Just rode in a VOLT!

[NHRABill]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Hilarious that it took so much "dieting" and engineering effort to "reduce" to that portly 3000 lbs! Just about everything I own from the '60s, '70s, and '80s comes in well under that. We can thank NHTSA for that.

Don't think I have owned a car below 3,000lbs.

my 67 Camaro was 3,250
87 firebird 3470
85 Grand National 3630lbs.
75 Corvette 3460

These are the weights I have in front of me In my old Racers log from when i would go to the drag strip. I would weigh in the scale at end of the track , the weights do not include me in the car or spare tires jacks and less than a 1/2 tank of gas

Still beats my current cars
04 Cadillac SRX 4,350
95 Tahoe 5,500
02 Alero 3,077

Sold my 02 Aztek 3750lbs

I wouldn't want to hit me in an accident

[Frank Lee]

Tempos: pretty much 2400-2500 lbs.
Corvair: 2400 lbs.
VW Beetles: 1700-2000 lbs (haven't weighed it myself)
VW Microbus: 2450 lbs.
Triumph Spitfire: 1600 lbs.
and so on.

Stupid thing is, Tempos are fully optioned, fully functional, not stripped down miniscule sports cars, and they are made with a big *** old cast iron block and heads, and I strongly suspect much heavier gauge sheet metal than Hondas and whatnot, AND they have 5 mph bumpers! If the 4-5 place OLD SCHOOL Tempo can weigh in at under 2500, I don't see why any other self-respecting family car CAN'T.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Stupid thing is, Tempos are fully optioned, fully functional, not stripped down miniscule sports cars, and they are made with a big *** old cast iron block and heads, and I strongly suspect much heavier gauge sheet metal than Hondas and whatnot, AND they have 5 mph bumpers! If the 4-5 place OLD SCHOOL Tempo can weigh in at under 2500, I don't see why any other self-respecting family car CAN'T.

The non-metalic materials in new cars are very heavy all the dampening and crash crumpling materials are not light, My company has a new truck that gets plastic composite outrigger pads because they don't rust and slide in the box in one nice square package, sadly the composite outrigger pads weigh double what old steel jobbers did, pain to lift into place also.

My main concern was with calling a Volvo with over double the usable space of a modus a tank. The tank of the two is the Modus, it is built much more stought and heavy while still being small.

And fixating on one model car is also troubling to me, people become miopic and fail to see that all cars universally of one age versus another can't really be compared in that way. There are a variety of new cars that handle poorly, have respectable crash numbers but I would estimate are easier to enter into an accident driving. There are older cars that are much easier to navigate, weigh less and would be better at avoiding an accident.

Also the inevitable end to all this would be like the end all solution of the 70's test crash cars sanctioned by our government that were designed to be crash ready whereby you could never die in a crash. They weighed in excess of 4 tons and looked a lot like a tank. Perhaps everyone should drive these around so they can crash into each other safely at 70mph?

I'm uncertain I really want to go into that place. At some point there needs to be a line and the fact that there are 6million accidents a year, 30% are alcohol related, 30% involve an injury and only .05% (give or take are fatal on the road an equal number are fatal up a year later from dying of injuries from such things as safety equipment but we will ignore that) and of that .05% fatality rate roughly 40% are alcohol related should be a much more telling set of data or provide a better direction as to what we should be doing to prevent automotive fatalities. Also of note of the .05% fatality rate roughly 15% are pedestrians not people in cars.

I think you can draw your own conclusion of what would be more effective at preventing a large number of the existing vehicle accidents and fatalities

I would also argue poorly designed intersections and roads cause a fair number of accidents. Cities not designed for people to be able to navigate their person safely also cause trouble. Around here stopped cars having to cross divided freeways to get across seems to cause a fair number of accidents.

[tjts1]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

42 for the cruze eco???? Erm our cruze base model 1.6 NA gets 42!! ffs didn't get much value on that overtime then General!

Our test is completely different. You can't compare numbers.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Tempos: pretty much 2400-2500 lbs.
Corvair: 2400 lbs.
VW Beetles: 1700-2000 lbs (haven't weighed it myself)
VW Microbus: 2450 lbs.
Triumph Spitfire: 1600 lbs.
and so on.

And your probability of surviving a 35mph offset frontal impact or side impact is 0% in all of those. Ah the good old days.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Stupid thing is, Tempos are fully optioned, fully functional, not stripped down miniscule sports cars, and they are made with a big *** old cast iron block and heads, and I strongly suspect much heavier gauge sheet metal than Hondas and whatnot, AND they have 5 mph bumpers! If the 4-5 place OLD SCHOOL Tempo can weigh in at under 2500, I don't see why any other self-respecting family car CAN'T.

Totally! Classic cars were super safe. Not like these plastic trash heaps they sell today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRbwTutw-Hk

[bennelson]

Back on topic - does anyone have info on the VOLT crash-testing?

[autoteach]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV4Awe8itMg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLz14u0Odio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeMrOQfliCs

and for your viewing excitement, some extreme crashes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgjtSilW8yM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp32F7QzZqA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D827I...eature=related

Those of you that are still complaining about the "safety" weight of new cars can continue to drive your ultralite cars. There is a lot of material that goes into new cars to make them survive these crashes, and you can be pissed at the nhtsa right up to the point you are kissing your loved ones and thanking the big guy that they survived a horrible crash. the cruze isnt getting lighter, face it.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Back on topic - does anyone have info on the VOLT crash-testing?

Sadly all I've ever found are videos and sites talking about it being safe, not actual data. Nada says its too new and the data is not yet available.

Originally Posted by autoteach

Those of you that are still complaining about the "safety" weight of new cars can continue to drive your ultralite cars. There is a lot of material that goes into new cars to make them survive these crashes, and you can be pissed at the nhtsa right up to the point you are kissing your loved ones and thanking the big guy that they survived a horrible crash. the cruze isnt getting lighter, face it.

My Grandmother died 2 months later from micro blood clots after her leg was badly bruised by the airbag in a 25mph crash. The crash wasn't all that bad, she walked away from it with no broken bones but she had to go back to the hospital over a month later after being there all of 2 days directly after the crash. That car is still on the road, just needed airbags reset and a door and fender.

Surviving the crash does not mean you survive longterm. I have looked for data on this regard for a long time but it seems if you survive more than a day or two after a crash your death from related injuries doesn't count in the number. (especially if you have to go back to the hospital after leaving)
I also have had trouble finding much talking about deaths from safety equipment, just horror stories about it, nothing concrete.

We need to remember the only way to make cars foolproof would be to take them off the road and not drive. They will always be a risk, safety is certainly not a bad thing but it is rarely implimented perfectly and people should have freedom of choice, if they believe they want a certain subset of vehicle features fine, if they want another subset they should be able to have them as well.
There comes a point of diminishing returns to everything, I think we are well into that territory.

[MN Driver]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...Zetsche says: "...in the long run, there's no alternative to electric driving."

I agree with him. With China and other developing countries with fast growing economic roots and oil production even without decline will become more and more difficult for us, buying cars that are electric will become an obvious positive economic choice once gas prices climb again. We went from the mid $1.xx in the early/mid 2000's to over $4 in mid-2008 and are now back to nearly $3. I'm not sure when we will be above $5 but I bought my most recent car (2000 Insight) with high gas prices in mind. I have a feeling with electric cars coming that everyone who vested in oil will try to keep the gas/diesel prices as affordable as possible so they have a bigger market when they spring the barrel prices again.

It doesn't seem like it will take much for electric cars to catch on though it seems, the Nissan Leaf has already capped its 20,000 orders for 2011 Nissan Leafs so its either a boost production or not grab the money. I think the $25k after tax incentives is a good price for the car while the early adopters are swallowing them full-force. I'm curious what prices later manufacturers will be placing on their cars such as the Ford Focus electric or Mitsu MiEV if it ever comes. ...and it is all before anyone even owns one! Even with no real world long-term examples of a mass production EV yet, people are lining up to get them. Outside of Tesla, Corbin/Myers and NEV's being about the most common road vehicles out there lately. Tesla is likely and hopefully the first thing that comes to mind(ideally) when people think of electric cars, it gives people a reason to think of a decent vehicle instead of the golf cart mentality.

Originally Posted by cfg83

MN Driver -

This adds a wrinkle to the Volt engineering strategy. The design is flexible so that the software can be tweaked to favor the battery or the ICE.

Wait until the calcars.org people get their hands on one!

CarloSW2

If they do play with it, I'll be watching. Do you think they are interested, it appears they have a plug-in hybrids page on their site but there are no mentions of vehicle models other than in the links at the bottom.

Originally Posted by robchalmers

42 for the cruze eco???? Erm our cruze base model 1.6 NA gets 42!! ffs didn't get much value on that overtime then General!

UK and US standards are very different, also as one posted noted above our EPA ratings changed recently and the ratings are incredibly easy to beat. They basically set it up with what ends up being a huge fudge factor for the worst driving conditions or simply just the most wasteful drivers. When I want real numbers I hit up forums and make myself a ballpark figure from there.

I think cfg83 did a good job of showing it. For what it's worth, my second car, a 1995 Prizm(rebadged Corolla) gets 42mpg on almost every highway commute tank when the EPA said 34mpg highway and was before I started getting into hypermiling beyond just coasting a little more to stops. That rating was from our old standards. That is a 2370lbs car. I have a feeling with the same driving I might just get 50mpg with a Cruze which wouldn't be so bad for the price and the Cruze doesn't really seem all that small to me.

tjts1 - "And your probability of surviving a 35mph offset frontal impact or side impact is 0% in all of those. Ah the good old days."

I have a feeling my 2000 Insight is probably about the best car under 2000 pounds for crash survivability. I'm not looking forward to getting in any crashes with any vehicle though.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by NHRABill

First off Punk you don't know me so don't act like you do...

Internet trolls who make up numbers and call them facts and turn around and tell people who are trying to improve their habits even in the slightest are what is wrong with the world today. Your comments are your opinion and no matter what anyone says you will cry and say you are correct therefore I wonn't even attept to justify my position in any past comments I have made to you.

You do not know my needs, you do not know my habits, you do not know the dangers of driving a econobox where I live. I appreciate you stop pretending you know what is best for me and taking the conversation from one where people can express their constructive opionions and soiling it with the everyone is wrong but you attitude.

Using insinuated profane language does not work with me. So Grow up and try to understand the world does not revolve around your opinion.

Don't get me wrong Bill. Not only do I not know you, I don't care about. If you need a tractor trailer to haul your #1 rated equestrian swim team to the beach every weekend, whatever, I don't care. Like I said before, the only thing I give a **** about is your BS!

For instance this, outside of the personal opinion portion, is wrong...

Originally Posted by NHRABill

Internet trolls who make up numbers and call them facts and turn around and tell people who are trying to improve their habits even in the slightest are what is wrong with the world today.

Why? Because those numbers aren't my numbers. The numbers I originally used were from "Hybrid Life-Cycle Inventory for Road Construction and Use" in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.

If you think those numbers are made up then post why/how you think the authors of that article in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management made those figures up. Here's another paper from ANL. They place the embodied energy of a typical passenger sedan at ~22-25kWh depending on how much is recycled, which is way lower than the previous estimate.

Either way the basic idea still remains the same. The embodied energy of a car is a small fraction of it's total energy use, so saying that keeping an older car is better for the environment than getting a newer more fuel efficient model is total BS unless the newer vehicle is only marginally more fuel efficient.

Originally Posted by NHRABill

People tink I am hurting the enviroment by using fuel when I am acually using it to ts potential by not purchasing a new car that takes tremendous resources to manfuacture.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by autoteach

Well, what would I want electrics to be, or politicians? I think I will go with the hybrid/electrics...I just dont think that the savings in fuel over a well designed vehicle outweigh the pollution of production. I am talking about the chain from mining to driving. It is displaced pollution, and unregulated.

I doubt that. The extra embodied energy of a hybrid versus a comparable car are very small (page 26), something like a couple percent increase in energy use and about half that in GHG emissions because not all the energy industry uses is Carbon based on large stationary generators tend to have greater average efficiency than smaller mobile ones. If hybridization only reduced emissions by a couple percent, then yeah, it wouldn't be worthwhile, but as it stands it's definitely worthwhile from the POV of emissions.

Originally Posted by autoteach

Ok, you make a great point on the new civic with uncorrected numbers (unfortunately I dont know what the correction rates are). You also support my arguments, its bigger, heavier, accelerates faster, has more "creature" comforts... What is necessary? GPS, heated seats, or a car that is more efficient?

The data is here. The newer files are a bit easier to read than the older ones but everything is there. Manufacturers build cars w/ more features because people are willing to pay for them.

Originally Posted by autoteach

And you are right, there aren't many that meet the 50, let alone 40mpg w/o being hybrids. Should that be the case? I dont think so.

I'm inclined to agree, but realistically w/ a vehicle fleet at ~25mpg, getting to ~35mpg will get better savings than going from ~35mpg to ~50mpg. Ultimately it will depend on gas prices. If the price of oil goes up or if we increase the gas tax then we'll see a lot more people interested in more fuel efficient cars.