Jaguar C-X16

[Bob Danger]

My god is it stunning, and it has KERS. 95bhp and 173ftlbs of boost! That is freaking cool.

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/j...how-2011-09-07

[sperry]

Wow. Just wow. That's how you make a hybrid. Suck it Toyota.

[silversuby]

Dang

[Bob Danger]

The more I think about the less I like the idea of having KERS on a street car. I can't really think of a practical application for it.

[van]

Originally Posted by Bob Danger

The more I think about the less I like the idea of having KERS on a street car. I can't really think of a practical application for it.

Two words



Street racing.


That shit be like E-NOS dog

[k-dogg39]

Originally Posted by van

Two words



Street racing.


That shit be like E-NOS dog

Beautiful car!

[silversuby]

It's probably so you don't feel like you made to practical of a decision by buying a "hybrid". Thinking of that I wonder what sort of mileage this thing gets (not while racing).

[cody]

I don't imagine it gets much different mileage than a similar sized/powered car, must be a tad better, but nothing earth shattering. I'm curious too though.

My bosses Prius ran out of gas with a full charge on the battery but wouldn't run simply because there was no gas. What kind of BS is that?

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

I don't imagine it gets much different mileage than a similar sized/powered car, must be a tad better, but nothing earth shattering. I'm curious too though.

My bosses Prius ran out of gas with a full charge on the battery but wouldn't run simply because there was no gas. What kind of BS is that?

Um... it's a "hybrid" not an "electric car". It's the same reason the car doesn't charge from a plug in your garage. Toyota never designed it to be anything but a gas car with electric assist. Remember, the Prius is relatively unchanged since 1997... so the technology is like 15 years old now. The plug-in Prius (something that people have been doing via mods for a decade) is only finally coming out in 2012.

I give props to Toyota for making hybrid gas/electric commonplace with the Prius... but at the same time, if they had continued to be innovators (or at least licensed their tech out instead of sitting on their patents preventing the competition from innovating) we would have had something like the Chevy Volt in 1998 instead of 2010, and perhaps by now we'd have a large range of sporty electric cars for sale by a bunch of different manufacturers.

[cody]

Originally Posted by sperry

Um... it's a "hybrid" not an "electric car". It's the same reason the car doesn't charge from a plug in your garage. Toyota never designed it to be anything but a gas car with electric assist. Remember, the Prius is relatively unchanged since 1997... so the technology is like 15 years old now. The plug-in Prius (something that people have been doing via mods for a decade) is only finally coming out in 2012.

I give props to Toyota for making hybrid gas/electric commonplace with the Prius... but at the same time, if they had continued to be innovators (or at least licensed their tech out instead of sitting on their patents preventing the competition from innovating) we would have had something like the Chevy Volt in 1998 instead of 2010, and perhaps by now we'd have a large range of sporty electric cars for sale by a bunch of different manufacturers.

Um, you do know that the gas motor only charges the batteries and doesn't directly propel the car right? The car drives with the motor completely off all the time. Why not allow it to run off the batteries until they become too low to safely run the car? I understand how Toyota designed it. In fact, that was my complaint.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

Um, you do know that the gas motor only charges the batteries and doesn't directly propel the car right? The car drives with the motor completely off all the time. Why not allow it to run off the batteries until they become too low to safely run the car? I understand how Toyota designed it. In fact, that was my complaint.

Totally false. The gas motor in the Prius directly drives the complicated gearbox that can *also* be driven by the electric motor. So when the motor is running, it pushes the car and any left-over power not needed for forward motion is routed to the batteries. While the Prius can run at slow speeds around town on just electric power, the car needs the availability of the gas motor's power at any time in case the driver decides to go fast at all.

The whole "big deal" with the Chevy Volt, and why it was supposed to kick the Prius' ass, is that it has the drivetrain you describe: where the motor is just a gas generator, and all the power to the wheels is from the electric motor.

Now, does it make sense for the Prius to "run out of gas" when it's still got a charged battery? Of course not... an all-electric limp mode to get to the gas station makes plenty of sense... but that's Toyota for ya I guess.

[cody]

Well that's what I get for siting what I heard from one person as fact.

I imagine the limp mode would be some sort of liability when somebody says they crashed because they didn't have the power to avoid an accident or something stupid like that.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

Well that's what I get for siting what I heard from one person as fact.

I imagine the limp mode would be some sort of liability when somebody says they crashed because they didn't have the power to avoid an accident or something stupid like that.

Yeah. Plus, Toyota designs their cars as appliances for people that don't "get" cars... so, because the appliances' parameters are "car can drive up to 85 mph" (or whatever the Prius' top speed is), then if the car can't do that due to being out of gas, then Toyota decided that rather than giving the user an emergency limp mode option, they'd just force them to deal with the problem just like any other car that's out of gas. I can imagine someone running out of gas, then driving around in limp mode for 30 minutes saying "Gee why is the car so slow? Oh well, I'll just wait for it to fix itself." Then they still end up stranded anyway *and* the batteries are ruined *and* "it's Toyota's fault, why would they let the car keep going if running the batteries flat might damage them!"

Catering to the lowest common denominator... it sucks for those of us that aren't idiots. But then again I guess, we're smart enough to mod things to work the way we want anyway, right?