Worth reading. All of us on this forum are a dying breed.

https://stratechery.com/2016/cars-and-the-future/

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14 E250 Bluetec "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 153k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 171k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver, 142k mi, wastegate conversion

19 Honda CR-V EX 61k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

Bookmarking......

"Meanwhile, a new generation that doesn’t understand why you would want to sit behind the wheel — much less own the damn thing — when you could instead be on your smartphone is coming of age."

What a sad world that will be.

I'd just like to point out that CAFE regs will shortly require car makers to achieve a fleet average of 57mpg. GM isn't stupid. They'll make a bunch of electric cars, and build a little central city taxi service for the sole purpose of improving their average.

We can all take Johnny_Cabs!

Sent from my MB886 using Tapatalk

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1982 300sd from craigslist $800 greased on one tank with NO CONVERSION in the Hot Texas Sun. (currently dead & awaiting engine damage investigation and/or longblock swap)
new daily: '03 vw 5speed jetta tdi wagon. bagged&chipped

Yeah, and it was that same 'gm' which back in the 40's & 50's conspired with std oil and one of the tire companies to rid many of the US cities of their street car systems.

Same game, different times........

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1961 190Db retired
1968 220D/8 325,000
1983 300D 164,150

Interesting you mentioned this. Thinking back to the late 40`s and early 50`s.
The city busses were GM busses running Detroit Diesel engines.

San Jose, Ca. had a street car system that went bye bye. I seem to remember the
car barns and the tracks in the street still. Think that was on the Alameda.

San Francisco still has their Street Cars, Cable cars and Electric Busses.

There use to be the Key System of electric trains that ran from SF to Oak Land on the SF Bay bridge.
Think that was on the lower level where it ran.

There has been talk of driver less cars for quite a while.
I think they have already arrived by the way some people drive. LOL.


Charlie

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there were three HP ratings on the OM616...

1) Not much power
2) Even less power
3) Not nearly enough power!! 240D w/auto

Anyone that thinks a 240D is slow drives too fast.

80 240D Naturally Exasperated, 4-Spd 388k DD 150mph spedo 3:58 Diff

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works

Too true, Charlie - too true.

BTW - I'll be glad to see a street car system running down Market Street here in Wilmington, It would take a TON of pressure off a badly overcrowded roadway and leave more room for people who actually WANT to drive - like me!

Dan

There are enough young people interested in cars that it won't die out any time soon. On the other hand it increases he separation between enthusiasts and those who really couldn't care less. Tbh, i think it's a good thing -- half the time they aren't paying attention to what they are doing anyways.


Sent from an abacus

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

I don't question that the change to self-driving cars is coming, in phases. I have seen Daimler's (Freightliner) self-driving truck, many photos of Mercedes' and other car companies' autonomous vehicles, they are getting close.

However, although I would like to have the option to work on my laptop between Portland and Seattle, only needing to control the car by saying "next bathroom please" or "need to stretch my legs", "next Panera Bread" ... I still want to be able to drive around my neighborhood and my town and turn into the Menard's or Advance Auto on a whim, see a car for sale next to the road and drive slowly around it, think of the rural hobby of "garage sale-ing" that is completely visual. Something like finding a parking space near your favorite restaurant should easily be automated.

On the freeway all of us have seen many drivers who should be required to use an autonomous mode (or at least cruise control), but for those of us who sometimes bend the speed limit, ... will these cars all drive the exact speed limit? Boring, but I can see it coming, and you really could fit a lot more cars on the same roadway in this case. Adaptive cruise control already helps.

Surely there will be cars (and trucks) that are dual-mode, but for many of us the manual mode will be well used and appreciated. The needs for the city dwellers and the rural owners will also be vastly different, for the young who's attention quickly changes vs. the mature who's attention is hard to get.

I agree with the author, it will be slow, but it will get here. It is already here in agricultural equipment, which will follow GPS and dead-reckoning signals to not waste any land or product, ... but they still have manual modes.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

I heard long ago that Chicago's electric busses were put out of service due to union rules. These were busses that were powered by overhead wire that were connected to the power source by these lines that were spring loaded and occasionally would jump off the wire. The driver at that point would go outside give it a tug and put it back on the lines.
Then from my understanding Chicago being a big union town put the kibosh on a driver being able to do that, and needed to call an electrician to do this one minute job. Bus and passengers would sit, along with all of the busses behind them because they were under the power lines and could not get around them. Diesel buses ever since except for a few feel good CNG and other trials.

CNG is not a trial at all, it is here. Can't speak for Chicago specifically, but new bus sales have moved heavily into alternative fuels, as have some heavy truck. The largest part of the mix is CNG, some school buses in LP, and a growing mix of city buses (aka: Transit) are electric and electric-hybrid (series hybrid, the right way to do it vs. the feel-good but do little parallel hybrid that is most cars). Some of the electric transit buses are designed to recharge at stops through an under-street grid, which some cities are installing today. Oddly enough, this seems to be a perfect place for autonomous vehicles, but transit bus drivers are heavily unionized, which probably would mean that even if driverless, a driver would be required to sit there all day. Autonomous truck driving is also on its way, at this point Freightliner is successfully testing their truck (in Nevada IIRC), with a driver present. It is fairly simple to have a truck back into a designated dock at a designated terminal, most of that is already computerized at distribution centers, swap trailers and drive on.

For OTR trucks the move is slower, but my conversations with EPA lead me to the conclusion that it is when, not if, they are forced to CNG. This lowers the power and fuel mileage/range of the trucks, increases the weight of the truck 1800lbs, increases fueling time, increases the cost of maintenance (special bays or outside only if the truck carries CNG), means more trucks on the road for the same amount of cargo-miles and more rubber tires in the landfills etc., but is still intended to be the mandate for future rulings (coming soon). It does create jobs though, ... (retreat from opinion phase).

The only other hybrid system currently in use (not widely) for refuse trucks and proposed for transit buses is a hydraulic accumulator system which stores energy from frequent stops to use launching, interesting but not highly competitive.

With fuel prices so low, I'm pretty sure that the EPA will feel that then need to force replacements of older vehicles (including trucks) with more heavy-handed rules, and they have the power to do so under this administration, I expect new rulings soon.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Most of the heavy-handed regulation, for electric or CNG, never takes in consideration any kind of freedom. They believe that everyone takes the exact same route of less than 50 miles every day. In the real world, this just isn't the case. If you are an OTR truck driver, service or sales work, or anyone else that has a life outside of a rut, the concept just isn't feasible. It works for city buses, etc... but not everyone.

I cover a region that is 4 hours north-south and 6 hours east-west, sometimes considerably more, and never a frequent repeat of routes. The idea of an electric or CNG vehicle being able to come close to filling the need doesn't come close.

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

We aren't going extinct. I agree with Leno that hydrogen cars (not battery electric**) are going to be the most common vehicles out there because they fit with the vehicle paradigm we already have; you need fuel so you go to a station and pump something into your car in a matter of minutes and drive away.

Continuing his thought, Leno said that ICE (internal combustion) vehicles follow the way of horses in the age when automobiles were coming of age. Horses used to be the major source of transportation and working "vehicle", but when replaced with automobiles horses were able to be appreciated for leisure and racing. I think our ICE vehicles will be for the weekend or for the enthusiast, freeing them to be pure enjoyment vehicles.


**Electric cars will always take longer to charge/refuel than hydrogen vehicles. Batteries are also much more expensive and will be harder to manufacture in mass quantities in the future if we mine all the Lithium in South America, there simply won't be enough for everyone in the US to have a battery powered vehicle.

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Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat

I recondition w123/w126/w124/w140/r107/r129/ steering boxes!


1984 300D "Elsa" odo reset 6/2011 147k
1983 300TD "Mitzi" ~268k OM603 powered
1995 E300 "Adelheid" 262k [Sold]

I get sad when I read news like this.

I know it's only a small population that loves driving, but I happen to be one of those. Heck, I don't even really want a car that can shift gears itself, much less one that can drive itself. I hate the thought of ever having to give up my driving freedom, even if 95% of my driving is simply commuting. I still love every mile of it.
I want to be in total control all of the time. Unfortunately even the newer cars that you still totally drive yourself are adding more and more layers in between you (the driver) and the car.

My little ol' Mazda and the Benz have a mechanical throttle linkage and power assisted (manual) steering, but even my wife's older Camry already has an electronic throttle pedal. That means a computer sits in between you and the engine, and you're only in control as far as the computer allows.
The electronic throttle adds a very noticeable lag on take-off (which I hate!), and makes it hard to drive very slowly (a little above creeping speed) since at such low speeds it tends to be either on or off. I can quickly stomp the throttle in the Camry all the way to the floor with the transmission in neutral and the RPM's won't rise.
Doing the same on the mechanically controlled Mazda and Benz and your rpm's will spike.

During our Christmas vacation last month we rented a car in the lower 48. It was a cheap econobox 2015 Hyundai Accent. Pretty dreadful car. The first thing I noticed was the super numb, uncommunicative steering in that thing. I hated it, but got intrigued as to why the steering felt so off. Even my wife (who couldn't care less about cars) made a comment about it when she was driving it.
I did some Googling later that night, and it turns out that that Hyundai (just like most new cars now) has electronic power steering.

Much like electronic throttle this adds an extra layer between you and the car, since an electronic motor is now doing the steering, based on your input. This is fundamentally different from power-assisted steering, where you do the steering and there is no way for the car to steer itself.

And now - with all these electronic layers - we've ended up with things as unintended acceleration and unintended veering. Yes, it's a thing. Google it.
Our Camry got recalled for possible unintended acceleration a few years back, where apparently in some situations the computer thinks you're flooring the throttle and so your car will speed up and you can lose control.
Unintended veering is even more disastrous and is something cars with electronic power steering can suffer from. You see, when the computer is mistaken and thinks you're attempting to steer, your electronic power steering can decide to turn your steering wheel at full torque. Not a lot of fun when going 40mph.

Since drivers over the past decade have been further and further removed from the actual mechanics of the car and new cars are merely computers on wheels, it's not surprising that a lot of younger kids are not that interested in driving. The thrill is gone. The fun is gone. We've ended up with dreadful cars that are electronically controlled and barely give a sense of the underlying mechanics or sense of driving anymore.

I can't really blame younger folks in new cars for texting while driving. Heck, I get bored to tears driving my wife's Camry, and that dreadful piece of garbage is not even half as computerized as new cars are now!

All of this makes me sad. I am already worried for when the day comes that my Mazda dies. That would be the end of my stick-shifting days. It just seems to me that we're adding computers to everything because we can, not to solve a (non-existent) problem.

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"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)