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

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

#171

Post by njarboe »

adventured wrote: post #121
justadeveloper2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

I wonder how many more wrecks happen due to the reduction of visibility caused by extra wide columns needed to fit the side curtains.

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

#172

Post by ams6110 »

j_s wrote: post #162
javiramos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family had a car that was once very lightly rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light. No major marks or scuffing on the back bumper so my mom just drove away. Three months later, while driving on the highway, she drove into a pot hole that triggered the airbags. The airbags exploded (yes they explode) completely unexpectedly while driving at 70 mph. Thankfully she was not hurt but the experience definitely shoo…

Is there any way this can be checked as a part of routine maintenance at a mechanic? It sounds like it should be a standard part of the various state inspections.

Most independent shops won't touch airbags. Too much liability. Generally only dealer will service them.

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

#173

Post by fnj »

mywittyname wrote: post #65
interfixus wrote: post #40

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]

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.

You've got it backwards. "Without a belt, air bags are of slight benefit".[0] Airbags are chiefly a nanny measure to protect people too stupid to fasten a seatbelt.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/26/us/study-shows-air-bags-sa...

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

#174

Post by ams6110 »

ssambros wrote: post #155
otterley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Totaled" is just a term of art in the insurance industry. It means that the cost to restore the vehicle is greater than its as-repaired street value. It doesn't mean that the vehicle has to be destroyed; it just means the insurer will only give you the fair market value of the vehicle as though you sold it used immediately before the accident, instead of paying for it to be repaired. The problem, though, is that whe…

But doesn't the vehicle become the property of the insurance company after the payout?

No, you generally can buy it back for the scrap value.

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

#176

Post by ams6110 »

yellowapple wrote: post #166
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thr…

"In all but the most serious crashes your face will not hit anything if the seat-belt fits well." That's not really a good thing. Having something to catch your head helps prevent neck injuries. In a high-speed crash, the forces involved could actually be debilitating and/or life-threatening.

Unless it's a Takata airbag and the thing that catches your face is a piece of metal shrapnel.

You do understand that airbags are bombs. The inflation mechanism literally uses explosives. They can and have killed people especially children and the elderly. Early generation airbags are more violent and dangerous because the standard was to protect an unbelted driver.

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

#177

Post by alkonaut »

ouid wrote: post #148
tyingq wrote: post #5

I know it's a prototype, but I wonder how much thought was put into safety. The simplistic look makes you think there's probably no crumple zones. And there's clearly no driver's airbag, dashboard padding, etc. Edit: The style seems heavily inspired by the original Ford Bronco. They even support the removable rear top. http://classicfordbroncos.com/builds/

Well, a cynical person would note that, in deciding to call it a truck, they no longer have to worry about such restrictions.

There is some crazy legacy regulation in the US. This classification of vehicles doesn't exist elsewhere so I don't understand why you'd tailor a vehicle for such loopholes. The only answer would be that it's aimed at the US market only (which would be a weird commercial decision) or it would need a completely separate export model.

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

#178

Post by pinkythepig »

tsuraan wrote: post #75
tyingq wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> - Need a sine wave generator vs the cheaper square wave ones. That seems really weird; I'd expect that the big charging station you install in your garage would convert from home AC into some high-current DC. Batteries don't actually charge on AC, do they?

J1772 plug (the one that every EV has) is an AC connection and there is a converter in the car that converts it to DC.

The super charge ports (CHAdeMO/CCS/etc) use DC power and are basically direct hookups to the battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO

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

#179

Post by macintux »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #117
robotbikes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most amazing thing is the photo of the lumber where a hole underneath the dash is revealed allowing the hauling of lumber the entire length of the vehicle. That is an impressive amount of utility right there. Whether quirky features like that would survive the process towards production remain to be seen, but this is certainly an interesting take on a truck that could be very useful in rural America.

Being able to utilize existing liquid fuel infrastructure is much more useful in rural America.

Not necessarily for a vehicle that just tools around the farm, although admittedly I doubt you'd buy one of these at 60k to not leave your property.

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

#180

Post by alkonaut »

yellowapple wrote: post #170
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #110

Wonder if they need a torque converter still to give it a little more oomph off road. Also: "It also bucks the high-tech trend of new cars in general. There will be a radio with an AM/FM receiver, Bluetooth connectivity, and an AUX input, but there’s no touchscreen." I hope this becomes a trend. Touchscreens in cars are horrible ux.

"Touchscreens in cars are horrible ux." Indeed they are. When I'm driving, I need to be able to feel what I'm manipulating; I shouldn't have to take my eyes off the road (or if I do, it should be at an absolute minimum). A screen on the dashboard controlled by physical buttons/knobs makes a lot more sense if a screen is really necessary. That way, even if I have to look at the screen, at least I can still peripherall…

It's terrible having to input destination names etc without a (screen) keyboard. Screen + knob has been around for ages (e.g my 09 Audi) and it's great for simple things like scrolling radio stations but that's it. So for newer cars - yes it's terrible but there is no option. The safe solution is to stop to use the touch screen, just like you should stop to use the cell phone - but noone does that either. The design should be that there are knobs for a minimum set of features (climate, volume, ...).

Take this to it's extreme and you could make the touch screen read-only when the car is moving unless the passenger seat is occupied.

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