car thread yall...... imports, domestic, and euros all talk in this thread

[Mike@LG]

[Mike@LG]

[Mike@LG]

[Vancouver Fan]

[Mike@LG]

A shame Tesla can't get the roadster going.
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[Tryangles]

[Mike@LG]

Right on the day you asked:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=124462

Tesla fired a lot of executive employees not too long ago.
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I am not an economic advisor nor do I advise economic strategies or plans.

[999]

[KBryantisclutch]

[shnjb]

[Mike@LG]

[KBryantisclutch]

[quote="Mike@LG"]

[Mike@LG]

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/12/autobloggreen-qanda-tesla-motors-ceo-martin-eberhard-pt-1/

ABG: Okay. With the testing, obviously you don't need to do emissions and fuel economy testing for this thing. But what what sorts of other things are you doing as far as testing and particularly durability testing? What sort of program do you have for that?

ME: Basically the testing falls into two classes. There's safety testing and the durability testing. The safety testing is the standard gamut of standard motor vehicle safety standard testing and that involves smashing quite a few vehicles because the requirements are for low speed frontal crash tests, high speed crash tests, offset and deformable front crash tests, side intrusion tests, low speed and high speed rear crash tests and roof crush tests. So that's really a large number of tests have to be done. The way that this testing is done is we do testing to learn some things and then they'll redesign whatever needs to be redesigned and then you get approval. So that usually means a full set of testing once and then a full set of testing again with whatever changes went into it. The same thing goes with durability testing there's two classes of durability testing we do. We do a super accelerated test that's called the Belgian Pavẻ test, which basically drives the car over a very harsh cobblestone road at high speed and will take pretty much any car to destruction in about, in about 4- or 5,000 miles. That's designed to catch early failures as quickly as you can in the program. We finished that test and actually did quite well on it, had a very small number of failures. We had one bracket break on a front suspension component that we redesigned. And then parallel with that is a much longer durability test. It's about 50,000 miles on a calibrated durability track that's designed to simulate a much larger number of miles of actual driving, and that's ongoing still today. We're running three shifts a day six hours a day of that car driving on the track. And that's going well also. We've learned a few things; things that needed some adjustment and we'll do all those tests again with the next round of cars we're building right now that capture everything we've learned.

ABG: From that testing, I think probably the big question that everybody is going to want to ask is; How are the batteries holding up during the testing? Particularly, I've driven cars on the Belgian Pavẻ, so I'm familiar with how severe that is. How is the battery pack holding up, especially given the nature of your battery pack, where you've got I think 6,000 some odd individual cells in there, that are wired together, on the longer term durability testing. How is the performance of the battery over a larger number of miles, how is that holding up?

ME: Oh, the battery pack has been essentially perfect. We've had no trouble at all with the battery packs in the Pavẻ test or in the long-term durability test. You understand that these are not just a pile of batteries that are just chucked in a box. These are mounted in, in a very, very sturdy way with some our patented technology and that works frankly, just great. We had a problem with a bracket on the battery box early on in the testing that mounted to the frame. The bracket wasn't strong enough and we had to increase the strength of the of the bracket. This is the kind of thing that typically gives out during this kind of testing. We've had other kinds of problems. We had on the long-term durability track, one of the pieces is driving through a saltwater bath, which is abusive of a car. And we did have some water getting into one of our cables. So it required us to change the design of the cable and make sure it was simply more waterproof. Those are the kind of things you learn along the way. But the battery system has been one of the most robust parts of the tests so far.

ABG: What about the performance of the battery after 40-50,000 miles? Have you been able to take a look at that? And how's it, holding up?

ME: So far it's holding up just great. Holding up well, somewhat better than the computer models predicted.

ABG: Well, that's great to hear because that's clearly an issue with lithium ion batteries these days. Everybody has had experience with them in consumer electronics devices and they know that over the span of a couple of years they start to lose their ability to hold a charge. And so I think that's other than the mechanical durability of the components of the cell or the battery pack, that's the other big question when dealing with lithium batteries.

ME: Right. There's nothing unique about lithium batteries for Heaven's sake. You have lead acid batteries and nickel metal hydride batteries and nicad batteries, every battery chemistry that's come along. Batteries do degrade with time and with usage. The lithium ion battery is actually better than all of the predecessors for the most part. But the the difference between the Tesla Roadster and let's say, for example, your laptop computer is that your laptop computer was designed to last a short number of years. I mean, Microsoft just conspired to make sure that your laptop is obsolete in five years and so if the battery pack poops out in five years that's okay, that's fine. So there's no attempt to keep the battery pack cool. There's no attempt to optimize the charging of the battery pack just so long as the battery lasts a couple of years is good enough. We have of course a different approach with the Roadster as you've seen, we do liquid coolant in the battery packs to keep the battery packs at their optimal temperatures throughout their lives. and similarly we have a much, much more gentle charging and discharging algorithm on the batteries to optimize their life. It's just a matter of design.

ABG: So you've got a cooling system for the battery pack. Does that mean that it also warms the battery pack? Because that's another issue with lithium batteries, when they get cold they obviously don't perform as well either. So are you heating it as well in cold weather?

ME: So what happens with lithium ion batteries and mostly any other batteries when they get cold is they have a somewhat reduced power output. We don't under normal circumstances heat the battery pack because if you're driving at minus 20, your 0 to 60 time instead of being 4 seconds might be 5½ seconds. That's probably okay. Especially considering that you're probably on ice.

ABG: Odds are if you are at that temperature then you probably don't want to be accelerating that fast anyway.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_200709/ai_n20516982
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[Snipes]

[Mike@LG]

I hate it when car threads die.

Choose only one. Any year. Any vehicle.

Daily driver (Less than $40k)

SUV (Less than $50k)
Or
Wagon (Less than $50k)

Van (Less than $50k)

Sports Car (Unlimited price)

Alternative Energy source vehicle (Unlimited price)

1. Mazda Rx8. Some reliability issues, but a major concern only for the ignorant. Best compromise of sports car handling and 4 seats to come out in a long time. Big revs. Great steering. Neutral balance. Great brakes.

2. Subaru Sports Forester 2.5XT. Underrated. Aggressive look. Agile. Great utility.

3. Dodge Sprinter. A real van, not an extended/raised family car.

4. Porsche GT3. Light weight. Does everything well that a sports car should.

5. Tesla Roadster. My alternative power Lotus.
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Resident Car Nut.

https://lakersdraft.substack.com/

I am not an economic advisor nor do I advise economic strategies or plans.

[KBryantisclutch]

Not saying these are the best vehicles. . .but overall looks and performance, here is what I would probably buy.

Daily driver (Less than $40k)
Acura TL type S. If the price was(much) higher, my daily driver would be the Rolls Royce Phantom.

SUV (Less than $50k)
Honda Pilot. I hate those HUGE front emblems though, I would do something about that.

Truck: Toyota Tundra

Wagon (Less than $50k)
Audi S4

Van (Less than $50k)
Honda Odyssey

Sports Car (Unlimited price)
Very tough one. Unlimited. . .Ferrari Enzo probably. Very easy to change mind. Realistically: Honda NSX.

Alternative Energy source vehicle (Unlimited price)
TZero



Notable mention: Plymouth Prowler. I have not seen those anywhere for years, I have always been a fan of those.

[Mike@LG]

^Props for appreciating the NSX.
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Resident Car Nut.

https://lakersdraft.substack.com/

I am not an economic advisor nor do I advise economic strategies or plans.

[999]

hmmm my picks

hardtop convertible: dream: Mercedes Benz SL AMG
reality: Lexus SC 430

sports car:(realistic) American: Chevy Corvette ZR1
Euro: Porsche 911 Carrera
JAP: Nissan GTR

sedan: Euro: BMW 7 series
Jap: Lexus GS450h
American: Chrysler 300


Truck American: Dodge RAM
JAP: Toyota tundra

[KBryantisclutch]

For those who like the NSX, I saw the nicest one I have ever seen in a friend of mines Honda Tuning Magazine. I normally don't like spoilers or red cars, but this one had everything done right to it. Here she is:
NSX

[Mike@LG]

JGTC
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Resident Car Nut.

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I am not an economic advisor nor do I advise economic strategies or plans.

[DancingBarry]

[Vancouver Fan]

[Vancouver Fan]

[Mike@LG]

[Mike@LG]

Oh, and this is why I'm not the biggest fan of horsepower.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Columns/articleId=124526
_________________
Resident Car Nut.

https://lakersdraft.substack.com/

I am not an economic advisor nor do I advise economic strategies or plans.