Ars Reviews Honda Insight 639
GeekLife.com writes "Ars Technica has posted another of their indepth reviews, this time of the Honda Insight (that gas-electric hybrid). Not just a normal Honda Insight, though, this one's been tricked up with LCD screens replacing the side mirrors, and a *portable windmill* that can recharge the battery. Not the prettiest of devices, but with gas prices continuing up, it's definitely starting to look a bit more attractive."
Re:Car and Driver did a road test - OT (Score:2)
Re:Battery stations (Score:2)
Is this really THE D-cell? My biggest fear of getting one of these cars was the cost to replace the battery plant. Using commodity cells just seems too good to be true. I wonder how long the cheapie Radio Shack D-Cells will work? Remember the Radio Shack free battery club? Since there is a federal law* that there must be a Radio Shack in every shopping center and Mall, running around to 120 of them is not a difficult task! :)
* Hint: Uh, that's a joke...
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
baloney (Score:2)
Gas taxes haven't changed in years, but the price at the refinery has. That's why the gas price is up! Let's face it, North Americans have had it pretty good in terms of gas prices for most of the last decade, and have gotten spoiled.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
What's in a name? (Score:2)
But can big folk get in? (Score:2)
Re:It's about Freedom Baby... yeah! (Score:2)
Thank you for a reasonable and insightful comment,
Chris
For myself I ride both sides of the fence. I commute via motorcycle, but when there is more than 2 people involved I use a Deisel Truck that's larger than a suburban. I strongly push that 98% of people could commute via motorcycle and it would seriously cut down on congestion, absolutely stop Cell phone drivers, and ease parking. OTOH I also feel that all mentally competent people should carry concealed weapons.
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Well, you can take a look at what came up on Yahoo's Google search [yahoo.com].
Radio Shack stores in Canada used to sell these piezo tweeters under their name. In MCM Electronics' catalog 42, they're on page 663. I used several of the Motorola KSN1177A dual horn tweeters on each side of the truck. $14.95 each. I threw together some brackets with a little bit of sheet steel and bolted them to the underside of the truck, just sticking out below the rocker panels.
High frequency sound is very directional, so you'll want to have a friend pull his car alongside yours at the same distance you'd be from an offensive Honda product, turn on the sound (quietly), and aim the tweeters until your friend reports that the sound is at its loudest. Do this for both sides, and adjust your brackets accordingly.
Now, these things are officially rated at about 100W RMS each. That's a lie. After playing with their smaller siblings a couple of times, I got the feeling that they were really tough. My record is hooking a piezo tweeter up to a bridged Crown MT2400 amplifier, and then pegging it. The MT2400, bridged, will drive over 2kW into 4 ohms, and a piezoelectric tweeter's impedance drops as the frequency increases... I think it's safe to say that the tweeter survived at least 1500W. Not for long, mind you, but it was very impressive.
I have run biamplified stacks in concerts using nothing but Motorola piezos for my high end, driving each tweeter with 500W RMS without any issues. Filling a 50,000 seat stadium like Toronto's SkyDome [skydome.com] with these has always been painfully easy.
A couple of things. First off, piezo tweeters don't need crossovers. Their impedance is very high below their operating frequencies. If you're retrofitting an existing cabinet, make sure that you hook them up before the inductor that filters the high end from your bass driver. And secondly, they're really loud and they're really tough, but they're not really high fidelity. Don't expect cymbals and stuff to sound as clean as they do with a good dome or cone tweeter (my faves for fidelity being Celestion or older Acoustic Research stuff). But the piezos are every bit as good as a cast aluminum horn with a dynamic driver behind it.
In short, they're dirt cheap, readily available, tough as nails, loud as hell and sound reasonably good. And they carry the Motorola name. They're amazing.
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Thanks, but I can't really claim all the credit for this one... The Sex Pistols were a helpful inspiration.
I was sitting at the corner of Bay and King Streets in the heart of downtown Toronto's financial district. I was wearing a shirt and tie and driving my lovely old 1983 Dodge Ram, which my friends called either "Patches" (for the rough, unground weld marks from rust repairs) or "The Brick" (for its rectangular shape, almost free of curves, and its red primer paintjob). It was truly the ultimate urban warrior: someone hits you, and you just laugh at the poor fool.
Driving that truck was really neat: people would assume that you were a roofer or something, until they looked in and saw a young guy with a white shirt and silk tie. And then they'd stare at me, looking really confused. Anyway, I liked the truck, it suited me, and it was really practical.
So, what should pull up beside me but a Suzuki Swift with tinted windows, one windshield wiper in the center and the little fake rubber ducky antenna on the back [riceboypage.com]. I had my windows up (it was a hot summer day, and my '83 Ram's air conditioning worked like a million bucks), and I could still hear this guy's stereo just cranked.
So, I reached over to the Alpine CD player I'd put in there a couple of months before, and flipped in a Sex Pistols CD. I skipped up to "Anarchy in the UK", and turned up the volume until the 6x9s in the doors didn't sound like they'd take it anymore.
The Swift, who didn't appear to have AC since his windows were down, didn't fare very well as the big old truck beside him lowered its windows. And, as the lines "I am an anarchist / I am the anti-Christ" played to his shocked ears and drowned out some Eminem crap, I came up with the idea for the Sibilance Projectors. (With apologies to Traynor, who made a tweeter bin with the same name back in the 1970s.)
Re:A few notes about the vehicle (Score:2)
The Insight uses the IMA motor rather than a conventional starter to start the engine. It doesn't take "a few seconds" to crank the engine - it's virtually instantaneous. I had the same concerns you did until I tried it.
Honda and Toyota both did studies on prototypes before deciding to cycle the motor whenever you come to a full stop. The Insight only shuts down if you pop the transmission into neutral. I'm not sure how Toyota determines when to shut down the engine since it has an automatic...
BTW, if you don't like the engine shutting off, just switch the AC out of "ECON" mode. The engine will keep running.
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Re:Hah (Score:2)
Ford and GMC have, however, managed to produce engines which actually HAVE power and torque without having to go that high.
Yes, they've produced some of the most fuel-inefficient vehicles on the market today. The Dodge Durango is the 2nd worst gas guzzler that's legal to own in Canada.
Can you even get your facts straight? (Score:2)
- Hiroshima: A military action. A deliberate attack on a city, not a test. Death toll, under 100K.
- Nagasaki: See Hiroshima.
- Chernobyl: An explosion and fire at a reactor designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium along with electric power, brought on by irresponsible control technicians who defeated the reactor safety systems. Aggravated in the extreme by the lack of a containment building around the reactor. Arguably a "test", if you consider fucking around in direct violation of the rules of operation to be a test. Death toll: Estimates are up to 800,000 cancers in Europe over the next 20 years, but cancer is increasingly curable.
I still want to know who these millions of dead are, and what tests killed them. Why shouldn't you take responsibility for the consequences of your choices, while you're at it? It's called "being a grown-up".Your rent is another issue. You mentioned driving 70 miles to work [slashdot.org] (one way?). If you're getting 14 MPG and pay $1.40/gallon, that's $14/day for gas. Cost of operating a vehicle is several times the fuel cost, but for you I'll assume it's only twice. That makes $28/day operating cost. If you work 20 days a month, that's $560/month. If you moved 20 miles from work, that's 100 miles/day off your commute and $20/day in your pocket. You could pay an additional $400/month in rent with that, be financially even, and have another hour or even two hours a day to yourself.
Know something? You're really funny. And that's true whether you're joking or serious.
--
Re:why does everyone complain about SUV's? (Score:2)
That's fine, if everybody who owns an SUV does that. How many are owned by soccer moms who run to the car wash after they drive their monster SUV down a dirty street, and wouldn't be caught dead off-road? You personally may be using it for something other than town crusing, but as the discussion here points out, probably 75% of the SUVs purchased will never be used to their capacity. Thus,all the wasted gas on trips to the mall, and the bogus comparisons to big rigs.
...phil
Re:you stereotyped yourself... (Score:2)
- Was such an SUV among the more efficient or less efficient choices you could have made? What kind of mileage do you get?
- With 6 billion other people on earth having to live with the consequences of your choice (especially those who live on river deltas barely above sea level, or on atolls which will vanish if sea levels rise very much), what's your moral justification for your choice?
Not terribly difficult questions, assuming that you'd actually pondered the issues before and thought them through by yourself. "Greedy" wasn't the proper adjective, perhaps. Maybe "spendthrift" or "reckless" is better. But you seem to be tightly attached to a number of funny misconceptions. For instance, because humanity is part of nature We Can Do No Wrong (either morally, or just in the sense of shooting ourselves in the collective foot). Or because there are other planets in the universe we have no need to keep this one in good shape, whether for our survival or just for the sake of aesthetics. There are 8 other planets and many smaller bodies orbitting Sol, but I haven't heard of anyone making a living on any of them yet. Maybe you should move from Maine to Venus. You won't need an SUV to deal with the winters, and I bet you'll achieve your panacea: really cheap rent. [slashdot.org] Uh, yeah. Exactly how would the continued use of DDT have solved the "lame complaint" of the imminent extinction of the American bald eagle, the peregrine falcon, and other bird species? (Other than by making them extinct, and thus making pointless any effort to keep them from dying off, I mean?) How will continued spewing of fossil carbon into the atmosphere solve the dual growing problems of global warming and increasingly severe weather? They're baking from Arizona to Alabama and north to Oklahoma this week, you know. If this actually is driven by CO2 in the atmosphere as the growing scientific majority claims, and the lifespan of fossil CO2 in the air is about 200 years, how is your SUV going to solve it in the next ten years?I'd think you were an utterly hilarious troll, except I know people who really believe the kind of things you're saying.
--
Re:Powered by Honda? Yeah. So's my lawnmower. (Score:2)
That's not even remotely true.
I'll fully admit that lots of foreign manufacturers have come up with great ideas and innovations. Mazda, for bravely soldiering on with the rotary, a disaster in the 1970s, but excellent by the time the RX-7 was discontinued. Honda for bringing variable valve timing to the masses. The Germans for working hard to make cars more modular and more easy to recycle.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that the Japanese, in the 1960s, pioneered vacuum-molding of aluminum. They made it work. And without them, the complex cylinder head castings of today's cars wouldn't be possible.
My beef is about the plethora of idiots who seem to think that an automatic-transmission, 4-cylinder Honda Civic loaded down with hundreds of pounds of stereo equipment and cheesy stickers is a high performance car capable of taking on anything with a V8 in a stoplight confrontation. It's so much fun to see one of these pulling up alongside a dead-stock and poorly maintained Mustang 5.0, for the look of shock on the Honda driver's face as the Mustang easily pulls past him is just classical.
Be reminded that a stoplight confrontation is essentially drag racing. And for drag racing, rear wheel drive, light vehicle weight and gobs of displacement will always win.
Sad to see that someone who infers some level of education and even a basic automotive knowledge wouldn't understand this.
I've rebuilt dozens of car engines, both for daily drivers and for performance vehicles. I've driven CASCAR street stock. And I cut a consistant 0.554 reaction time at time trials at the local drag strip.
I feel fully qualified to dismiss Honda and other Japanese cars as the overdone four-wheeled mopeds that they are.
And finally, when I was towing my old Fiero up to a friend's place, as I was driving down the freeway with the Fiero attached to my truck with a tow-bar, I had no less than 4 different "rice rockets" pull alongside the Fiero and attempt to race it.
Even towing a 2,800lb Pontiac Fiero, my 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID (6.6L) V8 was more than happy to play with them.
Judging from your e-mail address, it looks like you must be feeling a little bit of jealousy. I mean, what's a stoplight confrontation in the former Soviet Union like? A Trabant versus a Lada? Geez, I could walk faster.
Not sure. (Score:2)
The Peugeot 607 has an active filter to filter the exhaust particles, "self-cleaning" so you don't have to change it.
Now the 607 is a new "luxury" car, so it remains to be seen if its promises will be fulfilled and if they can also add this filter to the low end cars.
Re:you stereotyped yourself... (Score:2)
I look at people driving trucks like yours, and I think "What a fool. That nitwit is paying a ton extra for gas and is risking his life from rollovers, and is smogging up the air to boot. In five years that truck will be worth almost nothing; maybe in three years, if gas prices spike again. After that, this bozo will have nothing to show for it except a depleted bank account and an increasingly polluted environment."
So you don't care that the hundreds of millions of people who happened to be born in, e.g. Bangladesh, who have no choice about where they live and nowhere to go, are likely to have the sea reduce their farmland to inhospitable salt marsh if a hurricane doesn't wash it away entirely along with everyone who lived on it. You don't care that the pace of human-induced change is enormously faster than natural changes.Thanks for giving me a picture of your sense of personal responsibility. I think.
So you advocate the unrestricted trashing of Earth, because we might be able to live on other planets... someday. There's a bit of wisdom which goes "Don't burn your bridges before you've crossed them." If it turns out to cost $1 billion per off-earth colonist, would you still think that trashing the Earth was a smart thing? Even if keeping the Earth in good shape saved money overall? More efficient ways were available to you when you were making your purchase.Did you pick the most efficient way? No.
Did you help drive demand for more efficient products? No.
Did you try to exercise any kind of responsibility for your choice when you were out shopping? I quote you: "I didnt make my choice based on gas mileage.... it was a NON factor.."
Even if someone HAD a better way for sale, you just weren't interested.
As for the ozone layer, speed of climate shift, and so forth: Cites, please. (Not that I expect you to be able to support your assertions, but I find your evasions amusing.)
--
Re:you stereotyped yourself... (Score:2)
I really wonder if you'll be singing the same tune when OPEC's pumping capacity falls below the level of demand at $30/bbl and gas heads for $2/gallon, then points above. We only got the nice prices a couple years ago because of the collapse in the Asian economies and the consequent fall in demand. Don't expect to see that again any time soon; situations like last winter's heating-oil shortfall are likely to be repeated this winter, with natural gas inventories already running low. And with short natural gas supplies comes more demand for oil as users who can switch, switch; gasoline goes up as a consequence. Enjoy.
You seem to have a problem distinguishing "baaa" from "Nothing good can come out of doing this, and if we decide to stop we can do it at a profit, so even if we turn out to be wrong about the global consequences we'll still laugh all the way to the bank." It's called "no regrets". I don't expect to have Social Security to depend on, so I'm taking my $14/day (and more) and shoving it into a 401(k). I expect to live more comfortably than you. Anyone can set up a page at tripod. You'd have to be a fool to use such a page as a source for trustworthy information. I'm not even going to pull it up. "The Society for Environmental Truth". The newest thing I found on that site was 5 months old. You'd think that if they had the truth on their side, it would keep rolling in. Last update apparently October 1999, even older than SET. The list of "global warming skeptic" scientists (who mostly aren't climatologists, oddly enough) doesn't seem to have grown in 2 years. On the other hand, the evidence for global warming continues to pile up, including borehole temperature data taken just this year which confirms the ground-based temperature readings. Not updated since March 12 except for the "high gas prices" page, as far as I can tell. Some of the lies are revealing; under the headline "U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Slow" they admit "...U.S. emission of greenhouse gases rose in 1998, but at a slower rate than the average for the last ten years." In other words, we didn't start pumping out less, we just slowed the rate of increase. Well, progress has to start somewhere. Since we're doing so well at increasing the amount of GDP we can make per BTU, I don't see why we shouldn't make a point of cutting the BTU requirements of our economy just for the cost savings. Every barrel of oil saved is $30 that stays here instead of going to OPEC. The press release is 2 years old, and long since overtaken by events. "gore.html" is an unapologetic political screed having nothing to do with evidence of effects on the environment. That's not even a news site; the "Global Warming Myths" link goes to a page that collects other links, including the disreputable sovereignty.net and globalwarming.org pages you already listed. In other words, it just recycles other people's propaganda. While I agree that there are wackos on the environmental left, this doesn't justify dismissing the threat of environmental damage OR using the possibility as a very good reason to cut every bit of CO2 emission that you can do at a profit. Saving money is smart anyway, the environment just puts it higher on the list of priorities.--
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
That's precisely right. As long as I have to share the roads with idiots in Integras that are coated with silly stickers, the driver on the cellphone while his stereo pumps bass so loudly that the coins on my truck's dashboard are bouncing to his beat, you better bet your ass that I'll be driving the biggest and heaviest brick I can possibly get my hands on.
Just one question: How can you talk on the cellphone with the stereo so loud that quarters are getting air in adjacent vehicles? I suspect they're just poseurs, they can't actually afford the cellular service, but think that it's an important status symbol.
I've actually put a rather nice stereo into my truck. In a former career, I was a professional audio and video technician. I've done sound for Metallica, Garth Brooks and the Three Tenors. I hit the drawing board and crunched some numbers. Then, I stuck a couple of professional EV 10" bass drivers into the space between my seat and the back of my cab. With a small amplifier I designed and threw together, they can easily kill my battery... :)
I've also put a whole shitload of Motorola piezoelectric tweeters ($7 each, tough as nails) on the underside of the truck, with a switch to turn them on and off. The switch, appropriately enough, is labelled "Sibiliance Projector" and has a setting for left and right.
When I pull up beside one of these idiots who has the stereo pumped with the latest (c)rap or dance tune, I stick in my Ozzy Osbourne CD, flip the sibilance projector to his side of my truck, and pump it. I get 122dB @ 8kHz at 1 meter from the truck. 200 watts, real watts, not car stereo watts, RMS. Earbleed territory. That'll fix 'em.
Either way, it's comforting to be able to back over them if I need to.
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Speaking as one who feels comfortable with the statement that I probably know more about cars than 98.9% of my fellow Slashdotters, I'm unclear as to how you can justify calling a car with half its cylinders missing and the engine pointing a funny way in the engine bay a "high performance car".
Last time I checked, four cylinders were suitable for getting the kids to the dentist, not for getting to the traps at the end of the strip first.
Re:you stereotyped yourself... (Score:2)
I'm happy that you're starting to learn that events like the Thames and the Potomac catching fire are recent history, not fiction. Things have gotten a lot better, and they got better through "nazi like activism" (I invoke Godwin's Law, I win!) which brought about the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other laws and international treaties. But there's still a lot left to do.
For your further edification, here's some layman's level material from one of the most unbiased news sources in the English language, the BBC. I couldn't find the item on the borehole-temperature readings which confirmed the historical record of ground-based thermometers (must not be using the right search terms, and I'm having problems connecting to the search engine today), but I should be able to scare up that URL next week. In the mean time, here are some items on disasters in the making:
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south %5Fasia/newsid%5F683000/683566.stm [bbc.co.uk] details the death of the Ganges, caused in no small part by the vanishing of the Himalayan glaciers which feed its headwaters;2 000/372219.stm [bbc.co.uk] talks about climate change making life suddenly more hospitable for pathogens and their vectors (the West Nile Virus is now in New York, right next to you);3 000/613075.stm [bbc.co.uk] talks about the Bangladeshi Environment Minister telling what will happen if Bengalis actually do what you suggest they ought to do.
http://new s6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F37
and http://new s6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F61
In that vein, http://news6.thdo .bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid_37000/37816.stm [bbc.co.uk] talks about people who won't be able to vote with their feet, because they'd have to swim (and they aren't happy about it [bbc.co.uk]). Nice little image there.
On the general theme of the world becoming more dangerous in general, look atp ecials/washington%5F200 0/newsid%5F647000/647831.stm [bbc.co.uk], http://new s6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F603 000/603707.stm [bbc.co.uk] /news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/news id%5F824000/824427.stm [bbc.co.uk].
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/s
and http:/
Relevant to the problems global warming is threatening to the arctic, see http://new s6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F552 000/552327.stm [bbc.co.uk]. That one in particular mentions that warming temperatures and increased freshwater may shut down the North Atlantic Elevator, which drives the Gulf Stream current. Without that, Europe becomes a lot colder. How'd you like to have a few million English, French and Germans all keen to move to Maine because the homeland is suddenly too cold for them? Anyway, enjoy the food for thought. If it gives you an appreciation that it might suddenly have consequences which force themselves into your life, you might start feeling a little less cocky.
--
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Right!
If you want a high performance car, you drive a Viper, a Falcon or a Barracuda.
You don't drive something that you could feed to a Viper, Falcon or Barracuda.
Re:Finally someone who isn't a bleeding heart reta (Score:2)
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
Should your jetski be out on the lake? Actually.. NO.. IT SHOULDN'T.. do you know how much oil and crap it dumps in the lake? Same for many boats.
Quality of life? Quality of life is going steadiloy donwhill as we destroy the world around us. Am I an environmentalist nutcase? Certainly not... but think about it for a minute.
My quality of life allows me to go out and buy a brand new BMW tomorrow if I want. Do I? No. I don't. Because I don't need a car. Is driving fun? yes. Do I like it? yes. But.. it's HARMFUL.
Re:You are ignorant and an danger on the road. (Score:2)
See, the beauty of this is that if you key my Dodge Ram, it'll probably do more damage to your key than it will to my truck.
Further, you're well ahead to be warned that the sorts of people who generally drive 24-year-old pickup trucks aren't the sorts of people you'd want to have angry with you, lest you actually do try this.
Most of us have guns. Some of us are members of the Hells Angels. And I'm a rare exception: I keep an old camshaft in my truck, in case anyone needs to have an attitude adjustment.
Only the strong survive.
Motorcycles... (Score:2)
I got stuck in traffic for 2 hours today. 2 hours of my life wasted by a lorry bursting into flames and shedding a load of pigs on to the motorway which caused the police to close the motorway (behind me) while they tried to round them up and divert the traffic down an A road.
Soo. I've decided that I'm going to buy a motorcycle. No more waiting in traffic. 80Mpg fuel efficiency and when I get a larger bike I'll be able to do 0-60 in 3.5 seconds with a top speed of 180mph...
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
My uncle owns a '68 Road Runner and a '69 Dart. My father is reconstructing his '72 Challenger, and my brother just bought a '72 Demon.
Unfortunately, it's a little hard to enjoy those vehicles for more than three or four months a year, here. I live in NB, Canada, and winter is terrible.
My point was not to say that SUVs are the most fun vehicle in the world to drive, but they're a great all-around vehicle for the power hungry familyman/soccermom. They get through snow (if you're not an idiot), the can tow the family tent trailer, and they have enough room to get groceries AND pick up "the kids", some of which you've never met, yet eat most of your food.
Plus, you feel empowered by the size/height/power of the thing.
I drive a Neon, heh.
Re:I've only ever found two vehicles that fit me. (Score:2)
I'm starting to wonder if there's some sort of correlation between one's height and the displacement of one's car engine.
With my 400 V8, I can drive down the road and say to myself, "my engine is bigger than his, and his, and hers, and his, and his, and hers, and...". It's an amusing way of passing time in a traffic jam. At the same time, I'm also 6'4", almost dwarfed by you, but all the same, I'm still frequently the tallest person in any given public place.
Interesting. Is the big engine borne of the practical need for a larger vehicle, or is it because we just like big things? I know both factors are at play with myself.
The biggest engine I've ever worked on was quite impressive, and a hell of a lot of fun. It was a MAN B&W [manbw.dk] diesel on a Great Lakes bulker ship. It was 4 stories tall, with a redline of about 75 RPM (but the Chief Engineer told me he'd never had the guts to rev it above 70 RPM). The valve springs were bigger than I am. And there I was, hanging off a catwalk on the side of a running engine, changing the oil pressure sensor for the front main bearing. :)
Re:Hah (Score:2)
The nicest thing about the American school of engine design is that you don't have to revv the engine up to 9,000RPM to make power.
Less RPMs = less energy wasted to make the pistons stop, change direction and start moving again. Unless you drastically cut the weight of your pistons (making them more fragile to detonation and engine load), you're going to exponentially reduce your efficiency.
Further, the more times your pistons go up and down for a given mile of road travelled, the more wear that your rings, bore and bottom end will experience, and therefore the less lifespan your engine will see.
Sure, the Japanese have manufacturing quality now to the point of an art that has yet to be duplicated anywhere else in the world. But I still don't like any engine where the manufacturing tolerance is the only factor towards longevity.
Give me an old Chrysler Slant-6 any day. They redline at 4,500 RPM, and with a 4.125" stroke and a 3.40" bore, they're massively oversquare. In low gears, they can pull stumps. In a higher gear, they can pin you back in your seat when you hit the gas on the highway. All without pushing the tach past more than about 3,500 RPM.
Not coincidentally, they're world-renowned for lasting nearly forever.
Re:CVCC isn't a spectre to be bringing up... (Score:2)
You say that like it's a bad thing. I'd pay extra to have that. On other people's cars, anyway.
<grin> You have a point...
Re:Hah (Score:2)
I'll readily agree. The Japanese have been building cars with absolutely amazing assembly quality over the past few years. I just don't like their designs.
Nor will I ever forgive Honda for the absolutely incredibly poor assembly quality of some of their older models. They make Detroit's worst quality control failures (ie. the Chevy Vega/Pontiac Astre) look like a Mercedes in comparison.
The biggest issues with low redlines isn't caused by the fact that Detroit's assembly quality isn't as good as the Japanese. It's that Detroit's engines have traditionally had fairly long strokes. The longer the stroke, the higher the piston speed at a given RPM, and therefore the higher the reciprocating forces are. But it has the benefit of not having to reciprocate the engine as frequently to produce a given power.
Unquestionably, I'd love to see the automakers unions get busted. When you've got some half-wit with a ninth-grade education and a lottery ticket addiction machining connecting rods for $21/hr, you can't afford to throw away the marginal ones. This is where the failures in Detroit's quality control lie. It appears suicidal that Detroit hasn't been able to address this issue, but the unions are very strong. Most Japanese and European automakers don't have the problem to anywhere near this extent, even if they're unionized at all.
Re:Hah (Score:2)
That's not a function of the fact that the engine is a long-stroke low-revving motor (which the 3.9L V6 and its optional cousins, the 5.2L and 5.7L V8s both are). The reason a Durango is a gas guzzler is because it's heavy, has fairly soft and wide tires and has a fairly large frontal area for the wind.
At the same time, I'd question your sources, for you appear to me to be rather ignorant. Both the Lincoln Navigator and the GMC Yukon are far bigger and heavier vehicles and have far worse gas mileage ratings, therefore usurping the Durango's place as the "second worst". And, since I see them frequently at GM and Ford dealerships here in Toronto, I know that they're available in Canada.
And that's only counting SUVs. Dodge still makes the V10-powered Ram, available with a 4x4 drivetrain and a one-ton suspension. I'm sure if you drive that with the hammer down, you'll go through twice as much fuel as the Durango.
Further, it's not illegal to build, sell or buy a vehicle that gets 2 miles per gallon, let alone what these vehicles get. You'll be taxed to hell on the purchase of it, but it's not illegal to sell a car or truck no matter how much fuel it uses. Amazingly enough, despite the fact the federal government screws with every aspect of Canadian society, they haven't yet done that.
So, you're so full of feces that your eyes are brown. You clearly don't know as much about automobiles, engines, or mechanical engineering as you believe you do.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing (Score:2)
--
Re:soup is good. (Score:2)
Inflation isn't uniform.
I see you need another physics lesson (Score:2)
You can continue to claim this is impossible, but the fact remains that it has been done. By a children's toy, no less. It was a little boat with an air turbine on one end of a slanted shaft and a water propeller at the other end. Dropped into the water, it would weathervane so that the air turbine was downwind and then plow upwind until it ran into something. Put it on the lee side of a pond, recover it on the windward side.
The boat had a disadvantage that a car does not; a propeller operating in a fluid loses considerable energy to slip, where a tire on pavement loses very little under normal conditions. At the limit, you could have a turbine turning a ballscrew pushing at a tiny fraction of the windspeed. It's painfully obvious from this that you could shove the platform carrying the turbine directly into the wind. Once you've settled this, the only question remaining is how efficiently this can be done. The efficiency determines how fast you can go. Go back and run my numbers for groundspeed = 1/2 airspeed, and see how low your efficiency could be and still make it work.
--
Oh, *stereotyping*. That's the mark of coolness. (Score:2)
Oh, I'm not an environmental propagandist. Among other things, I'm pro-nuclear-power, and I take a lot of heat over it from green wackos. But unlike you, I'm informed and reasonably good at arguing for my positions. You're just using ad-hominems, where you haven't fallen to outright flaming. Pitiful.
--
Re:Insight Owner (Score:2)
Part of it though, I'll freely admit, is that Toyota's cars are mostly rather dull. Nice sports models, but the Corolla and the like are _so_ dull. I just prefer Hondas as a range.
Re:government subsidies (Score:3)
Apparently Chrysler is looking at hybrids for, of all things, SUVs. The use a somewhat different system, with the gas engine driving the rear wheels and the electric motor driving the front wheels (when needed). This apparently simplifies it a lot and makes the system cost only about $3000. They can get away with a lot by doing this, too; they can use a V-6 instead of a V-8, don't need a 4WD system, etc.
They claim that it boosts gas mileage from about 12 mpg to about 16 mpg, which is actually a more significant gain in terms of total gas consumption than moving from the Civic HX's 35/42 to the Insight's 60/71. With gas prices where they are, they can't justify the system based on fuel savings alone, but it may pay for itself with a combination of gas savings, reduced gas guzzler tax, and improvements to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Certainly if the Government starts increasing the gas tax or bumping fuel economy standards, this may be a reasonable choice.
Re:Electric cars still rely on power plants (Score:3)
Best quote - We are from the future (Score:2)
This would have had even more effect if they had been dressed strangely. Maybe they were.
the AC
Think Long Term. Ok, Loooong Term. (Score:2)
-----
We need more cars like this (Score:4)
Spare tire? I want a spare car!
Put a couple of hooks into the rafters in the garage, and you can hang three or four Hondas.
Re:70MPG This is Progress?? (Score:2)
-russ
Get a Mercedes-Benz E-Class Station wagon (Score:2)
Lots of fun to drive, too.
My main complaint about SUVs is that they're gut-wrenchingly ugly.
D
----
Re:What's in a name? (Score:2)
Re:Want lower gas prices? (Score:2)
No. Take the doors off a Jeep and guess where the mirrors go? In the garage with the doors.
---
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:2)
The accident I was involved with, The bus was coming towards me in the opposite lane, and the driver had already started before the light changed. I saw the green, and then saw a little blue toyota not stopping coming down the inclined road into our intersection. The toyota didn't stop at all, smacked right into the bus, got crushed. What did the bus do? It veered into my lane (the opposite traffic), destroyed 80% of the front of my car (8,000 bucks of damage on a 12K saturn), then glanced off, and ran over a fire alarm box. A slight dent in it's side where the toyota impacted it at 35+ mph, and hardly a scratch on the other side where it creamed my car, and hardly a scrach in it's front where it ran over the fire alarm box. Oh yeah, and I wasn't harmed at all. I can't say the same for the folks in the toyota, they didn't look too good picking themselves up off the asphalt of the intersection with blood pouring out of their scalps. They weren't wearing seat belts.
I've seen many a SUV wrapped around a utility or light pole. They don't seem to withstand quite a beating. But boy do they make you look cool. Good luck.
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re:we need better fads... (Score:2)
Trouble is, I think people would buy it. Seriously.
D
[Kenworth is a heavy truck manufacturer if you didn't know].
----
1800 lbs? (Score:2)
So light, in fact, that I'm almost sure you can't take it over, say, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, where the natives inform me that Geo metros are banned, because they have a nasty tendency of being blown off the bridge.
If that's the case, how does a Geo Metro's weight stack up to the weight of the Insight? And where can't you drive it, for similar reasons? Also, what about these hard tires? I wonder how much more likely they make accidents?
I love the idea of 70 MPG, but I'm kind of curious about how safe this little thing is.
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
I don't understand your logic. What is the point of 4wd when you don't ever use it?
X-10 camera! LCD TV from RS (Score:2)
Hack, hack!
-russ
Ford Exorbitant (Score:4)
No, what you need is the new Ford Exorbitant [bbspot.com].
Detroit, MI - Ford Motor Company announced today the new Ford Exorbitant. The Ford Exorbitant seats 50 comfortably, and even comes with a spare Ford Explorer. The Exorbitant, built on a standard bus frame is the largest SUV ever manufactured. Aside from the spare Explorer, other standard features include a full kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and 1.5 bathrooms.
"Many people have given up their own home and use the Exorbitant as their only living space. It's much more convenient than finding a place to park the Exorbitant," said CEO Jacques Nasser. He continued, "No longer will you be stranded if you run out of gas, or get a flat tire. Sure you could use your cell phone to call for help, but who wants to wait for help? Just unload your Explorer and take care of the problem when you want to."
"I just love it," said soccer mom, Wendy Glickman, "I feel a lot safer knowing I have the spare Explorer. What if I forget my cell phone? What if the GPS in the Exorbitant fritzes out? Half a million dollars is a small price to pay for peace of mind."
Many environmental groups have voiced concerns over the Exorbitant's nuclear powered engine. "Gee, you make a car that doesn't run on gas and they still complain," responded Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr. "This vehicle gets 70,000 miles per enriched Uranium rod, which makes it the most environmental friendly SUV available."
The Lincoln Gigantro based on the Exorbitant will be available next year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:2)
Okay, well, you're both right, and you're not right. Some SUVs have a high center of gravity that does make them more prone to rollover. The old Jeep CJ-7 was probably the worst ever for this, but the YJ and TJ are quite safe. The Suzuki Samurai was an incredible deathtrap, too.
Today's real SUVs, like the (Grand) Cherokee, Durango, Explorer, Expedition, Yukon, etc. are all fairly good, with a low center of gravity and enough width that, while you could topple them over (as you could with any car), you'd have to work for them. In fact, with the exception of the Cherokee (but not the Grand Cherokee), these are full-frame vehicles, most of them with perimeter frames that concentrate the weight down and away from the center. (On most of them, the frame runs under the rocker panels.)
Now, a full-frame vehicle is actually more dangerous than a good unibody in a serious accident: the frame is basically steel C-channel or box section. If you hit something, the frame isn't going to give all that much. The damage to the vehicle will be minimal compared to the damage on a comparable unibody designed to crumple. So, the truck may survive, but they'll have to hose your brains off the dashboard before they can sell it to the next guy.
Most accidents are minor urban fender-benders. This is why I like my truck. (Note that it's a pickup truck, not an SUV; with the exception of the carpets and leather seats, it's basically the same thing.)
If some guy in a Honda Civic cuts me off and there's 20MPH of speed difference between us when we hit, my front bumper will push his taillights into the back seat. My bumper will be bent, I'll have to replace my grille and maybe my radiator, but my truck won't be seriously damaged.
On the other hand, his Honda will we well on its way to being reincarnated into table legs and manhole covers.
Mass and steel will always win over flimsy Japanese tinfoil and plastic.
Re:Gas prices are falling. (Score:2)
One of the useful functions of government is to make sure the "hidden" costs are paid up front.
Re:Too expensive! (Score:2)
Yeah and with all the juice you're pouring through its batteries, they should last about two or three years. Then you need a whole new set. Thats a several thousand dollar maintainance fee, ouch. Hope you get the extended warranty.
Prius vs. Insight (Score:2)
The Insight is a two passenger, two door vehicle and the Prius is a four passenger, four door vehicle. You might even squeeze five in if two of them are kids, has anybody tried this? The Insight is radically aerodynamically styled - it's rear is severely tapered so that there is really no cargo room. The Prius has a less radical shape and it looks like it has the same cargo capacity as a conventional small sedan.
The Insight looks like it would rock as a commute only vehicle. Not everyone can live with a two passenger vehicle, however. The Prius on the other hand looks like an efficient, clean alternative vehicle to supplement the family minivan.
SUVs can be nice. Sortof. (Score:3)
Hell, yeah! I'd be surprised if even the 5% of SUVs that you exclude see off-road use.
Ya know, the big problem is all the yentas who get behind the wheel of these things, and either leave them in 4-wheel-drive mode all the time, or turn it on when it's raining.
Or, better still, those who drive stupidly in snow because they think the 4x4 drivetrain will somehow allow them to handle and stop better than everyone else.
Gimme a break.
I drive pickup trucks, not because I need the size or the cargo space most of the time, but because I like them - which is what disposeable income and free will is all about. And because they offer a form of insurance that State Farm doesn't offer: If I'm going to die in a car accident with a Honda Civic, I'll be damned well assured that that I'm gonna take the other guy with me.
My trucks are all 2WD, because I don't need 4x4. I've currently got a 1976 Ram, and I love the thing, even though it only gets 7MPG. I love older pickup trucks, because I like the styling, I don't want leather seats or carpeting, and I'm not interested in driving around in something worth $20k + .
My previous truck was, paradoxically, newer: a 1983 Dodge Ram with a Slant-6 and a 4-speed manual transmission. Phenominal gas mileage; if I drove it gently, I could get 450 miles out of a 25 gallon tank of gas. Not bad for an old half-ton.
And it went everywhere, even though it was 2WD. I especially fondly remember watching a woman in a fur coat trying to get an Isuzu Trooper over a snowbank during a big snowstorm in Toronto two winters ago. She was spinning all four tires, just hitting the gas, the friction of her tires turning the snow under her into ice.
I pulled out of the gas station, having filled up, and gently goosed the gas pedal, having shifted early into third gear to give myself some traction. My old Ram hit the snowbank, doing about 30 miles an hour and just plowed through the 3 feet of slush, ice and snow. Then I downshifted quickly and hit the gas hard to fishtail myself into a sharp turn and into the road. I then pulled to the side, got out, and helped the lady get her Isuzu unstuck.
She was freaked out by my little display of winter driving, and commented that "weren't 4 wheel drive vehicles great?".
When I turned around and told her that my trusty old Ram didn't have four wheel drive, let alone a positraction differential, she was stunned, but that didn't stop her from driving her now-freed Trooper through the opening in the snowbank that I had made.
It's all in the driving skill. SUVs have their places, but it's not in the hands of accountants, housewives or soccer moms.
'Course, I grew up in Ottawa and Montreal, two cities known for being blanketed in snow for 5 months of the year. I've had opportunity for practice.
Re:Why are the rear wheels covered? (Score:2)
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:2)
You know, if NOBODY owned these things, we'd be a shitload safer. But since we're going there, I think I need that Abrams M1-A1.
I'm so glad that you've finally made it clear that the poor environmentallists don't have as much right to survive a collision as you do.
Fuel economy at the expense of safety - tires (Score:2)
As the tires fail to turn the car out of the way of the moron that pulled out right in front of you, the ABS pulses frequently since the tires slip as if the road is covered in water, the 1800 lb. weight insures that the other car won't move too much as the Insight crumples itself to half it's size.
Different people have different priorities, but the tires are too important to play with, IMO. I'd be curious to see the fuel economy difference between the stock and some reasonable sticky tires.
275mm wide Z-rated tires at all 4 corners for me, thank you.
Re:Gas prices are falling. (Score:3)
Economics says that you will do something until the additional cost to you equals the additional benefit to you, and that if everyone does this we'll all be pretty ok as a whole. But with something like gasoline the point at which the additional cost to you equals the additional benefit is a bit farther than the rest of society would like you to go, because everyone else has to bear your pollution. This is why things with negative externalities (gasoline, tobacco) are taxed and things with positive externalities (vaccines) are subsidized.
You may think that the tax on gasoline is enough and that gas can never be too cheap, but you're not paying for all of the cost of your driving! I read a study which suggested that in order to take into account all of the costs of gasoline (including the Gulf War, pollution, highway construction, etc.) the gasoline tax would need to be $6.25/gallon. Granted that's probably a bit on the high side, but it should definitely be more than it is now.
Cheap transportation is all well and good, but what we have now is generally subsidized gasoline (because the tax isn't high enough). This results in a lot more transportation being done than should be. It's why we have so much urban sprawl in the US and why there are so many cities you just can't breath in.
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
Not to mention they are so fun. I can't stand driving my car anymore. Its just so boring. Ever since I got a bike, its ALL I want to ride.
Not to mention they are smaller. Makes them SOOO easy to park, in most places theres plenty of room to park in-between spots or something and they usually don't get ticketed for it.
Plus they cut down on traffic congestion because they take up less space on the road. Not to mention a good bike can accelrate faster than most cars (though the faster cars like the porches will beat most average bikes, but not all bikes)
As for collision protection, you have your brain. You have to use it. Its the only protection you have.
-Steve
Re:wow... you are a looser... truth hurts huh? (Score:2)
Woo-hoo! I do that, too!
I don't drive drunk, but it's really funny to see one of those silly little Acuras swerve wildly to get out of the way as my 1976 Dodge Ram comes at it.
One of them rear-ended me not too long ago. The idiot thought he was my trailer, the way he was tailgating me. Ya know, it's one of those Hondas with a big "Powered By Honda" sign across the windshield, and dude thinks he's driving a race car.
I stopped for the red light ahead. He didn't stop.
And I was very grateful, not only for the fact that I drive 4,500lbs of Michigan's finest steel, but also because of the Class 3 trailer hitch below my back bumper.
He mashed my bumper, which was resting against his engine block, trashed grille and radiator somewhere between. My bumper cost him $219 to replace.
On the other hand, my trailer hitch, protruding from the engine and welded to the 3/16" thick plate steel frame of my truck, went right though his engine block and into his engine's water jacket.
His car was a write-off. And, when I unbolted the old bumper and bolted on the new one that his insurance provided, my truck's paint hadn't even been scratched.
As long as people still drive like idiots, I'll still drive big and heavy trucks. And when most of the vehicles on the road are as big and heavy as mine, I'll just dust off my air brake license and get myself a good 5-ton cube van for my drive to work.
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:5)
I'm just *waiting* for the wrongful death case in an Excursion vs. Civic collision... you're absolutely right, which is why SUV's oughta be banned. (Anything with that much mass not being used for carrying of equipment/goods should be denied from consumer purchase).
Sure, but it won't pull my boat... (Score:2)
Great idea, 70 mpg. I'd love to get that on my commute to work. However I live on a small lot, if I got one of these I wouldn't have room to park my boat unless I got rid of the truck. (Which must be 4wd to get out of some lakes) So I end up getting 23 mpg to work (I check often), just so I can pull the boat once in a while. Wastefull, and I don't like it either, but what else can I do?
In other words, everyone I know would love to get great milage when they can, even if money is no limit we don't have the space to keep all those cars.
Of course if USWorst would hurry up and get my ISDN line installed (or DSL if they ever bother to upgrade the switch) I could get infinatly better gas milage on my commute most days.
A sign of things to come (Score:3)
Right now, when my wife and I go to drive somewhere, we have a choice. We can drive her smaller Mazda 626 (she used to do a lot of distance driving), or my bigger Chevy Blazer (more comfy inside, hauls tons o' stuff, but only gets 20 MPG on the highway). Both are compromizes. We like the zippiness and economy of the Mazda, and we both like the roominess and visibility in the Blazer. But the mileage tradeoff is significant.
That said, as time goes by I'm looking farward to seeing the principles from the first-generation hybrids like the Toyota and Honda make their way into larger, more comfortable cars. It might well be possible to make a Blazer that gets 30+ MPG on the highway, or a minivan, or a larger family sedan with this technology.
Ultimately, it works out that I either walk to work or take the Blazer (I work in the town I live in - it's a long walk or short drive). She drives the Mazda to her job a couple of towns away. That way, even though I burn more gas, it still takes me a couple of weeks to go through a tank. Someday, as the technology spreads out, that won't matter. There will still be people who accuse me of unspeakable things because I own a sport-utility, but there are practical reasons to own one (how else can you get to Wasque Point on Chappy with fishing gear?) So I'll still have my ute - and it'll be a better automotive citizen, too. Hopefully this kind of technology (and fuel cells, too, down the road) will increase the efficiency of the whole fleet of cars, minivans, and sport-utilities. Then it won't be so important anymore whether you have a Honda Civic or a Ford Excursion from an energy point of view - because we'll all be using less of it.
- -Josh Turiel
Transmeta:Honda:: (Score:2)
Now Honda is basically doing the same thing.
However, Both companies obviously did it to see how efficient thay could make the product, while at the same time sacrificing lots of good stuff, such as IBM's LCD screen size, the biggest battery hog of all (which makes me wonder why they replaced the mirrors; it's the USB-equivalent kluge of rear-view mirrors
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
We've been spoiled by cheap gas for too long, and we seem to have a car culture that calls for big luxury vehicles. Maybe this is because we drive further.
As far as fuel prices are concerned, think of them as a tax on polluters.
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
Dunno, last few times I tried to use my brain to block a collision, it hurt a lot. My head hurt too. Using other parts of my body didn't help either.
Eventually I decided to use a friend of mine to block the collisions for me - is that what you meant by using your brain?
Re:Gas prices are falling. (Score:2)
And yes, I live in the states, and no, I don't own stock in any companies that sell oil. (or any other companies for that matter)
I don't think we should feel guilty for having low gas prices. I just think we shouldn't be whining about it. Right now Americains have the lowest prices in the world that I know of...and they are whining about it!
I think its great myself. It motivated me to finnaly get a mototcyle (which has become my primary vehicle). Hopefully it will motivate others to do things of the sort.
Also it will hopefully create more demand for more fuel effcient vehicles. Even at these prices for gas it would still be cheaper to keep a honda insight filled up than it would cost to keep most cars filled up BEFORE prices went up. Plus it conserves oil supplies, AND is better for the environment.
If you ask me, they are a win all around. If gas prices go up more, perhaps we will see mid-size and fullsize versions of them...then maybe even some of those god-forsaken SUVs (I hoope not but c'est la vie - some people actually like them)
Really...only good can come of it.
Re:You are ignorant and an danger on the road. (Score:2)
Hey, how about a drunk driver in a Ford Extrusion, eh? Most drunk drivers are middle aged - not young people - and are more likely to be in a SUV, I'd assume.
First of all, most accidents are caused by young people. Why do you think insurance is so much higher for them? Second, you make my point for me. If some drunk is driving an SUV, then my family and I better be driving one, too (hopefully bigger and stronger).
You burn clean, but you burn a lot of a resource we only have another 20-40 years left of. Bully for you. You should be ashamed to drive something that gets under 20MPG.
This is one of the things that bug me. People have no understanding of economics. Here's a fact... we have an infinite number of years of oil left. That's right: infinite. You know why? Because as it runs out, it gets more and more expensive to pull out of the ground. When the cost rises above alternative fuels, then the alternatives will be used. We will NEVER run out of oil, only cheap oil.
Not to mention that last I heard we had > 100 years of known oil reserves.
--
This reminds me of a joke (Score:2)
-----------------
There was a chicken and a horse playing together in a barn yard, suddenly the horse falls into a pit. He yells to the chicken, "Go get the farmer, save me, save me!!!". The chicken goes looking for the farmer but can't find him. So he gets the farmer's BMW and drives it over to the mud pit, lassoes the horse, ties it to the car and pulls him out. The horse says, "Thank you, Thank you, I owe you my life.
Then a couple days later they are playing there again and this time the chicken falls into the mud pit and the chicken says, "Help me!!! Help me!!! Go get the farmer!!!". So the horse says, No No No, I think I can get you." The horse stretches across the mud pit and tells the chicken, Grab onto my penis." The chicken grabs on, the horse stretches back, and the horse saves the chickens life.
So what's the moral of the story?
"If you have a penis the size of a horse you don't need a BMW to pick up chicks"
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:4)
Two men are caught by the police. The police have enought evidence to send both of the men to jail for 3 years. Instead the police tell both that if they rat on the other then they will get off scott free and the other person gets 10 years. If both confess and rat on each other then each gets 7 years. In most cases it becomes best to be selfish because you know that the other person will be selfish, IE both loses.
This is fairly similar. If two cars are in a collision then both drivers are hurt. If I get a bigger car than I can "win the battle", and kill the other person. Unfortunately then it is best for everyone else to be selfish and buy the big car and then no one wins.
It is a myth that bigger equals safer. To some degree that is true, but most SUVs do not have adequite roll cages to support the weight of the SUV, if they have a roll cage at all. Also, SUVs are extremely top heavy, which increases the chance of rolling. If the SUV rolls and the roll cage cannot take the weight, or there is no roll cage, then you have a flat SUV. If you get hit by a car that is not a "featherweight deathbox", and the collison is not head on then there is a really good chance that you will tip and roll. If you tip and roll the chances of the roof on your SUV becoming crushed, trapping or killing you and your kids inside, increases exponetially. If you try to swerve away from that "drunk idiot" and you do it too quick, there is a good chance you will end up on your head, again being trapped or killed by the weight of the SUV.
Oh, and even those small cars can do it. My ex-girlfriend was in her truck when it got sideswipped by a small toyota, her truck, which isn't nearly as top heavy or easy to tip as a SUV, flipped.
If you REALLY want to be safe, and you REALLY want your children to be safe, do more research on the topic. The best bets are Volvos, Saabs, Saterns, and vehicles similar to the big towncars.
By the way, the average car today burn at roughly 30-50% effecient, which is really poor. All of the SUVs out there are in the 30%s. Thats 30% of the USEABLE energy. Some of the most effecient vehicles burn at 70-80%, but those are your standard "featherweight deathbox" cars. To finish your last sentince, Today's cars burn extremely hot, because that is where 50-70% of the useable energy is going.
<flame>
Frankly, with the additude that you seem to have, I think you will be doing society a favor when you clean youself out of the gene-pool when your beloved SUV flips and crushes you.
</flame>
Re:You are ignorant and an danger on the road. (Score:2)
Good. Public transit. So I can sit in a subway train full of unwashed derelicts and third-world refugees.
Canada's a lot bigger than Toronto. I'm from the East Coast; No public transit here, period. I don't care as much about fuel consumption - that's what the high prices are for, spend your money how you want, it's a free country - I do care about people buying SUVs because they're more "safe". They're not. My mom is a nurse, and gets to clean up messes that SUV's make all the time - and I'm not talking about motor oil. I like trucks! Hell, you can do stuff with them. Try throwing a load of firewood in a Ford Extrusion, be careful not to hurt the leather. SUV's are going to be legislated in Canada to meet the same requirements as cars in 2003. Whoo-hoo.
Your shortsightedness comes from the fact that when I no longer make enough money to be able to drive to work every day, I will move. Period. I'll take my many skills and my good work ethic, and I will pick up and move to the United States, where I shall pursue citizenship and sever all my ties with Canada. And I'll leave Canada with its burgeoning population of highly trained and highly literate convenience store clerks.
Great, more work for me! For the record, I'm a EE - all my friends went to the wonderful USA. Big deal. Made it easy for me to get a job with decent pay, great stock options, and get the laid back atmosphere. You don't get that in the Valley. Demand wont go away. For the record, you are horribly mistake as far as artificially high gas prices go, my friend. Canada has the 2nd lowest prices in the industrialized world. The USA has the lowest prices - one could argue that these are artificially LOW, not artificially HIGH.
The brain drain will continue and Canada's standard of living will drop until all the tree-hugging idiots who can't understand the basic laws of supply and demand back off and let commerce take its place.
You're being funny, now. Do you think the air your car is breathing is free? No, that's a public good. As is the pollution you emit, and that's what the fuel taxes are supposed to cover - that and roads. Most countries price air and roads higher than north america, largely because we're dependant on cars for travel, as the only cities in Canada with subways (to the best of my knowledge) are Toronto, Montreal and Vancover (I think). So high costs affect everyone..
In celebration of gas guzzlers and noxious pollutants, on my way to the office in the morning, I'll disconnect a couple of the spark plug leads on my 6.6L V8 engine. I'll toast you, xtal, with my coffee cup as I drive across Toronto on the 401, listening to the Howard Stern Radio Show, and filling the air with unburnt hydrocarbons as my massive and temporarily detuned engine chugs me to work.
Sure! I'd love to see you burn more gas, because that's less tax that I have to pay - which is why I'm waiting for the $1.00/L prices to happen. The oil and gas industry sees typically 6-12 months in advance - they missed the consumption curve, which is why oil spiked. Spend your money as you want.. I want legislation protecting me from Soccer Moms in SUVs - specifically, training mandated in how to handle SUVs, they certainly don't brake or handle like a car - or outright bans on vehicles exceeding X lbs for passenger classifications.
Let me know when you're leaving for the US, so I can get your job. Until then, burn lots of gas and help lower my taxes!
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Re:Yes, I need an SUV (Score:3)
Yeah, but unfortunately you're also driving a behemoth with lousy steering, brakes, and acceleration compared to those "deathboxes". While it is frequently possible to determine blame in accidents, that doesn't mean that those accidents were inevitable products of one driver's incompetence. In most accidents, the correct action by the not-at-fault driver could have avoided or at least mitigated the accident. The superior maneverability, accelaration, and brakes of nimbler cars can help tremendously in this.
Re:Too expensive! (Score:3)
Re:God, I really want one of these... (Score:2)
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
I'd love to be able to take public transit all the time, but it isn't possible. Unless you live in a very large city chances are good there is little or no public transportation available. Bear in mind, if you live in a small town any taxi service will be extremly expensive.
As for cars being only for transportation, if you think driving is fun, by all means do so. I would prefer that people not drive huge SUVs that will put their bumper throught my windshield in a head on collision. Of course that would actually require people to be concerned about the safety of other people on the road.
Re:Lies About Electric Cars (Score:2)
The problem is that the people are TOO spread out, urban communities are more efficient than rural ones.
The reason crime is higher in urban areas has nothing to do with the fact they're closer together, its the people. Segregation caused millions of racists to vote with their feet and flee the cities years ago. This is how urban sprawl started. I'm not talking about racism, or is segregation good or bad, I'm simply stating that segregation caused millions of chicken shit mighty-whitey men to spread themselves all over our land. This increased our dependance on automobiles. You could say that segregation caused this problem, or you could say that the average white man, (or our grandfathers) did.
Whatever your opinion, this is where the problem started. The reason crime is higher in the urban areas, is that after the mighty-whitey exodus, most developement and land values in the urban areas dropped through the floor. Before this happened, it was the UPPER class who dominated the cities.
I'm not anti-white, but this action by millions of white men, my grandparents included, put us in this situation. In retrospect, I think that less blame should be placed on the blacks and more on the whites for urban decay.
If we could go back to living the way we lived years ago, in communities, the problem would be MUCH less severe.
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:2)
What year/engine do you have? I've got an 87 Firebird - with the crappy V6, which will become a 350 as soon as I pay off my student loans.
Insight Owner (Score:4)
It is the best car I have ever owned, out of 5 cars total.
My current miles per gallon is 50, I drive primarly in Surburbia, with a little on the highway, and even less in D.C. The car has a 10.8 gallon tank, so I fill-up about every 2 weeks. Other owners have gotten over 72 MPG, depending on traffic, driving conditions, speed, etc.
The car has great pickup, I can peel-out with no problem. I can even get it to peel-out in second sometimes. My max speed is about 95, though others report the car's max speed is 133.
I am about 6 feet tall, the car is comfortable, I think it would be comfortable for taller people also.
I paid about $23k for mine, 9.5% interest financed through the dealer (I will be changing to a credit union soon).
My Insight is #453, I'm hoping to sell it as a collectable in 5 years, after my warrenty is up
More info:
Honda Insight eGroups [egroups.com]
insightman [insightman.com]
Insight Central [insightcentral.com]
Honda [honda2000.com]
--
Re:You have that ass backwards (Score:3)
So you're not driving an SUV to survive the collision; you're driving it to kill somebody.
This basically fits in with what I've observed around my area (metro Boston) and from what others have said. Basically, SUV drivers are unmitagated assholes. When it comes to running red lights, and generally driving obliviously, SUV's are king. I've seen one nearly plow through a group of people in a crosswalk, long after the light had changed. I nearly had one run me down as I was crossing the street. Of course, the idiot had a cell phone glued to his ear.
A few notes about the vehicle (Score:3)
When you start to crank the engine with the starter, your pumping gas *through* the engine for a second or two (or 10 depending on how hard your car starts). I say through in that I mean little if no gas gets combusted. Newer cars handle this much better by recylcing as much of this wasted fuel as possible but its' still not perfect. I would imagine that the best way (and hopefully the way that Honda does this) would be to have the electric motor roll the engine over (with no gas intake) for a few seconds to get the engine (and car) rolling and then start to pump gas into the engine where it will start to combust almost immediatly with little waste. If you don't believe what I'm saying, get in your car, drive it around the city shutting it off at every light and starting it up before you start to move. Not only will this reduce your gas milage and harm your engine in the long run, it will drain your battery and piss off the people behind you.
Another interesting point it the camshaft in this car. Almost every engine on the market today has a camshaft. An engine works by letting a gas and air mixture into a chamber (via opening and closing a vertical intake valve), compressing that mixture, combusting the mixture with a spark plug and opening and closing another valve called the exhaust valve to let the gas out. This is where we get a four-stroke engine from. The job of the camshaft is to open and close those intake and exhaust valves in the correct sequence and at the right time. Older cars had a "static" or non-variable camshaft. This was easy to engineer but wasn't the most effecient way of doing things. Due to many laws of physics and such, all engines have power curves where you trade many forces (power, speed, fuel economy, etc) for themselfs. Being able to adjust the camshaft as the engine moves through that curve helps to flatten those forces out and usually give a smoother ride. There are many different ways of achieving this variance in the camshaft, one of them being the way honda appears to have done it and other one being to get rid of the camshaft all together and use a pnuematic (sp) or there force to open and close the valves via a computer. Obviously other methods exist but those seem to be the most common right now.
Hybrid and/or electric cars have come a long way. Electric motors and engines haves increased in effeciency in the past years, new ideas and innovations continue to help the situation. I'm very happy to see what Honda is doing but I wish more car companies would begin to produce/release cars in the same idea into the main stream to produce competion. With comepetion usually comes innovation and a lower price tag.
When I get that $100,000/year job, I'll go get one of these to park next to my 1995 Saturn SC2 and my 1969 MGB GT.
Thanks for reading this comment/post, I hope it helped explain some things and maybe bring up more questions. Feel free to email me at the address I have registered with slashdot.org (remove the "nispam." from the addy) about this topic. I reserve the right to delete any annoying emails that are not on topic...
Geoff
Too expensive! (Score:4)
While I wouldn't mind having one, most people see that 20,000 outlay right up front (or in LOWLOWLOW monthy payments!), and shreik. They don't think they could possibly be spending that much on gas.
Of course, these people are generally not good at math.
But when you can buy a Neon, which isn't bad fuel efficiency wise or another car for under 10 grand (without the options), or a Kia (parts? Who needs parts for cars? We just throw them away now) for $8995, it's kinda pointless.
At least, that's what some would say.
Then again, the SUV's are all the rage now. So, there's no accounting for taste. (Silly me, tho, I want a Hummer so I can drive straight to work, avoid traffic, avoid roads!)
Okay, bye.
Re:Battery stations (Score:3)
From the Ars article on the Honda Insight:
Beneath the control units is a pack of 120 NiMH D cells (shown separately in the right hand picture)
Re:Insight Owner (Score:3)
Let's see. Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDI. o-60 in 13.9 secs.
Chrysler Voyager 2.5 TD SE 14.0 secs, 2.0 SE 13.8 secs.
Citroen Saxo 1.0i First. 0-60 16.6 secs. Or, Xsara 1.4i X, 13.0 secs.
That's just a quick scan of the first few pages of the listings, pulling out a selection of different types of cars. A far from exhaustive list or scientific study. For the market the Insight is aimed at - urban runabouts from the look of things - it's a perfectly acceptable figure. Perhaps even fast.
As for top speeds, I'm wondering whether we've either hit a KPH figure (though that'd be a little low) or someone's simply read how far the speedo can go round...
The Insight's a good little car. Pity it hasn't got another 2 seats, but it's a good first generation product.
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:3)
Hmm. Why do some cities have serious emissions rules, and others don't? Because.. some cities are windy, and polution gets sent 'elsewhere'.. so why should they care.
This north-american infatuation with cars is rediculous. Sure.. I have a car.
Your dolby digital stereo doesn't produce twice the pollutants it needs to or waste 10x the energy necessary to get you to work in the morning.
Car and Driver did a road test (Score:3)
Re:What's in a name? (Score:3)
...phil
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:3)
SUVs are FUN to drive. Sure. They're not so great for the environment, and they're expensive to buy, and hard on gas, but they're FUN. Seriously, if you think that driving is ONLY about transportation, you should buy a bus pass, and use public transportation.
Why did I just dump a bunch of cash on a dolby digital receiver for my home theatre setup? Because I like the sound. I like to hear the sub woofer. Sure, my TV has built in speakers, and my amp burns power like crazy, but it's much more enjoyable to listen to music/movies now.
SUVs are a blast to drive. It's not about a NEED for that power, it's about wanting to be able to pass whoever you want, or tow whatever you want, or drive wherever you want, or toss whatever you want into the back. People like the feeling of power their SUV's size and height gives. Period.
Look at the TDI (Score:4)
It amazes me how people constantly overlook the VW/Audi TDI engine.
All the other reviews of the insight that I have read, state that it doens't actually acheieve the stated gas mielage figures that are quited. Those only occur under ideal contitions (ie. crusing on the highway without accellerating, never going up a hill, etc...)
The VW/Audi TDI (Turbocharged Direct Injection) engine achieves a REAL 50+MPG mixed driving. On my last take in my Jetta TDI, I achieved 53MPG. This car has more torque than the insight. Max Torwue 155ft/lbs reached at 1900 RPMs. (Thanks to the wastegate turbo system!) (compared to 93ft/lbs for the insight at 2000rpms)
And look at horsepower on the insight. "73 HP @ 5700" That's pittiful. To get max power you have to rev the engine pretty high to get max acceleration. While I'll admit that the TDI only achieves 90HP, it does so at a much lower RPM figure. Allowing for an optimal shift point below 3000 RPMs
Now...on to body construction. The insight is aluminum. I took a good look at one when the 2000 car show came through. and the construction just feels cheep! I honestly wouldn't feel safe in it. My Jetta TDI on the other hand feel sa lot safer and has more safety features.
Price. The insight MSRP quoted in this reviwe $20,080 i believe. A simillary equiped jetta TDI (which seats 2 more and has much more trunk space, goes for less than $19,000. And very nicely quipted at about $20,850
one last thing. maybe you know, maybe you didn't. The TDI runs on diesel. It is a virtually smokeless diesel engine. (meaning you get a little smoke on startup on a VERY cold day). There is no nasty smeel (Despite popular opinion). Diesel is cheaper! This engine is quiter than any other 4cylinder engine that I've ever driven. and has quite a lot of get-up and go.
All I can say is, test drive a Gold/Jetta/Beetle TDI, test drive an insight...then let me know which one you like better.
Visit tdiclub.com [tdiclub.com] to hear form other TDI owners
350 Pound Weight Limit? No thanks. (Score:3)
Re:The Anit-SUV (Score:3)
According to Consumer Reports (CR): "SUVs tend to be tall and massive. Judging by looks alone, they should be
safer than most other types of vehicle -- but looks can deceive. The safety record of SUVs has been spotty at best." It is SUV's high center of gravity, according to CR, that make them less stable as a class than cars. In particular, says CR, drivers of small SUVs are involved in more fatal rollover accidents than any other type of vehicle. (November, 1997, pg. 60)
I'm sure we could quote stats all day long back and fourth. It's all about the tradeoff's I do agree. I also do agree that SUV's don't make sence for everyone but a lot do have good reason's (eg towing capacity etc...)
Diesel vs. Hybrid. (Score:4)
The primary reason is that in order for the new generation of diesels to run properly, the direct injection types that are common in Europe and such, diesel fuel needs to have a low sulphur content. In Europe, it's mandated. However in the U.S., for years, refiners have been allowed to produce poor quality diesel fuel. Engine manufacturers in turn won't dare attempt to sell high quality diesels here because of the damage that high sulphur diesel will do to them.
Just recently legislation has been passed in the U.S. that will mandate a gradual phase over to better quality diesel. This will both reduce emissions and allow for better quality diesel engines to be sold in this country. In Europe nearly every model line is sold with a diesel engine - some of them capable of quite astonishing performance might I add (500 lbs or so of torque from a 300 HP diesel engine is not uncommon in luxury models).
Diesel cars have not progressed here because refiners have refused to foot the extra cost of cleaner burning fuel for them. Slowly this will change, hopefully.
I want one of these soooo bad, but.... (Score:4)
Also, for a really excellent write up of what the pros and cons of this car are, visit Insight Man [insightman.com] and be sure to check out his logs. He offers tons of great information on this car - a lot more than the two trips ARS took. Insight Man has attained over 90 MPG the last time I looked.
Anyway, if it was not for the low weight carrying limit, I would get one of these in a second. Guess I am going to have to go find a Prius. At least I can have someone else ride along in it.
*sigh*... Logic 101 (Score:5)
yes, that is exactly what happens,.. in the movies and cartoons.
why don't you go try it out and report back to me what happens
force has everything to do with it, 3x the force, and you're going to have a much bigger disaster, and why don't you face it,... the SUVs aren't tanks, they are going to be smashed to bits just like everything else.
besides which, this is based on the misconception that people are squished inside of cars and that's how they die.
not so,.. people die from being flung about, rolling over, and *sometimes* being crushed by the car. (this is more common in side-impacts, in which case, guess what? your SUV really doesn't have much more space
again, Excursion vs. Festiva, yes the 3 ton car is going to send the Festiva flying into next week.
but why is it a good thing that the Festiva driver dies and the Excursion driver lives? just because you are the Excursion driver? no, you are both equally worthless, and neither one of you has a right to live beyond the other's.
that is my point, SUVs put other driver's (needlessly) in danger.
they won't let you drive an 18-wheeler just 'coz you want to, and while i am totally against the gov't coming in and regulating more, i wish people would think logically..
but of course, being a realist (and sometimes a nihilist) i know this won't happen.
...dave