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DrVertigo

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  1. Ugh, great. In the unlikely event anyone wants to actually discuss this, feel free to drop a PM. Meanwhile I'm backing away slowly.
  2. Er, yup.... Don't take my word for it. The study's adapted from EPA data, the implication is backed by an EPA-funded institute, and a quick Google search will see it reported in many major news outlets. The health impact of diesel particulates is widely known, which is why these emissions are regulated in the first place, and continually more strictly as compliance becomes technologically feasible. We're not talking about a small discrepency from the published figures - if you live in a crowded European city (which tend to be swarming with VW, Skoda, Seat and Audi diesels), you'll effectively have had a fleet of small lorries driving past your house every day for the last seven years. Just as with smoking, many people will ostensibly be unaffected by that, others not so much. Well, they did. NOx reduction controls in the US are estimated to have reduced annual mortality by a couple of thousand over the last decade or so. As mentioned, though, particulates are an epidemiological agent, so hard figures are always impossible to come by - all anyone can do is estimate. Statistically speaking, it would be quite shocking if you had developed a major health condition, given that particulates aren't nearly as damaging as smoking (unless you get right up to the tail pipe I guess). Keep in mind how many millions of people will have been exposed to VAG diesel emissions, and that the mortality estimates are only in double or triple figures.
  3. It's impossible to prove an exact number in terms of the death toll, but yes. NOx causes and aggravates lung and heart diseases, and these cars were pumping out a ridiculous amount of it in heavily populated areas.
  4. Like I said in the other thread, the real problem is diesel particulate emissions, rather than greenhouse gases. As far as I can tell, they're suggesting that these engines emitted several times more NOx than a light duty truck... There will almost certainly have been people who got sick and died as a result of the tampering, and potentially quite a lot of them. Interesting that GM were only fined $35m for consciously allowing 13 people to be killed by their faulty ignition switch, going up to $900m when the death estimate rose to 124 (similar to what I've seen projected for VW's emission excess).
  5. ...And Rolls-Royce arguably have the best interiors in the world. BMW also made one of the best supercar engines ever for McLaren's F1. Lamborghini could do very well out of BMW ownership.
  6. We all know they're not going to find anything - the Aventador's only slightly less dirty than the Murcielago was, despite having an engine almost 50 years younger. And more importantly, Lambo doesn't do diesel. This is probably only the start of governments and law firms around the world going after VAG; Italy just happens to have one of their subsidiaries on home soil. It's just the tip right now, wait until Germany goes balls deep.
  7. That's about average size for an adult blacktip. I don't know how tight a canal that one is, but blacktips are used to navigating narrow and uneven passages, they're specialised for coral environments.
  8. Holy shit that's fast! Looks like a blacktip, I guess they need that speed to nab little fish poking their heads out from reef openings.
  9. Yup. They also need much less side room to open than conventional doors, a big part of the reason for them is so people can enter/exit through narrow spaces. Flip side is, they're pretty slow to operate.
  10. Is this really the first car ever to be fitted with a proper HEPA filter? You can find these things in a £40 air purifier. It's not just that Tesla keeps making these amazing innovations... sometimes I wonder why the hell nobody else has been doing these things. That view-spanning windscreen, the sensors on the automatic falconwing doors... obviously these are things people would want, why is it taking the Paypal guy to get this stuff done? Makes me pretty sad when I look at one of my favourite brands, Jaguar, and just see them constantly playing a "me-too" game with the Germans instead.
  11. Yup. Whether you 'believe' in human-activity-contributed climate change or not (in other words, whether you listen to scientific consensus), the big problem here is from diesel particulates (primarily NOx), which have nothing to do with gobal warming. These are local pollutants which hang in the air and damage your lung tissue when you breathe them in. People are affected to varying extents, but on average, you're estimated to be twice as likely to be killed by air pollution (of which diesel particulates are the primary component) than by a car crash. It's true that commercial traffic is far more polluting than cars, but unless you live by a dock or a heavy vehicle route, it's local runabouts that'll be the biggest risk factors in giving you a respiratory disease (primarily lung cancer). A car with 40 times the particulates can potentially be doing 40 times the damage.
  12. Yup. For comparison, Tesla's superchargers work at around 480v. The Porsche is compatible with lower voltages, but you won't get anywhere near that 15min/80% speed.
  13. The fast charging time is only possible with extremely high-voltage chargers that don't really exist at the moment.
  14. Generally agreed, but for some reason, modern hard-tops are lighter than soft-tops. McLaren and Ferrari's folding hard-tops add just 40kg, whereas Lambo's soft-top adds 120kg. It's a weird choice, because the Huracan Spider's backside looks fat enough to hold a hard-top, and it seems to be the preference for most buyers (not me, I hate the extra panel gaps when the roof's up). Presumably either they wanted to do something different to Ferrari (which would be a first, they didn't mind copying the 458's steering wheel indicator/wiper switches or dial cluster MMI screen), or they couldn't afford to develop a new roof system.
  15. DrVertigo

    Tesla...

    We'll probably be seeing the design in March as well as details on the spec. It'll be using a new platform, apparently because the car will be so much smaller than the Model S. Unsure if that'll restrict the battery size. According to Autocar (print copy from the 9th), they're aiming for 300 miles, with the BMW M3 as its performance benchmark. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it delayed a lot. Packaging and profit margins seem much more ambitious than the Model X, and its production seems to go hand-in-hand with the gigafactory, which isn't due for completion for another 4/5 years.
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