Re: [AMC-List] E Stick, now Drivers

[Keleigh Hardie <keleigh3000@xxxxxxxxx>]

"ps. toyota is selling all the xbs they can make, and making all they 
can, and the demand is still so high 2yo used are in the $13k-$14k range"

I like the Xa, not quite as much room, but the same drivetrain and 
chassis, it weighs about 100 pounds less, costs less, gets better 
mileage, probably handles better, definitely looks better (so that's 
what the Xb looks like out of the box). I wish they offered all wheel 
drive...
Of course the Echo had the same chassis first, weighed about 300 pounds 
less than the Xa, and dumpy looking as it was, got better mileage than 
either and was cheaper to boot. Not sure they're evolving in the right 
direction. A plus to me was that the Echo looked (IMHO) sort of like an 
early Rambler.

amc-list-request@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 17:05:52 -0500 (EST)
> From: adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)
> Subject: Re: [AMC-List] E Stick, now Drivers
> To: mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <200612212205.kBLM5qZ24674@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> " From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
> " 
> " 
> " The state-of-tune of engines has obviously changed wildly. People
> " thought nothing of putting a car in far-too-high gear and just
> " let it lug-lug-lug up to speed. My father drove everything
> " from VW Beetle to V8 Chevy van that way. If performance isn't
> " a concern, gas is dirt cheap, and no one sniffs tailpipes,
> " it's a pleasant way to operate a car.
>
> my grandmother drove this way too, even when it produced awful noises
> [body resonance].  she'd make a face and say i don't know what makes
> it do that, and i'd try to explain she wasn't letting the car go
> faster before shifting...
>
> she was -trained- to do it.  my theory is that the cars she learned to
> drive on had the off-idle torque to make it possible.  and the
> chauffeur she learned from was only concerned with smooth silence, not
> strain or wear and tear or mileage etc.
>
> my mother drove a variant of this, taught by the same chauffeur at
> almost the same time - fine starting out in 1st but then she'd spend
> only enough time in 2nd to engage the clutch before shifting to 3rd.
> she could as well have skipped 2nd completely for all the good it did.
> it took me a long time to break her of that habit...
>
> early rolls royces - the ghosts and phantoms - could be shifted into
> high at a walking pace -- and the '07 ghost was still good for better
> than 60!  but as near as i can tell they idled at less than -50- rpm -
> unless the biographer i read got the chauffeur's manual wrong.  [it
> says 'before engaging clutch, increase revs to between 50 and 100
> rpm']
>
>
>
> " From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
> " 
> " On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Sandwich Maker wrote:
> " 
> " > the problem is that you have to make them extremely precisely and from
> " > very hard materials to be efficient [because what you have is very
> " > much like a ball bearing] so that you can run very high contact
> " > pressures because slippage is death.  monsanto even developed a
> " > special lubricant that turns solid under extreme pressure [santotrac
> " > iirc] but apparently the technology wasn't there yet or we'd all be
> " > driving them.
> " 
> " Yeh, that variable-ratio stuff so far works only on low
> " torque apps.  Ball-and-disc integrators were used in mechanical
> " computers around WWII, where the forces were tiny, and still
> " slippage required all sorts of compensations.
> " 
> " The best "converter" so far is powersource --> generator -->
> " control circuitry --> motor. That's what locomotives do. It's
> " not cheap.
>
> this has historical roots too, though.  and we're talking about
> -really-high- hp density - holding steady now at 1000hp in a ~3' cube
> traction motor - and efficiency is really important because waste
> means waste heat, and it's hard enough already to get rid of.  1000hp
> is ~750 kw; if it's 98% efficient that's 15kw -per-motor- the cooling
> system has to dump when operating at full throttle.  anything less
> efficient would be worse, and in fact i believe this was a major force
> pushing the industry to ac traction motors - the part that needs the
> most cooling is on the outside in an ac motor.
>
> now add in that steel wheels on steel rails have very low rolling
> friction and a 1% grade is considered steep and most trains don't
> operate in a stop/start environment, and the situational imperatives
> are very different from cars.  motors can produce tremendous torque
> for starting, but your cooling system better be able to keep up if you
> expect to do it more than once.  either that or your drive-by-wire is
> gonna have to hold the throttle back, and you know how motorists would
> react to that...
>
> i'd still like to see the numbers for a high pressure variable
> displacement pump / variable displacement motor hydrostatic
> transmission.
>
> [just figured out the perfect car for a turbo apu / hydrostatic
> powertrain - a citroen!  ds/id or sm]
>
> " I think this really where "hybrid" technology will gain; it's a
> " really efficient way to transform energy. Its just complicated.
> " But complicated technology is what benefits from Fordism, look
> " how much complicated crap is in a desktop computer and all in all
> " they work really cheap for really long times for little money;
> " you just can't fix them.
>
> i saw a total lifecycle cost analysis of lots of cars recently - wish
> i could recall where - and their conclusion is that hybrids suck.
> hybrid total lifecycle cost averaged per mile is higher than most cars
> and even middling [h3] suvs.  the loweat cost per mile - way below the
> average - was posted by the scion xb.
>
> [ps. toyota is selling all the xbs they can make, and making all they
> can, and the demand is still so high 2yo used are in the $13k-$14k
> range - so why are they gonna dump the present car and put the name on
> something completely different when it comes up for redesign?]
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
> internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
> adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought
>
>   
>   
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