They make different products for different markets.
Yes they share parts because, get this, they're both CARS, but Porsche and Audi are different enough that calling them "not the same company" is entirely accurate.
No other automakers share engines and platforms to the same extent as the various VAG companies. Period. Nor have they ever since the days when one company built chassis, another built bodies, etc. That is to say, before the proliferation of automakers as we know them.
All the VAG automakers cheated on diesel emissions at the same time and in the same way, which was obviously orchestrated from some high level.
VAG is one big automaker, conglomerated from other automakers, which pretends to be multiple automak
Either you're full of complete shit or just being disingenuous. There's the whole-ass Japanese and Korean automakers where we have the automakers Lexus (which is Toyota), Infiniti (Nissan), Acura (Honda), and Genesis (Hyundai).
No, that's the point. I discuss that in another comment. Those are just other marques for the same automakers. It's the same as Ford/Lincoln. Actually though, the perfect parallel for how they actually operate today is probably Hyundai/Kia.
They're kind of different companies. They all do what the parent company tells them. They all share technology, engines and platforms. They all cheated on emissions at the same time and in the same way.
No they aren't. They are owned by the same group. Saying they are the same company is like blaming someone in engineering for stupid decisions made by marketing simply because they work in the same building.
Sharing a corporate overload does not mean you share everything else.
Well I would say it would be more like praising the above and beyond effort that the engineers that work in the same building had collaborate with each other. Just because they went to the common room for lunch every day and bounced ideas off of each other.
I have worked in numerous cases where I was employed at one Corporation or LLC, while the Boss owns multiple and has them in the same building and office space. When I was consulting, I worked for a company that had two corporations one that did Busines
They don't. Your example of numerous cases doesn't make you an authority on another case. Pointing to Ford and Lincoln which do share a building doesn't mean anything when talking about another company.
Porsche and Audi are effectively two completely different countries with different headquarters in different states in Germany, different production plants, different engineering, different designs, different supply chains. It's not like the USA where you get into a Lincoln and see the words "FoMoCo" written
According to wikipedia ehre the list of all company owned by Volkswagen
Audi AG: Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A Porsche Bentley Motors Ltd Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG: Volkswagen AG Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.: Jetta: MAN SE MAN Truck & Bus SE: Scania AB: SEAT, S.A.:. koda auto a.s.: TRATON SE The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles assembly Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus (VWCO) Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV Volkswagen Passenger Cars: Auto Union GmbH NSU GmbH,
Please be aware of the levels of self driving autonomy.
Traffic Aware Cruse control where your speed is lowed while driving behind a slower car is considered Self Driving. Then you have it keep you in your lane. Then you have it be able to change lanes Then you have it get off an exit onto an other highway Then you have be able to stop at signs and traffic light Then you have it able to turn and navigate city streets....
While Musk is very bullish toward the speed of self driving and how it will soon be able to dr
You actually do have to admire some ingenuity here, trying to solve an ergonomic problem of how to placate impatient people who would rather not wait 30 minutes during a battery charge. While the batteries, motors, computers, self driving, charger apparatus and so forth are the gee whiz technical concerns, the human factors engineering can be just as important, even if that just means being entertained during a recharge session.
As an aside, it reminds me of an article many years ago in the WSJ. A giant high rise building manager was getting too many complaints about slow elevators. The consultant hired to solve the elevator logistics took time to stand at the elevator foyers and watch the people. They were bored while waiting. So, he recommended putting up art, ads, and posters to get people reading, to distract and hold their attention while waiting. A few hundred dollars of wall hangings rather than a million dollars of new faster elevators solved the problem. Being able to use your Audi to play video games while waiting to juice up could be precisely the thing that gives people a perceived good experience and could win loyal customers.
On the other hand, I can foresee somebody driving along, deciding to use their headlights to project, into oncoming traffic, the likes of Final Destination, Fast & Furious, Ferris Bueller, and any other great car crash flicks. Not your genre? Project bicyclers or pedestrians on foot. Maybe Godzilla will be bearing down on you, or a tsunami. You get the idea - video games come to life, on the high beams of the guy across the yellow line. There could be a down side to this.
They would look like flickery colorish but otherwise normal headlights. Not much different from a regular bright light really. Just look back at the projector next time you’re in a movie theater if you don’t own a projector.
Someone posted this example [youtube.com] of what the headlights might be used for whilst driving. I'd like to draw your attention to the projected pedestrian crossing at ~3:18. Now take a look at some of the 3-D traffic calming measures [bbc.co.uk] that are being trialled at various locations around the world. Finally consider, given that the headlights in the article are described as being capable of projecting movies or games, some of the 3-D [everydaytalks.com] Sreet [blogspot.com] Art [ytimg.com] that's currently being drawn [youtube.com].
This feature is for "auto-dimming" headlights. My VW (same company as Audi and Porsche) has the previous gen, which has motors attached to each headlight's lamp. There's a sensor (camera) mounted behind the rearview mirror. If it detects oncoming headlights, it aims my car's headlights lower so they don't blind the other driver. (They also turn sideways when I'm making a turn, to better light up where I'm going, rather than directly in front of me.)
While this works, as you can imagine it's ripe for mech
This feature is for "auto-dimming" headlights. My VW (same company as Audi and Porsche) has the previous gen, which has motors attached to each headlight's lamp. There's a sensor (camera) mounted behind the rearview mirror. If it detects oncoming headlights, it aims my car's headlights lower so they don't blind the other driver. (They also turn sideways when I'm making a turn, to better light up where I'm going, rather than directly in front of me.).
My BMW has these as well. It also levels the headlights according to load - if you have three back seat passengers and a trunk full of luggage it counteracts the effect that has of raising the aim of the headlights.
The downside is cost. Those headlights will be expensive. If one fails in a way that makes it unusable for the primary purpose (lighting up the road) you will have to pay a lot to repair or replace it. If one gets smashed in an accident, same.
Electric cars are mechanically simpler than gasoline cars, but it looks like the manufacturers want to add complexity and expensive parts anyway. I guess a reliable car would be bad for business.
And to make matters worse, a car with a failed tv screen (eg used for rear seat entertainment) is perfectly legal and you don't need to bother repairing it, while a car with non working headlights is illegal to drive (even during daytime) in most countries. So you're forced to repair it, even if you don't want/use the functionality.
Yeah. This is why I am skeptical about such features. I'd rather have the mandatory parts of the car be as reliable as possible. While headlights that turn as you turn the wheel may be useful sometimes, if the system fails and leaves the headlights stuck in some weird angle at night it would be a much bigger problem than having headlights that always point straight ahead. It's also much worse than a blown bulb, which can be easily replaced if you carry a spare.
Yeah. This is why I am skeptical about such features. I'd rather have the mandatory parts of the car be as reliable as possible.
While headlights that turn as you turn the wheel may be useful sometimes, if the system fails and leaves the headlights stuck in some weird angle at night it would be a much bigger problem than having headlights that always point straight ahead. It's also much worse than a blown bulb, which can be easily replaced if you carry a spare.
My adaptive headlights also have manual adjustments. Not sure if they have enough range to center one that is stuck at one of the extremes of their movement though.
The xenon bulbs in my current car are replaceable, but not easily on the side of the road. LEDs are likely not replaceable at all except as a unit, but LEDs are supposed to have very long lifetimes. Either way, if your car is still using old fashioned halogen bulbs, you are missing out on huge improvements in visibility. Drive a car with x
Oh bullshit... I've driven plenty of both, and I much prefer the halogen 9006 lamps in my CIvic to ANY of the newer stuff I've driven with their obnoxious "bright white"/bluish lights that destroy night vision, coupled with hard clip lines that make it impossible to see beyond whatever distance the automaker decided I should see. That, and I can get a set of *good* halogens (Philips VisionPlus) for under $20 on Amazon, and if one goes out it takes me under 5 minutes to change both of them (change the set,
I much prefer the halogen 9006 lamps in my CIvic to ANY of the newer stuff I've driven with their obnoxious "bright white"/bluish lights that destroy night vision
You don't have night vision when driving at night unless there's no one around and it's dark. In the city and in otherwise busy areas, you don't use night vision at all.
The reason is simple - it takes around 20 minutes to develop and is easily destroyed by a bright flash of light.
Like say, from the oncoming SUV whose headlight seems aimed at driver
On the truck/SUV thing.... I think a lot of them are poorly aimed, but it also doesn't help that trucks now are significantly higher (at least, the engine compartments are, not certain about overall height of cab) than they were in the '90s and before. I have a '78 k10 and a '94 Suburban K1500, and both are easy to work on (height-wise), with the headlights somewhere around my lower chest level. Between a lot of newer trucks being higher, and then the owners adding anywhere from 4-12" of lift and bigger t
You may personally like low color temperature lighting, but most people prefer something closer to daylight (5-6000 K).
Also I'm not talking about "Silverstar" or conversion bulbs plugged into reflector headlights, but real HID and LED projectors. Those sharp clip lines in projector style lighting are not there because that is what the manufacturer wants you to see, they are there because NHTSA says that is where they should be to not blind other drivers. They are also what allows things like adaptive d
We may disagree on lighting, but at least we agree on manual transmissions. I also loathe and despise the push-button parking brakes on newer cars. Every time I walk into a stealership for anything and they try to sell me a new car, I say "show me what you have with a manual handbrake." They get this blank look on their face, and then usually mumble something about those not being available anymore and walk away. Or, the good ones say "well, let's go take a look at our used section, we have some pretty
It's actually for use when driving, this is just a hack they did to publicise it. In fact many new cars have these LED matrix headlights, just with not quite as much resolution.
The idea is that you can have the high beams on all the time, and when the car sees another vehicle's lights in front it dims just the area covering that vehicle. The other driver is thus not blinded by your headlights and you get the benefit of high beams everywhere else.
The word "headlights" only appears once in the whole article. The rest of the article is effectively a press release, and doesn't say anything about the headlights or their technology. Matrix headlights are actually really cool, because each bulb is effectively a DLP projector....yet they didn't mention a thing about the headlights other than what's already in the clickbate headline.
Audi is always behind Mercedes and BMW. The A8 is bot good enough to compare to the S-Klasse or the 7-Series. The RS6 cannot match the M5. The Q7 cannot beat the C5 or GLS. BMW and especially Mercedes bring real innovation while Audi is clueless. While Porsche and Audi share lots of technologies and knowledge, Porsche is able to bring new technology and unbeatable products like the 911 and the Taycan.
Audi is a slightly different market segment, they are the luxury end of the Skoda/Seat/VW brand and generally share a common platform with these brands. The other manufacturers you mention are more directly aiming at the luxury market.
Porsche is also owned by the VW group, and VW also has the Bugatti and Bentley brands. They keep the Audi brand where it is, higher end than VW but lower than Porsche/Bugatti/Bentley so as not to eat into sales of these other brands.
BMW and especially Mercedes bring real innovation while Audi is clueless.
Audi is just one brand in the VAG lineup. Parts and platforms are exchanged across the brands, although they usually don't go too far. Lambo is off at one end, Skoda at the other, with the other brands arrayed in between-ish, although Porsche kind of stands off at an angle somewhere between Lambo and Audi because there is less sharing... though still some.
BMW and Mercedes aren't any more prone to meaningful innovation than any other major automakers, though, and they license in most of "their" tech. They ma
It seems car manufacturers keep coming up with new and inventive ways to entertain people in their cars, thus adding more complexity (and by extension cost) without any real added benefit.
All those expensive screens have to be used for something, so why not keep the generation which grew up huddled in their parent's basement playing video games distracted with eye candy. It's not as if they aren't fat enough from eating real candy and junk food, let's add to the malaise with gimmickry.
Of all the problems with cars they come up with this kind of nonsense. Reminds of PORCE 911 that you need to have FIRE EXTINGUISHER with you just in case, or my LUXUS German coffee cooker (Moccamaster 350$) that drips coffee to hot plate every time you take the pot from plate due faulty design in 5c rubber insulating ring. Like they design these products to just annoy users, almost perfect and GIGANTIC failure, the true German way!!!!
It's long been recommended to carry a fire extinguisher with you in your car, and some countries or classes of vehicles actually have laws which require it. Some vehicles come with a fire extinguisher for this reason, rather than an expectation that this particular vehicle is more likely to catch fire than others.
Not the video projecting headlights, the indicator lights that project images on the ground. How long before bureaucrats decide they should be mandatory safety equipment and drive the cost of every new car up another thousand bucks, regardless of whether they provide any real benefit. Something I find dubious at best - the angle at which it would be viewed by another driver would be too steep to matter.
From my earliest childhood I wanted a car to be able to do exactly that. Anyway, as we all know, nobody is interested in trivial things like range or charging speed.
It's all well and good to be able to dump 75kWh into a battery in 25 minutes, but where are people getting the 750A 240V service for their chargers to accomplish this? And then the article mentions 270kW charging.... assuming 240V service, that's 1,125A.
Even for superchargers in parking lots, that seems like a lot of power infrastructure. Assuming 415v 3ph, you would still need a 470A circuit (assuming it's considered a continuous load, and hence de-rated by 20%, as actual power draw would be about 376A).
The backup solution to the EVs has always been a tow truck.
That said, as I understand it, they go to great pains to make sure the driver knows when the remaining range gets too low, because as you said... the tow truck is a lot more expensive than just having somebody bring you a gallon of gas.
In theory, a rescue truck could bring a portable super-charger of its own, powered either by a large IC engine or its own battery pack, and I suspect that this might become a thing in the near future, but for now...
These, suggest Audi, can be used to issue greetings to passengers or warnings to passing cyclists when the doors are opening.
Interesting idea, but at least around here, the onus is on people in cars to not open their car doors into traffic rather than for the traffic to avoid the opening doors.
So hopefully the car will also give a really loud warning (and possibly go so far as to require acknowledgement of the warning before it lets the door open if it's likely to cause a collision) when it detects a cyclist coming up that might collide with the door. (Assuming that the car has the ability to detect such things, of course, thoug
"Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is]
an interesting role for an actor."
-- Dolph Lundgren, "actor"
LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
Porsche and Audi are the same company.
It's like saying "Ford is developing with Lincoln" or "Toyota is developing with Lexus"
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Well, no. They're very different companies, even though they're both owned by the same corporate entity.
Berkshire Hathaway owns See's Candies, Precision Cast Parts, and Duracell. No rational person would claim those are all the same company.
Re: LOL (Score:2)
They share motors, "platforms", parts, you name it!
You can up your delusion to 11, it's still just the lipstick and tuning that's different.
Re: LOL (Score:1)
They make different products for different markets.
Yes they share parts because, get this, they're both CARS, but Porsche and Audi are different enough that calling them "not the same company" is entirely accurate.
Re: (Score:2)
This is extremely common in the vehicle market...
For instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
An engine developed by Ford and Peugeot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A gearbox developed by Mercedes-Benz, but used in a huge variety of non-Mercedes vehicles.
Lots of parts are shared across vehicles across many different manufacturers.
Re: (Score:2)
No other automakers share engines and platforms to the same extent as the various VAG companies. Period. Nor have they ever since the days when one company built chassis, another built bodies, etc. That is to say, before the proliferation of automakers as we know them.
All the VAG automakers cheated on diesel emissions at the same time and in the same way, which was obviously orchestrated from some high level.
VAG is one big automaker, conglomerated from other automakers, which pretends to be multiple automak
Re: (Score:2)
Either you're full of complete shit or just being disingenuous. There's the whole-ass Japanese and Korean automakers where we have the automakers Lexus (which is Toyota), Infiniti (Nissan), Acura (Honda), and Genesis (Hyundai).
No, that's the point. I discuss that in another comment. Those are just other marques for the same automakers. It's the same as Ford/Lincoln. Actually though, the perfect parallel for how they actually operate today is probably Hyundai/Kia.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Berkshire Hathaway owns See's Candies, Precision Cast Parts, and Duracell. No rational person would claim those are all the same company.
That does explain why I found the candy hard to chew and rather unpleasant tasting.
Re: (Score:2)
"Porsche and Audi are the same company."
Well, no. They're very different companies
They're kind of different companies. They all do what the parent company tells them. They all share technology, engines and platforms. They all cheated on emissions at the same time and in the same way.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep protesting those pipelines folks.
Re: (Score:2)
Porsche and Audi are the same company.
But they have very separate office buildings and employees so it's correct to say that sometimes they work together and sometimes they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Porsche and Audi are the same company.
No they aren't. They are owned by the same group. Saying they are the same company is like blaming someone in engineering for stupid decisions made by marketing simply because they work in the same building.
Sharing a corporate overload does not mean you share everything else.
Re: (Score:2)
Well I would say it would be more like praising the above and beyond effort that the engineers that work in the same building had collaborate with each other. Just because they went to the common room for lunch every day and bounced ideas off of each other.
I have worked in numerous cases where I was employed at one Corporation or LLC, while the Boss owns multiple and has them in the same building and office space. When I was consulting, I worked for a company that had two corporations one that did Busines
Re: (Score:2)
that the engineers that work in the same building
They don't. Your example of numerous cases doesn't make you an authority on another case. Pointing to Ford and Lincoln which do share a building doesn't mean anything when talking about another company.
Porsche and Audi are effectively two completely different countries with different headquarters in different states in Germany, different production plants, different engineering, different designs, different supply chains. It's not like the USA where you get into a Lincoln and see the words "FoMoCo" written
Re: (Score:2)
According to wikipedia ehre the list of all company owned by Volkswagen
Audi AG:
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A
Porsche
Bentley Motors Ltd
Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG: Volkswagen AG
Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.:
Jetta:
MAN SE
MAN Truck & Bus SE:
Scania AB:
SEAT, S.A.:.
koda auto a.s.:
TRATON SE
The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles assembly
Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus (VWCO)
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV
Volkswagen Passenger Cars:
Auto Union GmbH
NSU GmbH,
Auto Union
Dampf-Kraft
I should do this to my project RV (Score:2)
Re:I should do this to my project RV (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a video of similar technology and how it can be used [youtube.com]. Since the article didn't have any videos or pictures.
Mercedes Digital Light (Score:2)
Now that‘s really impressive, the car could not only avoid blinding the traffic but even mark things it identified before the driver sees them.
Turn on self driving (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Please be aware of the levels of self driving autonomy.
Traffic Aware Cruse control where your speed is lowed while driving behind a slower car is considered Self Driving.
Then you have it keep you in your lane.
Then you have it be able to change lanes
Then you have it get off an exit onto an other highway
Then you have be able to stop at signs and traffic light
Then you have it able to turn and navigate city streets....
While Musk is very bullish toward the speed of self driving and how it will soon be able to dr
Maximum Carnage (Score:2)
Project Carmageddon as a kind of warning.
Distract or scare other drivers into accidents? (Score:2)
If I were Geico I'm not sure I would want to insure these vehicles.
Re: (Score:2)
Insurance company often will not pay or force you you pay up, if you did something extremely stupid
Finally (Score:2)
A battery car that doesn't look like it was designed by the garage mechanic trainee who couldn't do anything else.
Re: Finally (Score:2)
The e-Tron GT is already that car.
Good and bad (Score:5, Interesting)
You actually do have to admire some ingenuity here, trying to solve an ergonomic problem of how to placate impatient people who would rather not wait 30 minutes during a battery charge. While the batteries, motors, computers, self driving, charger apparatus and so forth are the gee whiz technical concerns, the human factors engineering can be just as important, even if that just means being entertained during a recharge session.
As an aside, it reminds me of an article many years ago in the WSJ. A giant high rise building manager was getting too many complaints about slow elevators. The consultant hired to solve the elevator logistics took time to stand at the elevator foyers and watch the people. They were bored while waiting. So, he recommended putting up art, ads, and posters to get people reading, to distract and hold their attention while waiting. A few hundred dollars of wall hangings rather than a million dollars of new faster elevators solved the problem. Being able to use your Audi to play video games while waiting to juice up could be precisely the thing that gives people a perceived good experience and could win loyal customers.
On the other hand, I can foresee somebody driving along, deciding to use their headlights to project, into oncoming traffic, the likes of Final Destination, Fast & Furious, Ferris Bueller, and any other great car crash flicks. Not your genre? Project bicyclers or pedestrians on foot. Maybe Godzilla will be bearing down on you, or a tsunami. You get the idea - video games come to life, on the high beams of the guy across the yellow line. There could be a down side to this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone posted this example [youtube.com] of what the headlights might be used for whilst driving. I'd like to draw your attention to the projected pedestrian crossing at ~3:18. Now take a look at some of the 3-D traffic calming measures [bbc.co.uk] that are being trialled at various locations around the world. Finally consider, given that the headlights in the article are described as being capable of projecting movies or games, some of the 3-D [everydaytalks.com] Sreet [blogspot.com] Art [ytimg.com] that's currently being drawn [youtube.com].
It might not be trivial, but it would almost cert
Re: (Score:2)
While this works, as you can imagine it's ripe for mech
Re: (Score:2)
This feature is for "auto-dimming" headlights. My VW (same company as Audi and Porsche) has the previous gen, which has motors attached to each headlight's lamp. There's a sensor (camera) mounted behind the rearview mirror. If it detects oncoming headlights, it aims my car's headlights lower so they don't blind the other driver. (They also turn sideways when I'm making a turn, to better light up where I'm going, rather than directly in front of me.).
My BMW has these as well. It also levels the headlights according to load - if you have three back seat passengers and a trunk full of luggage it counteracts the effect that has of raising the aim of the headlights.
Re: (Score:2)
The downside is cost. Those headlights will be expensive. If one fails in a way that makes it unusable for the primary purpose (lighting up the road) you will have to pay a lot to repair or replace it. If one gets smashed in an accident, same.
Electric cars are mechanically simpler than gasoline cars, but it looks like the manufacturers want to add complexity and expensive parts anyway. I guess a reliable car would be bad for business.
Re: (Score:2)
And to make matters worse, a car with a failed tv screen (eg used for rear seat entertainment) is perfectly legal and you don't need to bother repairing it, while a car with non working headlights is illegal to drive (even during daytime) in most countries. So you're forced to repair it, even if you don't want/use the functionality.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. This is why I am skeptical about such features. I'd rather have the mandatory parts of the car be as reliable as possible.
While headlights that turn as you turn the wheel may be useful sometimes, if the system fails and leaves the headlights stuck in some weird angle at night it would be a much bigger problem than having headlights that always point straight ahead. It's also much worse than a blown bulb, which can be easily replaced if you carry a spare.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. This is why I am skeptical about such features. I'd rather have the mandatory parts of the car be as reliable as possible. While headlights that turn as you turn the wheel may be useful sometimes, if the system fails and leaves the headlights stuck in some weird angle at night it would be a much bigger problem than having headlights that always point straight ahead. It's also much worse than a blown bulb, which can be easily replaced if you carry a spare.
My adaptive headlights also have manual adjustments. Not sure if they have enough range to center one that is stuck at one of the extremes of their movement though.
The xenon bulbs in my current car are replaceable, but not easily on the side of the road. LEDs are likely not replaceable at all except as a unit, but LEDs are supposed to have very long lifetimes. Either way, if your car is still using old fashioned halogen bulbs, you are missing out on huge improvements in visibility. Drive a car with x
Re: (Score:1)
Oh bullshit... I've driven plenty of both, and I much prefer the halogen 9006 lamps in my CIvic to ANY of the newer stuff I've driven with their obnoxious "bright white"/bluish lights that destroy night vision, coupled with hard clip lines that make it impossible to see beyond whatever distance the automaker decided I should see. That, and I can get a set of *good* halogens (Philips VisionPlus) for under $20 on Amazon, and if one goes out it takes me under 5 minutes to change both of them (change the set,
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have night vision when driving at night unless there's no one around and it's dark. In the city and in otherwise busy areas, you don't use night vision at all.
The reason is simple - it takes around 20 minutes to develop and is easily destroyed by a bright flash of light.
Like say, from the oncoming SUV whose headlight seems aimed at driver
Re: (Score:1)
On the truck/SUV thing.... I think a lot of them are poorly aimed, but it also doesn't help that trucks now are significantly higher (at least, the engine compartments are, not certain about overall height of cab) than they were in the '90s and before. I have a '78 k10 and a '94 Suburban K1500, and both are easy to work on (height-wise), with the headlights somewhere around my lower chest level. Between a lot of newer trucks being higher, and then the owners adding anywhere from 4-12" of lift and bigger t
Re: (Score:2)
Also I'm not talking about "Silverstar" or conversion bulbs plugged into reflector headlights, but real HID and LED projectors. Those sharp clip lines in projector style lighting are not there because that is what the manufacturer wants you to see, they are there because NHTSA says that is where they should be to not blind other drivers. They are also what allows things like adaptive d
Re: (Score:1)
We may disagree on lighting, but at least we agree on manual transmissions. I also loathe and despise the push-button parking brakes on newer cars. Every time I walk into a stealership for anything and they try to sell me a new car, I say "show me what you have with a manual handbrake." They get this blank look on their face, and then usually mumble something about those not being available anymore and walk away. Or, the good ones say "well, let's go take a look at our used section, we have some pretty
Re: (Score:3)
It's actually for use when driving, this is just a hack they did to publicise it. In fact many new cars have these LED matrix headlights, just with not quite as much resolution.
The idea is that you can have the high beams on all the time, and when the car sees another vehicle's lights in front it dims just the area covering that vehicle. The other driver is thus not blinded by your headlights and you get the benefit of high beams everywhere else.
It seems to work quite well too.
Re: Good and bad (Score:2)
The whole article is clickbate. (Score:1)
The word "headlights" only appears once in the whole article. The rest of the article is effectively a press release, and doesn't say anything about the headlights or their technology. Matrix headlights are actually really cool, because each bulb is effectively a DLP projector. ...yet they didn't mention a thing about the headlights other than what's already in the clickbate headline.
Has Doom been ported to it yet? (Score:2)
Not interested otherwise...
Can you share this with passersby? (Score:2)
Getting run over by an arcade cabinet might be an intriguing way to die for a nerd.
Play a Video Game (Score:2)
When you're sitting in the real thing?
Need a cheap thrill fix? Write your own obituary and get a battered old Ford Pinto.
Buckle up, it's the law. And drive safely!
E-.Tron in France (Score:2)
They're still laughing.
Audi is always behind.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Audi is a slightly different market segment, they are the luxury end of the Skoda/Seat/VW brand and generally share a common platform with these brands. The other manufacturers you mention are more directly aiming at the luxury market.
Porsche is also owned by the VW group, and VW also has the Bugatti and Bentley brands. They keep the Audi brand where it is, higher end than VW but lower than Porsche/Bugatti/Bentley so as not to eat into sales of these other brands.
Re: (Score:2)
BMW and especially Mercedes bring real innovation while Audi is clueless.
Audi is just one brand in the VAG lineup. Parts and platforms are exchanged across the brands, although they usually don't go too far. Lambo is off at one end, Skoda at the other, with the other brands arrayed in between-ish, although Porsche kind of stands off at an angle somewhere between Lambo and Audi because there is less sharing... though still some.
BMW and Mercedes aren't any more prone to meaningful innovation than any other major automakers, though, and they license in most of "their" tech. They ma
Reminds me of a Reggie Watts song: (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/CJQU22Ttpwc?t... [youtu.be]
(The part about the flat panel displays.)
I blame video games (Score:2)
It seems car manufacturers keep coming up with new and inventive ways to entertain people in their cars, thus adding more complexity (and by extension cost) without any real added benefit.
All those expensive screens have to be used for something, so why not keep the generation which grew up huddled in their parent's basement playing video games distracted with eye candy. It's not as if they aren't fat enough from eating real candy and junk food, let's add to the malaise with gimmickry.
Then, in three years,
German innovation (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's long been recommended to carry a fire extinguisher with you in your car, and some countries or classes of vehicles actually have laws which require it. Some vehicles come with a fire extinguisher for this reason, rather than an expectation that this particular vehicle is more likely to catch fire than others.
But can it project Crysis? (Score:2)
How long before every car HAS to have projectors? (Score:2)
I can never buy this . . . (Score:2)
I can never buy this because I would have years of knowing looks from my wife whenever I talked about the car.
Thank goodness! (Score:2)
If there's one thing we don't have now, it's video games everywhere. Problem solved!
(Spoken as a lover and daily player of video games ...)
Exactly what I wanted (Score:2)
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Anyway, as we all know, nobody is interested in trivial things like range or charging speed.
Given BEVs are 4% of the global car market, I would tend to agree.
I've played this (Score:2)
e-tron what a bad name (Score:2)
It's mean turd in french. Always funny for me to see people buying turd that price.
Charging Speed (Score:1)
It's all well and good to be able to dump 75kWh into a battery in 25 minutes, but where are people getting the 750A 240V service for their chargers to accomplish this? And then the article mentions 270kW charging.... assuming 240V service, that's 1,125A.
Even for superchargers in parking lots, that seems like a lot of power infrastructure. Assuming 415v 3ph, you would still need a 470A circuit (assuming it's considered a continuous load, and hence de-rated by 20%, as actual power draw would be about 376A).
Re: (Score:2)
The backup solution to the EVs has always been a tow truck.
That said, as I understand it, they go to great pains to make sure the driver knows when the remaining range gets too low, because as you said ... the tow truck is a lot more expensive than just having somebody bring you a gallon of gas.
In theory, a rescue truck could bring a portable super-charger of its own, powered either by a large IC engine or its own battery pack, and I suspect that this might become a thing in the near future, but for now ...
"Warnings to passing cyclists" (Score:2)
These, suggest Audi, can be used to issue greetings to passengers or warnings to passing cyclists when the doors are opening.
Interesting idea, but at least around here, the onus is on people in cars to not open their car doors into traffic rather than for the traffic to avoid the opening doors.
So hopefully the car will also give a really loud warning (and possibly go so far as to require acknowledgement of the warning before it lets the door open if it's likely to cause a collision) when it detects a cyclist coming up that might collide with the door. (Assuming that the car has the ability to detect such things, of course, thoug