Right now you can go and buy a low trim Chevrolet Blazer with a 3.6L V6 that makes 305HP about a third of the way up with a flat horsepower curve from there. A 1995 Chevrolet Lumina made 210HP from a 3.8L V6 at the very top of the rev range, meaning for most driving you were at 150HP or less. Since the early 1990s as a side effect of emissions regulations making engines much more efficient cars have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled their power output. It's a result of manufacturers gaming for fuel efficiency regulations and it manipulates the way people drive into being more aggressive with their acceleration.įor decades never needed speed limiters aside from the gentleman's agreement of 155MPH over tire safety reasons because most people couldn't get above 90MPH, and most cars didn't want to go above 45MPH without stomping on it. The brakes react like this too, which is a completely difference annoyance. Drive a newer car and you'll realize that it's already putting nearly half throttle through the electronic throttle body when the drive by wire pedal is a tenth of the way down. Electric cars only make this worse with instant torque.ĭrive an older car from the '90s with a mechanical throttle adjusting a mechanical throttle body and you'll realize that it barely responds until the pedal's about halfway down. Pair that with modern throttle mapping being a square curve or close to it that means people will just accelerate because the car's behaviour encourages them to. Most cars have engines that are way too damn powerful for what's needed (why does a Hyundai i30 need 249HP?) because marketing beats out other concerns. Or instead of doing that, just go to smaller engine sizes that force slower driving due to lower power and adjust thr throttle response. Like we can't even force them to make the least controversial safety check imaginable already written into law because "driving a car fast boost my ego and you are not taking away my freedom to do so". Of course car lobby makes it sound like impossible task because of "think about all the edge cases" while even making the most crude system would save tens of thousands of lives and hundred of thousands of injuries per year.Īs it is we can even force car manufacturers to implement max 140km/h speed limit in cars even though driving faster than that is criminal level behavior and illegal about anywhere in the world. It doesn't need to be smart enough to understand every speed limit out there it just needs to know what zone out of 3 possible ones it's in. It's simple to implement - we just need to make it max 130 (or whatever) km/h on highways, 80km/h on "country" roads outside of population centers and 40km/h (or whatever, even making it 50 would help tremendously) in populated areas. Speed limiters in cars is one such solution.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |