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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

#211

Post by jstanley »

mikeash wrote: post #126
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…

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.

They weren't outrageously dangerous.

Russian Roulette is outrageously dangerous.

Old cars are just ever-so-slightly more dangerous than new cars.

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

#212

Post by lostlogin »

beat wrote: post #202
lostlogin wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And vastly greater than the cost of adding airbags to the car at production time.

First, actually adding airbags does not add thousands of dollars to the cost of a car. Hundreds, maybe. Second, I will gladly pay extra for such a highly effective safety feature. Third, I'm quite certain the medical costs saved by airbags every year will more than offset the cost of installing them on every new car. And that's just cold calculation, without bringing the moral value into it.

I hope you don't think I am anti airbags, I'm not.

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

#213

Post by mikeash »

jstanley wrote: post #211
mikeash wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They weren't outrageously dangerous. Russian Roulette is outrageously dangerous. Old cars are just ever-so-slightly more dangerous than new cars.

Deaths per passenger-mile in the 1960s were about 5x greater than they are today. Traffic fatalities made up about 2.5% of all deaths at the time, even though people drove far less than they do now. I'm quite happy to call that "outrageous."

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

#214

Post by burkaman »

fnj wrote: post #173
mywittyname wrote: post #65

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.

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...

What are you talking about? That article clearly says that air bags without seat belts are "of slight benefit", but are very effective when combined with seat belts.

There's a more comprehensive summary here: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

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

#215

Post by semi-extrinsic »

twothamendment wrote: post #191
tlb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Tesla model S fits 10' lengths of lumber. Just protect the dashboard from scuffing with a blanket.

I once saw a Mazda Miata with 16' 2x8s. They were in the passenger seat, seat reclined. One end in the foot well and the other high in the air. They rested on the little roll bar and were strapped down nicely. Utility is what you make of it.

Yesterday I was at the local recycling centre and spotted an older gentleman dropping off garden waste (big black bags of branches, hedge trimmings etc.) with his mint condition ~1999 Peugeot 306 convertible. I bet he was the original owner too.

(For non-Europeans, link: http://petrolblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Peugeot-306... )

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

#216

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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.

Is a few lives saved in (rare) high speed accidents worth setting off explosions in people's faces and turning an otherwise minor accident into a trip to the hospital?

If all you care about are deaths per distance then you probably want the former. If you care about minimizing accidents that require any medical care reducing the number of small explosions near people's faces is the better bet. Someone else posted the a NYT link that's relevant.

This is for driver's frontal airbags only. Passenger airbags and side curtain airbags are less bad because people usually sit farther from the passenger airbag and there is less support in side impacts.

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

#217

Post by dsfyu404ed »

manigandham wrote: post #132
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. Great, then there's nothing to worry about... but if it is a serious crash, you'll wish you had an airbag to bounce off of rather than a hard steering column, dashboard and windshield.

Most people will never be in an airbag deploying crash in their lives. Of the minority that will very few will be in the kind of crash where a (frontal) airbag is what prevents them from serious harm.

If OEMs would just be less trigger happy with frontal airbag deployment then I'd be satisfied but the problem with that is that then you get the Concerned Mothers Association(TM) complaining about OEMs not doing everything they can to "save lives" and publicizing a few edge cases.

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

#218

Post by semi-extrinsic »

ams6110 wrote: post #176
yellowapple wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> They can and have killed people especially children and the elderly.

Who puts children in front of airbags?? The car is half-way covered in stickers saying not to.

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

#219

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mikeash wrote: post #213
jstanley wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't outrageously dangerous. Russian Roulette is outrageously dangerous. Old cars are just ever-so-slightly more dangerous than new cars.

Deaths per passenger-mile in the 1960s were about 5x greater than they are today. Traffic fatalities made up about 2.5% of all deaths at the time, even though people drove far less than they do now. I'm quite happy to call that "outrageous."

Are those numbers adjusted for alcohol consumption and how difficult it is for young people to get their licenses? T

There's a reason your age is the biggest factor in your car insurance premium.

Making it statistically less likely for a car full of drunk teenagers to go off a cliff on their way to prom affects road fatality statistics the same way decreases in infant mortality increases life expectancy.

The primary reduction in traffic fatalities is due to keeping "undesirable people" off the roads, increases in vehicle performance (modern cars can stop on and turn a relative dime compared to cars from decades ago)that turn many accidents into close calls.

Chasing safety is a lot like fuel economy. It's a steady march of small improvements all of which are compromises. I and many other people don't want to be injured in a likely accident scenario for a small reduction in the likelihood of death in an unlikely accident scenario. I also don't want the spare tire of my SUV under the trunk floor where I can't access it without removing cargo just to get .01 extra mpg.

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

#220

Post by dsfyu404ed »

masklinn wrote: post #159
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right but your supporting evidence is applied wrong. People survive crashes in racing regardless of speed not because the crashes typically take place over a long period of time but because they have a seat that fits them well, straps keeping them in it and heat restraints. Also, going off track is not crashing.

> and head restraints. What do you think an airbag's purpose is?

to cushion hit you hard if your unrestrained head happens to get close to the steering wheel but not as hard as the steering wheel itself would hit you.

Google "HANS device". That's a restraint.

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