Artificiality defines our time. Fake food, fake news – and now, the fake manual transmission. With fake shifts, a fake clutch and even a fake “stall” feature that doesn’t actually stall the car.
For real. For the electric car. To make it feel and even sound less ersatz than it is.
Reports surface that Toyota is working on simulated stick-shifting, which will work much like simulated everything else. Instead of actually changing gears and engaging/disengaging the clutch, electronics will let you pretend you’re doing it. A “pseudo-shifter” will cause the electric motor’s spinning to increase or decrease, according to the “gear” selected; the driver will feel “pseudo” vibrations through the “clutch” – also “pseudo” because it doesn’t engage or disengage anything except perhaps the driver’s pitiful delusion that he is a operating an actual clutch.
The thing will even simulate an ersatz “stall” if the “clutch” is not pushed in when the vehicle comes to a stop, as at a red light – or the driver “engages” it out too abruptly when the light turns green. The car, of course, does not actually stall – because there is no clutch and electric motors don’t reciprocate. Like a DeWalt or Makita drill, they spin when you push the button – or push on the “gas” pedal.
Also now ersatz.
View the patent applications here.
The fugazzi “gearbox” and “clutch” are meant to be “comforting for drivers who are used to manual gearboxes or just enjoy the feel of one,” according to one news report.
It reminds one of the electric sheep in Philip Dick’s novel – which got bowdlerized into the movie, Blade Runner. In the book, people bought fake animals for comfort – in lieu of the real (alive) thing – because very few real animals remained alive, on account of the radiation which had enrobed the planet after a nuclear war.
Or the way that old people are comforted by looking at pictures of their family – with the difference being their family is real and old age is natural.
The electric car, of course, is not. It is as artificial in its essence – as well as the reasons for its existence – as the “gearbox” being developed for it. The government decrees there is a crisis – “climate change” – and that it is necessary to replace real cars with electric cars, which are claimed to be a necessary cure for the crisis.
Just like the “vaccines” – for the other artificial “crisis.”
Of course there is no “crisis.”
Just fomented hysteria that there is one – a la the “pandemic” – used to further a goal. In the case of the “pandemic,” it was to inject society generally with a more virulent variant of the disease that first manifested at airports, some twenty years ago – after an earlier “crisis” was used to create the hysteria needed to get people to accept that. Now they accept worse, everywhere – having been told they must accept it on account of another “crisis,” also artificial.
Then there is the “crisis” regarding the “climate.” It wasn’t created to get everyone to accept driving an electric car. It was to get them to accept that driving a car contributed to the “crisis.”
Having accepted that, they will eventually accept being told they must not drive any car – including, inevitably, the electric car. When they are told – and they will be – that as it turns out, the electric car is also “contributing” to “climate change.”
Which it is – if you believe that the “climate” can be “changed” (and dangerously so) by the “emission” of carbon dioxide from a car. Or from the utility plant that generates the electricity that powers electric cars. Or as a result of obtaining all the raw materials that are necessary to manufacture an electric car – as well as the actual manufacturing of it.
Just as belief in the necessity of “mask” wearing inevitably led to acceptance – by those who wore them – of the necessity of Jabbing.
A reason will be found – once the only cars available are electric cars. Just as reasons will be found to extend forever the “emergency” declared two years ago around this time by the Orange Fail, who succeeded in that. The “emergency” his selected successor just declared to be never-ending.
Never let a “crisis” go to waste. Especially one you created.
But don’t worry. In the meanwhile, we can take “comfort” in pretending we’re still shifting gears that aren’t there – and pushing in a clutch that isn’t connected to anything.
. . .
Got a question about cars, bikes or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in! Or email me at EPeters952@yahoo.com if the @!** “ask Eric” button doesn’t work!
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
My eBook about car buying (new and used) is also available for your favorite price – free! Click here. If that fails, email me at EPeters952@yahoo.com and I will send you a copy directly!
Last year, I was on 4chan and some retard was poasting his idea for a simulated manual very similar to what your article describes. Everyone made fun of him for being autistic and stupid. I can’t imagine Toyota doing something this retarded when they could literally bolt an electric motor to any manual gearbox and run it exactly the same as a gas engine. Except don’t bother with idle and also don’t bother slipping the clutch to launch. They could even replace a belt drive alternator and the starter with a 15kw motor/generator to give some extra torque to the gas engine to improve efficiency for a hybrid that adds $0 to production costs.
The manual simulator sounds like a good idea. They could use it as a drivers Ed car or a rental so that kids get a feel for a fake clutch before they crash or bust the gearbox on a real car. But outside of training purposes I would never want that. Of course the better solution would be to roll back automotive regulations to the mid 90s so that you could purchase an affordable new or used manual car/truck/SUV
Yes, climate can be changed. The question being, can it be changed more than it was going to change anyway? Which is certainly not certain. Since very few understand even a tiny portion of how it works to begin with. Bottom line, and that is after all the governing factor, is that those whose research confirms the narrative get the dollars.
I find even the framing of the question to be wrong. Why shouldn’t man change his environment? We ack the ability to affect the climate very much, but why shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to warm the climate with an ice age already overdue by thousands of years?
Is this fake clutch story satire, or a real idea?
Very hard to believe Toyota would be involved with such nonsense. I suggest they install an old 8-track tape player in their electric carts, with a cartridge that plays hot rod sounds, to make the driver feel cool in his electric dorkmobile.
After 27 years working in product development at an auto manufacturer, I’ve heard a lot of bizarre “new” ideas that never made it past the prototype stage. One was a 16 speaker stereo system with 6 speakers overhead in the headliner. A bad place for speakers, as this audiophile already knew before evaluating it. But there were also some good ideas that never made it to production: Such as an instrument panel with two center speakers in addition to the left and right speakers, creating a great stereo image for the driver AND passenger, for the first time in a new automobile. Unfortunately, engineers will kill each other to get packaging space, and the needed space for the two center 4″ speakers lost out to other parts.
Concerning COVID:
There was a crisis in 2020 with no vaccines.
Total US deaths increased +20% over 2019.
That is a crisis, caused mainly by premature deaths from Covid
There was also a crisis in 2021, with vaccines.
Total US deaths were still +20% above 2019.
Meaning the vaccines were a failure.
Unfortunately for 2022, there are early indications the vaccines are causing immune system damage. which increases with each shot / booster. The problem is most likely that some people are allergic to spike proteins, having a reaction to them far worse than most people will. They will be allergic to spike proteins created by the vaccines, which could explain the unprecedented adverse side effects from Covid vaccines. … Fortunately Omicron is not a new Covid variant. It is a new coronavirus common cold, with the same symptoms as any other common cold. If Omicron continues “crowding out” Delta Covid. the pandemic will be over by this Summer. All pandemics in the past 100 years ended this way — mutations into a much less deadly variant, or in this case, a mutation into a brand new coronavirus common cold. This end of pandemic prediction has been my only prediction in the past 25 years. Back in 1997 I made a climate change prediction that has been accurate ever since:
“The climate will get warmer, unless it gets colder”.
There IS a climate crisis. It is a gross over reaction to always wrong wild guess predictions of climate doom. Predictions that completely ignore actual global warming from 1975 through 2020, that was mild and harmless. The scary climate predictions are for rapid, consistent, dangerous global warming at a rate 2x to 3x faster than the warming since 1975. And the predictions completely ignore the lack of warming from 1940 to 1975, as CO2 levels rose.
I’ve followed the subject for 25 years, and launched a climate science and energy blog a few years ago that has had over 290,000 visits.
The most important lesson I can teach on climate science:
Predictions of doom are not reality, nor are they real acience.
Concerning electric motors in cars:
They are no more artificial than ICE motors.
They are superior to ICE motors, and it is not a close call.
It’s the batteries that stink:
Too heavy, too expensive, range too small, too long to recharge, and not durable, so they are not likely to last as long as the rest of the electric car. Other than those “few” faults the batteries are perfect ! Some electric cars are very fast — I’d think you’d like that, Mr. Speed Demon Peters, when driving at your usual 147mph in reverse.
ha ha
Hi Richard,
In re:
“Some electric cars are very fast — I’d think you’d like that, Mr. Speed Demon Peters, when driving at your usual 147mph in reverse.
ha ha.”
They are very quick – which is not the same thing as fast. My Trans-Am is quick. But it is not very fast because of the gearing, which mechanically limits its top speed (fast) to about 120 at redline. A Prius is nearly as “fast”!
But while some EVs are very quick indeed, the paradox is if you use that capability, then they become very slow – to the point of not moving at all – very quickly.
And there is something more than absurd about touting the quickness of a car when that very capability is what makes it much less efficient and far more costly than it would otherwise be – when the whole point (supposedly) of electrification is to reduce energy consumption.
Finally: I never drive 147 in reverse. That was in fourth gear, in a CTS-V.
Even worse if you use the heater or air conditioner.
And I forgot about battery fires and wearing out batteries too quickly from fast charging.
My Dad was an electrician and obsessed about electric / battery cars since the 1960s, when I was a teenager, dreaming of ICE hot rods. This continued for over 50 years. I was sick of battery electric cars before they went on sale, He finally stopped driving in his late 80’s and bought an electric bicycle. It didn’t last long before it broke and he couldn’t get parts to fix it — the company had gone bankrupt.
I am extremely disappointed that you have taken my speed demon taunting with a sense of humor, so now I’ll have to stop needling you. I was going to say 147 in reverse with the car on two wheels followed by four police cars … but did some editing.
I outran police cars twice as a teenager to avoid radar trap speeding tickets. One was a New York State trooper — I knew the back roads and he didn’t.
So I had my speed demon days too. Now that I’m old, I drive slower than an old man with a walker.
Richard: covid19 didn’t cause a 20% death increase, the reaction to covid19 caused a 20 % increase in death. Unvaccinated people had health problems due to sitting around their apartment watching TV, from wearing masks, from inhailing sanitizer, and from not going to the gym, getting depressed, etc. Contaminated test kits damaged were shoved too far up noses damaging epithelial tissues. It isn’t reasonable to blame covid19 when every boss, teacher, nurse, mom, politician, tv doctor, news man went mad with power and everything they did to keep you safe actually makes you sick.
You know at this point some dealer service departments will be charging a couple hundred dollars minimum for a “clutch” adjustment once they are out of adjustment. In the good old days they only screwed you on “blinker fluid”. Just more proof we are living in “Clown World”.
I’ll give ’em a package deal- adjust the virtual clutch, top up the blinker fluid, inspect the muffler bearings, rotate the air in the tires, and all for a low low price of 99.99! Such a deal!
I say bring on the fake shifter & clutch.
Govt is fake
the dollar is fake
vaccines are fake
emergency conditions are fake
freedom is now fake
at least the fake stick is honestly fake
Add the fake politician shithead supreme Justin Trudeau at the fake helm of an undoubtedly genuine idiocracy. The real fake Canadian right there here on the good earth, Justin accomplished one huge political goal with ease. That being the stupidest Prime Sinister Canada has hatched. Much to the chagrin of millions in Canada.
You can censor, but it is impossible to hide the truth. Good luck with that.
The RCMP has trampled Justin’s political career, he ain’t gonna survive.
If Justin only knew, forgive the sinner, not the idiocy of the sins committed in Ottawa.
Let’s not forget about that stupid clueless fake elite numbskull who will never have a real clue, that’s Justin Trudeau.
“Just call me King Turd up here on Shit Mountain, if you want it, you can have the crown.” – Sturgill Simpson, You Can Have the Crown
Freakin’ dumbass wins the crown hands down.
Elon phoned Justin and informed him wholeheartedly that he is indeed THE King Turd, nonpareil. Every bank in Canada gave Justin the word. Klaus is devastated.
Supposedly, purportedly, Elon donated 47,000 dollars to the Freedom Convoy.
Freeze Elon’s bank accounts, you have some explaining to do.
Somehow, confiscating trucks becomes a meaningless task.
The haughty Trudeau and his foolish tactics will leave him and his ilk twisting in the wind.
Lost in the Canadian Mist, never to return. Time for Justin and the rest of the whatever they are to get drunker than skunks, pass out, then puke their brains out. Might as well. they look like drunken losers from here, the act as if they rule the world. Got news for them, ain’t gonna happen.
A travesty of a mockery of a sham.
Ottawa is at a post traumatic stress disorder mental state. That’s what happens when an entire nation is traumatized Stockholm Syndrome style thanks to the dumbasses in charge.
What goes around, comes around and bullies get theirs in the end, so why be a bully? A bully never wins
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving motley crew of schmucks.
Justin Trudeau touched off a financial Armageddon, one he’ll regret big time. Can’t be tolerated, get lost, you bum.
Elon called Justin and made it loud and clear, me thinks.
What did the truckers in Canada do other than raise awareness and rise above?
Can’t condemn that.
Supposedly, purportedly, Elon donated 47,000 dollars to the Freedom Convoy.
Freeze Elon’s bank accounts, you have some explaining to do.
If true, maybe truedope should freeze Elon’s accounts. At least Elon can fight truedope in ways the Truckers can’t. Something tells me more people will be mailing cash to support causes with phony names on the envelopes or buying Visa gift cards (with cash) and using them to pay for the donation. Of course while truedope ended martial law he retained the right to freeze peoples funds and accounts, maybe this was his intention all along. Most people have short memories and might not realize it.
I hate my Z 71. The slightest thing and you have big money problems. My 93 Turbo Diesel would pull a new Chevy pickup and overloaded trailer out of a mud ditch no problem and not strain at all. One ton, 4WD, 4.10 gears, 11.5″ rear gears and everything you wanted or didn’t want was lever controlled. It got 18.5 mpg hauling ass in the hill country. No computer and a fuel pump that you could change to do whatever you wanted. 250,000 miles and the rear drum brakes weren’t even close to being worn out. The 4500 GV transmission would pull those pitiful Ford and Dodges out of the worst stuff. Throw anything on the exhaust away you didn’t want and it just ran better.
Put 5,000 lbs in the bed and pull a 15,000 lb trailer and it never got over 180 degrees. It rode and drove like a Caddy. Took about 15 minutes to change fuel filters and clean the entire system…….from the top. None of that pulling an inner fender and working with that shit in your face and all over you. Change the factory anything for some better part and you were just better off. The a/c would freeze you out on a 115 degree day and the blacked out windows just gave my pittie the edge when anyone got too close. Comfortable captain chairs and a nice rear seat perfect for that long legged gal you couldn’t see when we decided to have some fun. A 1st gear that wasn’t meant to use unless you were loaded heavily. Change the fan and you could never overheat it. A console you could load with several electrical meters and put $20,000 under the bottom cover. Nothing on it to not like. Stuck a black grill on a black truck and the only color on it was a golden Bowtie.
Big enough bed and toolboxes and fuel tank to go over 600 miles loaded. A big area behind the glovebox you could store whatever you wanted since it had no computer. I’d buy a new one in a heart beat if they’d make one. On the other hand, my tiny 4WD Nissan 4cylinder got 16 mpg, wouldn’t cool a chihauhau and bounce your teeth out before the seats broke. Yeah, those things that would quit, like a 3 year old Ford one ton when the back up camera got out of whack are great. Still have friends that are on their second one since the work bed wouldn’t work with the back-up cameras. Put the throttle on the floor to get a boat out of the lake and that Turbo Diesel would idle that same boat out without using the throttle.
A friend used the Ford one day and then the Turbo Diesel the next. He said he couldn’t believe how easy everything worked on the Turbo Diesel and how you had to flog that diesel Ford. That Ford had small 16’s and the Turbo Diesel had big wheels and tires and would beat the fuel mileage in any situation. Please God, send me another TB.
My go-to Re: emissions is this:
“After the Tonga volcano erupted in January 2022, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations near the volcano soared to around 414 parts per million (ppm), according to researchers. Compared with the estimated 412 ppm had the volcano not erupted, the increased 2ppm equaled a whole year’s CO2 emission on Earth.” via phys.org
Ever hear about long term effects of the older ‘gulf oil spill’? didn’t think to. What they never said was the oil is naturally spilling into our oceans every day. The ocean eats it up, literally.
All of this is a boondoggle as most of us know here.
The only possible way for man to effect the earth is with total nuclear Armageddon, and it would only effect us and living things. The earth would shrug it off after some time and rebound. Not sure if we would be part of that rebound or not, probably though.
A lot of folks get these false notions from watching too much Science Fiction on TV, which is replete with unrealistic depictions of motion, energy requirements, and space medicine. Put simply, unless there are technologies to damped the effects of fantastic acceleration and deceleration often depicted (i.e., quick transition even at “sublight” speeds), Mr Spock, that Vulcan stamina notwithstanding, would be some green-hued goo smeared all over the bridge of good ol’ NCC-1701, and that goes for subsequent versions of the Enterprise. It’s likewise with “climate change”, which these yahoos assert is caused by MAN. If only they knew the energies involved in things so mundane as a volcanic eruption (and there are some going on at almost any given moment, I recall watching the live feed of the one going off in the Canary Islands recently) that isn’t quite on the scale of, say, Krakatoa; or a hurricane or tornado, then they’d realize just how PUNY mankind really is.
My sentiments exactly! All of the evil man made “carbon emissions” don’t amount to diddly-squat compared to one volcano blowing its top. Just an excuse for the elitists to ration the lifestyle of us mundanes.
Guys, you have it backwards: due to the volcanoes we have to produce negative co2 immediately and bring co2 down to 300 ppm!!! we don’t have 20 years to transition to a green economy!!! It starts right now!!! Decarbonize or else the world will be warmed up by the co2 while being cooled by so2 and Ash, and we won’t have a big enough global cooling!!!
‘In [Philip K Dick’s] book, people bought fake animals for comfort – in lieu of the real (alive) thing – because very few real animals remained alive.’ — eric
Likewise, after Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, et al complete their project of depopulating the world except for one-percenters, probably they’ll need a big humanoid android fleet to simulate the excitement and randomness of cities formerly filled with actual humans.
What fun is it to be an absolute despot, if you don’t have any subjects to order around?
No doubt our current crop of sociopaths, like the Canadian vaccinazi Trudeau, would get off on simulating that depraved biblical scene where a king and his retinue feast with their concubines, as crucified criminals writhe and groan above them to provide a live sound track.
Charming, no?
>What fun is it to be an absolute despot, if you don’t have any subjects to order around?
Or political opponents to torture & execute.
Dictatorworld, here we come.
Where *YOU* are Pharaoh, truly a “legend in your own mind.”
Now, about that Mars vacation…
Hi Jim,
Hence the introduction of the Metaverse. Is the individual walking through the fake art gallery with you real or a bot? It’s a surprise! The further human beings disconnect from each other the more welcoming they are for any type of stimulation and connection whether real or fake. We are slowly being conditioned to accept that talking, touch, and conscious is something that does not need to be face to face or even with a live person. We are in dangerous territory. The masks were the first step to strip one’s individuality from them. The rest will likely be easy for TPTB to enforce. We need to remember it is not us (seasoned adults) that they hope to change but our children and our children’s children that will be enslaved.
‘The masks were the first step to strip one’s individuality from them.’ — RG
Once we all become Metamates, our faces will look the same: blank gray Non-Player Characters, bowing to NPC ‘president’ Joe Biden.
Individuality is slavery. /s
not my kids. 21 and 23 and doing very well against almost all of this BS. They have fought back the BS at their schools, successfully. They’ve been put in front of ‘boards’ with psychologists, etc… to force their will of BS on them. Tried to make them write ‘papers’ to explain why they are wrong. They said stick it. My kids won the battles. They were thrown off their sports teams for not playing the BS games, and were rewarded with becoming their peers leaders.
They created their own club sports teams and are now learning how to deal with ‘managing’ them and people. fun to watch, even the mistakes. sorry for the gloating, just letting ya know there’s a minority out there that are doing well, relative in this absolute mess. I truly am sad and feel sorry for the sheep.
Hi Chris,
I saw your post about the success your children have had fighting back – standing up against – the tyranny idiocy first this morning. A great way to start the day! Kudos to them – and to you!
Thanks Eric. I makes me happy and proud. They are attacked almost weekly and we don’t get involved at all (unlike most parents). We believe they have to learn it themselves, succeed and fail. Have even gotten calls from admin. people and we don’t get involved “sorry, you will have to deal with her/him, we have no response” BUT, BUT BUT!!!! “NO thank you, do what you must, he/she will handle it themselves” BUT, BUT, BUT!!! “click”.
We did almost the opposite of the masses at almost every milestone. Good and bad results, but for sure kids that can think for themselves, and more importantly do something about it.
Just happened a few days ago at the ice hockey game my kid runs and coaches. One of the teams he created because they kicked him off the college team because he wouldn’t take the shot (his SR year!, how sad). I am on the club team too just to observe and get some exercise (i suck bad BTW). I am the oldest +30, haha.
So there was a skirmish on the bench on the opposite side of the bench, and it turned out it was my kid and one of his friends got into a shouting match (we were losing 13-3) that turned into punches. The team rallied to break it up but most turned to me to break it up. Nope, succeed or fail. You make your bed, not me.
This kind of crap happened all the time in the past 10+ years with parents literally yelling at me to ‘do something!!!’ ‘You must say something!!!’ (after my kids captain letter was pulled from him). Both my kids BTW have gotten their captain letters pulled from them for whatever BS the political coaches did or didn’t do.
I say GOOD. Teaches them how to deal with crap and BS and how to react to it. Results? didn’t matter with my kids saying things like “doesn’t matter dad, the team has all said I am the captain anyway, I don’t have to have the stupid letter on” hahaha…………. why were they captains? Because they back up their teammates no matter what, even physically, even at their own peril or punishment. And they learned to take their BS punishments as a badge of honor.
Hundreds of stories later? pretty darn good.
And it;s infectious. His/her peers are or are becoming pretty darn good people.
Just have a driver’s seat, the steering wheel with the gear shift on the column and nothing else. Don’t have to go anywhere, be in front of a big screen and drive in virtual ether, you’ll be anywhere on the planet you want to be. Don’t need no stinkin’ electric car, won’t take you as far as a big screen anyways.
An electric bike can do about the same thing, there can be an app on your cellphone broadcast to your wifi earbuds that make the sounds of playing cards flapping on the spokes of the bike wheels. More fun that way.
The cartoon that comes to mind is Justin in his blackface costume with Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck.
Canadians became victims that are to blame, Justin is just in it for the money, no fun to have the idiot hanging around making life miserable for everybody in Canada.
The misery will be tolerated for only so long, then it won’t be at all.
It has been a brutal winter that will not usher in any warm weather, just stays cold day in and day out.
Old Man Winter doesn’t care, you have to grin and bear it.
https://climate4you.com/
Astoundingly stupid idea.
1) It defeats the main purpose of the clutch, to disconnect the drive wheels from the engine or motor immediately.
2) People who build their own battery EVs do use real manual transmissions when they want one or because of how their parts/budgets work out its cheaper.
If they want a battery EV with a manual transmission experience, just make one with a real manual trans. It will work just fine.
Everything is going virtual now, everything is fake. These EV’s you can’t hear, feel or smell, go and buy a real car.
These electric motors are wimp motors, you need three or four of them to make the car fast, instead of ONE good gas engine.
The Tesla Plaid has THREE motors and is far slower then this little old Mazda with ONE tiny four rotor gas engine. The Plaid needs the four rotor, four turbo engine swap to be a real car.
That ONE tiny little engine makes twice the horse power of the THREE tesla motors and it makes a great sound.
The Tesla plaid runs 1/4 miles in the 9 second range, this tiny little Mazda runs 1/4 miles in the 6 second range.
If you are interested in engine swaps this four rotor, four turbo engine is very cool it makes 2000 HP, put this in the tesla or other useless EV’s and they might even be fast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3idi2XXxkpM
Re: Mazda with tiny rotary engine:
I had a 1970 Mazda R100 rotary 4 speed with a 4 barrel carburetor, no computer, I paid $1600 for it, about a year later I tried to sell it nobody would buy it (they drank gas like a V8 and the engine seals wore out and required a rebuild at 30,000 miles), I sold it to the Mazda dealer for $900. It didn’t handle very well and the brakes were not great, but it was good to terrorize V8’s at lights, with proper tuning it would have been a beast.,, another car I should have kept.
Mazda raced its R100 with blind ambition. Mazda was, after all, very proud of its new rotary engine, and in July 1969 the factory entered two R100s in the famous Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour, a production-type race where many of the world’s manufacturers entered to compare product against opposition product.
The Spa R100s ran with their Cosmo type all-aluminum 10A engines. By this stage Mazda’s 10A peripheral ported engines were capable of 200+hp, but the Spa engines were held to around 187hp for endurance reasons. Still the small R100s put in a big performance to finish a very respectable 5th and 6th overall behind factory 911s Porsches.
I did a search 2 years ago, in Australia an R100 is now $50,000, the drag racers want them, they weigh 1800 lb. and are rear wheel drive.
Daily drive this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9K918qUtGQ
More lies: EV drive trains are far heavier then gas powered vehicles, how is that progress/green?
It is a waste of resources (they require twice the weight in materials to build), it puts extra strain/wear on suspensions and tires, only 5% of the batteries are recycled = ecological disaster, plus the lithium fire bomb batteries catch fire, so they are very dangerous, the cars are more expensive and they only have a service life of 10 years because of very expensive battery replacement, so EV’s are way worse then gas/diesel powered cars in many ways, so what was the point of switching to EV’s?
They are banning gas and diesel cars for EV’s that have far heavier drive trains, with multiple EV motors the EV weighs more then one gas engine, plus they require 1000 lb of batteries or more, you then have a drive train that weighs far, far more then one gas engine.
These electric cars weigh far too much for the performance they have. The Tesla Plaid is quick but it weighs about 4600 lb. The 3 motors with controllers in the Plaid = about 1000 lb. The battery in the Plaid is 1323 lb. 51% of the Plaid weight is the motors and batteries.
This Mk2 VW Golf only weighs 2600 lb and has a four cylinder gas engine, it is a lot faster then the Plaid. The engine in this golf only weighs about 300 lb. It can drive around with a couple of gallons of gas = 14 lb. of gas, full tank of gas = 84 lb of gas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t4C_0BZT4
Tesla model S Plaid motors weight………. three motors with controllers @ 350 lb. each =1050 lb that is 23% of the weight of the whole car which is 4600 lb. the battery weighs 1323 lb. that is 28% of the 4600 lb total.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-weight/
Wow. What’s next? Simulated transmission fluid leaks? Simulated misfires?
I truly weep for humanity.
Simulated sex, a’la Demolition Man. But without Sandra Bullock.
Why not?
We already have a simulated “President” who pretends to make “speeches” from a simulated “Oval Office.”
If you get tired of that B.S., you can always escape to “Disneyland in the desert,” a.k.a. Las Vegas, NV, where the passage of time is purposely obscured, at least inside the gambling casinos, and watch fake “volcanic eruption,” etc.
The world as “theme park”…what a concept.
“I don’t know what is real,
I can’t touch what I feel,
And I must hide behind the shield of my illusions.”
– Paul Simon
“Mankind cannot stand very much reality.”
– T.S. Eliot
All the sudden the Amish seem like the smart Americans, don’t they?
I am thinking about joining them. They seem to be the only people who haven’t lost their minds. I will miss electricity though.
RG,
So will the rest of us, once the green new deal kicks in.
Perhaps that is the best solution, in disguise:
Unplug the technocrats.
Then, we can rebuild.
Raider girl. Consider joining the Mennonites. They drive cars and use electricity, but otherwise have traditional social structure and excellent craftsmanship, farming and so fourth.
You’re the real thing
Yeah, the real thing
You’re the real thing
Even better than the real thing, yeah
U2
This is a waste of engineering know-how. It’s par for the course in this ever-increasing land of absurdity. Permanent emergencies. Some have the right to protest. Others get suppressed and jailed.
Certain “types” don’t work, at least reliably, and therefore you don’t CARE if they protest…and who actually pays attention to them, anyway? But hard-working WHITE folks like those truckers…well, if they’re “protesting”, then THEY aren’t working, paying TAXES, and generating business activity that also pays TAXES. Hence why the “crackdown” by “Fidelito” Trudeau. Makes one wonder who are the “slaves” NOW.
No. Just, no.
I’m reminded of the nearly useless flappy-paddle shifters on my A3 TDI (RIP). After years of seeing the boys on Top Gear throwing supercars around the track I thought they’d be the coolest thing ever. Boy was I wrong. The first thing I did was kick down two gears into a tight turn to scrub off some speed and get ready for “mohr POWAR!” out of the apex. Nope. The DSG transmission would take the order to drop the gear and sit until the car slowed down enough for it to think it was OK to engage. Then because I was shifting more than one sequential gear down it would take forever to sort out which clutch to use. And IIRC no engine braking, ever. Really took a lot of the fun out of the vehicle.
Eventually they’ll include an X-box or Playstation option on the infotainment center, preloaded with GTA20. Or maybe just go full-on Fisher-Price…
https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Laugh-Rumble-Driver/dp/B001W1SM1U
My wife’s 2016 Toyota Camry sport model has paddle shifters.
She has no idea what they are (since 2016).
I have no idea why anyone would want them.
Back in the 1990s she borrowed my Mustang GT convertible manual shift for the summer but could never handle the stiff clutch well. Her left leg was not strong enough. I took a few years off my life teaching her how to use that clutch — but she wanted the convertible for the summer, so she learned!
I then leased a Probe GT for her with a very easy to use clutch and she did okay most of the time. But she could never parallel park with that clutch, so i guess she never did for the year we had the car.
I learned to drive using my left leg for the brake, so when I first got a manual shift it was no big deal. Many right handed women, and some men, have weak, uncoordinated left legs.
Their first week using a clutch can be scary, especially stopping on hills.
Hi Richard,
Modern manual-equipped cars are cake to drive relative to the manual-equipped cars of the past – before slave cylinders and hydraulic-assist clutches. Driving my other ’76 Trans-Am with the Super T-10 and no assist was like doing leg presses at the gym!
Plus they had stupid close ratio gearboxes 2.43-to-1 for first gear, 1.61-to-1 for second gear, 1.23-to-1 for third gear and 1.00-to-1 for fourth gear. Paired up with a V8 I’d imagine you would shift 1-2-4 and rarely use 3rd.
Meanwhile early Subaru paired a tiny 4 cylinder with wider ratios 1st 3.307 2nd 1.944 3rd 1.344 4th 0.942 Rev 4.100
“What the..” A pretend clutch…pretend stall? Ok, when do I get to wake up and out of the wacko dream?
Your last article made me seriously consider finding an old enduro/multi type bike for just in case. Maybe one that does not run, a barn find maybe. I scanned prices on Craigslist yesterday. Basically 3k for a decent one. I have not rode in 30plus years, sold my Yamaha 650 when we left Texas but now I’m thinking it might be the time.
“if you believe that the “climate” can be “changed”
The fallacy lies not in whether climate can be changed, it lies in the delusion it can be held static. It has been changing ever since there was one, and will continue to do so. It WILL get warmer, or it WILL get cooler. Guess which one we deal with the most easily. There’s a reason mankind has advanced so rapidly in the last 10k years, and it ain’t because it got cooler.
This artificial “manual” transmission is truly pathetic. It reminds me of a feature of a BMW Z4 I test drove a number of years ago, that had artificial “engine noise” integrated into its sound system. Before I bought a Miata. It wasn’t the price that made the choice. I could afford the Z4.
Very astute, JK:
“The fallacy lies not in whether climate can be changed, it lies in the delusion it can be held static.”
The authoritarians like to pathologize normal phenomena and portray them as “crises” that can only be “cured” with authoritarian measures. Sadly, the public usually buts into it.
buys into it.
Predictions of climate doom are not based on climate history. If they were, the climate predictions would be for another 47 years of mild pleasant harmless global warming, EXACTLY what we had for the past 47 years.
The climate can be changed.
Put a lot of pollution into the air, blocking some sunlight, and the world gets a little cooler.
Put a lot of carbon dioxide into the air and the world gets a little warmer, not by much, and the warming is actually pleasant, not dangerous.
Greenhouse gas warming is mainly in colder nations, in the colder months of the year, and at night — think of warmer winter nights in Siberia — facts completely obscured by the use of a global average temperature … that not one person lives in.