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Thread: The State of The Car

  1. #1141
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    Quote Originally Posted by 60Valves View Post
    Ferrari is no longer part of FCA.
    Well yes, they've spun-off the company because accounting, but for all that matters they are part of FCA.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  2. #1142
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    Well yes, they've spun-off the company because accounting, but for all that matters they are part of FCA.
    Not really, they are completely independent now and listed on the NYSE.

  3. #1143
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    This conversation spurned me to research, and I have learned that Canada Pension Plan is one of the largest holders of RACE (Ferrari). Good to know my pension is dependent on the wealthy buying Italian luxury cars.

  4. #1144
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    Quote Originally Posted by 60Valves View Post
    Not really, they are completely independent now and listed on the NYSE.
    And the Giulia QV has 3/4 of the Ferrari V8 engine under bonnet.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  5. #1145
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    And the Giulia QV has 3/4 of the Ferrari V8 engine under bonnet.
    There are several car manufacturers that source engines from other manufacturers. Alliances and parts sharing is completely different from direct management control. FCA and Ferrari are now run completely independently, are different unrelated legal entities, and have completely separate share structures.

  6. #1146
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    https://www.carscoops.com/2020/06/ki...-mild-hybrids/

    Is this like a Saab Sensonic with a clutch pedal?
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  7. #1147
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    https://www.carscoops.com/2020/06/ki...-mild-hybrids/

    Is this like a Saab Sensonic with a clutch pedal?
    Yeah, it looks like the Saab Sensonic more or less. But I think the future for Manual Transmission or any of its iterations is the new intelligent Manual Transmission, which does away with the clutch pedal entirely. According to Hyundai's Korean toto site, "This not only makes life easier for the driver it’s also more efficient, presumably since every actuation of the clutch will be perfectly executed."

    It's like combining the best of both worlds. The convenience of an automatic and the driving experience of a manual transmission. I think it's just a matter of time until this will get mainstream. It's a pretty neat concept.

  8. #1148
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    I agree that it's interesting, but, at least here in the States people drive cars with manual transmissions because they want to drive a car with a manual transmission. I think it is heading towards that dynamic elsewhere, as well. I'm not sure that this would sufficiently scratch that itch. After all, I've never owned an automatic but when I find myself in a rental with paddles, I almost never use them.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  9. #1149
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    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    I agree that it's interesting, but, at least here in the States people drive cars with manual transmissions because they want to drive a car with a manual transmission. I think it is heading towards that dynamic elsewhere, as well. I'm not sure that this would sufficiently scratch that itch. After all, I've never owned an automatic but when I find myself in a rental with paddles, I almost never use them.
    I'd have to agree with you there. A few automotive trends I haven't liked is the change for the sake of change when things worked great before. I don't see any advantage to changing manual transmissions to drive by wire other than maybe packaging. HVAC controls going to touchscreen and automatic gear shift buttons instead of levers as done before makes things confusing. Call me old fashioned, but there's a certain amount of safety involved with direct linkages that I don't quite trust with drive by wire.

    Maybe I'm just old and yelling at the sky.

  10. #1150
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  11. #1151
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    Quote Originally Posted by benrayburn View Post
    Yeah, it looks like the Saab Sensonic more or less. But I think the future for Manual Transmission or any of its iterations is the new intelligent Manual Transmission, which does away with the clutch pedal entirely. According to Hyundai's Korean toto site, "This not only makes life easier for the driver it’s also more efficient, presumably since every actuation of the clutch will be perfectly executed."

    It's like combining the best of both worlds. The convenience of an automatic and the driving experience of a manual transmission. I think it's just a matter of time until this will get mainstream. It's a pretty neat concept.
    I don't know, the Sensonic wasn't very successful and the rest of it sounds suspiciously like and automated manual. And those are actually rubbish...

    I wonder if, in the European version (i.e. the one with a clutch pedal) you can actually shift clutchless. I'm sure someone'll try it once press car are available.
    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    I agree that it's interesting, but, at least here in the States people drive cars with manual transmissions because they want to drive a car with a manual transmission. I think it is heading towards that dynamic elsewhere, as well. I'm not sure that this would sufficiently scratch that itch. After all, I've never owned an automatic but when I find myself in a rental with paddles, I almost never use them.
    Exactly. Also, now that automatics aren't penalty options anymore, what is the point of this contraption? If I want manual give me one, else I'll go for an auto.

    *Ironically I have used "manual mode" (my first auto did not have paddles) in the two autos I have owned, albeit for different reasons.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  12. #1152
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    I was forced to use manual mode in a Mini Countryman I had as a rental. I must say that I resented doing this. This was a number of years ago, so the MINI had first-generation EPAS. BMW seems to have gotten this one really wrong: not only was the assist so high that you could steer with your pinky, but it also had a pretty quick rack so those effortless steering inputs cause a whole lot of steering angle.

    As an aside:my Insight is a decade older and has far, far superior electric-assist steering; great feel and decent heft. Zeroth generation seems to have been much more advanced than first... Do I talk about this car too much? Is this what it's like to be an M-Sport customer?

    Anyway, my nice root-beer brown Mini with its stupid vertically-split tailgate had the power-steering pump from a 1970s Cadillac and the calm demeanor of the cokehead within a 1970s Cadillac. The most-microscopic of inputs would send the eager little car bounding off toward the roadside until the next input/correction sent it spearing off to the opposite shoulder. There was no resistance from the steering wheel at all.

    Eventually I figured out that the car would drastically cut back the assistance if I left it in "sport mode" (or whatever MINI/BMW call it). The downside of this was that, left to it's own devices, the car would hold gears until 5,000 rpm (exaggeration; I can't remember the real number) or so. This was as intolerable, if not quite as unsafe, as the steering so was forced to manually shift up wherever I went.

    EDIT: STELLANTIS: Discuss.
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 07-15-2020 at 12:40 PM. Reason: STELLANTIS
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  13. #1153
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    I don't know who that M-Sport customer bloke you are talking about is. I am an M-Performance customer which comes from the ancient tradition of being the kind of asshole you wouldn't want to have round for dinner.

    Having clarified this V.I.P. (a.k.a. very important point), my business case is different. Now, for those who care you mainly buy a rear wheel drive car because you enjoy the experience of the car tightening its line in the corners when you apply the throttle in the middle of one. We could in fact discuss how counter intuitive it is that, in a RWD vehicle, if you enter a corner a tiny little bit too fast and don't want to end up in the tree sitting on the outside of it, the technique to apply is to accelerate to gain traction, rotate the car and ease up the initial understeer.

    Anyway, as always I digress. I like this line tightening malarkey rear wheel drive cars do. And my current car can certainly do it. But there's a problem; with the nuclear power plant that sits under the bonnet, at any speed below 120mph gears one through five are useless. And by useless I mean that if you apply even the tiniest form of throttle input in one of them in a corner the dash starts beeping and flashing lights at you furiously as if you just mentioned the Polish holiday of 1939, the entire car grows into halt and you sit there in the middle of the road going nowhere.

    The workaround here, though, is fairly simple. To enjoy the M-Performance S-Drive 1 Series M BMW M you set everything to max Sport M racy settings, put the gear box into manual mode... and insist in going everywhere in sixth (it is advised to only downshift to fifth for the tightest of hairpins, you know the ones where the maximum speed you can take them at is 20). This way you enjoy the finest of Bavaria and are not killed to death in the first corner.

    So there you go, paddles do have a purpose in life for driving enjoyment.

    The other car where I was forced to use manumatic mode was the Alfa, but that was mostly because Italians can't do automatics.

    Also, regarding electricalness power steering. My worst experience has been with Stellantis cars (I honestly had to look for it, I just though it was the latest instalment in the Trek Stars whatever franchise...). In the late Lancia Delta it was so bad that you honestly wondered if it was worth the hassle at all. It would have been far less vague and imprecise if you just tried to steer the car with the mind.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  14. #1154
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    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    As an aside:my Insight is a decade older and has far, far superior electric-assist steering; great feel and decent heft. Zeroth generation seems to have been much more advanced than first... Do I talk about this car too much? Is this what it's like to be an M-Sport customer?

    Anyway, my nice root-beer brown Mini with its stupid vertically-split tailgate had the power-steering pump from a 1970s Cadillac and the calm demeanor of the cokehead within a 1970s Cadillac. The most-microscopic of inputs would send the eager little car bounding off toward the roadside until the next input/correction sent it spearing off to the opposite shoulder. There was no resistance from the steering wheel at all.

    Eventually I figured out that the car would drastically cut back the assistance if I left it in "sport mode" (or whatever MINI/BMW call it). The downside of this was that, left to it's own devices, the car would hold gears until 5,000 rpm (exaggeration; I can't remember the real number) or so. This was as intolerable, if not quite as unsafe, as the steering so was forced to manually shift up wherever I went.

    EDIT: STELLANTIS: Discuss.
    When did you get an Insight? I thought you had a Toyota Celica/Supra.

    We were just talking about how the current numher of car manufacturers is unsustainable. We saw the mergers coming.

  15. #1155
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    I don't know who that M-Sport customer bloke you are talking about is. I am an M-Performance customer which comes from the ancient tradition of being the kind of asshole you wouldn't want to have round for dinner.
    Ah, I must have been talking about someone else entirely...

    So there you go, paddles do have a purpose in life for driving enjoyment.
    I can see paddles being enjoyable on-track, but below nine-tenths I'm not so sure.

    The other car where I was forced to use manumatic mode was the Alfa, but that was mostly because Italians can't do automatics.

    Also, regarding electricalness power steering. My worst experience has been with Stellantis cars (I honestly had to look for it, I just though it was the latest instalment in the Trek Stars whatever franchise...). In the late Lancia Delta it was so bad that you honestly wondered if it was worth the hassle at all. It would have been far less vague and imprecise if you just tried to steer the car with the mind.
    I believe that the renaming was just announced today. Chrysler finally got on the ZF eight speed train and ditched their awful internally-designed 'boxes.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

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