Is the average modern car getting slower?

[Nic_s]

I can's see how these kinds of features can make cars that much heavier/slower or more expensive for that matter as most of this tech has been available for years now.

....

Do you know how much wiring is needed for all those electronic addons? Think about it...
Electric Heated Seats (Including motors to move about),
Satnav,
Traction Control,
Stability Control,
ABS,
Electric Mirrors,
Sound system,
central locking,
all the sensors,
Airbag system,
all the lights in and on the car,
alarm system,
Electric sunshine roof,
and a lot of other crap I can't think of right now...

All these things have electric motors and wires and in the end it adds up.

Or it could just be the ton of plastic under the bonnet to cover the engine :hammerhead:

 

[netercol]

i read somewhere that the average modern passenger car has about 31kg of wiring alone :dropjaw:

 

[Sankekur]

I can's see how these kinds of features can make cars that much heavier/slower or more expensive for that matter as most of this tech has been available for years now.

....

Do you know how much wiring is needed for all those electronic addons? Think about it...
Electric Heated Seats (Including motors to move about),
Satnav,
Traction Control,
Stability Control,
ABS,
Electric Mirrors,
Sound system,
central locking,
all the sensors,
Airbag system,
all the lights in and on the car,
alarm system,
Electric sunshine roof,
and a lot of other crap I can't think of right now...

All these things have electric motors and wires and in the end it adds up.

Or it could just be the ton of plastic under the bonnet to cover the engine :hammerhead:

Just my point, you got all these kind of things in the older BMW's as well, yet suddenly they are so heavy in the new models. And some of those stuff are included in most other cars as well.
Most things that are electronic, sensor based weigh next to nothing, like the alarm system adds no weight since it uses sensor already included in the car. This also goes for the most part for the ASC/DSC/ABS that for a large part uses the standard brake system already in place.
I'll give you electric seats those things are insanely heavy kinda like carrying an extra passenger also the most senseless extra around, I mean I adjust my sets once, or twice.

 

[applehero]

I guess average modern cars (not high performance ones) are getting slower. They are also getting heavier - as has been said. The good thing about a heavier vehicle though, is the safety. Purely from a decceleration point of view...

F=ma

Therefore for a given force (in an accident for example) a lower acceleration will be experienced for a vehicle with a larger mass. Which means less internal injuries.

 

[Sankekur]

But won't a higher mass also entail more energy that need to be absorbed from:
Ek = 1/2(m)(v)^2
If the two the velocity is the same, and won't the impulse force also be higher due to the higher momentum given by: (m)(v)

This is of course assume that it is the same car with the same kind of internal structure but with differing mass.

Of course with a better designed internal structure (crumple zones and reinforcement beams) you can better dissipate the energy and reduce the impulse force (F = (m)(v)/(t)) due to the time of the impact being increased. But I can help thinking that these things wouldn't be so necessary if the cars weren't so heavy.

Please excuse me if I made a mistake, it has been some years since I have had anything to do with contact force physics

 

[Matt Q]

I guess average modern cars (not high performance ones) are getting slower. They are also getting heavier - as has been said. The good thing about a heavier vehicle though, is the safety. Purely from a decceleration point of view...

F=ma

Therefore for a given force (in an accident for example) a lower acceleration will be experienced for a vehicle with a larger mass. Which means less internal injuries.

Jeesus dude I'm guessing you did lower grade science right?

Since F=ma and acceleration is a measurement of the CHANGE of the given relative speed of an object then a heavier object is actually HARDER to stop than a light object... also the heavier object will RESIST the deceleration more thereby putting more strain on the structure of the object during a crash scenario. The heavier car carries MORE energy than a lighter car and therefore has more energy to transfer to heat and noise during a crash...

Also you are using TOTALLY the wrong equation since the one above is a measure of the force REQUIRED for acceleration of an object.. and yes, heavier objects are HARDER to accelerate (or decelerate) but if 2 objects are moving at the same speed the heavier one will be carrying more Kinetic energy and it's KINETIC ENERGY which cause the kuk

The kinetic energy of an object is related to its momentum by the equation:

Ek = P2(Squared)
---
2M

where:
P is momentum
M is mass of the body

and Ek is Kinetic Energy

Your survival rate is obviously helped by all the safety gear which pushes up the weight (and therefore increases Kinetic energy), but it would still be safer in a light car with a very strong cage.... also.. a heavier car resists ALL changes in direction more.. IE turning. braking etc are all using force (f=ma) which is a resisting force (either brakes turning kinetic energy into heat through clamping force f or tyres using frictional force to change direction of travel, leaking off kinetic energy Ek as heat through the tyres)

Are you still with me??

EDIT - I recon Sankekur and I were typing at the same time - lol - he just has manners but I'm smarter

 

[Sankekur]

EDIT - I recon Sankekur and I were typing at the same time - lol - he just has manners but I'm smarter

:bs: on the smarter statement, I guess the part about having manners has now also gone out the window

Nah, just joking, not that knowledgeable in terms of physics, furthest I've gone in it is second year dynamics, but I have always had a fondness for physics

 

[Matt Q]

but I have always had a fondness for physics

Nerds in arms dude I'm busy reading a book on Quantum Physics and just finished wading through a presentation on super massive black holes.. and not a single ANC member in it

 

[Sankekur]

but I have always had a fondness for physics

Nerds in arms dude I'm busy reading a book on Quantum Physics and just finished wading through a presentation on super massive black holes.. and not a single ANC member in it

lol, personally nuclear physics has always been my chief interest, for some reason :mmm:

 

[moranor@axis]

Quantum Physics is mostly just something they made up for now i would not be surprised if they find out in 100 years it was all completely wrong like when they discovered the world was not flat anymore... we need new equipment that does not exist before we can actually make any sense of it

the main reason why cars are getting heavier is because if two cars hit each other the heavier one will come out better and with so many suvs over seas they had to do something to make cars safe from the suv menace...

 

[Sankekur]

I won't go as far as to say it has just been "made up", but like all things in science it is a mathematical model/physical model used to describe the real world, which doesn't make a habit of following mathematics or predefined models, so over time the model is refined more and more until we can describe parts of the real with reasonable accuracy.

Like the formula Ek = (1/2)(m)(v^2) that was given earlier it is only a model that describes the kinetic energy of a moving object in terms of its mass and velocity, like all models it only applies to a small part of the physical world, as this equation becomes redundant the moment v > (1/3)c (I think) in the same way all other thing are refined and adapted.

 

[moranor@axis]

ye not all of it but some of it is based on theories that my be true... they then make new theories on things that are not yet proved because they cant prove it yet... im almost 100% sure eventually they will discover that we were missing something very important (the world is not flat) making most of the research conducted based on the old theory pointless...

 

[Fordkoppie]

To get back to the topic, I also don’t like the direction the motor industry is heading with their slower, bigger, heavier cars.
As far as specs go, if anyone in a STANDARD e46 can achieve sub 5 second 0 - 100 they are surely lying.:bs:. Not a chance in hell that is achievable. Not even a CSL will manage that. (Again reminding you that we are talking about standard cars here)
As Sankekur mentioned, those type of car’s parts are unrealistically priced, which is why I got rid of the e39 M5.
PS – doesn’t matter how good the crumple zones are in a light car, the occupants in the heavy car will be better off in the event of a light and a heavy car colliding into each other.

 

[Sankekur]

I doubt something will happen that will suddenly make the research in a specific theoretical field pointless as the whole point of the research in the first place was to prove/disprove theories. Plus the previous research is always a stepping stone to something new, so it is never pointless. Like Kepler's laws of planetary motion and newton's laws of gravitation still apply, even though we have something better now in the form of special relativity.

As far as quantum physics and mechanics goes, it will be adapted as we learn more, but it has proven its worth many times over as being a very accurate predictor of the real world, as it lead to one of the greatest revolutions in the history of man-kind: quantum physics -> semiconductor physics -> first transistor -> first integration of circuits -> VLSI (very large scale integration)

 

[moranor@axis]

the main reason why cars are getting heavier is because if two cars hit each other the heavier one will come out better and with so many suvs over seas they had to do something to make cars safe from the suv menace...

thats what i said :thinking:

but there are other ways also the smart uses foam to make the crumple zones smaller but this will still be ineffective till cars start getting lighter again because it will still be crushed by a heavier car...

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na man im talking about 'string' theory and the stuff they trying to prove with the particle accelerator... your every day stuff works because we can prove it...

 

[Fordkoppie]

the main reason why cars are getting heavier is because if two cars hit each other the heavier one will come out better and with so many suvs over seas they had to do something to make cars safe from the suv menace...

thats what i said :thinking:

but there are other ways also the smart uses foam to make the crumple zones smaller but this will still be ineffective till cars start getting lighter again because it will still be crushed by a heavier car...

---

na man im talking about 'string' theory and the stuff they trying to prove with the particle accelerator... your every day stuff works because we can prove it...

---

I was typing that while doing some other stuff as well.:hammerhead:
Didnt see your post.:mmm:

 

[moranor@axis]

ive also seen they experimenting with aluminium foam this stuff is awesome of absorbing impact ans is way lighter than what is currently being used so there is hope

 

[Matt Q]

Fuck safety, I want performance.. I resent the fact that some grey little limp dick pencil pusher decides that I need to be safer and therefore decides that my car needs ABS, DSC, ESP etc etc ... just give me a V8 and some LSD!!!

 

[rick540]

This inertia debate is missing something.

Larger cars have proportionately larger crumple zones, I'm sure the manufacturers thought about this inertia thing beforehand.

Now a large car hitting a small car (heavyweight crumple zone Vs a lightweight crumple zone taking the energy stored and then dissipated into account)

In this scenario, the large car crumple zone will still be absorbing energy when the small car crumple zone has been "used up" and the large car will then begin transferring some of it's own kinnetic energy to the smaller car thereby fully fscking it up.

This is why one doesn't play chicken with 18 wheeler trucks, we all know what happens, the one with the significantly larger kinetic energy wins outright.

Maybe I'm talking utter S&^%t but I personally prefer driving a bigger car even with the performance loss

 

[moranor@axis]

the problem is if a heavy object hits a lighter object the lighter one bounces off this rebound can cause alot of damage to the people inside the car... the same can be said if a car hits something solid and bounces off... the heavier car will do better because it bounces less...

a car with good crumple zones will absorb more energy before the bounce happens so if the crumple zones are good the car can be lighter and just as safe...