Wing mirrors on cars

I've crossed the ECML by a footpath just north of Northallerton station. I think there was a central refuge so you crossed two lines and then had somewhere to wait while you checked the next two lines.

The worst footpath crossing I've done was on the line in Hampshire between Basingstoke and Andover, probably near Overton - roughly the area where Richard Adams described a train colliding with rabbits in Watership Down - and that was up an embankment with a curve close by. I stopped and checked, could hear no singing rails so I crossed. I had just started down the other side of the embankment when a train passed behind me - probably no more than

Perhaps gaps at a nearby rail join stopped the sound being transmitted? Just a guess, probably wrong.

It seems that Europeans are simply reluctant. Mostly, it seems to be worries automatics aren't for real men or some stuff about not having control, such as:-

And there is no better way of doing it than a torque converter. The DSG you want to try still has a conventional clutch but, in essence, has a very complicated way of simulating a simple centrifugal mechanism.

Stop overthinking. All you're doing is changing the amount of noise being produced.

There is no "unexpected surge of power". Power is related to how much you push down on the pedal.

Then buy a car with a quieter engine or turn the radio up.

I've never driven a DSG but the idea seems flawed. It has the cachet that it was developed for racing and is made by Germans... so it must be good.

It is notable that the market for DSGs has not taken root outside Europe. The rest of the world still likes the smoothing effect of a torque converter. I have heard a rumour that Ford are dropping DSG.

An ICE with clutch and gearbox can develop torque from stationary up to some maximum speed... The Leaf motor produces flat torque only up to about 27mph so at the wheels is little different to an ICE system - other than for lack of noise and faff.

The problem is that people look at the engine in isolation, forgetting that is just one component in a drivetrain of three significant parts (engine, clutch, gearbox).

Manuals are far better on a hill descent where you can let the engine do the braking. With an auto you either have to sit on the brakes or if it does have an option to change down manually you still have to worry about over heating the torque converter.

Not really , its an automated manual.

And what gear the car is in.

I suggest you try driving one then. Nothing changes gear faster.

Ford are a joke. They sold off JLR which Tata (hardly a high tech car maker) managed to turn into a massive source of profit, yet those utter dolts in Detroit decided it would be better to grab the cash and concentrate on the pile of s**te they sell as their core product.

Yes, but not maximum torque and thats the point. An ICE has to wind itself up to its max torque peak and that takes a non zero amount of time. An electric motor provides max torque the instant you hit the throttle.

And with an electric can you can bin the last 2 on that list, though there is an argument for 2 or 3 gears for sports electrics or ones that need to tow heavy loads.

Or, less arrogantly, disinterested.

Tosh.

JWS is a troll and can safely be killfiled and ignored.

It's more efficient than a slush-box.

Or they are simply ignorant and slushboxes are cheaper to make.

On Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:44:10 -0000, Tekkie=AE wrote= :

No, that's when you scrape the side of your tyre off the kerb to find it= . Mind you, I've found a garage that gives a no quibble warranty on the= ir tyres. If they puncture before the end of the tread life, you get it= repaired or replaced free of charge, no matter why it got into that sta= te.

-- =

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

Superhuman? More like able to pass their driving test. If you can't wo= rk out where the corner of your car is you shouldn't be driving.

-- =

Japanese scientists have created a camera with a shutter speed so fast, = they can now photograph a woman with her mouth shut.

On Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:44:10 -0000, Tekkie=AE wrote= :

No, that's when you scrape the side of your tyre off the kerb to find it= . Mind you, I've found a garage that gives a no quibble warranty on the= ir tyres. If they puncture before the end of the tread life, you get it= repaired or replaced free of charge, no matter why it got into that sta= te.

-- =

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

On Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:44:10 -0000, Tekkie=AE wrote= :

No, that's when you scrape the side of your tyre off the kerb to find it= . Mind you, I've found a garage that gives a no quibble warranty on the= ir tyres. If they puncture before the end of the tread life, you get it= repaired or replaced free of charge, no matter why it got into that sta= te.

-- =

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

I was talking about the clutch. You are talking about the gearbox. Yes, DSG is a pair of automated manuals.

Not for the most part, other than when the revs are such that the engine can't physically produce the power you're asking for. For a throttled engine, power is proportional to airflow and the throttle controls airflow. For constant throttle, volumetric efficiency changes with speed change.

For a diesel, the pedal controls injector duty cycle (power). Change revs, the injectors operate at a different frequency but the duty cycle remains the same.

If it did not work in that way, an automatic would lurch on every shift unless the driver made a synchronised pedal movement.

Why should its fast shifts be better than the sufficiently fast shifts of an epicyclic? When the main thing, whatever the transmission technology, is to make decent decisions about when the shift occurs.

I don't see your connection. Are you trying to suggest that if they made one bad decision another completely unrelated one must also be bad?

Of course it can. If you don't mind cooking the clutch you can get maximum torque at zero speed. Stop looking at the engine in isolation and consider the complete drive train.

A throttle is something else an electric motor doesn't have... (*)

I also bet that electric cars are configured so the motor doesn't produce maximum torque at zero speed. Same problem as a clutch - it will get hot. Also, it is zero efficiency so wastes electricity; and the gearing is such that it would spin the wheels.

(*) A car, as far as the driver is concerned, has an accelerator pedal. I don't understand why we have the historic term "throttle". Furthermore, "full throttle" (for cars that have one) is when the foot is completely *off* the accelerator.

I doubt a train is damaged much by a person, so no harm done to the innocent.

Isn't the big advantage of electric vehicles that you have one fixed ratio (which may be direct drive) and all the "gearing" is done by changing the windings in use and/or the frequency and mark:space ratio of the driving current, so you don't have a) the cost/size/weight and b) the discontinuity of traction and step-function change of torque at the wheels for same torque at engine that a multi-ratio gearbox causes?

Electric trains have a fixed motor-wheel gearing (not sure whether it's typically direct drive) and there's no *mechanical* change of gear, even though with some trains such as Class 465 you can hear a rising-note "singing" from the motors which notches back and rises again several times during acceleration - presumably as a variable frequency supply is fed to different windings on synchronous motors.

Do electric cars not use the same arrangement: variable frequency inverters, sync motors and different windings brought into play?

Trains cannot go round really tight bends, especially not at high speed. So unless you're hobbling at 0.5mph, you can get across easily. Take responsibility for your own safety and stop trying to blame others. Are you an American or something?

Tbh there shouldn't be any trains at all. They're unfit for purpose. The land used for them is left empty 99.9% of th time, they have insufficient brakes to avoid a collision, they use more fuel per person than a car, they cost more to travel on than a car, just why do we have them?

Oh, I think it is a more active resistance than that.

It's an opinion.

That's true, but he didn't write that.

Not enough to matter.

Ignorant of what, exactly? That slushboxes aren't smoother? Most car buyers are ignorant (and I doubt it has national boundaries) but opinions matter and manufacturers have to follow the money. I would be very surprised if a slushbox was cheaper to make.

So the next Labour government can nationalise them, of course.

Indeed :-/

See if I email this to my friend, how do you expect to get your ten quid?

I make a dispensation in your favour, as an individual, so do whatever you wish on this occasion with my blessing.

I have a filter to delete anyone using the followup header. Followups are for trolling. Although it doesn't catch people who just delete a group from the list.

I (in Opera) set the filter: "If any header contains "Followup-To"" then delete.