Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
They do, in fact, have to stop at lights. They just don't, most of the time. Bloody cyclists.
And you've really never been in a situation where being fastest off the block would help, when driving in a city? Really?
Really? Crossing traffic at lights which go green for both sides at once? Joining a busy roundabout? Overtaking at lights when 2 lanes feed into 1?
$12,490 is, in fact, less than $25,700? Less than half, in fact?
https://www.smartusa.com/models/electric-coupe http://www.chevrolet.com/2016-camaro-sports-car.html
I've never been in a scenario where five meters mattered and ten didn't. The example in Smart's advert is about twenty! But I don't really worry about it. Remember in the USA a green light means 'finish texting, then work out how to put your car in drive'. There's no concern about racing someone else, it's just not worth it. I don't care about beating one car to the next traffic queue in a city.
The advert said it was $29k. Checking the website, $12k is without the battery. Base price with battery is $25.7k, so exactly the same as a Camaro!
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TeePee
I've never been in a scenario where five meters mattered and ten didn't. The example in Smart's advert is about twenty! But I don't really worry about it. Remember in the USA a green light means 'finish texting, then work out how to put your car in drive'. There's no concern about racing someone else, it's just not worth it. I don't care about beating one car to the next traffic queue in a city.
The advert said it was $29k. Checking the website, $12k is without the battery. Base price with battery is $25.7k, so exactly the same as a Camaro!
16kWh for $14k? That's a rip off that is. :crazy:
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Cyclists... 0-60... first 5 metres... filtering...?
So motorcycles are still king, then? :lol:
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
16kWh for $14k? That's a rip off that is. :crazy:
The Leaf is $31K here, or 25KGBP. Electric cars are a lot more expensive in the US, while Petrol cars are cheaper. Makes hyperbolic comparisons much easier!
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ttaskmaster
Cyclists... 0-60... first 5 metres... filtering...?
So motorcycles are still king, then? :lol:
Always. Even for econuts.
http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/eu/
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
You can't get a camaro for less than $37k. Anything claiming to provide such doesn't have a V8, so isn't a camaro
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
There's been zero market demand for it. Tesla tried it (and all Model S' are capable of it), but nobody wanted to pay for the privilege. And Renault had a whole "thing" for it in Israel - their partner went bankrupt due to lack of interest.
Nobody buying EVs cares about battery hot-swap.
interesting, that's a shame
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
See, you dismiss the Volt above, yet the 2015 Volt has just under the torque of the 4.6L V8 Rover 75. And can deliver all 398 N·m from 0 revs, rather than eventually over a curve. And *even with the battery flat* can deliver that on 42mpg of unleaded, compared to Rover's claimed (not actual) 22.1
Actually, the 2.0 CDT Rover 75 is slightly behind a "pretty naff" Leaf on torque, and again, the Leaf can deliver every last pound of torque from 0 revs, so will always leave the Rover in its dust at the lights, junctions, roundabouts, etc.
That was my big problem driving the Passat - not only did it take what felt like hours to move away from stationary, but it made moving away all the more awful (e.g. engaging the steering wheel lock when the engine auto-shutdown, adding additional hours to the time to turn into a junction)
I'd like to have an electric car, but my rover is still nice to drive. Most of my driving is on motorways/A-roads where I'm well into the torque curve, I try and avoid city driving - but when I have to, the rover makes it nicer than a petrol car. I don't have stop-start, so there's no troubles with steering lock engaging.
I'm not sure if you're correct on the torque, as chevy is very cagey on what kind of electric motor the volt uses. A synchronous motor like you'll find on the nissan leaf does not provide full torque from 0 RPM, it has a torque curve that's less flat than the one you'll find from an IC engine
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TeePee
Always. Even for econuts.
I could be a touch more interested in EVs, particularly the bikes that still do 0-60 in under 3 seconds... I'm kinda used to that now, with my ancient battle-bike.
Still worried about the lack of sound and the stupidity of pedestrians, though...
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TeePee
The Leaf is $31K here, or 25KGBP. Electric cars are a lot more expensive in the US, while Petrol cars are cheaper. Makes hyperbolic comparisons much easier!
Talking about the price of the battery alone. $1k per kWh is a MONSTROUS price, easily 8x the spot price today
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
peterb
The lead in leaded petrol poisons the catalyst in the catalytic converters, so lead had to go both because of that and the fact that it is toxic.
Lead compounds did raise the octane rating of fuel and so engines have a lower compression rating. Standard unleaded has an octane rating of 95, in the leaded era, 97 was the minimum, 99 was usual and performance cars used 101.
Linked to that was the development of fuel injection systems on mid and low end cars, both for better combustion (a rich mixture will also destroy the catalyst) and to get better performance from a lower compression ratio engine.
New injection systems have also raised compression ratios too. Mazda is up to 14:1 on some of their engines, which is much higher than anything on a production car in the leaded era.
As for most cars running on leaded, that's true but some needed new valve seats as without the lead to coat the seats, they wore away very quickly.
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
Talking about the price of the battery alone. $1k per kWh is a MONSTROUS price, easily 8x the spot price today
It is. Even Tesla is about half that to add extra kWhs. But the 12K price means a rented battery, so they are making their money by deeply discounting the car.
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
badass
There's an elephant in the room here that's been missed.
Self driving cars. The mix of self driving cars and electric power is what's going to make a very large number of people never buy a car again.
It looks like we will have good penetration of level 4 autonomy by 2020 and you'll probably find most cars sold after 2025 will be capable of level 4 autonomy.
Why bother having a money sink sitting on your driveway when you can call a car with an app and pay very little for each journey?
Taxi journeys will be a fraction of the price without having to pay the human to drive them.
Hourly car rental will be possible as well. If you want something posh for a bit, just pay for when you want it.
You will be able to save money by car sharing on some journeys. Use an app and be automatically matched up to people needing picking up on the way.
Public transport will get better. Why have busses every 20 minutes with a capacity of 40+ people when you can have busses 4 times as often that can fit 10 people and be cheaper to run.
Any electric vehicle that needs charging is just taken out of the pool of vehicles available until it is charged whilst it has enough in reserve to complete its journey and make it to a charging station.
I'd say after 2022, sales of new cars to individual buyers will disappear to a tiny fraction of what they are now. I expect the second hand market to take a kicking as well but it will take longer as die hards continue to buy and own cars but avoid the massive depreciation of buying a new car.
Look at the options people will have.
Loaded?
You can get your own electric car like a tesla. Or anything else you want. You can use an app to call a luxury car to pick you up and drop you off.
Or you can just get a normal taxi if there aren't any luxury cars about.
Not so loaded but commuting?
Have a pre arranged hourly rental for less than owning the car yourself.
Get a ride share to and from work.
Skint?
Public transport will not result in simple journeys taking forever with waits between busses. Also, the busses will not stop so often.
The only reason to buy a car will be because you want to pay more money to have your own vehicle. One that sits on the driveway or in a car park doing nothing most of the time.
If I was in government, after 2025 I'd start calling for compulsory yearly driving tests that only the best and safest drivers are capable of passing. Watch the thousands of road deaths per year drop to a tiny fraction of what they were.
Hmmm.
I don't mean to be rude, and time will tell, but .... ever thought about a career writing sci-fi? My bet is that that ranks along with us all commuting via personal jetpacks, and going home to living pods where androids have cooked the dinner, cleaned the house and put the kids to bed. Except where the android operating system is by MS ( :eek: ) where it'll have cooked the kids and put the dinner to bed.
I have my doubts if they'll even have fully solved the battery issue by 2022, let alone have fully autonomous cars dominating the 'market'. I mean, that's 5 years. Five short years. Personally, I don't believe that there is a vanilla ice-cream's chance in a steel-smelting furnace of having turned public opinion around that fast.
25 years, maybe. 50 years, probably. But five? Not unless government enforces its will on the populace with a dedication and ruthlessness that would have brought a tear of admiration and envy to the eye of dear ol' Uncle Joe Stalin 'imself, in person.
Thing Is, that kind of radical change can't happen unless the agenda is driven hard, and no matter how laudable and desirable the idea, and outcome, might be, poluticians are ruled by a simple, basic criteria - no matter how much something is the "right thing to do", it won't happen if whoever does it cannot work out how to get re-elected after they've done it.
And with cars, you are up against people's attachment, however irrational, to the firmly jngrained idea of a personal vehicle, sitting there awaiting the need, no matter how impetuous, the idea of 'their' car, in which many people take great pride and for which they have irrational affection, and that a large part of the 'freedom' comes ftom that personal vehicle, subject to their whim.
Currently, if I call a cab, it's a good 20 minutes to get here. Yet, I can walk to the cab rank at the local railway station in about 12 minutes. I can jump in the car, do a few bits of shopping, pay for it and be back home in 30. I know, because I did it at the weekend. But not if I have to wait an unpredictable period for a car, driverless or not, to show up.
As for public transport that's fine for those living in big cities with well-equipped publuc transport systems, but for me, visiting a friend two towns over means 2.5 hours on the bus, EACH WAY. Why? Because the only bus route goes through every village and clump if houses for miles around on the way. By car? 25 minutes in quiet times, 30-35 average.
I could get there by train .... by going into a major city (about 35 minutes), transferring to a different station (20 minutes) then train back out again. But it's still 1.5 hours each way, and I'd need a new mortgage for the fare.
I wish your Utopian timescale were realistic, but I doubt it.
Now, gotta pop down the shops .... "Android, where's my jetpack? "
:D
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Saracen
And with cars, you are up against people's attachment, however irrational, to the firmly jngrained idea of a personal vehicle, sitting there awaiting the need, no matter how impetuous, the idea of 'their' car, in which many people take great pride and for which they have irrational affection, and that a large part of the 'freedom' comes ftom that personal vehicle, subject to their whim.
... and there I think you missed something. Young people increasingly don't own cars. Of the recent grads at work, one is a car nut, a couple drive because they have to, most don't own a car, some have not even bothered getting a driving license. These people make a choice of living in a town with access to good public transport, which also gets them near the pubs and restaurants, cinemas and theaters so they can walk. Getting to work involves a train, which they seem to tolerate.
It seems almost an alien existence to someone of my age, but owning a car is massively expensive so I can see why they don't bother.
I can also see why on the surface it seems that self driving cars are a bit fantastical, but perhaps you need to go read some text books on Deep Learning and modern AI techniques, I really don't think it is that far off and there are literally billions being spent worldwide by countless engineering organisations on the underlying AI technology. Heck, I was even reading about a hearing aid that uses neural net technology taught to recognize the difference between sounds that it should amplify and the annoying sounds like distant passing traffic that should be left out to save battery power, this stuff is everywhere and commonplace.
AI has been "30 years away from existing" for as long as I can remember. Now, it exists, the foundations were laid about 10 years ago. It doesn't so much need polishing like a machine as teaching like a toddler, except unlike human toddlers here we automate the learning process. That is where Tesla have such an advantage, millions of miles of driving data collected by their cars to use in AI training.
You are on your own with the jetpack though, sorry :D
Edit: I should point out that as someone currently job hunting, I have seen quite a few adverts for deep learning engineers. Anyone looking at starting a career in software engineering I would strongly suggest they get modules on this stuff in their degree course. Me, I'm hitting the books, I expect before long people who can only do traditional programs in the likes of C and Java will be looked at like Cobol programmers.
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
These people make a choice of living in a town with access to good public transport, which also gets them near the pubs and restaurants, cinemas and theaters so they can walk.
I'd argue that the choice is made for them by a combination of finances, work location and house prices.
I once lived in Camden for a while, because it was actually the cheapest place around. Now I live in the middle of nowhere, for the same reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
It seems almost an alien existence to someone of my age, but owning a car is massively expensive so I can see why they don't bother.
As someone likely of similar (or greater) age, that expense is what had me walking EVERYWHERE in life, before finally being forced to get a motorcycle when I moved out here... and the walking took up a lot of my life, as well as actually preventing me from getting better jobs. The addition of a vehicle in my life brought me so many opportunities and so much more free time. I no longer had to leave parties hours early if I wanted to get home before 2am, I could go to classes 40 miles away, I wasn't reliant on friends... and I actually saved money from not using public transport.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
I can also see why on the surface it seems that self driving cars are a bit fantastical, but perhaps you need to go read some text books on Deep Learning and modern AI techniques,
I would politely and humourously suggest you go read some text books - I would recommend Being A Money-Grabbing Corporation, Holding A Population To Ransom and my personal favourite Making a Stonking Profit From World Changing Innovations. :lol:
Seriously, I don't care how ah-MAYZE-ballz any technology is... It will never be in your life until someone else can retire from selling it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
You are on your own with the jetpack though, sorry :D
Pretty sure those have existed for a while now, too... and no-one uses them in case it rains mid-flight!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
Edit: I should point out that as someone currently job hunting, I have seen quite a few adverts for deep learning engineers.
I'm looking more for the adverts requiring the Deep Learning teachers. They're trying to use AI in my industry and indeed my particular role, getting an AI with a CCTV camera to inspect assets and make condition assessments... but they need learned people like me to teach the AI, so it can see what I see, recognise and differentiate between all the different defects, and apply that to the whole asset as an overall assessment of risk and consequence.
Re: The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
... It seems almost an alien existence to someone of my age ...
I suspect we're about the same age and it sounds exactly like how I choose to live.
I'm sure part of that was living somewhere very flat in my late teens so spending money on driving lessons seemed pointless, as anywhere within about 15 miles was a reasonable bike ride, and I'd do 20 miles happily enough if occasion called for it. Once at Uni a car just seemed like a ridiculous concept, and since by my early twenties I didn't have a driving license the only sensible option was to live a reasonable walk or cycle commute distance from work, shops and good public transport. It's not until you end up with family and ties to places that you can't freely choose where to live, and if the people you settle down with think the same way, it's not going to be an issue.
If the majority of the next generation think the same way then the lifestyle will persist and spread, simply because you'll get more families for which it is normal. OTOH while i do know plenty of twenty-somethings who choose the public transport lifestyle, I also know plenty who run their own cars despite living in a large city with good transport links and local amenities, and a reasonable proportion who probably would run a car if they could afford it - which weirds me out, frankly.