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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

#151

Post by vvanders »

Someone1234 wrote: post #146
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…

Electric vehicles are a tough sell now though. The Chevy Bolt EV has a 60 kWh Lithium-ion battery; to charge that fully costs $8.7 in Utah (14.5 cents per kWh). Per the EPA's measure that gets you 238 miles. Gas costs approx $2.24/gallon in Utah. A Prius has a 11.3 gallon tank and a 540 miles range (again, EPA standard). That means that $11.15 would get you the same distance as a full Bolt EV charge in gas. Now, befo…

You forgot oil changes in you calc. Also your $8.70 is only $4.19 in Washington :).

Costs are dropping on EVs and will continue to drop as economy of scale picks up. They may not make sense today but there's a good chance they will tomorrow.

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

#154

Post by YokoZar »

revelation wrote: post #122
valuearb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US only about 1 out of every 70 deaths is from an auto accident. As a single cause of death, it's not even in the top 10. Less than 1 in 3 accidental deaths is auto accident related. More people commit suicide (42,000) than die in auto accidents (40,000). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php Deaths per mile driven have plummeted over time. From 24 per million miles in 1921, to 7 per hundred mill…

Except road "accidents" are the biggest killer of teenagers aged 10-19, people who are pretty much on the lowest possible spot on the natural mortality curve: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 For many of those, it was someone else deciding to drive that killed them. So yes, if you take slanted statistics and add some "but look over there" rationalizations... well, you still end up at "1 in 3 accidental deaths"…

A more complete analysis of death rates compares the cause of death vs the otherwise expected lifespan of the person. Cancer and heart disease are major killers, but they primarily affect old unhealthy people.

Car crashes and suicides are much more likely to kill young people -- while they may be a relatively small proportion of "total deaths" they are a much larger contributor to "loss of average lifespan"

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

#155

Post by ghaff »

creepydata wrote: post #95
6stringmerc wrote: post #31

They have to be a lot more efficient to haul around all the extraneous shit that people have demanded be put into cars over the years. Of course it's always extreme in "Top of the Line" products like this Bentley ( http://blog.caranddriver.com/it-takes-a-lot-of-wiring-to-kee... ) but the trickle-down effect is inevitable. Happened with air bags, IIRC. Look how many companies are adding variations of "Auto Pilot" or d…

People are going to be on their phone at 70 MPH no matter what do-dads are in their car . The best we can do is take the human element out of the equation.

>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 eliminate any reason to do so.

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

#156

Post by cglace »

komali2 wrote: post #115
cglace wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the guy in the car over wanting it to be quiet. I'm saying I find those cars extremely annoying.

shrug you can't always get what you want, man. If he's tearing up and down your local neighborhood street that's one thing, but it's hard to feel sympathy for someone annoyed by a loud car when its out and about among hundreds of other cars. Can't you just roll the window up till he's gone? It's not like it's hard to avoid a loud car.

First, what do hundreds of quiet cars have to do with one really annoying muscle car that likes to rev their engine at stop lights to show how cool they are?

Second, how do I know that I need to roll my window up when I arrive at that stop light?

Third, it takes about 10 seconds to roll all of my windows up. By that time my ears are already ringing.

Sorry, I had a car pull up beside me yesterday under a bridge and rev their engine. My ears are still ringing.

shrug, guess I can't always can't always get what I want.

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

#157

Post by exclusiv »

alexbeloi wrote: post #76
kmm wrote: post #60

I always wondered why American cars are so inefficient. Seems such a waste of your significantly cheaper gas :) I drive an Opel Astra H 1.7 CDTI and I can get up to 50 mpg (4.7 l/100 km) on the highway, and I never dip under 40 mpg (5.8 l/100km) even when doing a lot of city driving. I understand that my car is comparatively somewhat smaller (1200 kg) and underpowered (100 hp), yet I can't imagine needing more horsep…

American cars are bigger (longer) and faster. When I've traveled in Europe, I'm always surprised by how small most cars are and how small the parking spots are. High mpg options exist in the US. Americans seem to prefer to trade gas savings for more power and bigger cars rather than saving some cash, at least at the current price point of gas.

It makes sense - most of the infrastructure was built before the car. So it's not really feasible to accommodate large vehicles.

It's not even possible for them to put the toilet anywhere other than INSIDE the shower in many places because the apartments are so small. Sometimes they even have "floor urinals". I get a laugh out of it every time but they do have some serious size constraints in many places over there.

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

#158

Post by epistasis »

acchow wrote: post #120
jstelly wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have a model S, but I have owned a couple of other high performance gas cars that are much more responsive on the 55-65 or 40-70 acceleration test (passing at highway speeds). That's the only common case where the tesla loses to gas vehicles, and then only high performance gas vehicles (e.g. 300HP+ coupe/sedan models). But the 0-30 thing is exactly right in my experience. Even more powerful vehicles don't have…

This is due to the rising power curve of ICE.

There's that, plus the time that it takes for the automatic transmission to decide that yes, you really do want to accelerate, and yes, maybe it ought to get around to increasing the RPMs one of these seconds.

Electric cars opened my interest car performance. I now have a higher performance ICE than I ever thought I would spend money on, but I still miss my tiny little electric Fiat 500e, even though my ICE is definitely better at 40-80mph.

Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system. Feels like a steam engine after being in an electric.

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

#159

Post by maxerickson »

notatoad wrote: post #121
timelol wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an electric _bicycle_ that routinely dusts off ICE cars at stop lights. It just takes a while for all that machinery to start rolling.

I have a pedal-powered bicycle that dusts ICE cars at stop lights. For, like, 5 metres... Not only does it take a while to get all that machinery rolling, doing it quickly kills your gas mileage. Most drivers aren't drag-racing out of the stoplights.

It's the starting and stopping that kills mileage.

Rabbit starts don't really matter (modern engines don't waste a whole lot of fuel anywhere in the power band).

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

#160

Post by valuearb »

revelation wrote: post #122
valuearb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US only about 1 out of every 70 deaths is from an auto accident. As a single cause of death, it's not even in the top 10. Less than 1 in 3 accidental deaths is auto accident related. More people commit suicide (42,000) than die in auto accidents (40,000). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php Deaths per mile driven have plummeted over time. From 24 per million miles in 1921, to 7 per hundred mill…

Except road "accidents" are the biggest killer of teenagers aged 10-19, people who are pretty much on the lowest possible spot on the natural mortality curve: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 For many of those, it was someone else deciding to drive that killed them. So yes, if you take slanted statistics and add some "but look over there" rationalizations... well, you still end up at "1 in 3 accidental deaths"…

Yea, young people almost only die in accidents, so obviously cars would be a large proportion of their almost infinitesimal death rates.
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