Car Produced With a 3D Printer 257
Lanxon writes "A prototype for an electric vehicle — code named Urbee — is the first to have its entire body built with a 3D printer, reports Wired. Stratasys and Winnipeg engineering group Kor Ecologic have partnered to create the electric/liquid fuel hybrid, which can deliver more than 200 miles per gallon on the motorway and 100 miles per gallon in the city."
You wouldn't steal a car... (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't steal a car.
But would you download one?
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My body says "no", but my Demonoid account says "yes".
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hell yea!
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Re:You wouldn't steal a car... (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't steal a car.
But would you download one?
Because of this post alone, Canada will enact a car piracy tax on all 3D printers and 3D "ink" to cover the losses car manufacturers will suffer due to pirated printed cars.
See what you have done!!!! Poor Canadians!!!!
PS. Please do not note all the other things that can be pirated with a 3D Printer else they will include additional taxes for the toy, furniture, and decoration industries!!!
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Wait, I'm expected to buy the car plans and parts as well? It's lynch-mob time.
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Think of profits..er.. I mean the children of rich people..er.. I mean the Chinese workers that build the parts far away..er..I mean the environment.
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I've already posted this as a thought experiment a couple of times, but I'll say it again for the shameless karma-whoring.
Let's look 50 years into the future. The 3D printers we know today have moved on somewhat - someone's actually built a full-on 3D photocopier.
Except this one's a little more sophisticated than modern technology.
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I think it would work pretty much like with normal printers. You can print books on your inkjet/laser but it's slow, expensive, and you get loose leaf out of it.
So same for a 3D printer. It'll be slow, require materials to print with and have an inferior in quality. It will be really cool, even though it won't obsolete mass manufacturing.
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You still have to procure the raw material, the parts which can't be made via direct manufacturing, and assemble the car.
Re:You wouldn't steal a car... (Score:4, Funny)
I would if I could [thevrabec.com]
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Having played with some larger 3D modelling files (my buddy pretty much built a tractor in 3D models), a few hundred MB gets you a lot. Compression is also effective on them. Think of it as downloading a movie, but getting a lot more value for the bytes.
Jetson's Space Car? (Score:2)
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You would be reduced to a meaty pulp mixed with shards of plastic and spread over the roadway.
So, it's about as safe as an SUV then?
3D Printers (Score:2)
Maybe they have some nice new tech, but the 3D printers I have seen produce stuff that is not well finished. The resolution just is not near perfect, you can see and feel little bumps and ridges.
And how have they scaled it up? You only do this stuff for prototype, not production due to cost.
However, you can make "impossible" shapes. That can be pretty cool.
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You only do this stuff for prototype, not production due to cost.
Umm, yeah, that's exactly what the article said they did. Built the prototype. Summary of the summary: "Prototype built using only prototyping machine." Other than the sanding and painting, of course.
Nothing is said in the article about the actual production car if and when it ever gets past the prototype stage.
I'm 100% certain they aren't going to be stupid enough to go to production using a prototyping machine. You're absolutely correct, though cost is not the only factor (speed would be one, and dur
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Some of the high end additive manufacturing machines are incredible in capability, unfortunately they cost upwards of $500-700k. Out of the realm of most normal users, perfect for suppliers of low volume expensive good sthough.
why does the picture in the article look like (Score:5, Insightful)
why does the picture in the article look like a still from a low rez video of a photograph of a badly-photoshopped computer rendering?
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Follow the click trail, eventually you get here:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1698943/the-urbee-hybrid-the-first-car-to-have-its-body-3-d-printed
Second image down.
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LOL! Yes this is a fake picture. You can see the compression artifacts around the clipped art, and the rest of the picture is a completely different resolution and lighting.
(That is a comment from the article itself, I do not claim credit where it is due.)
Seems this individual is spot on: Photoshopped
(but then that really begs the question, because it was printed does that mean it can get Photoshopped in real life [xkcd.com]?)
So (Score:2)
How much do the printer cartridges cost (and how many would it take to print a car)??
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</sarcasm>
Flimsies (Score:2)
And suddenly i'm remind
Safe? (Score:3, Insightful)
The two-passenger hybrid aims to be fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive and inexpensive to own.
Nothing about that picture, from the low driver orientation to the tin-can size, exudes safety.
Even the picture from their homepage [urbee.net] looks horrible.
You're missing the point. (Score:2)
Every time I read one of these negative kinds of responses to these new, super-small, super-efficient vehicle alternatives about how unsafe they are going to be, I can't help but think that the poster is missing the point.
Yes, compared to vehicles commonly available today, these will probably be structurally inferior.
But these vehicles are for the future. In the future, probably the near future, many people are going to be choosing between going to work on foot or a bicycle, because they won't be able to a
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Strangely, some people judge safety on actual collision tests instead of the size of a car. e.g. The Smart ForTwo is one of the smallest cars available, yet is also one of the safest.
I want one of those printers (Score:2)
3D, eh? (Score:2)
Re:3D, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. For that you would need a 4D printer.
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Those aren't real klein bottles, they are just the closest approximation that we can make. A real klein bottle doesn't pass through itself, it passes around its own exterior though a fourth dimension.
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Go on, draw a Klein bottle. And before you point me to a Wikimedia image, no. That's a 2D render of a 3D approximation of the 4D shape.
Is the government going to ban these printers? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a threat to interstate commerce? Kinda like telling the farmers they can't grow their own animal feed? If you think that self publishing artists are a threat to the industry, wait until you have everybody self replicating everything they need.
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If you think that self publishing artists are a threat to the industry, wait until you have everybody self replicating everything they need.
You still have the question of who owns the rights to copy the design. Not to mention who bears the legal responsibility if your replicated part fails.
Required reading: Ralph Williams' Business as Usual. During Alterations [blogspot.com]
They could actually confirm the Golf dimple (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, some enterprising person could build a car body from scratch and truly verify if Adam and Jaime got it right.
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Or find you a good hailstorm.
Wait, now my insurance company won't cover me because next hailstorm they'll claim my car was "improved" instead of "damaged". Crap.
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For those of you that don't know, Mythbusters did an episode not that long ago that confirmed that placing dimples in a car body will increase fuel effecieincy, just as it increases distance for a golfball.
Maybe they're afraid that if they get the dimples wrong the car will always slice to the left?
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With a trivial amount of thought (I.E. during the time it takes to pick up my coffee cup and take a sip), I can come up with several reasons why they may not have followed it up. (I.E. I'd be careful throwing around the mor
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The dimples help by adding energy to the boundary layer when the airflow is transitioning from laminar to turbulent. The point is to keep the airflow from becoming detached. If you know what those terms mean, then go beat up your car in very specific areas to make it ugly as hell, and it will perform ever so slightly better under very constrained test conditions. Otherwise, it will just make the car ugly. For the most part though, cars don't travel fast enough to make boundary layer aerodynamics a signi
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Ever look at a court building? Do you see those long columns? And the Lintels? They were originally abhored by the Greco-roman architects. Called ugly, etc. They had to use them because it was the only way they knew to build tall buildings.
Now people think they look classic.
Similarly, if we started building dimpled cars, the first people to buy them would be the same people that bought hybrids. Soon they would develop an image of being HIP and NEW.
Befo
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2. Standards of "beauty" are relative and dynamic. Oh, the first buyers might get them because they are fuel effecient, but it would become hip and hot and suddenly everyone would say how PRETTY they are.
3. Dirt might be a problem. I don't know about that.
4. I doubt paint would be a problem, Paint is very high tech.
5. The car would not be bigger, the hood, panels, etc already stick out beyond the frame.
6. But
How does it really look like? (Score:2)
But they clearly didn't. Why?
If I were half as smart as these people seem to be, I'd present more and better pictures of the result and I would attempt to come up with something pleasing to the eye. There seem to be one or two images of this car on the Internet that indicate they are very insecure about the a
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There's no accounting for taste, including yours.
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There's no accounting for taste, including yours.
Oh puh-lease! If anything, taste -not money- is the measure of fulfilment in life. After you achieved to secure your daily needs, after you have chased away your daemons, you strive for taste. Life without taste is like the eastern bloc as it was meant to be. Words like yours numb the souls.
Do what you please, be successful, make loads of money and then dedicate life to beauty!
Bored already? Look at beauty from the g[r]?eek's point of view. [wikipedia.org] Shame Urbee apparently developers didn't bother.
3D printing replaced the Clay sculpting process (Score:2)
It will be interesting to see what unions have to say about this innovation. Clay body knockers are union members and this would effectively eliminate many their jobs.
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Car Torrent Link Please? (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to the time when thepiratebay will have the latest sports car for download.
On a serious note, 3D printing could kill the physical product industry. Will there be DRM on car blueprints? Hm.
Could be costly (Score:2)
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No. You will be able to print your own toner!!
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm reminded of the Slashdot article about the robot made out of Legos which solves a Rubik's Cube in 12 seconds. Of course, one of the components to this robot is a computer and the computer is not built out of Legos. This is no more a car produced with a 3D printer than that was a robot made out of Legos.
But the the headline "Parts of Car which it is Possible for 3D Printers to Produce, Produced With a 3D Printer" doesn't have that same ring to it.
The car is a fake. (Score:2)
The image shown in TFA is fake. An exceptionally bad one btw., I'd do a much better job.
The car shown further down the linktrail is a small model with a second class model paint job. It's photographed at an angle as to hide the fact. The model probably _is_ printed with a 3D printer and painted afterwards. I doubt one could print entire bodyparts of a car with rapid prototyping without running into serious size, stability and/or cost issues. Printing negative moulds for small parts, or the small parts thems
Getting a little sick of this... (Score:2)
Re:So it's just a body? (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't discount it. Once the technology improves, this could be a way of making less expensive, much stronger bodies for vehicles. You could then put whatever engine/suspension you wanted under them.
It could provide the opposite approach taken by the Trexa EV [engadget.com].
Re:So it's just a body? (Score:4, Interesting)
Once the technology improves, this could be a way of making less expensive, much stronger bodies for vehicles.
Not sure about that, but am certain that it would simplify life for repairmen. It took about three weeks to obtain a mysterious minor little trim piece by the front grill for my wife's Toyota about a year ago. (the bracket-y thing by the fog lights ish area) Life would be a lot simpler if you could just print a replacement.
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Irony of tools of abundance & scarcity ideolog (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I think transcending irony is the most important issue. :-) ... irony. :-)"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironcially
But copyright might come second? :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html [pdfernhout.net]
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html [pdfernhout.net]
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/1e499c6db59117a2?hl=en& [google.com]
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Exactly! And the next thing you know the RIAA will be cracking down on people pirating cars over torrents and printing them at home.
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Until then...not interested. Put something that looks nice, with curves, something that raises the testosterone levels a bit, eh?
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And speed and handling...don't forget those. All those are reasons I buy a particular car or not.
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In this case, function (Aerodynamics) dictates form.
My question is:
200 motorway, 100 city? This is FAR worse than the typical performance hit you see for conventional vehicles, and is abysmal for a hybrid. (Regenerative braking means you should pay very little penalty in city fuel economy, and if air resistance dominates your energy expenditures, city might even be more efficient due to the lower speeds involved.)
Also:
Is that on a pure hybrid cycle, or is that with the "electric cheat" of saying a plug-in
Re:So it's just a body? (Score:5, Funny)
But then the AMIAA (Automobile Manufacturing Industry Association of America) will start suing random VIN numbers hoping to catch part-pirates.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Naw, we can just torrent the part specs from Car-PirateBay.com and get em for free. Additionally the torrented parts have stripped out the DRM that requires the printer to use substandard plastics and intentionally place flaws and weak spots in the printing pattern to ensure a frequent replacement rate.
And they'll call it, grand piracy auto.
The lawyers will make a mess of themselves just thinking about it.
Re:So it's just a body? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't go thinking that you'll be able to just print replacement parts. 3D printing/reprapping is going to be as encumbered by copyright issues as video and audio is.
It's already completely legal to create knockoff replacement parts and to sell them with information stating their application so long as you do not misrepresent yourself as the company which made the originals, for example by improper use of their logos. This is already done for body parts, sensor/sender units which basically consist of a potentiometer wrapped up in some custom plastic, trim pieces, window seals, glass pieces, and basically every other piece (including interior trim) where there is sufficient demand to create a lookalike.
Or in other words, this problem has already been addressed where it applies to automotive parts, and it is not the issue you claim it to be.
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Don't go thinking that you'll be able to just print replacement parts. 3D printing/reprapping is going to be as encumbered by copyright issues as video and audio is.
It's already completely legal to create knockoff replacement parts and to sell them with information stating their application so long as you do not misrepresent yourself as the company which made the originals, for example by improper use of their logos. This is already done for body parts, sensor/sender units which basically consist of a potentiometer wrapped up in some custom plastic, trim pieces, window seals, glass pieces, and basically every other piece (including interior trim) where there is sufficient demand to create a lookalike.
Or in other words, this problem has already been addressed where it applies to automotive parts, and it is not the issue you claim it to be.
I wonder how that applies if the design [wikipedia.org] of the car in question is covered by a patent [google.com]
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True for shade-tree mechanics. But even just as a supply-chain compressor it would help. In my situation it was a Toyota certified mechanic doing the work whom was delayed...
Even further up the chain, car assembly plants will have to figure out how to balance the probably higher cost of printing parts vs shutting down the entire plant while waiting for cheaper mass produced parts to arrive from subcontractors (or bust strikes at subcontractors, etc)
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Well, you'd think so, but creating the model for the replacement is beyond your average mechanic's computer skills. (And mine too.)
Someone has to provide the source data to print it, and with X many thousands of model-years out there, it's not going to be possible to just say "Eh, fax me another fender, I don't have one on hand".
I like the foundation of your idea, though, because it would reduce waste and expedite repairs.
The original manufacturers will have to get on board if it becomes reasonable to print
Where to get the plastic & on being a hobby (Score:3, Insightful)
Two links for videos of fixing something at home with a 3D printer:
"YouTube - Better Living With MakerBot - Episode 1: Kitchen Lamp"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBzyZSVK_Gs [youtube.com]
"Better Living with MakerBot - Episode 2: The Wall Socket "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9tnqHS2vFo [youtube.com]
You could recycle plastic you already have with better home technology, in theory. Just like you can build a machine shop from "scrap":
http://www.lindsaybks.com/d [lindsaybks.com]
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Don't discount it. Once the technology improves, this could be a way of making less expensive, much stronger bodies for vehicles.
Right. But the paper jams are going to be murder to fix.
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You mean traffic jam.
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Can't wait to receive my electric car kit and assembly it at home.
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Even as I agree with your point: http://www.robots-dreams.com/2010/02/3d-printing-robot-parts-is-a-reality-already-video.html [robots-dreams.com]
"We often get into discussions and debates about the potential for 3D printing, especially as it relates to robotics. We tend to take the positive side of the debate, and paint a rosy picture of what we believe to be a not-too-distant future where researchers, developers, and even hobbyists will be able to crank out real-world manifestations of their dream concepts, and test them unde
Re:Paper car = not smart (Score:5, Informative)
The material used in the stratasys printers is ABS, it's a production grade resin. We have two of these rapid prototyping machines at work, and what they can do is amazing. The biggest problem with these devices is that they have fairly low tolerances usually around .005"(.1mm) and contoured part surfaces are fairly rough. That can be fixed with a little sanding/subtractive machining though.
The capability to think something up and have it in your hands within hours without involving skilled machinists is incredible.
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So maybe you'd know... what does this stuff weigh?
I know resin can be tough, but it's going to be hard to beat steel for strength. Sheet steel produces very, very light bodies that can keep passengers from getting crushed. (Deceleration is a separate problem, for airbags and seatbelts.)
Getting it printed up fast is neat, but if the resulting car weighs ten tons to be equivalently safe, it's going to have rotten mileage and handle like a cow.
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I want a car that gets me from point A to point B by maintaining a steady 5mph over the speed limit in the cheapest and most economical manner possible. I'm also a 6' man that doesn't want to mash my head against the roof of the car.
I have no issue with the crop of crappy front wheel drive
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Please stop blaming all problems of your aoutomotive industries to 30 year old regulation. Other manufacturers are able to build energy efficient front wheel drive cars with a pretty good performance. If yours don't, blame their lack of innovation.
Oh, and light trucks are probably large and not whimpy, but definately not fast. Which implies "not fun".
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Fun is not always fast.
Re:Misdirected efforts (Score:4, Informative)
I dunno, I look out in the parking lot of my employer and I see a mixture of vehicles, but the majority of vehicles are what you label "crappy front wheel drive cars". I've been driving a "crappy front wheel drive car" for a number of years now, and it's eliminated the need for 4WD on my crappy front wheel drive cars, because rear-wheel drive blows hot steaming monkey chunks in any kind of snow or slippery conditions without special tires, but I can do quite nicely using stock 4-season radial tires on my crappy front wheel drive car.
Meanwhile, most of the vehicles I see stuck in snowbanks are large RWD sedans and powerful 4WD SUVs, even though the majority of cars on the road are crappy front wheel drive cars. Why is that, I wonder?
Look, I drove rear-wheel drive cars for a long time, and resisted the switch to front-wheel-drive for years. But as soon as I got into one, I understood why it made sense. I had to re-learn how to handle slippery conditions, but a couple of hours in an abandoned snowy parking lot sorted that issue out, and I was good to go. All of my rear-wheel-drive cars have been garbage in the snow, and/or have been 4WD or AWD capable. I haven't run into any circumstances where front-wheel-drive can't perform acceptably unless the snow is high enough that my car high-centers on it, and at that point all bets are off anyway and I need the ground clearance of my truck.
I want a practical and fun car. I own a pickup truck, but that's only because I need one for plowing and homestead maintenance tasks, and for cases when the snow is too deep for any car but I still have to get to work. My practical and fun car is a crappy front wheel drive car, for very practical and fun values of "crappy".
To each his own, but the majority of people I know have chosen "slow, cramped and wimpy go-carts", also known as "5-passenger, 4-cylinder, front-wheel-drive sedans capable of 35+ MPG" for their daily driving. These aren't just hippies, or at least the guys with the Limbaugh mugs on their desks might be offended if you called them that. Be my guest, but just understand that it might get violent.
It's all about the Benjamins. If I can get to work in my current 40MPG car that performs well in the snow, why would I choose a heavy, lumbering, horrible-in-the-snow beast that only gets 20MPG? I drive 16 miles each way to work, every day. That's 160 miles a week. I can do that on about 4 gallons of fuel in my current car, including my three carpoolers, or I can do it on 8 gallons of fuel a week. Hey, at almost $3 a gallon, that's nearly twelve bucks a week I'm saving in fuel using my crappy little front wheel drive car, not to mention the fact that my car was $20,000 and my tires are $75 a pop and my maintenance is very cheap, so I'm saving shitloads more money than just fuel. Sure, my engine (Diesel) only produces 90 HP. Who cares? There's plenty of power to merge on the highway, passing is no problem (drop a gear, spin up the hamsters, and go), and I only stop by the fuel station about once a month.
Putting the drive up front makes sense for daily driving. There are cars available with modern semi-efficient engines and rear-wheel-drive systems, the reason people have by and large converted to crappy front-drive is because it's cheaper to manufacture, more efficient, and for any sort of bad weather pretty much eliminates the need for expensive and complex AWD/4WD systems.
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I'm not sure where you'd getting the idea that a RWD is horrible for winter conditions. I live in Canada and winters here are considered pretty bad. (I've woken up with snow in the drive way up to my hips and had exams canceled for a week because it was -53C /w windchill) I grew up driving RWD, AWD, and FWD vehicles and in my experience it's the driver that gets the vehicle stuck or loses control.
I'm not saying the beast as we liked to call it was good on gas -- it had V8 307 -- but it was a great winter
mod parent insightful! (Score:2, Informative)
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Trollish, but true. Around here compact cars are the norm and SUVs are quite rare.
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By "other parts of the world" please include the Twin Cities Metro Area, home to probably over a third of the people in the state of Minnesota. I've lived here since before I started driving, and have always driven compacts and subcompacts.
There are two keys to not having roadway crashes and delays here. First, check your tires each fall, and replace them if they're too worn. In a Minnesota winter, tread is your friend. Second, don't do anything overly stupid. Big 4x4s can be useful when going on ba
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Yes, we know there are places where SUVs make sense. On the other hand, most states don't have Minnesota's weather nor even close, and the US still has plenty more SUVs in relation to total car sales than other places.
The real reason you have SUVs is because your gas has been much cheaper in general. Gas prices in Europe have been in average more than 2 times the US prices, so we have to save gas.
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Long live Corn subsidies.
http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&biw=1088&bih=713&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=fat+americans [google.ca]