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Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

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121–130 of 283 posts

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Seat belts without airbags are dangerous. At best you risk smashing your face on something hard, at worst, you're looking at orthopedic decapitation in relatively minor accidents.

I drove cars without airbags for most of my life. I even still have a car without airbags. Whether it's a good idea or not is debatable, but your statement that it's dangerous doesn't resonate with me. Airbags are a false sense of security and may or may not help you and were originally devised as a way to help drivers who don't use their seat belts. Airbags certainly do run the cost and complexity of cars way up, ho…

> Airbags certainly do run the cost and complexity of cars way up

That's not the case (emphasis on the "way up" part). The average new car price is over $33,000 in the US. Airbags, including side curtains, are a trivial portion of that cost. Even if you averaged it all out by including all airbag deployments and the cost to replace them, you're talking about a net 1%-2% of the cost of a new vehicle's purchase price (much less if we were to count the total expenditures across the lifetime of the vehicle, including fuel and routine maintenance).

"NHTSA estimates that when side curtain airbags become standard to meet the new side impact regulations in 2013, the airbags will add about $33 to the overall cost of the vehicle. Side curtains are slightly more expensive from OEM suppliers than traditional chest airbags (which cost about $50 apiece, on average) [source: Automotive News]"

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regu...

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minority view: I dislike airbags. If it were legal - which it is not where I live - I would have them out of my car today. The rest of you are welcome to the damned things and the undoubtedly enhanced security they provide. Me, I shall never be thoroughly comfortable with a giant armed boxing glove pointed at my head. [Edit: typo]

Do you realize that it's your face that crashes into the airbag? It doesn't launch into you. Also your car's engine is a series of constant explosions connected to a giant tank of gas.

The airbag significantly reduced the distance between your face and anything else. In all but the most serious crashes your face will not hit anything if the seat-belt fits well.

I'd rather have a sore neck from driving into a wall at 35mph than have a concussion from bouncing my face off of a bag full of high pressure gas.

Side curtain airbags are a much more useful technology than frontal ones.

Edit: Fire needs three things, fuel, oxygen and ignition. The atmosphere has oxygen. A gasoline vehicle keeps the fuel and ignition relatively far from each other. A battery contains both fuel and a source of ignition in close proximity. A punctured gas tank will not cause a fire every time. A punctured battery pack will cause a fire basically every time. In many cases a rusted out or leaking fuel system is noticed well before it starts a fire. There isn't much opportunity to notice a high-amperage short before it's a problem. Putting out a fire is even harder on electric vehicles. You can't throw foam and water on an internal short. There are many advantages of electric vehicles. Fire safety is not one of them.

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#123
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. They also are the reason most cars now involved in an collision where one goes off are totaled. We're a lot safer, with respect to potential fatality level crashes, but minor collisions that used to be a few hundred bucks at the body shop are now vehicle ending affairs.

I've got good news and bad news. OK, give me the bad news. He's dead, Jim. What's the good news? The insurance company didnt total the car!

Maybe wear your seatbelt next time.

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#124
post #2

Looks interesting, the front trunk and cut-down "UI" look especially great. This looks like an EV you could actually work on in your garage. Vaporware until they get a production line though, and the absence of airbag is somewhat worrying when it advertises a top speed of 127mph and 0-60 in 4.5, at a GVWR 10klbs it's outside the light truck regs (8.5klbs GVWR) and thus doesn't require them but still... Of note, the V…

Minority view: I dislike airbags. If it were legal - which it is not where I live - I would have them out of my car today. The rest of you are welcome to the damned things and the undoubtedly enhanced security they provide. Me, I shall never be thoroughly comfortable with a giant armed boxing glove pointed at my head. [Edit: typo]

You seem to acknowledge that they increase safety, so why would you remove them? Are you that willing to let your emotions overpower your logic?

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#125
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This car obviously wasn't built for driving on highways.

It's a pretty pointless car, and unlikely to ever be available to buy.

The error here is in the word "car". It's a truck.

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Seat belts without airbags are dangerous. At best you risk smashing your face on something hard, at worst, you're looking at orthopedic decapitation in relatively minor accidents.

I drove cars without airbags for most of my life. I even still have a car without airbags. Whether it's a good idea or not is debatable, but your statement that it's dangerous doesn't resonate with me. Airbags are a false sense of security and may or may not help you and were originally devised as a way to help drivers who don't use their seat belts. Airbags certainly do run the cost and complexity of cars way up, ho…

People drove around in cars with no seat belts, solid dashboards, craptastic drum brakes, and other great features along those lines, and most of them survived. The cars were still outrageously dangerous.

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#127
post #41

Can you recharge these on a normal gas generator? Something like a Miller engine driven generator[1] could probably do it but those are $$$ for the average joe. I only ask because a lot of people trailer their rock crawlers/mudders to more remote areas to go play and have fun, but when the electricity runs dry you'll need a way to power it back up. This thing looks like it'd be a lot of fun not only for daily use but…

Here's a thread on doing this with a Nissan Leaf. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5792 From that and similar threads on Teslas, the caveats seem to be: - Need a sine wave generator vs the cheaper square wave ones. - Some cars allow you to adjust the current draw to match lower output generators, some don't. Cheap generators probably don't output enough current. - You have to tie neutral to ground and…

Regarding current draw, it should be possible to regulate it with the external equipment if you really need it. All US EVs support J1772, and the J1772 plug tells the car how much it's allowed to draw. Some cars let you tell it to draw even less, but it will always respect the equipment's limiter.

For a simple example of this, Tesla's mobile connector will signal different maximum currents depending on which outlet adapter you have on it. If you have a NEMA 14-50 adapter it'll tell the car to draw up to 40A, but if you swap in the NEMA 5-15 adapter it'll tell the car to only draw 12A.

Re: Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range

#130
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does it need to be totaled?

Two deployed airbags in a moderate (but not life threatening) crash likely cost $1000 each to replace, in addition to whatever other damage has been done to the vehicle.

Which is considerably cheaper than the medical costs incurred by bouncing your face off the dashboard.
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