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Wheels.29
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{Wheels.29.1}: Glen Marks {wotan} Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:52:36 CST (1 line)

http://www.leftlanenews.com/global-car-sales-could-peak-by-2024.html

{Wheels.29.2}: Glen Marks {wotan} Thu, 05 Jun 2014 19:06:25 CDT (4 lines)

Ready for driverless cars?:

"http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/advanced-cars/driverless-cars-
optional-by-2024-mandatory-by-2044"

{Wheels.29.3}: Joseph Kang {jsk} Mon, 14 Jul 2014 12:20:33 CDT (4 lines)

Interesting! Toyota has created a "free piston" engine that operates
without a crankshaft and outputs electrical power.

"http://interestingengineering.com/toyota-create-free-piston-engine-with-no-crankshaft-and-electrical-output/"

{Wheels.29.4}: Jil {rabbit} Fri, 18 Jul 2014 06:38:08 CDT (1 line)

Interesting indeed.

{Wheels.29.5}: Glen Marks {wotan} Sun, 20 Jul 2014 16:24:42 CDT (4 lines)

Could this recent tv commercial w/o any humans be giving us a glimpse of
the future?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxtK1BF3vO4

{Wheels.29.6}: Glen Marks {wotan} Tue, 05 Aug 2014 07:01:34 CDT (7 lines)

According to the following recent article:

- Solutions and efficiency in technology, such as the electric car, have
been deliberately destroyed by the very companies they threaten. A good
documentary on this subject is Who Killed the Electric Car?

http://www.thehistoriansquarterly.com/archives/category/all#/

{Wheels.29.7}: Jil {rabbit} Tue, 05 Aug 2014 08:27:06 CDT (5 lines)

Garbage. If GM could have sold a million EV1s, it would have made a
million EV1s. The technology wasn't ready at the time, and neither
were drivers. They still aren't. Hybrids and EVs are readily
available, and have been for more than a decade, and they still
haven't progressed beyond single-digit market share.

{Wheels.29.8}: Joe Gordon {darmund} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:29:31 CDT (2 lines)

But, but, but Martin Sheen was the narrator!!! President Bartlett
doesn't lie!!!!!

{Wheels.29.9}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:52:12 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.10}: Jil {rabbit} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:49:08 CDT (22 lines)

No, there were other reasons for destroying them all, and while it
might make me sound like I'm on the company's side, I've seen enough
of the industry to say that they had legitimate reasons for not
leaving them in the marketplace.

The technology was new, and the cars were extremely small-volume and
hand-built, which means that eventually, something was going to go
wrong. When it does, then with extremely rare examples (the Tesla's
fires being one of them), you can't overcome that bad publicity.

Somewhere down the line, an EV-1 was going to stop in its tracks, and
any goodwill would have been lost. Plus, the company would have had
to keep parts in stock for years (if memory serves, it's a minimum of
10 years) and kept technicians trained for the few that would have
been left.

The EV-1, and the other electrics that Nissan, Toyota, Ford, et al
put on the road, were introduced strictly to meet the laws that
California set in place at the time. The cars were essentially
cobbled together, and in a hurry. Once the laws were removed, there
was no need for these extremely expensive programs, and GM (and
others) didn't want to clean up what was left over from them.

{Wheels.29.11}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:13:58 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.12}: Jil {rabbit} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:27:00 CDT (10 lines)

They should have kept the program going, at least in terms of the
research; they made a serious mistake in not working on the momentum
they'd built up with the EV-1.

But I still maintain that there was nothing nefarious in destroying
the ones that came off leases. If not the right thing to do, it was
at least the most logical.

There probably is a running EV-1 around somewhere, but the few I've
seen have no powertrains.

{Wheels.29.13}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:29:26 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.14}: Jil {rabbit} Thu, 07 Aug 2014 20:29:20 CDT (1 line)

Yes, I've seen it there.

{Wheels.29.15}: Doug White {dwhite} Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:50:55 CDT (2 lines)

It would be amusing to get one of the units w/o a powertrain and
convert it to IC, haha.  Take that, GM.

{Wheels.29.16}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Tue, 10 Mar 2015 01:26:29 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.17}: Jil {rabbit} Tue, 10 Mar 2015 07:35:42 CDT (1 line)

Do you? I think it's a horrible idea.

{Wheels.29.18}: Doug White {dwhite} Tue, 10 Mar 2015 10:03:50 CDT (4 lines)

Is that a front or rear view of the Mercedes?

From that photo it would appear SFO has finally been gentrified back into
the stone age.

{Wheels.29.19}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Wed, 11 Mar 2015 02:03:03 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.20}: Jil {rabbit} Thu, 19 Mar 2015 08:39:24 CDT (6 lines)

Better training and licensing, not self-driving cars. We're putting a
Band-Aid on a wound.

People used to think drinking and driving was okay. People still do
it, but we're making a lot of headway. We need to treat cell phones
the same way, not make a car that lets them do it.

{Wheels.29.21}: Doug White {dwhite} Fri, 20 Mar 2015 10:05:05 CDT (4 lines)

Get a grip, Jil.  Cell phone use in public is already far more accepted (I'd
say some view it as a human right by now) than drinking in public ever was.
If the choice is truly "self-driving cars" vs. "no cell phones," the winner
will be clear.

{Wheels.29.22}: Jil {rabbit} Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:25:10 CDT (5 lines)

Sorry, I can't agree with that. Even if cell phone use is more
accepted than drunk driving was, that doesn't mean we can't change
that. Or worse, that we should just accept that we can't, and so come
up with billion-dollar solutions so assholes who aren't smart enough
to put down the phone won't be inconvenienced.

{Wheels.29.23}: Doug White {dwhite} Sat, 21 Mar 2015 00:29:01 CDT (16 lines)

No, no, no, I agree that it SHOULD be stopped.  But it is unstoppable.
There is zero political will, and the opposition is legion and well-
funded.  You want to compare cell phone use to the drunk driving problem,
but it is actually akin to the "motorless carriage" problem in the age of
horse-drawn transportation and steam power.  There is no going back.  An
entire generation can't even imagine life without this technology.
Geezers are steadily being assimilated.  The ship has sailed.

Drunk driving has zero upside (or, at worst, no upside that is morally
defensible).  I hate cell phones as much as anybody (maybe more than,
since I still don't have one!), but even I must concede they have a lot of
utility.

So, since we will keep cell phones, then at least allow us driverless cars
to get some (and then more, and then most) distracted people out of the
driving business altogether!

{Wheels.29.24}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Sat, 21 Mar 2015 03:57:13 CDT (HTML)

{Wheels.29.25}: Ted Hurst {thurst} Sat, 21 Mar 2015 04:13:15 CDT (HTML)

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