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Currently, there is way too much emphasis on power. Who really needs 200 hp for a family car?

by 2sk21 11y ago

VLM 11y ago
Apparently the consumers do. Its a popular signalling thing to say, but not relevant to car purchasers decision making process. That's one problem to be worked on. Perhaps the overall net environmental situation would be in total better if X% of the testing budget were reassigned to propaganda to convince people that 100 hp cars are superior to 200 hp cars. Another option is in my grandpa's day MASSIVE cheating happened with horsepower specs; it was like how air compressors and vacuum cleaners are marketed today. Cutting back on regulation in that area would likely result in cheaper 100 HP engines being sold as 200 HP engines (at the price of 200 HP engines of course) yet the environmental impact would obviously be only 100 HP. A final option is nobody wants to acknowledge the management failure that naturally results from evaluating to a simple numerical metric for too long. All you eventually get is awesome numbers and everything else produced turns to garbage. One solution would be to dramatically change the metric faster than corruption can spread. In a distributed world, how about we wire up 1 in 1000 vehicles and track the unholy heck out of them and multiple the results by 1000 and grade on that criteria? Obviously in the long run we'll just corrupt the selection and manufacture process for those 1 in 1000 cars. But for awhile it'll work better. Once that system is powned, maybe switch the metrics back?
Karunamon 11y ago
It's not even HP, it's things like 0-60 time. Take something like the "Smart cars", tiny one or two seaters that are designed for efficiency above all else. Two problems: * They're too light and too tiny. Get into a wreck with any other car on the road, and you will fare poorly. * Performance is anemic, to the point where they can barely do 80PMH, which is standard cruising speed on the interstate, or do things like accelerate to pass.

Currently, there is way too much emphasis on power. Who really needs 200 hp for a family car?

by 2sk21 11y ago

Currently, there is way too much emphasis on power. Who really needs 200 hp for a family car?

VLM 11y ago

Apparently the consumers do. Its a popular signalling thing to say, but not relevant to car purchasers decision making process. That's one problem to be worked on. Perhaps the overall net environmental situation would be in total better if X% of the testing budget were reassigned to propaganda to convince people that 100 hp cars are superior to 200 hp cars. Another option is in my grandpa's day MASSIVE cheating happened with horsepower specs; it was like how air compressors and vacuum cleaners are marketed today. Cutting back on regulation in that area would likely result in cheaper 100 HP engines being sold as 200 HP engines (at the price of 200 HP engines of course) yet the environmental impact would obviously be only 100 HP. A final option is nobody wants to acknowledge the management failure that naturally results from evaluating to a simple numerical metric for too long. All you eventually get is awesome numbers and everything else produced turns to garbage. One solution would be to dramatically change the metric faster than corruption can spread. In a distributed world, how about we wire up 1 in 1000 vehicles and track the unholy heck out of them and multiple the results by 1000 and grade on that criteria? Obviously in the long run we'll just corrupt the selection and manufacture process for those 1 in 1000 cars. But for awhile it'll work better. Once that system is powned, maybe switch the metrics back?

Karunamon 11y ago

It's not even HP, it's things like 0-60 time. Take something like the "Smart cars", tiny one or two seaters that are designed for efficiency above all else. Two problems: * They're too light and too tiny. Get into a wreck with any other car on the road, and you will fare poorly. * Performance is anemic, to the point where they can barely do 80PMH, which is standard cruising speed on the interstate, or do things like accelerate to pass.