(Facebook.com)
Monday, April 16, 2018
Such Great Advice, That Always Falls On Deaf Ears
Here Is Why Expensive Cars Aren't Always Reliable
Basically, it comes down to complexity. Luxury cars have all kinds of upgraded features and technology that sets them apart from more plebeian modes of transportation. But the more moving parts a car is packed with, the more likely one of those parts may fail or wear out.
Think about the life of your computer or cell phone. Many of these devices don’t last more than a few years before becoming obsolete or unusable. When the same kind of tech is packed into a car for a multitude of functions, the longevity of what is essentially a giant rolling computer is compromised.
(Jalopnik.com)
Basically, it comes down to complexity. Luxury cars have all kinds of upgraded features and technology that sets them apart from more plebeian modes of transportation. But the more moving parts a car is packed with, the more likely one of those parts may fail or wear out.
Think about the life of your computer or cell phone. Many of these devices don’t last more than a few years before becoming obsolete or unusable. When the same kind of tech is packed into a car for a multitude of functions, the longevity of what is essentially a giant rolling computer is compromised.
(Jalopnik.com)
Clarifying The Siblings - Land Rover Edition
2018 Range Rover family: How they compare
Helping you tell apart the Range Rover, Sport, Velar and Evoque
(AutoBlog.com)
Helping you tell apart the Range Rover, Sport, Velar and Evoque
(AutoBlog.com)
Friday, April 6, 2018
Did You Know - IBM Edition
TALKING SHOP: Did you know
that working from home was “invented” by IBM in the late 70’s? And did
you know the main reason your employer doesn’t want you working remotely
is exactly the same reason you want to work remotely? Yup, the big boss
man assumes your lazy ass isn’t getting a damn thing done.
(BroBible.com)
(BroBible.com)
Sorry, But There Is No Longer An 'Affordable' Sports Car
Matt Prior: The affordable performance car might die
With emissions regulations getting increasingly strict, manufacturers may struggle to produce such cars
[I]magine you’re a big car maker and you want to make a fast, relatively affordable car: a hot hatchback, small sports saloon, little coupé or convertible variant – that sort of thing. The route traditionally available to you – sticking a big engine in it – suddenly becomes extremely difficult, because it’s hard enough to get your regular range of vehicles down to the 95g/km average without sending a group of enthusiastic engineers off to install a fire-breathing motor into something, thus pulling the average up again.
So now, that kind of car would not only have to cover its own development cost but would also have to sell in sufficient volume – or at a sufficiently high price – to cover the additional cost of engineering the rest of the range to have a lower CO2 output, to balance out the fast one.
Which sounds unlikely. So it could have to have a lower CO2 output itself, but that means it’d probably have to be partially electrified. And that probably means it’s no longer a cheap performance car. Or it could, of course, get slower, which might not be a terrible thing, either. But then: how much of a performance car is that?
You see the problem? Perhaps this is already happening. Perhaps that’s why the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GT86 have only a mild engine. Perhaps it’s why the Alpine A110 weighs nothing and costs £50,000. Perhaps it’s why the Honda NSX has three electric motors.
So perhaps it’s already giving us some fantastically interesting but not, I suspect, huge-selling sports cars.
And I worry about that. Because these cars will get signed off based on how many people will buy them, so the thinking won’t be: let’s build a fast one. It’ll be: should we build a fast one? And that’s not always a question with a positive outcome.
(AutoCar.co.uk)
With emissions regulations getting increasingly strict, manufacturers may struggle to produce such cars
[I]magine you’re a big car maker and you want to make a fast, relatively affordable car: a hot hatchback, small sports saloon, little coupé or convertible variant – that sort of thing. The route traditionally available to you – sticking a big engine in it – suddenly becomes extremely difficult, because it’s hard enough to get your regular range of vehicles down to the 95g/km average without sending a group of enthusiastic engineers off to install a fire-breathing motor into something, thus pulling the average up again.
So now, that kind of car would not only have to cover its own development cost but would also have to sell in sufficient volume – or at a sufficiently high price – to cover the additional cost of engineering the rest of the range to have a lower CO2 output, to balance out the fast one.
Which sounds unlikely. So it could have to have a lower CO2 output itself, but that means it’d probably have to be partially electrified. And that probably means it’s no longer a cheap performance car. Or it could, of course, get slower, which might not be a terrible thing, either. But then: how much of a performance car is that?
You see the problem? Perhaps this is already happening. Perhaps that’s why the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GT86 have only a mild engine. Perhaps it’s why the Alpine A110 weighs nothing and costs £50,000. Perhaps it’s why the Honda NSX has three electric motors.
So perhaps it’s already giving us some fantastically interesting but not, I suspect, huge-selling sports cars.
And I worry about that. Because these cars will get signed off based on how many people will buy them, so the thinking won’t be: let’s build a fast one. It’ll be: should we build a fast one? And that’s not always a question with a positive outcome.
(AutoCar.co.uk)
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