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America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

bloomberg.com

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Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#471

Post by chadgeidel »

bacongobbler wrote: post #463
chadgeidel wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nearly perfect car. I say "nearly" because of the slight torque dip in the mid-range. It's too bad no one is buying them because they don't have "enough power". I am waffling on either a BRZ or a MX-5. I'm leaning towards the MX-5 because it seems like the BRZ/GT-86 may not be around much longer.

I once owned an FR-S (totaled from someone rear-ending it on the highway, going to buy another next year) and currently I own a '90 Miata and a '94 Skyline GT-R. Comparing between the ND Miata and the BRZ I would go for the BRZ in a heartbeat. Two reasons: 1. The NC/ND Miata crowd is a much older demographic, keeping their precious car in the garage over the winter, keeping it bone stock, bringing it to the dealershi…

Hmm, that's surprising. I am a bit of a track rat and figured the Miata had more aftermarket support. Flyin' Miata has a ton of parts and upgrades. I don't see a lot of Miatas on the track where I am, the ones I do see have a substantial number of mods.

Most of the BRZ/GT-86/FR-S I see in my neck of the woods are all blinged out visually with not many good "handling/performance" mods (aside from giant supercharger or turbocharger setups which IMHO is the last thing one should modify).

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#472

Post by fuzzybeard »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #373
DamnInteresting wrote: post #73

A few weeks ago I bought a Chevy Bolt EV...according to the dealer it was the first one sold in my state (Utah). I'd been on a waiting list for almost a year. Sure, ICE engines are getting better, but EVs are rapidly gaining and will soon surpass. The Bolt is a bit expensive for a car of its body type, but "gassing up" at home is amazing, the 200+ mile range is great, and the sharply reduced emissions are a weight of…

One thing to consider is that a lot of stuff works well for electric cars simply because they are not that ubiquitous. For example, many states allow them in the HOV lane unconditionally. However, if they are a higher fraction of the total cars that will stop. I have seen electric car chargers at various parking lots. If you have an EV, you are likely now to find a spot. When they are a lot, the majority of EV won't…

Highway rest areas in CT have EV spots for charging. I see normal ICE parked there all the time. It's infuriating

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#473

Post by valuearb »

YokoZar wrote: post #264
valuearb wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is super safe. There is no evidence that driving is any less safe for young people. They just rarely die of anything.

Right. Which is why when they do die from preventable causes it has such a large impact on average lifespan. If we want more humans alive for longer we should not ignore these high impact relatively low frequency dangers. If you're under the age of 35, driving may very well be the most dangerous habit you have.

If you are under the age of 35, you are essentially immortal, because if driving is incredibly safe and it is the most dangerous thing you do.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#475

Post by ensignavenger »

zzleeper wrote: post #142
rsync wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What do you get in the place for this lower efficiency? Are American cars that much heavier? More comfortable? Faster?" I cannot speak for everyone, but as someone who lives in the US and also spends a lot of time in Europe, there is a very big lifestyle difference at play here. First, I have a five person family (wife and three kids) and you[1], statistically, as a European, have 1.6 children - and as a highly educ…

> Second, Americans move around a lot more than most europeans do. I think it's just because flying is so inconvenient/expensive in the US. Sure, I could drive 10 hours from Lisbon to Barcelona, easily spending $100+ in gas and tolls. Or I could pay 50-100 to fly and be there in 2 hours. When I was in Europe, flying could be a weekly opportunity to visit other countries (with the cheap 20eur tickets). Now instead, I…

Sure, but if you were taking a family of 5, suddenly your $100 plane ticket turns into $500. Driving becomes much more competitive as soon as you start adding passengers to the vehicle.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#476

Post by dashundchen »

valuearb wrote: post #466
dashundchen wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If you eliminated cars completely tens of thousands would likely still die in the US from transportation accidents. But now you've trapped people and forced them to live close to work, do less traveling, and live crappier lives. >>Automobiles provide freedom to choose where you want to live and work. They are cleaner than ever and getting cleaner every year. I think you're still ignoring the pollution deaths and ma…

You essentially want to enslave people to push your dated concepts of how to live on them. My job is 20 miles away, I'm not riding a bike. I don't want to spend hours going to and from work every day. I'm not moving my kids into a shittier house without a big yard in a shittier school district, just so I can bike to work. I'm not going to move my family in a shitty apartment just so we can have "density" and force ev…

Can it not be argued running billion dollar freeways through urban neighborhoods, flattening their commercial districts with "free" (subsidized) parking lots and choking them on pollution is enslaving people at the expense of how you want to live? You still haven't addressed the issue that driving fundementally pushes large costs on others and society in general.

There are plenty of ways to have a accesible city designed for multimodal transportation. Look to many European cities to show how this used to be done. It doesn't take much imagination to find out it doesn't have to be "shitty".

I don't think you really understand what life is like without a car in America. Like it or not, people are being excluded. A third of households in my city don't have a car (likely not out of choice). Transit is sparse. How are they supposed to access job centers, , shopping education opportunities built in the auto dominated sprawl? Hint: you can't build your life around asking other people for rides.

You don't seem open to the idea of a different lifestyle. I get that. At the very least I ask that you consider the real impact your choice of driving has on other people, and how it's subsidized by society.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#477

Post by dashundchen »

valuearb wrote: post #470
ericd wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The health benefits from riding bikes more than offset the dangers, especially when they're not forced to share lanes with road tanks piloted by people who don't take their driving responsibility seriously. Driving cars don't yield the same benefits. When you take that into account, driving is much more hazardous to your health. Also, forcing cities to accommodate cars via zoning has lead to a huge host of problems,…

Yes, people in Italy are poor and trapped in small urban areas unable to leave. That's not better.

Have you been to Italy? or Germany or any western European county?

Even relatively podunk towns have typically walkable centers and local transit connecting to frequent regional train service and sometimes stops by long distance, high-speed services.

In Germany, regional all day rail passes can be had for as little as 10 EUR! I imagine the situation is quite similar in Italy.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#478

Post by ghaff »

creepydata wrote: post #468
ghaff wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People are going to be on their phone at 70 MPH no matter what do-dads are in their car Somewhat disagree. It's not a distraction panacea (based on various studies) but if we had voice recognition and natural language processing in cars that really worked well, there would be a whole lot less temptation to look down at a screen or type. Not justifying people who do so. Just observing that better tech would largely e…

Well I was alive before cell phones and I'll tell you people will find plenty of reason to not pay attention at 70MPH.

Fair enough. Although I suspect that the level of distraction has gone up.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#479

Post by cr0sh »

alistairSH wrote: post #395
chrisseaton wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK people are told to change their oil once a year or 10k miles. If you do it every 3k miles in the US, which of us is doing it wrong? Either we're damaging our cars or you're wasting money and oil. They're the same cars doing the same distance, and parts of the US are similar climates.

3,000 mile oil changes hasn't been a standard recommendation in the US for at least a decade, probably longer. These days, most (all?) cars have an idiot light that pops on every 5-10k miles, based on usage patterns. Some have a more robust algorithm than others. Either way, in my experience, my last 3-4 cars (Jeep, Lexus, Volvo, VW) have all gone about 8k miles between services, as indicated by the light.

In all honesty, the only way you can really know when to change your oil is to have regular oil analysis done, to know when certain variables change that indicate "oil change needed soon" (or worse - service engine now). But that isn't cheap, and it must be done on a regular schedule, and you must also understand the results.

It used to be that the oil change interval was something like 3k miles for stop-n-go traffic (or dusty conditions) - ie, regular city driving. You could go about 6-8k for highway driving. If you were doing off-road driving, the number could be as low as 2k.

Today's oils are better, and so is the manufacturing and other factors; so longer intervals don't surprise me - but you have to be dealing with a newer car, something made in this century at least.

Even so, for my own vehicles I try not to go much beyond 6k between changes, and for one of my vehicles it's closer to the 3k mark (because I want it to last as long as possible - then again, its engine is a known oil-burner, and between oil changes I add enough oil for it to equal an oil change; I could almost just change the filter and do nothing else). The money I may be wasting isn't a big deal to me, plus I get a fresh filter (also, I do my own oil changes, so the numbers are a bit lower depending on what dino juice I use).

Generally, the best way short of an analysis to judge doing an oil change is by looking with your eyes at the color of the oil, by feel (rub it thru your fingertips), and by smell. It's a thing you have to get a "feel" for, and between that knowledge and what your miles since the last change, you can know if you need a change or not.

Another thing you can do (I learned this from a website that tested an analysis company - and to see how long they could really go between oil changes) is to (every 3k) drain a quart of oil out of the engine (you need something like a fumoto plug for this), and then swap on a new filter and refill with a new quart of oil. It's basically a "topping up" procedure, but if you do that, you can go for about 12k between full oil changes. However, you should only do this if you are analyzing your oil.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#480

Post by conanbatt »

barrkel wrote: post #336
conanbatt wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is applicable to alcohol, unhealthy foods, lack of exercise, improper sleep, smoking, etc. Should we ban all those too?

This is one of the downsides to socialised medicine - people feel the right to judge people for their weight, for example. Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap. We already have loads of bans on smoking in different contexts. If politicians could find an easy way to try and force poor people to eat less fast food,…

> Taxes are high on tobacco because of the harms. Here in the UK, there's support for minimum alcohol prices, to stop alcohol getting too cheap.

I will argue that the reason taxes are high on tobacco is because its become social suicide to defend tobacco. The taxes are high on tobacco because its an easy case to make that gets no opposition. Alcohol is next in line.

I'd argue that if something is bad but popular its hard totax (i.e. special TV tax, special Netflix tax, special Facebook tax), or that something is good but unpopular its too easy to tax (tax foreigners, tax the poor, etc).

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