That tends to happen here in The Bar...well i never intended my question to go so off the rails..
Don't hate us for our fuel prices, but diesel is about $0.73/liter here in New Yorkistan right now. I fill the 128 liter tank once per month, and it is well under a hundred bucks.....
By the time that you adjust for the Pacific Peso exchange rate (pretty close to the Canuck buck right now), it is only about 25% higher than we're paying.
The Mighty Dodge is powered by a Cummins inline-6 turbo diesel, designed for commercial truck/bus service and rated for 550K km between overhauls in commercial service. I believe that the 6-speed manual gearbox came from a Mercedes dump truck.
vreihen: wow - I suspect that you can see the needle on the MD's fuel gauge dropping as you reverse out of your driveway!!
Tesla unveils the new Roadster
Posted yesterday by Darrell Etherington (@etherington)
Tesla has unveiled a new Roadster, the new version of its original sports car. It’s the fastest production car ever made, according to Elon Musk, with speeds of just 1.9 seconds for 0 to 60 4.2 seconds for 0 to 100. It can handle a quarter-mile in 8.9 seconds.
“This is the base model,” Musk said, then went on to mention that its top speed is above 250 mph. and it has a 200 kWh battery pack that offers 630 miles of highway driving range.
It’s also a 2 by 2 four-seater, and it’s available in 2020 starting at $200,000, with the first 1,000 sold being Founder’s Series models that will retail for $250,000 apiece. Which is a steal for the fastest production car ever.
Understandably, the crowd was in awe when Musk revealed the new Roadster, which has a look inside and out that owes a lot to classic sports car design. The car also ripped up the runway at the hangar where the event was held, before pulling to a stop and being flanked by the two new Tesla Semi trucks on either side.
That 1.9-second 0 to 60 mph time is well beyond the 2.5 second time the Tesla Model S P100D can achieve in ‘Ludicrous mode,’ and Musk reiterated that this was the best time for a prototype vehicle, with a possibility of exceeding that on a production vehicle. But what’s better than best?
Tesla was also giving rides to anyone at the event who put down a $50,000 deposit on a purchase for when it’s available – without knowing the full price. And more than a few avid Tesla fans were taking them up on that offer, too.
The 600+ miles of range sounds good, but the $200k price and the luggage capacity are not so swell.
Well, the 600 mile range doesn't do much for me if I can't bring along the stuff my wife wants to haul on those trips. So a Touareg-sized trunk (which isn't really all that big) is about the minimum.I don't think that the price tag is out of line if they can deliver on the zero-to-lose-your-license in 2.0 seconds that they are hyping. As for the trunk space, I have a Mk1 Audi TT-Q and a bag of golf clubs handy if you want to see a round peg not fit in a square hole. I'm convinced that there was an inside joke at Audi where TT was really an acronym for Tiny Trunk.....
Tesla pickup truck looks like a mini Tesla semi with a giant bed
JONATHON RAMSEY
Nov 19th 2017 at 8:29AM
During last week's presentation of the new Tesla semi, company CEO Elon Musk introduced an unexpected addition to the Tesla lineup while segueing from the semi to the Roadster: a Tesla pickup truck. This was the second-biggest surprise of the evening, after the Roadster reveal, but with much more emphasis on the word "big." If the renderings can be believed, the Tesla pickup's bed can swallow a Ford F-150 SuperCrew. Affirming those renderings, Musk said, "It's a pickup truck that can carry a pickup truck."
The pickup looks like a repurposed Tesla semi tractor, minus one of the drive axles out back. If one of the original Mercedes Unimogs had escaped the factory in 1946 and evolved in isolation in the Schwarzwald, we'd expect it to emerge looking like Tesla's offering. Musk foreshadowed the arrival of an approximate vehicle in September. When Jason Cruickshank tweeted "Can we get a light duty pickup next," Musk replied, "What if we just made a mini version of the Tesla semi?"
This isn't exactly light-duty, though, falling well outside the three typical categories of truck buyers. Musk said anyone could drive the rendered Tesla pickup with a standard driver's license, meaning it wouldn't exceed the specs for a Class 6 medium-duty truck. Vehicles in that class include the Ford F-650 and Chevrolet Kodiak/GMC Topkick siblings (the last of which served as Autobot Ironhide), but that's the upper end - the Tesla pickup might look as beefy, but it could take things down a few notches. As is almost always the case with Tesla, who knows? We'll find out for certain if and when the pickup makes production.
VW's 'affordable' crossover EV comes to the US in 2020
The 302-horsepower I.D. Crozz will go 300 miles and be "affordable," VW says.
Steve Dent, @stevetdent
11.29.17 in Transportation
Volkswagen has announced that it's I.D. Crozz EV, currently touring auto shows around the world as a concept, will go on sale for real in America by 2020. It'll be the first of VW's I.D. vehicles to hit US shores, so its success will be crucial to the German company's wide-ranging plans to electrify its lineup. The I.D. Crozz will have dual electric motors that put out 302 horsepower in total and an 83-kWh battery that can be charged to 80 percent of its 300-mile capacity in a half hour.
Volkswagen says that the Crozz's I.D. Pilot self-driving system will go into production by 2025, but presumably it will have some kind of advanced driver assist ahead of that. The company clearly has the tech, as Volkswagen Group sibling Audi recently announced the first Level 3 self driving, semi-autonomous system for its luxury 2019 A8 hybrid.
The production car is expected to look much like the concept, minus the gaudy show-car touches like a gesture-control user interface, voice-activated doors and retractable steering wheel. The performance and battery should also stay largely with what VW has promised, but as with all EVs, your battery life will better in the city than when driving at freeway speeds.
In 2025, VW will roll out the I.D. Buzz, its retro-but-futuristic mini-bus with nearly ten times as much power (369 HP) as the original VW Bus (40 HP). Both the Buzz and the Crozz (yes, VW is trying too hard to be cool) will be based on the same platform, giving the automaker economies of scale.
VW hasn't given a price, but promised that the I.D. Crozz will be within the reach of most folks. "We stand for making electric cars affordable; as we like to say, we build cars for millions, not millionaires," said Hinrich J. Woebcken, VW America's president. Left unsaid was that VW really needs these vehicles to succeed after its brand was nearly destroyed by the dieselgate scandal.
Some Friday evening noodling..What I'd like to know is the new Roadster's weight. A 200 kWh battery is not going to be light!