perfect conditions..
Any time I slid in the landrover it was already going in a straight line anyway (admittedly one time in snow because I knew I was going too fast for the corner and panic braked, ended up slowly sliding down a little side road instead of taking the corner where there were houses and parked cars.. another time I was going very slowly because I knew I was approaching a downhill slope, unfortunately I didn't realise that the very end of the road was a cobbled surface and would actually give less grip than a normal road, so I slid very slowly into the (thankfully quiet) t-junction ahead!
I haven't had the same issues with any of the other vehicles I've driven in the snow, which have probably only been 2/3 of the weight of the landrover at most. The problem with that thing perhaps was that the power steering was deceptively light, giving you the impression that the car was also quite light - which made sense to me since the back was completely empty, the sides were paper thin aluminium and the roof was plastic.. the power steering developed a leak once though, then I realised how heavy the thing really was (almost 2 tons compared to about 0.7-1.3 tons for most of the other cars I've driven regularly).
I know the aim of trucks isn't to be a sports vehicle (well, apart from 'S'UVs), but personally I'd always go for a lighter vehicle if I can if only for better power to weight. A truck that doesn't weigh much on its own is going to be able to haul heavier loads more easily (not to mention brake and turn corners better).
Then, if you are using aluminium or certain other metals, alloys or plastics you know that you aren't going to get rust like you do with steel. Exotic materials will cost more than steel sure, but personally they'd be the ones I go for. You could always buy a second hand vehicle if you're concerned about cost. Then you know that you're helping to get more ROI in the energy put into the manufacture of the vehicle. A few models of Audi (and probably other manufacturers like Mercedes, but I haven't looked into what materials different companies use) are built with aluminium construction, so you can be pretty sure that any rust is going to be a sign of impact damage rather than just corrosion.
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Fair enough, it's well documented that in a lot of cases it can increase stopping distance? It depends on the car and system being used too. The main thing is that it can't be relied upon to always give you shorter braking distances and shouldn't be relied upon for that as you say. Turning off the traction control for acceleration is a lot easier to understand than the issues involved with braking anyway. I can't turn off the ABS in my car, and I wouldn't want to even if I could. I don't mind turning off the traction control when it's nice and dry though, otherwise my car sometimes bogs down under harsh acceleration and can cause problems when the car doesn't react as I was intending.
40% is a massive amount of energy needs to be put in one place. I don't know what the heck you're talking about with 'residential' users, or why you think that commercial drivers don't need safe or durable vehicles. Delivery van drivers are some of the craziest you see driving around, probably second only to Taxi drivers.
I agree that we are very reliant on cars these days, but personally I like that. I do feel guilty about wasting oil, but I don't feel bad about wasting energy - we're getting plenty of that from the sun, and we just need to keep finding convenient and more efficient ways of collecting it, storing it and reusing it. Electric cars are a good idea. A self-driving system of electric cars may be an even better idea from a safety and efficiency point of view (kind of like in minority report where you just call a car and it takes you where you want to go), but people like driving too much otherwise we'd already have systems like that. There's a lot of ways we could be making the world a better place, but it just needs a completely new attitude like you say - from government, business and consumers. It is not easy to change even one of those attitudes, let alone all 3 at the same time.. you just have to try to guide things in the right direction.
A typical American 4 seater sedan sure, but if standard family cars weigh that much over there then they have plenty of 'excess weight' too. See my reply to fishbowl below.
You should visit Europe sometime, you probably would be amazed just how how small the roads, cars and cities are over here.. I expect somewhere like Japan would be even more crazy. When I went to Canada I certainly couldn't believe how wide the roads and parking areas at the sides of the roads were.. I guess if you have a lot of space you may as well use it though.
He's also arguing with a person who lives in a country (UK) where the equivalent of an American 'sedan' has 5 seats, and will usually only weigh about 2 tons (4409lb) at most. According to Wikipedia my mum's Accord only weight 1.3tons (2866lbs), and that was a comfortable family car by UK standards. I don't think I've even seen a car over here that can only seat 4 people, unless it's a 2 seater or a Smart ForFour.
A Dodge Ram weighs almost 2.9 tons (6350lbs). Americans are just used to big, fat bloated cars. That's the excess weight I speak of.
Well, there are connections to hook up when you hook up the trailer anyway, so you could just have the ECU disable the electric drive for when it was in cab-only configuration. It's a pretty good idea :)
Others have pointed out that pickups are one of the easiest type of vehicle to install extra batteries into without losing space, and being able to deal with the extra weight. There is just also the issue with how common pickups and other trucks are in the US, so even if people kept their psychological block of not moving to to smaller vehicles (I'm talking about the ones who have trucks just because they can rather than because they need them, before people start whining again), it would still provide a bit of a benefit.
I used to think it wasn't the fastest way to stop, but was told on my 'advanced driving' skid pan training course that it was, and so just believed them. We were taught to pump the brakes on a non ABS car there anyway to avoid obstacles. I'm not an engineer so no I don't know the difference between those 2 types of friction? I would get that on wet ground it would be best to keep the tyres rolling to avoid aquaplaning, and the same type of idea for loose surfaces.. on a smooth dry surface would it really be any faster to pump the brakes rather than just lock them though?
It's not BS, it's pretty well documented. ABS is designed to keep your wheels moving so that you can still steer while braking (rather than just having them lock, where you often stop quicker but just go squealing in a straight line, into whatever you were braking to avoid), so that you can avoid the obstacle you've panick-braked to avoid hitting, or attempt to steer round the corner you entered too quickly.
Nice to see why it is useful to turn off traction control in the snow above too, as it doesn't really sound like 'common sense', just as most people think that ABS has shorter stopping distances (I used to a few years back). My car dealer mentioned the TC button as good for turning off in the snow and my engineer buddies were all thinking I was nuts when I mentioned that!
I turn the traction control off in my car occasionally if I want to do a bit of "spirited driving" as they say, otherwise sometimes the car completely cuts out power as I quickly move into 3rd gear for example. This is on a manual (stick shift as you guys say) of course.
No, I've never avoided an accident (especially on roads equivalent to a highway) by 'speeding up'. If there is a 30 car pileup ahead of you, how can you? If someone is too close behind you ("tailgating"), slow down to encourage them to pass. You should be checking your mirrors all the time anyway, so don't give me any crap about only noticing at the last minute. I can't envision many real life scenarios where speeding up over 80mph is going to be useful. Not many of us get into situations like Indiana Jones or James Bond where people try to crush us with large objects or start shooting at us. Over here at least, large vehicles (articulated trucks and the like) are legally limited to 50mph and the drivers obey those limits.
If this system restricts basic acceleration then yes you'd have slightly more of an argument, but based on speed, there really is no reason to be going that fast. Yes, I regularly drive that fast or faster myself, but I most certainly don't do it as a safety precaution.
Some models of Focus are meant to be very good to drive (the ST for example has 222hp, and they're going to be offering a 260hp tune-up package next year), and for several of the last few years the Focus has been regarded as the finest handling front wheel drive car around. I'm not sure if any other car has taken its crown recently, I've not been following the hot hatch market for a couple of years now. Sure a rear wheel drive vehicle would be more entertaining, but if someone is that worried about their kids driving, they're hardly going to be getting them a Mustang..
Completely OT post here, and perhaps you don't want to know (feel free to stop reading just now if you want :D ).
I'm reading my second Robert Anton Wilson 'self help' type book (and have the Illuminatus! trilogy sitting on my desk ready to read at some point). I hadn't realised that he was dead until today, and on a wikipedia article saw that it was mentioned that /. had raised a fund to help the guy. I then found the story, found that I'd actually commented on the story and had a conversation with you about donating and healthcare, his books kind of being prescribed geek reading and such (I usually have problems when it is implied that geeks have to be clones who all read the same literature, repeat the same in jokes etc - sometimes it's nice to have a brotherhood, but if everyone is the same is gets boring - especially when people think my jokes are quotes :p ).
Somehow I just happened to read Prometheus Rising in spring this year - perhaps from a reference on slashdot, but I think it was after just looking at books on Philosophy and happened to see Prometheus Rising on Amazon. Great book. Most likely it was one of the main factors in making my mind receptive to change and allowing me to renounce my Christianity in March this year (which I consider a Good Thing despite the invisible stress it has put on a few of my relationships).
I've added you to my friends list anyway, and apologise if I was appearing rash and hotheaded in my attitude towards this guy. It's pretty strange considering my attitude before, but he has done a lot for my life post mortem, and had my financial situation been the same as it is today (I'm getting paid a lot better than I was in early 2006), I definitely would have donated money to help him. I wasn't even aware until today that many slashdotters would have read his books - he has some seemingly crazy non-scientific new agey beliefs alongside the rest of his astute observations on humanity and psychology. He did take a couple of quotes from the bible rather out of context in Prometheus Rising, which made me wonder how accurate he was on other areas where I am less informed, but as I said overall it was good for helping me free my mind from some of its previous programming, which is why I started reading "Quantum Psychology" today :)
I don't exactly know why I'm telling you - it just seemed appropriate to mention it after seeing our fossilised conversation like that and thinking how much everything has changed since then. I have no idea what to believe these days, but I'm enjoying the journey and letting my mind think and learn again, rather than constantly having to make excuses for my beliefs to assuage the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing as I saw more evidence for the validity of evolutionary theory, and saw the poor condition of the Church and Christians around me. The world makes much more sense now, despite the fact that I still don't understand it.
Maybe they should just do a high-def remake and call it quits, eh?
Agreed, I'd buy it.
I don't think it was just about the story, I was totally psyched for the game because of all the cool technological stuff it had as well. Back then it was ground-breaking for me with its physics (objects floating and such) and graphics. It still did some things better than Half-Life 2 and the like do today. I'm sure the developers of HL could make more complex inventory systems, modifiable weapons, interactive keypads, lock picking, stealth and all that good stuff, but Deus Ex did everything, and it did it well. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 are probably the closest thing out there today, but still not quite as good (too arcadey for my liking, and I hate how contrived the bosses are).
I don't remember the stealth being quite so easy, even with invisibility nanites or whatever, and I think those big robot guys could see your heat signature so I always found it tense (just as I found Operation Flashpoint tense, though I realised either near the end or afterwards that you could crawl under the enemies' faces in the dark and they wouldn't see you.. I spent a lot of time in that game just crawling through woodlands and such because I was frickin scared of being seen).
I believe it, internal combustion engines are very inefficient things, I just haven't looked into the whole electric cars issue for a while and I'd just woken up when I wrote this :p Other people here are quoting around 80% efficiency for power plants and 20% efficiency for combustion engines, but even the distribution system of sourcing fuel for electricity is far more efficient than that of gasoline (especially in the case of renewable power, obviously).
So the power is cleaner, but only as long as she actually charges this thing from the grid and doesn't just use the internal engine the whole time, otherwise she's running a false economy. She talks of getting upwards of 100mpg though so she must be running off the grid, but I wonder how much the electricity costs per mile.. she certainly won't make back the cost of installing this device unless she runs for over 10 years, and until the consumer sees a real return on their investment, they're not going to be rushing out to convert their cars into a hybrid anytime soon.
All those rigs transporting gas and diesel for one, sure.
America has very poor public transport compared to us here in the UK, there are hardly any buses, so don't give me that shit! Besides - I hate travelling on buses, planes or trains when I can drive (I much preferred driving to France than spending hours waiting at the airport to taking the short plane flights to and fro). I know that isn't very 'green', but the fact is that with a car I don't have to plan when I'm taking my journeys, and I don't have to worry about luggage limitations and so on. If the car is full then the whole journey is probably more efficient than using a half filled bus anyway, and certainly more efficient than flying even when you take the channel crossing into account.
No, I don't always take the car for every journey, I often walk the mile or two to the cinema rather than drive these days. That's more just to get exercise than to be green, but every little helps.
Electric motors have great torque, so there should be no trouble pulling a trailer, no matter how much you put your tongue in your cheek.
I wasn't saying all vehicles should be single seater (though seriously, why not when it comes to commuting?.) It is well known and easily observable that there are a lot of "soccer mom" types with SUVs who have absolutely no need for them. One of the women in our office has 2 kids but a 7 seater minivan. The amount of little old ladies or old men I see driving fscking massive Mercedes tanks and SUVs is insane (I notice them mostly because they are driving badly to begin with, and I am more wary of large vehicles than littler ones that are less likely to kill me if they t-bone me). A lot of old people over here have little cars too, so not all old people drive tanks, but in the US pretty much everyone drives what would be considered at least a medium sized car over here in the UK.
Nobody can deny that a lot of people don't need the size of car they drive for the majority of the time. Even I probably only really need 2 seats in my car (I have 5) - when I go on journeys I could easily borrow a different company car.
I was even considered getting a motorbike again. Unfortunately my last one got stolen right from the car park (parking lot) - I then found out my city is the worst for motorbike theft in Scotland (yeah it's a small country, but we have a lot of disgruntled youths, known as 'neds' or Non Educated Delinquents), if not the entire UK. Once I move somewhere with its own garage then I can get a bike without worrying though.
Okay, I had a quick glance at TFA ;) Seems she is actually serious about being green, so perhaps she just chose a popular type of vehicle as a kind of shock factor to show people that large vehicles can get better mileage too, but most people wouldn't spend more on a fuel reducing conversion than they would spend on fuel in the life of the car (hint: that's what she did), so I don't see the point in her plastering it all over the car other than as a publicity stunt.
What can I say, I'm just a negative person, and the general nay-saying attitude of slashdot doesn't really help! *shrug* Personally, I'd have chosen a better car to begin with if I had that kind of cash to burn. Someone will hopefully get a good second hand deal on the vehicle at least when she moves onto her next toy..
Oops, 4WD* not FWD.
I never actually owned on, but I've driven a few as company cars, including small amounts of offroading in Defenders. The defender is indeed meant to be something like a 1950s design. I don't suggest that they are the best (though I'm sure the new ones are more clever, and they are capable of a lot if you know how to drive them - there are courses for Landrover/Rangerover driving down in England where you do some crazy shiat). I wouldn't be suprised if Subaru or Mitsubishi do a better FWD system. I've never been a big fan of Subarus but that's just because my dad had an Evo VI and since then I've always thought Imprezas looked like ass compared to the Evos, and that kinda had a halo effect on all Subarus for me :)
Oh, Deus Ex could most definitely hold its own as a great game without tacking on any more stuff, but you did get extra abilities as the game progressed - same as most other RPGs. I was just pointing out that it's a standard RPG formula which other types of games are now happening to copy heavily with things like the PS3 Trophies and whatever the things are that the Xbox does.
I'd always heard that you couldn't actually save Paul, and it was certainly nigh on impossible in Realistic mode so I didn't try for long as I assumed it was just like any other game and it was 'meant' to happen. I didn't realise how special it was. I should have just played through on medium difficulty or something to experience the story (my younger brother played it through many many times, often not even bothering to complete it). I loved it mostly for the amazing graphics and physics, I doubt I've read any of the literature that I've heard it commonly has references to (I must have been only about 14 or 15 at the time it came out as well, and I've always been more into fantasy novels like Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Saga than real world or sci-fi conspiracy novels).
I don't feel condescended in any way btw. I didn't realise Tong's lab was at the end of the game, maybe I was closer to completing it than I realised (my dad overwrote my save game by mistake and I really didn't want to go through the game on realistic difficulty again - it was crazy difficult :/ ).
That's why I was talking about some kind of rental scheme rather than just swapping directly..
I have indeed driven FWD cars in snow, and I do know how to drive a vehicle too, as well as the theoretical benefits of FWD/RWD/4x4. Yes if you lose traction you lose steering as well on a FWD vehicle. That requires you to be spinning the tyres though. I have traction control on my current car, it's very necessary due to the torque involved (it's a diesel) - the TC can kick in even in 3rd in damp conditions, and it's easy to spin the tyres in the dry in 2nd. The tyres are over 8 inches wide which is pretty wide for a small hatchback.
To lose traction in just the rear wheels in an RWD vehicle again simply means you're accelerating so much that you lose traction, or you are slowing down causing weight to shift forward and losing traction at the back.
If you're in a 4 wheel skid then it doesn't really make a difference what type of vehicle you're driving though, and the types of skid I was talking about doing in the landrover were full 4 wheel skids. They may have been down to driver error sure, it was a few years ago and I have improved my driving since then, but the fact is that you have more momentum to deal with in heavier vehicles, so you have to be more careful in icy conditions because the grip is pretty much dictated by the surface and not by your tyres (I'm not sure how much of a part the tyres will play, but all I know is that my landrover had appalling braking even in the wet and would lock up far too easily).
4x4 is obviously the best for grip, I was just relaying my personal experiences as sucking when it comes to a large 4x4 vs lighter FWD cars. You have to bear in mind that this isn't in hardcore snowjunky land, it's in a place where people only deal with snowy conditions for about a month a year. I've spoken to people who have used RWD vehicles here in the snow and they suck for going up slopes for example, unless you put sandbags in the back to get a bit of traction. FWD works better by default because the engine is right over the wheels pushing down and giving better traction. So technically while FWD doesn't sound good on paper, it's still a good inbetweener for poor conditions, but in awful conditions I'd prefer a 4x4. These days you can actually get small 4x4 vehicles anyway, I think they'd be the best of both worlds.
You have the same idea of what a 'truck' should be as I do, I have learned from replies that this thing is actually a compact SUV, which makes mildly more sense for skiing at least, but it still is a poor offroader so it's most likely just for display. You'd think she would get a Porsche Cayenne or something though, they're at least meant to be not bad offroad as well as on it, but I guess the in thing these days is pretending to be green.
Yeah I forgot about power stations being far more efficient than the internal combustion engine, and probably overestimates just how much power would be wasted due to leakage of the batteries (unless perhaps she leaves the vehicle plugged in while she's away on her skiing trips). If she doesn't use the grid at all to power up the vehicle I'm still not convinced she'll be gaining much apart from through the regenerative braking.
I wasn't saying that hybrid is a bad idea in all situations, but personally I'd prefer a fully electric vehicle and have the option to get a roadside recharge or something in an emergency. I live in a small country (Scotland) so it's not so much of a big deal (unless I went up the west coast where there isn't much of a population so it would take hours to get a rescue vehicle along, but I wouldn't be doing such a big roadtrip in an electric only vehicle anyway..), electric only wouldn't work so well in North America, with the massive mileage most people have to do. I'm pretty sure I could walk right around the perimeter of my city in less than a day - it's not quite the same somewhere like Houston though! And that's just the cities, nevermind the distance between cities..
Just checked, you're actually right. It must be pretty small: the kerb weight for the Escape is only about 100-150 kilos heavier than my 'small' hatchback since even small cars are becoming so stuffed with airbags these days (and my car is a diesel so the engine is pretty heavy for the size of car..). Which makes it seem even more like she was just wanting something to ponce around in rather than actually needing an SUV to carry lots of equipment or go offroading. I know, I'm a cynical old man. What can I say, I'm almost 25..
I am aware that there is a need for these vehicles, and I've not done 'serious' offroading regularly, but I have been round a few fields (not just boring flat fields, ones with large rocks, ditches and so on, good fun) in a landrover (company vehicle that I was borrowing over winter), and in a farmer friend's landrover up and down some craaaazy inclines (with lots of people in the back and no seatbelts.. whacked my teeth off the spare tyre.. ouch!).
So I know that these vehicles have their places among professionals and even those who live in the country or just like a bit of fun occsionally, but considering she is a pro skier she probably travels a lot to other countries/continents and can't even bring this vehicle with her anyway. The amount of money she's spent converting this thing shows that she could have afforded a more serious offroad vehicle if she actually needs one. Have a look at http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f32/ford-escape-off-road-capabilities-2376.html . Sounds like Escapes suck for 'real' offroad work. I'd want a decent Landrover or perhaps something like a Hilux if I was going to do serious offroading (seen the Top Gear episode where they drive a kitted out Hilux to the north pole? Awesome stuff)
IMO 'trucks' usually only have a front row of seats which will fit about 3 people. In this case the car seems to be an SUV which yes will fit up to 7 peopl. Most normal 'family' cars seat 5 people (and not always in cramped conditions either). This woman needs a 7 seater SUB just to go skiing? I used to go snowboarding in my mum's Accord, it would fit in 2 snowboards, a set of skiis and 3 people with a couple of the back seats down, and yes it got up a very steep Scottish mountain road - though it was being cleared regularly for access to the ski centre, but still not perfect conditions..
Any time I slid in the landrover it was already going in a straight line anyway (admittedly one time in snow because I knew I was going too fast for the corner and panic braked, ended up slowly sliding down a little side road instead of taking the corner where there were houses and parked cars.. another time I was going very slowly because I knew I was approaching a downhill slope, unfortunately I didn't realise that the very end of the road was a cobbled surface and would actually give less grip than a normal road, so I slid very slowly into the (thankfully quiet) t-junction ahead!
I haven't had the same issues with any of the other vehicles I've driven in the snow, which have probably only been 2/3 of the weight of the landrover at most. The problem with that thing perhaps was that the power steering was deceptively light, giving you the impression that the car was also quite light - which made sense to me since the back was completely empty, the sides were paper thin aluminium and the roof was plastic.. the power steering developed a leak once though, then I realised how heavy the thing really was (almost 2 tons compared to about 0.7-1.3 tons for most of the other cars I've driven regularly).
I know the aim of trucks isn't to be a sports vehicle (well, apart from 'S'UVs), but personally I'd always go for a lighter vehicle if I can if only for better power to weight. A truck that doesn't weigh much on its own is going to be able to haul heavier loads more easily (not to mention brake and turn corners better).
Then, if you are using aluminium or certain other metals, alloys or plastics you know that you aren't going to get rust like you do with steel. Exotic materials will cost more than steel sure, but personally they'd be the ones I go for. You could always buy a second hand vehicle if you're concerned about cost. Then you know that you're helping to get more ROI in the energy put into the manufacture of the vehicle. A few models of Audi (and probably other manufacturers like Mercedes, but I haven't looked into what materials different companies use) are built with aluminium construction, so you can be pretty sure that any rust is going to be a sign of impact damage rather than just corrosion.
See this comment by Lumpy for your answer..