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Comments
TagMan
The most expensive "consumer" plasma I remember seeing was a first gen 50" Pioneer for $20k.
That's a non-quantifiable statement.
TM
Then, of course, there was the surround sound equip and installation. All more money back then compared to today.
Nowadays, $2999 can get a decent panel. For the original price, I could have 7 of 'em today, as I originally posted!
TagMan
You say almost no progress wirh diesels or diesel fuel?
Diesel fuel is now cleaner... to the level of ULSD, a dramatic difference. Diesel engines are much quieter. They are much smoother. They are lighter, as with BMW's aluminum diesel engine, and they are cleaner, and significantly, they are much, much more powerful than the diesels of old days... by a wide margin they are more powerful. More than 5%!!! A lot more than that!!!
TagMan
Were not because of my current jet lag, I hardly have had time to catch with the posts produced here along this while :P . What a race! At times, I have became angry reading those allusions to diesels banned in European cities
Go figure that, having read all this stuff while being myself in a state of half awakeness, I am now in the most strange state of mind
Regards,
Jose
BTW, I have loved Australia and its people :shades:
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Actually in that case I'd say the opposite is true. It's a lot easier to spend a million dollars on a sound system today than it was 10-15 years ago, when they didn't have diamond tweeters, carbon/kevlar woofers and $50K amplifiers.
It's a similar situation with luxury car stereos. The LS460/ML or A8/B&O systems are both much better and much more expensive than the Nakamichi and Bose stereos in the older models.
Too bad about Sergio. I was pulling for him!!
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
The current E320CDI is a bit more than 5% better than the 300Ds of 25 years ago.
I spent more than one morning thawing out the fuel line with my wifes hair dryer...and didn't mind a bit. My wife also loved it. We kept it for about 3 years (an eternity for me back then) and it never cost us a dime except for routine maintenance.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
DrFill
No kidding!... I can not understand how brightness came up with only 5%.
BTW, what I mean regarding today's cost of A/V equip. vs. the old days, is that dollar for dollar, you get more nowadays... but yes, without a doubt certainly you can spend lots more dollars due to the amazing selection of new sound technology
A few years ago I put in a 7.1 THX system in one of my family rooms, and it wasn't all that long ago that 7.1 THX wasn't a routine consumer installation.
TagMan
My man, houdini. That's awesome! God bless ya'.
TM
The original diesel engine burned peanut oil, so there was hardly any sulfer at all. That was 100+ years ago.
Diesel engines sure have become more powerful than 100 years ago. However, the rate of growth has been quite anemic to say the best. At 8% compound growth rate (battery energy density growth rate), 100+ years should have produced a diesel car engine that produces 20,000hp or more on the same 300lb ball park weight. We are nowhere close to that.
It's simple.
first, right click your mouse over address of the web page you want to link. select "copy".
Then "paste" that address in your message that you are preparing to post. After you paste it, highlight/select the entire address that you just pasted, and click the "url" button just below the message window.
Then check the preview to see it says "link title".
Now, if you want to get fancy, you can actually replace the words "link title" that appear in your message box with an actual title, if you want, but that is not necessary.
Anyway, if you like the preview, then just post your message.
Try it, and we'll see if it works.
TagMan
The stuff Detroit was making back then was just the opposite and just terrible. I had a 1980 Olds Cutlass as a company car. It had a "shimmy" just at about 65 mph that was never fixed. I hated that car, but it was "free". It was literally worn out at about 30,000 miles.
I also had a new 1978 Honda Accord 4-door. The first 4 door that Honda made and another awesome little car for its time. You could have any color you wanted as long as it was ruby red or silver. Mine was ruby red.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Yup, agree on the comment on electronics. Today, a THX-certified 7.1 system costs less than $500, and I'd imagine much of that cost is due to the loyalty paid to Lucas for the certification. I learned that lesson around 1990, when Sony brought out the first generation of consumer Dolby ProLogic amps. It cost a bloody fortune, but the components inside were made of the cheapest nonsense material just to run those many channels on a shoe-string production cost, because the R&D took up the bulk of the price. It was obsolete within a few years anyway, yet the material was so cheap that cross-channel noise started showing up even before it became obsolete.
How true that is.
The entire manufacturing process has changed, and the types of materials used, as well as the way they use sophisticated CAD software. Some things are better, but some not so good.
Overall, I think the safety is one of the most remarkeable improvements, with ABS, VSC, Air Bags, Pre-safe, safety headrests, Xenon and LED lighting, and more.
And, of course, hopefully you shouldn't need that hair dryer any more.
TagMan
If that's the case, then you deliberately stacked the deck... because bottom line, diesel engines have improved power output in both HP and torque.
The ULSD fuel goes in with it's slightly lower energy content, and yet lots more power comes from the engine... to me that's an increase in diesel efficiency any way you want to look at it!
TagMan
One other thing I find helpful is that you can actually click on the link in the Preview box to make sure it goes where you want it to go. I open it in a new tab/window. The code that autmatically does that isn't present in the Preview box.
I'm not so sure about this sketch being 'official', since it came from 4wheelsblog.com, and was then reposted on Autospies, but nonetheless it does appear to be a good representation of what the R8 might look like as a convertible.
According to this link at 4wheelsblog.com, link title , "The new Audi R8 Spider comes with removable targa panels rather than a space-gobbling removable fabric roof or folding hard-top."
I love the side blade treatment on the R8... especially on the coupe version, where it is much more dramatic... one of its most unique and distinguishing style attributes, IMO.
Here are some pics of the R8 coupe, just to remind us what a gorgeous car the R8 truly is:
... beautiful car indeed. Quite possibly best in black.
TagMan
Thanks, Pat... and also for your extra tip.
TM
link title
TagMan
If you want to talk about hp output per pound of engine block (ie. power density of engines), then like I said, if diesels had 8% annual growth rate in that regard like batteries have been having for energy density, we should be having 300lb diesel engines that deliver over 20,000hp by now, after 100+ years of diesel history. We nowhere close to that with diesel engines.
It's not what I am "missing", but what I am avoiding. It's irrelevant to my point. I am simply stating that the diesel engines of today are much more powerful and efficient than the old diesels of 'yesteryear'.
Your point about the batteries' huge progress is misleading, IMO, even if true. Why? Because although it's great that batteries have improved so much... nonetheless, we still don't see a bunch of electric cars running around with great driving range and powerful performance, do we? Yet we see diesels all over the world delivering fantastic driving range and most recently great performance as well.
The Tesla that was discussed might finally indicate that a reasonable range is possible, but so far there isn't really anything out there on any significant scale to speak of... but let me add that I hope to see Tesla succeed and change all that.
TagMan
Indeed it is. While the RS4, RS6, and S8 are all very impressive cars, the R8 really shows that Audi is every bit a match for the best BMW and M-B can do. Family resemblance?
That kind of growth is unsustainable, at least with chemical battery tech where it is. You can't keep making batteries smaller and lighter while cramming more power into them at the same time. Just ask Sony. There are already prototypes for fuel cell batteries for laptops, because their Li-IONs have essentially hit a brick wall in terms of energy storage.
In any case, comparing combustion engines with batteries isn't exactly apples-to-apples.
Leaving Australia, the customs officer told me about Sergio García´s defeat at the British Open play-offs. May be I have a golfer face (you know I am not). He also pulling for Sergio, he said. My pain was leveled by the joy of knowing Fernando Alonso's win at Nürburgring.
On the other hand, I thank TagMan for the trick he has given for image links.
And I agree with Lexusguy in that the Audi R8 and his ancestor Audi race car share a well-looking family resemblance. What sort of beautiful speed machines are both!
Regards,
José
hmm, here's your point: in post#4137:
"No kidding!... I can not understand how brightness came up with only 5%. "
Methinks what you are avoiding is the truth :-)
Anyway, like I said before, the limiting factor in electrical system is the battery energy density . . . whereas the limiting factor in diesel systems is emission and power density. Carbonaceous fuel (gasoline, diesel, natural gas and coal powder, the being the original fuel Rudolf Diesel thought his engine would be running on, but the first prototype ran on peanut oil 'cuz he couldn't get coal powder to get delivered into the engine in a steady stream :-) happens to be a very nice source of chemical energy. IMHO, eventually fuelcell is the answer, but that's still a goodly wait ahead.
As for hitting a brick wall, internal combustion engines (gasoline, diesel, alcohol and hydrogen, or whatever else, getting directly burned inside stroking metal cylinders) are the ones starting to hit the wall in terms of what they can deliver efficiently and cleanly.
Sorry, brightness, but I have to agree with Lexusguy on this one. I see the issues associated with the next step on batteries, and I only see nano battery technology as the next best thing... which, mind you, is a good thing... but after that, it's a brick wall for batteries.
Internal combustion, on the other hand, is now undergoing some new advances. We now already see direct injection becoming more utilized in gas ICEs. We see start/stop, and much better cylinder management than the old days due to better sensors and computer chips. We see better valve utilization and control, and overall we see both gas and diesel engines becoming more efficient... and much of this progress is very recent... no brick wall for ICEs. In fact just the other day I posted an article about a new Mercedes gasoline compression engine that is being worked on. They keep getting more HP and more torque out of them... all the while using less fuel. That's progress, my friend.
TagMan
On the plus side, the Audi dealer is owned by the same guy as the Acura right next to it. Just recently took our Acura there for the first time since before the warranty expired in 04. They were lousy then, but were extremely good now. While the Acura was being worked on, I went looking at the Audi area, and it was a ghost town. One salesman and no customers. Hopefully, it won't take the Audi side of the house as long to improve the service department.
hahaha, you bought the numbers bait, hook and sinker. Peak HP and peak torque are not delivered at the same time as cruise speed for EPA tests. ICE mechanical efficiency (the ratio of mechanical energy harnesse as per centage of chemical energy stored in the fuel source) is still struggling in the 12-18% range, not much an improvement over the past 100 years. Sure some of them can burn more fuel per second (through greater displacement, supercharging/turbochargin, higher RPM and direct injection) and therefore producing more power, but that does not exactly improve mechanical efficiency in any meaningful way, as they burn more fuel while delivering their peak hp and peak torque (much more than current EPA test ratings).
Fuelcells have a much higher energy conversion efficiency than ICE's. The problem with fuelcells is the throughput capacity per weight (i.e. power density). That is improving at a dramatic rate. Saying that nano technology is the brick wall is kinda silly. Nano technology (a vaporware for now) ideally delivers near-perfect energy conversion . . . so yeah, law of thermodynamics would indeed make that the "brick wall"; you can't exactly produce more mechanical energy than there was in the form of chemical energy in the fuel source to begin with :-)
But, honestly now, it's not just a matter of EPA testing method. You know darned well that engines have been getting more efficient due to some of the technical advances that I indicated, and there is still room to go, IMHO, to extract more of the stored energy from the fuel into produced and realized net mechanical energy by the engine.
And I'm not just talking about cruising only here, although I don't find it an inappropriate number just because it is the one that requires the least amount of fuel consumption.
BTW, I'm all for fuel cells... never said I wasn't! :surprise:
TagMan
"BMW has been selling diesel models in Europe since 1983 and today, they account for 67 percent of overall BMW sales in Europe and 40 percent of all BMWs sold worldwide. European buyers have the choice of diesel power in nearly the entire BMW model line, with inline-four, inline-six and V-8 engines. The benefits of diesel are especially attractive in the X5 Sports Activity Vehicle, and an incredible 93 percent of all X5 models sold in Europe have diesel power.
Since the first BMW diesel engine in 1983 to the modern diesel engines of today, BMW has increased torque by 160 percent and power by 135 percent, while reducing consumption by 20 percent and emissions by 99 percent. These dramatic increases in performance with a corresponding increase in fuel mileage give BMW diesel drivers the best of both worlds-more power for dynamic driving, without a penalty in fuel economy. Europe's motoring press have critically acclaimed BMW's range of diesel-powered vehicles, from the 3 Series to the X3. In January 2007, EVO magazine praised the 335d coupe. "You've got to love a car with 428 lb-ft of torque. Even if you don't understand exactly what torque is, put your foot down and you understand what it does. And over 400 lb-ft shoves a medium weight car like this 3 Series Coupe up the road like its got a 5-liter engine under its bonnet. Not bad for a 3-liter diesel..." " :surprise: :surprise:
OK, so you agree with me that nano tech batteries are the brick wall... LOL
Sure, I'm sure that's what you meant . . . whatever the catchy-phrase "nanotech" meant to you. For what it's worth, the diameter of a carbon atom is about 0.1 nanometers. So regardless what technology is used, from old carberretor to EFI to DI to nanosurface in a nanobattery, once we can be sure that the fuel stream is chopped down to tiny bits measured in nanometers or less when they get in contact with oxygen, we will have achieved near-perfect oxidation. In other words, releasing nearly all the chemical energy there is to be released. Current Direct Injection systems with 10million Pascal pressure can have a 95% frequency of producing fuel droplets size 25 micrometers, or 25000 nanometers, a far cry from anything that can be considered "nanotech." On top of that ICE system involves energy conversion to heat first before mechanical energy, which involve enormous of loss (e.g. coolant).
Those stats are no lies.
BMW autos have the ability to increase torque by 160 percent and power by 135 percent , reduce consuption by 20 percent and emissions by 99 percent compared to a 83 BMW. Those are facts that cannot be denied.
What you are saying is that a car cannot simulataneously increase torque by 160%, power by 135 % ,reduce fuel consumption by 20% and emissions by 99%. True no car can do all those things at the same time. But that was not what that BMW Mag was saying in the first place.
I phoned back to Audi today and will report the progress...I really think when Lexus started up, they made their dealers adhere to a very high standard, and that then made all the other manufacturers improve...It takes time...tony
Well right now the car is under the warranty period, so I am stuck having to go to a dealer....Incidentally the Audi has a very difficult design to it---for just changing the oil---so a person may just have to use them anyway..to the tune of say two hundred dollars...tony
I still remember the early 80s diesel 5 series. Here in Canada they sold so few of them when they were available since most luxury diesel drivers preferred Benzes.
BMW vehicles speak for themselves! We both know it. But I sincerely do appreciate the welcome back!
After 2 years of intense research, I still have no idea what my next vehicle will be!
No movement at all in bringing diesel fuel to my area. That first BMW diesel 535d should be spectacular, no doubt about it.
I'm thinking of the 535xi Touring since I need some room but essentially hate SUVs. I'd hate driving a clumsy box after all those BMW sport sedans. But the wagon would be expensive. You hardly see any BMW wagons anymore. I doubt if my dealer has one for me to demo.
Oh well, back to my intense research... zzzzzz....
I hear you. I dread the future especially if I buy a diesel hybrid or EV car. In that case there will be very few independents that would be able to service my car.
In that case my warranty blues will also become post-warranty blues :sick:
I am in luck because diesel fuel is readily available where I live. I can almost envision myself in the future driving the next generation 5 series diesel. Or maybe a diesel Benz or a diesel Audi or even a Honda. I am looking forward to the upcoming smorgasborg of diesel selection in the upcoming years.
sounds like a great Australian vacation.
In my case we are focusing on USA vacations this year because our Canadian dollar against the US dollar has never been stronger for almost four decades.
Drfill, Road and Track earlier had a long piece that said that the E Class buyer should automatically choose the diesel as the "default option" for several reasons, among them was the fact that the diesel was quicker. I can't give you the citation (although I think that Dennis Dimantis-sp?) was the author. Because I can't prove it I will defer to you, though.