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Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

eupolicy.social

141–150 of 571 posts

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#141

The French seem to be very thoughtful people who solved multiple pesky problems permanently: 1) Guillotine for the super rich 2) Nuclear to power >70% 3) C15 for people, cows, craftsmen, mini house 4) TGV 5) french fries for the fastest carbohydrate delivery, handily beating rice I wish they bring back the first 3 and do some shorts, market them to the world. Fries are doing fine.

French fries is not a french invention AFAIK but belgian!

Yup, French fries are Belgian. Also - it's important to cook them twice, otherwise it's just McDonalds and not real French fries.

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#142

How casually people here are ignoring NOx and especially PM2.5. It has no DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter). You are emitting more than 200 times the amount of pm2.5 than a modern diesel. source: https://www.nanoparticles.ch/archive/2011_May_PR.pdf https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-20-02-oa-0081 Also this car has only has 60hp.

> Also this car has only has 60hp.

And it weighs less than half of the other two (less than a ton), so less power is needed.

I agree though, the C15 is slower than the other two, but less than you’d perhaps think.

I own a Citroën 2CV. It has some of the same qualities: super robust, incredibly off-roady, simple mechanically, but I take my “regular car” (2017) for road trips > 100km…

I’ve done numerous long road trips in the 2CV though, before I got the other car. Some longer than 1000km.

I agree with the TFA, that many overestimate their needs, but older cars are also less luxurious - obviously!

The post is a hot take, slightly tongue-in-cheek, isn’t it? :)

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days. I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure, fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental stuff). Like take the C15 and add 2-4 decades of manufactur…

Modularity would be great too. Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different types. Meanwhile, all this has been overtaken by the need to get away from fossil fuels as soon as we practically can. Oil should not be valued based on the cost of pumping it out of the ground but based on the cost of creating a liter of it from raw materials…

> Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different types.

There aren't 100 different types of engines. At any given time each auto manufacturer only has a couple different engines in production. Different models can get different variations for performance or use targets, but auto manufacturers are very good at standardizing within their company.

Look at the list of Honda engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines

Notice how they're grouped by series? All of the engines in each series share a common platform with minor changes from year to year. In many cases you can swap parts between engines within the same series. An engine series lasts 10-15 years. Some times the parts even carry over to the next series.

Swapping between brands is a pipe dream, though. Forcing everyone to fit their engineering into a bounding box that has to be agreed upon by all auto manufacturers around the world would only lead to either unnecessarily large vehicles with wasted space (to leave room for future engineering needs) or unnecessarily complicated engineering to fit everything into the pre-defined allowable engine envelope. All to accommodate engine swaps between manufacturers which is never necessary for consumer cars.

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days. I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure, fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental stuff). Like take the C15 and add 2-4 decades of manufactur…

That would be the absolute dream engineering brief. If I actually sit down and design that vehicle, it would have something like this. List, off the top of my head. 1. You keep the modern metallurgy and the crumple zones. You keep ABS and basic traction control because they are solved problems that save lives without needing cloud connectivity. 2. Instead of a 2000 USD proprietary touchscreen that will be obsolete in…

[deleted]

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#145

The French seem to be very thoughtful people who solved multiple pesky problems permanently: 1) Guillotine for the super rich 2) Nuclear to power >70% 3) C15 for people, cows, craftsmen, mini house 4) TGV 5) french fries for the fastest carbohydrate delivery, handily beating rice I wish they bring back the first 3 and do some shorts, market them to the world. Fries are doing fine.

> Guillotine for the super rich

You know modern France has the exact same problem of billionaire lobbying and media consolidation that the US has right?

Arnault (LVMH) [0], Trappier (Dassault) [1], Niel (Illiad) [2], Lagardère (Lagardère SA) [3], Bolloré (Bolloré Group) [4] and a couple others have an inordinate amount of control over French politics. It's also why whenever a country like China, the US, India, or others wants to hold the EU by the balls, they end up tariffing Congac, because Arnault's LVMH has a near monopoly on Congac production in France, so he almost always pressures Macron into acquiesing because otherwise he would threaten to back the RN.

Both France and the US are similarly ranked flawed democracies [5] with similar dysfunctions.

Also, immediately following the revolution, the guillotiners ended up doing it for the rich [6], as the French Revolution ended up leading to the re-establishment of authoritarian rule with le Directoire, Napoleon, Napoleon III, and others. The only thing you learn from the French Revolution is the same thing you learn from Tahrir Square - the house always wins, which in political science is modeled via Selectorate Theory [7] and Veto Players [8].

Sadly, it's the same reason why despite mass protest after mass protest, the Iranian regime hasn't fallen - the primary political and economic veto players in Iran (Army, IRGC, Basij, Police, Clergy, Business leadership, SoE leadership, Bonyad leadership) haven't defected because they have more to lose than gain if a revolution succeeded. The moment a handful of these interests think they can expand their presence under a new regime is when you would see Khamenei fall, but the leadership would end up being the same ba***rds anyhow, just like how the Islamic Republic ended up co-opting and rehabilitating army officers and business leadership from the Shah's regime during the Iran-Iraq War and after the cultural revolution.

[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/frances-d...

[2] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2022/07/10/u...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/article/world/macron-and-the-moguls-...

[4] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...

[5] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

[6] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/650023

[7] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/4092374

[8] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rvv7

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#146

Can you fit an 8'x4' sheet of plywood in it? My pickup truck wants to know. But it doesn't have to worry, because my other main use for it is as a large gas powered wheel barrow for carrying yard waste, and the little enclosed C15 can't compete. In fact it looks like the love child my Ford F350 and a Citroen C2. But it can't be because I had the Ford fixed.

Someone pointed out that a lot of US builders will drive pickups truck, and that it's kinda doesn't make sense, why don't they drive a van? Depending on the trade and location builders and contractors here will drive something like a VW Transporter, Mercedes Sprinter, Toyota HiAce or a Peugeot Partner. The Sprinter will fit e.g. your plywood, others will have mounts on the side or roof to transport material. They won…

Tradespeople in the US often have both vans and trucks, depending on how they want to use them. Both are very common.

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days. I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure, fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental stuff). Like take the C15 and add 2-4 decades of manufactur…

That would be the absolute dream engineering brief. If I actually sit down and design that vehicle, it would have something like this. List, off the top of my head. 1. You keep the modern metallurgy and the crumple zones. You keep ABS and basic traction control because they are solved problems that save lives without needing cloud connectivity. 2. Instead of a 2000 USD proprietary touchscreen that will be obsolete in…

Incidentally, you're describing my 2020 Subaru Impreza. Under $20k for my dealer demo.

I do wish it supported a later version of Android Auto so that I could run that via Bluetooth. (It does have regular Bluetooth but that's just audio.)

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#148

The French seem to be very thoughtful people who solved multiple pesky problems permanently: 1) Guillotine for the super rich 2) Nuclear to power >70% 3) C15 for people, cows, craftsmen, mini house 4) TGV 5) french fries for the fastest carbohydrate delivery, handily beating rice I wish they bring back the first 3 and do some shorts, market them to the world. Fries are doing fine.

French fries is not a french invention AFAIK but belgian!

Also the French have the great Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, early and famous potato proponent. Do they even want credit for such a basic dish?

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#149

Can you fit an 8'x4' sheet of plywood in it? My pickup truck wants to know. But it doesn't have to worry, because my other main use for it is as a large gas powered wheel barrow for carrying yard waste, and the little enclosed C15 can't compete. In fact it looks like the love child my Ford F350 and a Citroen C2. But it can't be because I had the Ford fixed.

Someone pointed out that a lot of US builders will drive pickups truck, and that it's kinda doesn't make sense, why don't they drive a van? Depending on the trade and location builders and contractors here will drive something like a VW Transporter, Mercedes Sprinter, Toyota HiAce or a Peugeot Partner. The Sprinter will fit e.g. your plywood, others will have mounts on the side or roof to transport material. They won…

There's not enough room in a van. You need a F350 super duty to properly haul stuff.

Re: Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15

#150
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French fries is not a french invention AFAIK but belgian!

Yup, French fries are Belgian. Also - it's important to cook them twice, otherwise it's just McDonalds and not real French fries.

Tbf McDonalds is also double fried, just the first time happens before they are flash frozen and sent to the restaurant.
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