A Very Light Car

Actually, our laws on "alternative" cars are pretty lax. You can drive almost anything if it has brakes and headights. No fenders are required; engines can be uncovered; and on and on.

Pfffht. When I see a motorcyclist without a helmet, I hope he hits something hard, to save us the trouble of keeping another vegetable alive.

I lost interest in British sports cars after watching a 75 Honda Civic turn in the shortest time on a winding parking-lot race course (Autokhana?) against the numerous local rich-boy racers.

So my buddy and I compared how fast we could take the U at the incompleted end of an Interstate, my less powerful 74 Civic vs his MG Midget. We couldn't record the speeds with the unloaded inside wheels slipping, but he spun out before matching me. The Honda had a much better rough-surface suspension with no bump steer.

Despite all the bootlegger-turn abuse I gave it, it died from rust. jsw

Are you saying that if you were riding, you wouldn't expect dew rags and tattoos to have some cushioning value? And what about your IMAGE for gods sake? Do you really want people to ponder that your skull might not have as much concrete as EA's? :)

I stopped riding bikes cuz the helmets would mess up my hair. I hated that.

Also -- bike riding on a hot summer day is not much more comfortable than riding on a cold winter day -- holy shit, do those helmets get *hot* -- ESP in traffic.... And you need to be covered up from the sun on long rides, cuz you can really get a helluva burn. I don't miss bike riding at all, actually... lol

And, the point remains: safety-wise or not, the *requirement* for helmets is the castration. Some states, afaik, still don't have helmet laws.

Oh, another tidbit: Quadriplegia, some time ago, amongst 18-25 year olds, in CA, was almost epidemic -- not from crushed skills, but from broken necks in mc crashes, thought to be exacerbated by the extra mass supported by the neck. Go figger, eh? AND their xyz-amendment rights were violated!!!! lol

Why don't you stop being a little bitch, and actually enumerate just WHERE the weights arise from? Then mebbe you can answer yer own Q. Oh, silly me.... but you DON'T know what the weight profile is..... OK, carry on, as usual.

Sure it can. Your brain is just too hormonally out of whack to grok the notion. Low-T AND high-E??

Oh, and you are a car engineer/designer, now? AND and astronaut?? AND a gourmet chef.... wow..... you must drink Dos Equis beer.... stay thirsty, my asshole friend....

There's always something faster. But a '74 or '75 Civic? Possibly the wheeziest car of its era. It could barely get out of its own way. You would not have wanted to run it against MY Midget. d8-)

As for parking-lot gymkhanas, not to do a Gunner here, but my '71 Super Beetle regularly blew off BMWs and 356C Porsches. That's a whole different thing. The fastest gymphana car in the country about that time was a Mini Minor -- not a Cooper, but a bare-bones wheezebox. Where DOT tires were not required, he ran F1 rubber and went around on rails.

YOU have repeatedly claimed that a vehicle that cost a billion to develop by an army of engineers could have been designed at half the weight and one third the price by some quack on Usenet. As if GM for some strange reason forgot to try to make it light. It's YOUR job to make your case, so start quacking! Instead all we've seen is more made up shit and dodging and weaving. The single slightly feasible thing you've suggested is to leave out 30 pounds of rear seat airbags, which is a pathetically helpless demonstration of how little thought you gave to your 1800 pound number. Obviously you have NOTHING else to support your claims, exactly as I predicted. Oh wait, there's still the promised manifesto! Which I expect to see the day after Moller's skycar flies around the world nonstop.

I was certainly surprised when it won. I couldn't get his attention long enough to find out what he had done to it. My 74 topped out at about 90 and while I could stay with a 911T on a winding dirt road once it straightened out he vanished like the Enterprise in the distance. jsw

You wouldn't understand it, anyway, cuz, well, deys numbers involved.... But it's coming, just got Haas problems, is all.

In fact, since YOU are so effing smart, YOU should outline the what-if strategy, for determining, when/where/if/how electrics are more user-economical than gas. Quite a few surprises, if you do it right. A big IF, in your case.

As far as GM goes, cuz GM made it 3800#, it MUST be 3800#, right???? Gee, I guess they didn't include Logic 101 in your GED/Astronaut curriculum, eh?

3800# for a compact *energy-saving GREEN car* is PRIMA FACIE ridiculous. Oh, sorry.... here we go:

Yes, you had compliant suspension in that thing, but if you ever got it out on a real racetrack, you might have gotten a surprise. Hondas respond well to tuning but that era was really sad in stock form. It had around 50 hp.

My Super Beetle topped out at 95, nearly stock but with a good exhaust and larger jets. That's far higher than the official spec -- the car was known to be faster, and to have more than the official 60 hp. My MG, definitely *not* stock, was good for about 110 with the 3.727 rear installed. But for racing, I ran a 4.22 rear, which accelerated a lot better but which limited top speed due to revs.

Stock hp on a 1275 Midget was 65 hp -- again, known to be underrated. Mine was a little over 100 hp based on acceleration times and comparable measured hp with cars set up similarly. The weight was about the same as your Honda; probably lower in the case of mine, which was stripped.

GM didn't forget to make the Volt light. GM made a conscious marketing decision to pander to the general public rather than educate them. ========================================================

Exactly. I'd add, tho, that pandering to the public often is not an escapable option. Remember, assholes like Kidding are allowed to vote....

That you can't deal with this reality or the fact that the Volt is overweight shows how far you have your head shoved up your ass and what a massive ego trip you are on.

You purchased a concept that's badly flawed because the electric technology that's available doesn't work for an overweight vehicle like the Chevy Volt. =======================================================

I'd make the concession that the Volt works pretty well, given those flaws. It IS basically well-designed, notwithstanding the 150 cup-holder syndrome. Kidding, tho, can't distinguish grey, much less colors.

You accuse EA of having nothing to support his claims and in addition you claim I'm "bonkers" to defect the fact that you can't deal with the realities of what the Chevy Volt really is. Guess what... it's not working. All it shows is how f***ed your reasoning is, that your ego rules you and that you live in fantasy land. You are: KiddingNoOne. ===============================================================

Assholes like kidding are genetically programmed to *vigorously* suck the c*ck of the Status Quo, and the more they can suck it in pub(l)ic, the more vigorous they become. I wish I had Kidding on MY dick, for a while..... I"d be a happy camper indeed.

The only racing I'd try with it was on dirt or ice out in the depopulated flood control area, the playground for any yout with cheap wheels. My friends were doctors' and lawyers' sons with Porsches, BMWs and XKEs so I hadn't a prayer of competing. The guy with the Midget went on to a Mazda rotary pickup that he drove/flew at 120MPH. It helped that our fathers were well connected politically, so we got only warnings. jsw

LOL Your opinion is insanely contradictory, and made entirely worthless anyway by all your stupid evasions.

The fact is that GM went after the middle of the market. They had a lot on the line and could hardly afford reviewers complaining the Volt felt cheap or tinny. So they aimed a little above the Prius in wheel size and heft. Note that the Prius plug-in weighs about 550 pounds less than the Volt, with probably about 200 of that coming from a substantially smaller battery. That leaves about 350 pounds used to make the Volt a little bigger here and there, go three times as far on battery, perform substantially better, and have the quality to support a substantially better warranty. Its customer satisfaction numbers bear out the success of the strategy. Face it, GM knew exactly what it was doing, and you and Bonkers are a couple of empty suits pretending that baseless rants can trump reality.

What's that Lassie? Toyota is stupid too? Yeah right, none of these car companies know anything compared to you two because none of them have an invisible magic weight reduction strategy!

Dude, it appears contradictory to you bec you are the type of asshole that has to watch his feet when he walks. I have stated from the BEGEINNING that I am a fan of the basic volt design, but not its execution. That you find that so hard to grok speaks volumes.

Pruis C: 2500#

70 mpg, with a light foot, all the time -- just imagine if they used the Volt generator strategy.... $18K.

NOW you can blow me. Hurry, email me for my address, I'm all excited now.

Oh, and a 5-door, at that -- since the assholeKidding makes such a big fukn deal about doors'n'seat'n'shit....

Unfortunately also the fate of most of the Porsche's I actually like that they don't make now (I think most of what they make now is fn'ugly....) - the 914's - never have had one, but if I was to get a moneypit car that might be it...

Why are you "imagining" things that are only available in your mind?

The Volt is a hatchback, as in, 5 doors, quack.

Five year ownership cost $40k,

Prius plug in. Five year ownership cost$38k,

IOW, about the difference anyone restricted to reality would expect.

I'll ask my neighbor if he's ready to part with his. I don't think you'll be happy about it if you get one, but each to his own.

IOW, just what I"d expect from a lying sleazebag. Your link uses a $40K prius hybrid, not the $18K prius c. Good one, jethro.... I'll bet you thought I wouldn't click, eh? You not only have reality problems, you have integrity problems.

Which shows that even at near the same price, the Volt is sig'ly more expensive than the more expensive prius'.

Plus, you don't even know how these bullshit sites calc the stuff out. But it don't matter, since you can't even get the models straight.

Here it is again: Pruis C: 2500# Hmmmm 1300# diff.

70 mpg, with a light foot, all the time -- just imagine if they used the Volt generator strategy.... 70 mpg is proly more than most people avg with the Volt. $18K. Hmmmm...... Half the Volt price....

Get it, now? Proly not.