Probably I will be impopular, but the best ferrari in the last 40 yrs is F-40 by engineer Materazzi. Designed all by him, except the japan mad turbo compressor.
Luce: First Electric Ferrari
241–250 of 303 posts
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs have a weight issue that fundamentally constrains their overall design. It is really a tough engineering problem to try to shave weight off of everything, because you are starting out with a 700kg battery replacing a 400kg engine + transmission, so you are ~300kg in the hole, and need to remove 300 kg from the rest of the car. That's why they do crazy stuff like use the battery as part of the structural frame, to…
Keep in mind that, especially for performance cars, the instant torque and low center of gravity (because those cells can go in the floor) really helps. Yes, the added weight is bad for handling which is a shame especially in a car like this. The weight savings aren't that big of a deal, they do that in every car and it's mostly marketing. But if you're one of those brands that can sell the same car, but use some fan…
The Porsche Taycan and related Audi e-tron GT are considered basically the best-handling production cars built so far, and these come in at around 2.4 tons or something. They are of course quite low for EVs, barely taller than a 911 iirc.
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#243dumbest car i've seen this year
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs have a weight issue that fundamentally constrains their overall design. It is really a tough engineering problem to try to shave weight off of everything, because you are starting out with a 700kg battery replacing a 400kg engine + transmission, so you are ~300kg in the hole, and need to remove 300 kg from the rest of the car. That's why they do crazy stuff like use the battery as part of the structural frame, to…
I wonder what the speed/weight tradeoff is on a Ferrari though. Eg on a Bugatti they can put in a beast of an engine (heavy) because their buyers care only about power output and if it gets 8 miles to a gallon who cares. On an electric sports car, where does the break lie between extra weight for a powerful battery and too much weight to make the car go vroom? Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the…
Look at horses, they used to be a commodity used for transport, now they're pets of the rich, being taken care of and used for recreation.
I guess the poor get donkeys...
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#245I thought I was going to look at a car when I clicked that link. I scrolled the last 80% of the way out of morbid curiosity. This secondary quest was not disappointing: no car photos. So weird. Perhaps this is a complaint about the title. But since it's all about the interface, I must say, the idea of a sports car with a touch screen is still rather terrifying.
All the necessary controls are fortunately physical in the Ferrari. This is way better than what VW and other manufacturers have been doing in the last 5 years. At least VW is going back to physical controls as customers weren't satisfied with the capacitive buttons and hidden menus for essential functions.
I'm not sure there are any essential functions in a menu on a VW. Indicator, light and wiper controls are on physical stalks (kind of wild that "has an indicator stalk" is no longer common ground in cars), while ADAS, audio, climate controls and seat heating have dedicated touch buttons or sliders. The button experience of these touch buttons is mediocre, not as bad as bad physical buttons (since the touch buttons still gives very clear feedback whether they are activated), but certainly not as good as decent physical buttons. The sliders work fairly well, though for volume adjustment specifically it keeps feeling awkward, a rotary knob would be clearly better.
From this point of view the announced change in e.g. steering wheel buttons seems mostly cosmetic rather than fundamental. I hope they still keep the slider functionality on the wheel, it's quite intuitive and quicker imho. The bigger change would be that they're adding a central switch bar back, which seems to have the functions on it that are currently dedicated buttons in the main display. This seems like a clearer UX win to me.
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#246This is the kind of design I'd expect from Ive: it is designed to look nice. Ease-of-use is another story. There's a lack of consistency on the wheel controls that make this look more like a UX showcase rather than a usable interface. Case in point: - A bunch of rotary knob that perform the same function: to select. But, they all look different and use different ways to represent the selection. - Some have a lighted…
I think it's fine for wheel controls to look different though. You're adjusting them when engaged with a task that requires constant concentration, so being able to easily identify the control you want and then use it makes sense. I'd rather have this than all of them look the same. If you're driving in rain and need to swap to wet tyre mode, but have to spend time figuring out which generic knob does the thing, it's…
Exactly.
My car has every button and knob share the same design language but all subtly - or not so subtly - different so that the moment a control is touched there is zero ambiguity as to a) how to operate it and b) which one it is.
Appearance also comes into play as one doesn't necessarily have to _look straight at_ something to distinguish which is which or what the position is, merely it being somewhere in peripheral vision may very well give just enough clue so that you don't really have to take your eyes off of the road.
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs have a weight issue that fundamentally constrains their overall design. It is really a tough engineering problem to try to shave weight off of everything, because you are starting out with a 700kg battery replacing a 400kg engine + transmission, so you are ~300kg in the hole, and need to remove 300 kg from the rest of the car. That's why they do crazy stuff like use the battery as part of the structural frame, to…
I wonder what the speed/weight tradeoff is on a Ferrari though. Eg on a Bugatti they can put in a beast of an engine (heavy) because their buyers care only about power output and if it gets 8 miles to a gallon who cares. On an electric sports car, where does the break lie between extra weight for a powerful battery and too much weight to make the car go vroom? Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the…
Manufacturers like Ferrari, Porsche and Lotus focus on HP per KG. This is why they build ultralight versions of their cars. Porsche's 911 GT series trade glass windows with plexiglass and badges with stickers. Ferrari omits carpets and inner body panels leaving welds bare. Lotus re-invents everything make things lighter and with less material.
Mercedes, Bentley and Bugatti likes to build road missiles. Fast and comfortable, luxurious cars with insane straight line performance and stats, but not made to be thrown from corner to corner in a track. Since these cars are heavier and have somewhat higher center of gravity, they can't pull higher G numbers on skid pads and tracks. They also have somewhat slower lap numbers (Maybe Mercedes' SLR McLaren is an exception to this, but it's half McLaren, so...).
If you want to go to the edge of it, see McLaren and Pagani. They take the track-optimized, lightweight car design to extremes. Esp. McLaren.
Edit: I mixed up CLK-GTR with SLR. My bad, brain haze. Sorry.
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some point, the petrol stations start closing, and petrol vehicles start having range anxiety. The antiques get served by a little EV bowser service that comes round and delivers, but you won't be able to drive them in cities. (diesel will hang on a lot longer, so there may be a period of refinery retuning and petrol stations serving only diesel?)
Well you cant just get rid of Gasoline in the refinery process. Crude oil essentially gets destilled. The different fractions are split based on boiling point/weight. Heavy fuel oil-> Diesel-> Kerosene->Gasoline-> Naphta-> Propane/Butane whatever. That is why making new Plastic is so incredibly cheap. You need (i think) ethylene to make plastic. Ethylene is a byproduct of oil refining. If no one buys it, the whole re…
Cracking and chain lengthening* were covered in my GCSE in chemistry, and given GCSEs are the UK school leaving qualification, anything in them can't be particularly difficult or mysterious in industrial practice.
Not claiming this would be free or anything like that, just that a well-known possibility exists.
* I forget the technical name, my GCSEs were 26 years ago
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#249The Thurstmaster steering wheel for the PlayStation looks nicer
Re: Luce: First Electric Ferrari
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
>EV refuseniks What about the EV unafordaniks?
At some point EVs will be cheaper on the sticker price and cheaper to run. The US car industry is desperately trying to prevent this, but it looks like China is crossing that point. (I would be very interested in sticker price / fuel price / subsidy / tax accounting EV vs ICE breakdowns from inside China)
I think they're already cheaper in China, especially on the low-end where (as per Vimes' Boots) sticker price matters more than TCO.
China's got this, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV