65 thoughts on “Scary VW”

  5. As long as you don’t start seeing Jesus and/or his mother in car grills, we’re okay. 🙂

  6. I think the front is worse in most cars. The cars look more menacing with every facelift they get since mid 90s. More aggressive forms too.

    1. I agree. Most modern car styling sucks.

      Currently they favour the ‘bloated overweight musclebound steroids’ appearance as if their innards are too big for their bodies or they’ve been blown up with compressed air.

      1. “Puffy” is the derogatory term I’ve heard that’s most apt.

        Automotive styling peaked in the ’50s and ’60s and turned to shit in the ’70s and never recovered.

        b&

        1. Well I’d say it peaked in the late 60’s – early 70’s (that’s from an English-European point of view, which is probably roughly parallel with the US).

          As I recall, late 60’s cars had clean crisp lines and edges, with big glass areas (and you could see through the back window when reversing), and they managed to look light for their size.

          Then they suddenly went all blobby and jellymould, starting with, in Europe (as a Ford man I’m embarrassed to admit it) the Ford Sierra. And got worse from there.

  7. Mine is the same color, only it has the little white lights for reverse in addition to the reds. Of course since I bike to work, I only put about 1500 miles a year on him…almost ten years old nd he has about as much miles a most people drive in 1.5 years.

    1. I apologize if the subsequent information is already known; I did not know of this break until I was long, long in to vehicle ownership. Thus: if one regularly walks, bicycles or takes other forms of transportation in to and back from specifically one’s work, then there is / may be an annual amount ‘forgiven’ on one’s vehicle insurance policy.

      I walk in to and back from work as well; when viciously frigid out, then the community has a lovely, award – winning and cheap bus service.

      Saves me on a 12 – year – old Passat wagon, agent told me, $77.00 per year = far more than an annual amount I spend upon bus fare — plus no parking – crud (very high yearly tag – fee at a university + hassle of securing a spot every morning).

      Blue

      1. Our insurance (USAA) reduces, automatically, the rates based on the milage. It has gone down as the miles/age goes down relative to some calculation.

        Albeit, I am not in it for the insurance so much as it is good for my heart. However, its nice to show that wife that I can get buy myself ~$300 present for myself every year with the gas I save.

  9. I’ve never quite understood why VW keeps making this thing or why we still call it a bug?

    1. They make them because they still sell in enormous quantities, and they’re bugs because they’re Beetles.

    2. It is a “Beetle” only in name, approximate shape & some detailing such as the high dashboard
      The engine is not in the back for a start
      VW are merely cashing in on the ‘warm fuzzies’ to give small compacts a bit of character
      You’re looking at a VW Mk6 Golf at base

    3. Bug because it’s full of them 🙂

      In actual fact it shares not one feature or one part with the original VW Bug, which was air-cooled, rear-engine, rear-drive. Some cynics would say that is a Good Thing. What I’d say is why build a modern car that is intentionally more cramped than it needs to be – they have in fact managed to fit quite a bit more room in it than the Beetle it resembles but they could have fitted more space still if they hadn’t been trying to make it look like a Beetle.

  11. I vote with the happy, smiley car people.

    That might still be scary, but I can’t see the “grimacing monster.”

  13. Strange how we see faces everywhere, and intent everywhere (well, I guess in an evolutionary perspective maybe not so strange).
    I even know some people who actually give pet names to their cars.

    1. i) When I do not use its shortened one of just Truckie (taken from Mr Spiegelman’s New Yorker “Nature vs Nurture” cartoon of http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/09/08/nature-vs-nurture), then cuz it is red, its name is C C Rider: Cherry Chrome Rider.

      ii) gray Passat has a silly one = MyPPaT: My Pewter PassAT its key letters which I can so remember … … to which vehicle I am referring.

      Blue

  14. I still remember the first time I saw the tail end of a ’59 Chev at night (~55yrs ago). I thought it looked like a big (horizontally stretched) owl glaring back at us.

    And if you don’t know what one of those looks like, here ya go.

  16. My drive would fit that car. Hours on the highway going 20 km an hour. It took my 2 hours to get home and my stupid floor mat bunched under my clutch pedal. I thought my transmission had died because I couldn’t get the car into first without a lot of work. I remembered that that floor mat was bad. I also burned my clutch a bit (it smells) but I only did this at a couple of lights before I pulled the mat the heck out of the way.

    My next car is going to be an automatic. This episode, plus lurching along for 90 km in stop & go traffic is too much.

      1. All electric won’t work for me given my driving distance and lack of infrastructure. My next vehicle will be a hybrid though.

        1. EV range is growing dramatically. The Teslas, of course, have all kinds of range, but the next generation of EVs from major manufacturers should have similar range.

          And, remember: you magically start every day in an EV with a full “tank.” If your commute is 20 miles each way, an EV with “only” an 80 mile range is overkill.

          To be sure, they’re not for everyone; it’s not difficult to come up with scenarios where they’re not the right car. But, it’s also the case that they are the right car for many who’re convinced otherwise.

          There’s also a great compromise in the form of the Chevy Volt. It’s a plugin EV with a 40-mile electric range…and an onboard backup gas-powered generator that can extend the range to a few hundred miles. On that same 20-mile commute, it’d be a pure electric vehicle, but you could also go a few (hundred) miles out of your way if the need arose. And I think BMW has something similar in one of their latest models.

          b&

          1. Yeah I live in a rural area so I need a lot of range and where I work I can’t plug in. I would never have made it home yesterday in the commute I did.

            What we need is a disruption in battery technology.

          2. We’re actually living in the middle of battery technology disruption…a decade ago, I don’t think even NASA had access to batteries like what Tesla uses — and, if they did, they would have been unimaginably expensive.

            The biggest thing about Tesla isn’t their car production, even though they’re arguably making the best mass-produced cars anybody has ever made. The biggest thing about the company is their battery factory which will be coming online before too terribly long. And they’re not just going to be putting the batteries in their own cars, but selling them to whomever has the money. It’s not going to be all that long before people will start buying Tesla batteries to stash next to the water heater to complement their solar rooftops, for example.

            b&

          3. The Volt sounds like an actual practical electric car, if most of your motoring is a short commute to work. Use electricity for the commuting and save $$$, and if you do run out of time to charge it (or want to go on a longer journey) you’re not stuck. I assume you can just refuel it like an ordinary car, as often as necessary.

          4. Yes, you would fill up the Volt like any other car at a gas station. But most drivers find they only do that once or twice a year. The rest of the time, you just plug it in at night and you’ve magically got a full tank in the morning.

            b&

        2. “My next vehicle will be a hybrid though.”

          Why not a small diesel? Like a VW(!) Golf or similar. Probably cheaper to buy, probably more economical unless you spend all your driving time in traffic jams, and probably cause far less environmental damage and energy costs in its manufacture. And you don’t even want to think about what it’s gonna cost when the batteries come due for replacement…

          (I say ‘probably’, check the figures for yourself before buying…)

          ALL the energy to drive your car down the road, whether gasoline, diesel or hybrid, can only come from the fuel. And the diesel motor is far more economical and fuel-efficient than a petrol (gasoline) engine, even Atkinson-cycle like the Prius. And it doesn’t have to drag around the weight of batteries that a hybrid does. The only time a hybrid can really save fuel is when you’re stuck in very slow-moving traffic jams and it can stop the motor and run on batteries. On the open road it can hardly save a thing.

          If battery technology made huge advances and someone made a diesel hybrid it might be worth buying. Till then…

          1. Diesel isn’t very popular here and it costs more to have it serviced and more to fuel it. I have experience with hybrids and found them very good and very easy to service as well as cheap to run. I don’t know that the manufacturing costs are anymore than a regular car.

          2. The manufacturing costs have GOT to be more than a regular car, since you’re not only paying for a petrol (gasoline) motor – just like a regular car – but also the stacks of batteries and the electric motors and complicated electronic control gear as well.

            If the hybrid doesn’t cost quite a lot more than the equivalent regular car, then the manufacturer must be subsidising it.

          3. The Prius C is about comparable to a regular car. I don’t think the transmission is any more complicated than a regular transmission and the chassis fora regular car is reused on the hybrid.

          4. The manufacturing costs have GOT to be more than a regular car, since you’re not only paying for a petrol (gasoline) motor – just like a regular car – but also the stacks of batteries and the electric motors and complicated electronic control gear as well.

            But the whole point of the hybrid is that you don’t need a gasoline motor that can compete with a traditional one; you can use a much smaller and simpler one that’s tuned for maximum efficiency at cruising.

            And you don’t need much battery capacity at all; you just need enough to do a few starts and the like, with the gasoline motor trickle-charging it between.

            Yes, of course. If you put a full-sized gas motor and a full-sized electric motor and a full-sized battery pack in, each enough for fully independent operation, you’d be in financial trouble. But that’s not at all what they do!

            There’re also other sorts of possibilities available for the engineers…for example, if the gas motor only acts as a generator to charge the batteries and the electric motor provides all the motive force, you either don’t need a transmission at all or you can get away with a greatly simplified two-speed transmission. And, in such a configuration, the gas motor only ever has to run at a single speed, which greatly simplifies timing and camshaft design and all that sort of stuff.

            Cheers,

            b&

          5. “There’re also other sorts of possibilities available for the engineers…for example, if the gas motor only acts as a generator to charge the batteries and the electric motor provides all the motive force, ”

            In actual fact, Ben, that’s a recipe for inefficiency. Power produced by the gas motor has to be converted via the generator into electricity, then converted by electric motors back into mechanical power. Double the losses. This is why the Prius, very cleverly, has what is virtually a direct mechanical drive from the gas motor to the wheels when it’s cruising, thus avoiding electric transmission losses. (It also doesn’t have a torque convertor, so avoids the losses of an automatic there).

            It’s all very ingenious, Toyota have gone to almost extreme lengths to achieve economy, but on the open road a small lightweight European car like the Ford Fiesta can easily match it without all the complication. (I’ve noticed the Fiesta automatic actually ‘locks up’ at speed thus also avoiding torque convertor losses, I believe many modern automatics do).

            The Prius has a 1.5-litre gasoline engine (now 1.8 litres). The Fiesta has a 1.3 to 1.6 litre petrol, or 1.4 to 1.6 litre diesel. I can’t see the Prius saving anything on the cost of its motor.

            Really, the Prius’s claims to be ‘green’ are much like the VW Beetle’s claims to be ‘sporty’ were – a bit of cunning publicity that caught on because it’s ‘different’ and there’s not much competition in that line from regular cars.

          6. Power produced by the gas motor has to be converted via the generator into electricity, then converted by electric motors back into mechanical power. Double the losses.

            Yes, there are significant inefficiencies that way.

            But there are also significant inefficiencies operating an internal combustion engine outside of its “sweet spot,” especially a small, lightweight, mobile one — and those inefficiencies are typically greater in practice than the onboard generator route.

            This is why the Prius, very cleverly, has what is virtually a direct mechanical drive from the gas motor to the wheels when it’s cruising, thus avoiding electric transmission losses.

            If you like what Toyota engineers did there, you’ll love what Chevy engineers did with the Volt’s planetary gear power distribution system.

            But the Volt only uses the internal combustion engine for direct motive power under high load when the batteries are drained, and then because that’s the only way to produce the needed power. The motor is operating outside of its peak efficiency in order to produce all the power it can. Once the load demand drops to below the power it produces at peak efficiency, the car transitions back to an electric mode.

            Still don’t believe me?

            Look up how diesel-electric locomotives work. They’re pure electric hybrids, with no mechanical connection between the diesel generators and the wheels. And they’re what pull every freight train you’ve seen in the past multiple decades.

            Cheers,

            b&

          7. I know perfectly well how diesel-electric locos work, and they’re a red herring in this context. They have a requirement to drive to all wheels, on swivelling trucks, at all speeds from zero to top speed. The requirements for a mechanical drive split to four or six axles would be extremely complicated. This is just not comparable in any way with automotive applications where a simple mechanical gearbox is perfectly adequate.

          8. Erm…you’re making my point for me. All the requirements for locomotives exist for passenger vehicles, just not in the same extremes.

            You might also want to consider: the fastest-accellerating mass-produced vehicle on the market today is also the most energy-efficient: the Tesla Model S P85D. With electric drive systems so dramatically outcompeting internal combustion systems, it’s not at all difficult to see that, if you optimize an internal combustion engine just for the very limited application of powering a generator, you still wind up with something that beats a pure gasoline system, even if it’s not as efficient as an all-electric one.

            Cheers,

            b&

          9. With all this talk, I’m going to start researching vehicles again. I don’t want to buy yet, but I like to have a feel for what’s out there because I usually take years to make a decision (though to everyone else it seems impulsive because they aren’t hearing my brain).

          10. If you’re serious about it being a couple-few years…by then, it’s entirely possible that mass-produced electric vehicles with Tesla-style range will be available for sale at “midrange family sedan” prices. A lot of the pieces are starting to come together for the electric mass market; see, for example, that VW and BMW are now selling electric cars in the States.

            It’s also likely that we’ll be seeing oil price shocks by then — and, indeed, I have a strong suspicion that today’s unbelievably-low prices are going to be seen in retrospect as the beginning of the spiking pattern. If that’s the case, then any up-front premium you might pay for electric will quickly pay for itself by not having to buy gasoline.

            …and that’s greatly multiplied if we get ’70s-style lines at the pump. Electric vehicles you charge at home and you’d never have to wait in line at a gas station.

            b&

          11. I bought my current car with the hope that I could go straight to electric with my next one (my current car is 6.5 years old). At the time I bought my car, I thought I could get a hybrid but I didn’t like the offerings and price point so figured I’d get this one and wait for electric. I’d love to get an all electric if possible but who knows.

            I do know that the next car is going to be some sort of hybrid. Right now, the best ones for mileage are the Prius & Prius C. I really like the look of the Prius C (I like small cars) but it is a bit gutless. I also like the luxury interior of the Lexus CT but it doesn’t have the great fuel economy of the Prius (it’s really the same car – they just put a different exterior on it and made it nicer inside).

            My hope is even if an electric isn’t there by the time I buy, there will be more hybrid options that will meet my needs. Happily, I don’t drive highways like I used to so a I will get a lot out of a hybrid. I’d get a plugin hybrid if I could get a sunroof. Current models don’t have them because the structure is needed I suspect with the added battery weight….I should really get over myself because I have a convertible for the summer!

          12. Ben “Erm…you’re making my point for me. All the requirements for locomotives exist for passenger vehicles, just not in the same extremes.”

            No they DO NOT. I specifically said diesel-electric locos are NOT COMPARABLE with automotive applications. They’re not even comparable with TRUCKS, ffs.

            In particular, a diesel locomotive needs to be big and heavy, so it has the adhesion to pull a train. Extra weight is useful. This is the exact opposite of a car.

            I think this has gone on long enough.

          13. Diana – don’t listen to Ben and don’t listen to me, we’ll just confuse you. Do your own research on what’s available and what suits your usage.

          14. Ha ha! You don’t have to tell me! 🙂 I understand what you’re saying. I am pretty familiar with how the technology works. I still haven’t found a car that suits me and I’m happy with my current one (Mazda 3). I drove my roadster in the summer. With all the snow, sometimes I wish my car for winter was a tank.

          15. “You might also want to consider: the fastest-accellerating mass-produced vehicle on the market today is also the most energy-efficient: the Tesla Model S P85D. With electric drive systems so dramatically outcompeting internal combustion systems, it’s not at all difficult to see that, if you optimize an internal combustion engine just for the very limited application of powering a generator, you still wind up with something that beats a pure gasoline system, even if it’s not as efficient as an all-electric one.”

            That’s a complete non sequitur. What’s the Tesla’s energy efficiency when it’s doing that?

            ‘very limited application of powering a generator’ is gobbledegook. There’s nothing ‘limited’ about that requirement. The big variable in gasoline engine efficiency is not speed (which is, anyway, what a gearbox is for), but load, which the transmission can’t do anything about. Hence hybrids to try and even out the load using battery storage.

          16. No small internal combustion engine can even begin to compete with an electric motor in terms of efficiency. And the weight of the batteries isn’t a factor, especially not in stop-and-go driving because most of the energy used accelerating is recovered with regenerative braking.

            Check out the efficiency ratings for electric vehicles, and you’ll often see figures in the triple digits of “MPGe.” Even if your electricity comes from coal, you’re still emitting less greenhouse gas than with a comparably-sized petroleum-based vehicle.

            The only advantages internal combustion vehicles have today over electrics are the purchase price and the quick-recharge time. The latter, in practice, is irrelevant save for cross-country trips; with day-to-day driving, the charge-at-home feature of electric vehicles is vastly superior to the gas station “experience” of internal combustion vehicles.

            Once Tesla-style battery packs cost half as much as they do today, it’s basically game over for internal combustion engines for mass-market vehicles.

            Cheers,

            b&

          17. “No small internal combustion engine can even begin to compete with an electric motor in terms of efficiency.”
            Yes, but that’s only relevant in the case of e.g. the Volt, which gets most of its power from the mains, NOT for a hybrid ALL of whose power has to be generated by the IC engine.

            “And the weight of the batteries isn’t a factor, especially not in stop-and-go driving because most of the energy used accelerating is recovered with regenerative braking.”
            … ONLY in stop-and-go driving, I’d say. At fairly steady speeds out of town the chances for the batteries to charge from regen braking is minimal, they just represent extra weight to drag around.

            So I can see the point of the Volt (if it works in the way I understand you to say), but not, unless you spend your whole life in traffic jams in which case why didn’t you take public transport, the Prius.

          18. And, yet, hybrid vehicles, even non-plugin ones, are much more efficient — primarily because the electric motors do all the heavy lifting of accelerating, thus permitting the internal combustion engines to provide motive force primarily within the small range of operating speeds where their own efficiency doesn’t suck.

            An internal combustion engine running at low speed under heavy load is terrifyingly inefficient — often in the single-digit miles per gallon even for the most efficient of cars. In stark contrast, the efficiency curves for electrics are generally flat until they start to run out of power at the top end.

            “Traditional” hybrids take advantage of both, by putting in an underpowered electric motor that still provides ample torque for acceleration, coupled with an under-torqued gas motor that only needs to provide maximum power at maximum efficiency.

            But just look at the Tesla P85D to see the future…0-60 in 3.2 seconds, rumored to be 2.8 seconds after the next over-the-air software update. And with a longer range than the single-motor version even though it’s got the same battery pack.

            b&

          19. I drove a Prius for a week on the highway and country roads and got significantly better mileage than my conventional engine car. And I didn’t drive slowly either, I drive like I always do, which means I accelerate to pass and I drive a bit over the speed limit.

            Of course, hybrids excel in traffic because they don’t waste gas idling but the combination of a small conventional engine with a battery is very good.

            Furthermore, the upkeep of the vehicle isn’t that bad since you aren’t using the conventional engine as much. Costs of purchase are coming down as well. Yes, the hybrid version of cars may cost a bit more, but they are usually more luxurious as well. The Lexus CT is the same as the Prius with a different outside, the Prius C is built on the same chasis as the Yaris, for example.

          20. “I drove a Prius for a week on the highway and country roads and got significantly better mileage than my conventional engine car. ”

            Hi Diana. What was your ‘conventional engine car’? Something American with a big engine? Seriously, that’s setting the bar pretty low.

          22. “An internal combustion engine running at low speed under heavy load is terrifyingly inefficient”
            That’s what gearboxes are for! To let it run at a reasonable rpm independent of the speed of the car.

            But I think you mean it has a high gas consumption – but then an electric motor under similar circumstances will have a high current draw. If there’s a heavy load the prime mover is going to use a lot of power to shift it and there’s no way around that.

            But technically, a gasoline engine (not diesel) is actually most inefficient at very light loads (this is the only place where hybrids gain, they stop the gas motor and run on battery). Diesels are much more efficient at light loads, which is why if I built a hybrid it would be diesel. I don’t know why Toyota didn’t make the Prius diesel, I can only assume they couldn’t make it start quite as easily and inaudibly as the Prius motor.

            I’d better stop now.

          23. That’s what gearboxes are for! To let it run at a reasonable rpm independent of the speed of the car.

            Yes, gearboxes help with efficiency. And with reducing mechanical stress at both low and high engine speeds. But there’s still huge variability of operating efficiency within the, say, 1500 – 4000 RPM range the engines are operated at, with even bigger variability based on the load placed on the engine at a given speed. And, the engines have to have all sorts of compromises made to flatten out their torque and power curves at the expense of efficiency.

            Another comparison: check out a portable gasoline generator. Start it up, it runs at its idle speed. Place an heavy load on it, and it still runs at that same speed. That’s because that’s the speed at which it’s most efficient. The throttle supplies more fuel under heavy load, but only enough to keep engine speed constant. As another advantage, the generator can have a camshaft designed to operate the valves at their most efficient at that one speed; put a camshaft with the same profile in a car’s engine and you’d probably blow the engine apart if you tried to run it any faster as the valves started hitting things. But a camshaft with a vehicular profile in the generator and it’ll burn way more fuel all the time.

            Similar compromises exist in all the other components — timing, fuel flow and mixture, cooling, the works. Vehicular engines are optimized for wide torque and power bands at the expense of efficiency; generator engines are optimized for efficiency but can only operate (effectively) at a single rotational speed.

            Cheers,

            b&

          24. (I said I’d stop but I must respond to this).

            “Hi Diana. What was your ‘conventional engine car’? Something American with a big engine? Seriously, that’s setting the bar pretty low.”

            Diana: “Nope, a 4 cylinder Mazda 3.”

            My assumption was worng. You weren’t exactly driving a gas-guzzler before, were you. So your observation that the Prius saved you gas is significant.

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