2009 Corvette - May be the begining of the end of Proformance cars

[TruckDriver]

Guess they want to kill any competition from the Challenger & Mustang in the process. Or stir it up...   

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Most-Emailed-Photos/ss/1756/im:/071220/480/d4b3c53dbbba43f58fc8e8a7c6499b4e

"This image provided by General Motors Corporation shows the 2009 Corvette ZR1, the fastest, most powerful automobile ever produced by General Motors Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan. The Corvette ZR1 features an all-new LS9 supercharged 6.2L V-8 engine targeted to produce 620 horsepower and approximately 595 lb.-ft. of torque. The ZR1 is expected to be the first production Corvette to achieve a top speed of at least 200 mph. The Corvette's chief engineer, Tadge Juechter , says the 2009 Corvette ZR1 may be the last in a long tradition of Detroit performance cars, endangered by stronger federal fuel economy regulations and limits on carbon dioxide emissions."

[RD]

man that looks cool....

oh, they will just switch LPG to get lower emissions LOL

[MichaelRW]

That is one Vette I would really like to have. Too bad they are going to be over$100,000. Looks like B5 blue.

[Arthu®]

I don't believe it will be the end of performance cars. Man has ben inventive enough to go from the 1hp 1 cylinder pertrol engined cars to the 1,001bhp bugatti's for example, we should be inventive enough to make the "new" powers go fast as well. It's just a matter of time.

Arthur

[Mike DC]

Our gov't is eventually gonna make all cars & trucks cost as much as a cheap house rather than just raise the price of gas a few bucks. 

 

[MichaelRW]

Our gov't is eventually gonna make all cars & trucks cost as much as a cheap house rather than just raise the price of gas a few bucks. 

 

I'm not getting into a whether it's right or wrong but government mandates regarding automobiles have substantially raised the price of cars. Example: I bought a pristine 1966 Corvette in 1968 for $3000. The inflation calculator puts $3000 in today's dollars at about $17.500. Try to buy a 2 year old pristine Corvette for that.

[Mike DC]

 
Yeah, that's exactly my point.  The prices of cars just keep climbing with no end in sight, and it's mileage concerns pushing a lot of the changes. 

Not to mention the fact that it takes several thousand dollars to fix the damage from a walking-speed bump now, even with a lot of TRUCKS.  IMO there is no sanity in that situation whatsoever.

 

[1969chargerrtse]

  Ever see a slot car take off on a track?  Tires spinning all over the place.  Electric cars are the future, absolutely 100% quarentteed.  The Tesla sportscar that just came out can do the 1/4 mile in 4 seconds.  This is new technology for the time and were already at 4 seconds.  Look what it took from the Model A to now, with piston motors?  The Chevy volt is due in just 2 years, get ready for a whole new world of cars, and you can bet they will be fast, very fast, just like your saber saw.    Oh, and the vette, let's be very proud.  USA made and the best bang for the buck at any price they put on it.

[73chgrSE]

I'ld rather have a viper.

[1969chargerrtse]

I'ld rather have a viper.

Oh yea, there's that animal also.  Good point.

[hemihead]

Chevy is STILL trying to break the Viper track records. 

[Daytona R/T SE]

  Ever see a slot car take off on a track?  Tires spinning all over the place.  Electric cars are the future, absolutely 100% quarentteed.

Yep! It's gonna be all fun and games .....until you get to the end of the cord 

[Mike DC]

I really doubt electric cars will make it in the foreseeable future.   


Compare the amount of space & weight & harmful chemicals that it takes to crank a car engine for 30 seconds:  It takes barely a teaspoon full of liquid gasoline, or a 40-pound lead/acid battery the size of a lunch box.

We basically can't store electricity worth a crap despite 100 years of working on the problem. 




And that doesn't even address the issue of "Evergy recovered versus energy invested." 

Fossil fuels come right out of the ground fully charged-up.  We just filter out the worst of the impurities and then light it up.  It's basically free power.  Whereas electricity is only a storage medium.  Electric cars are just switching to a few HUGE smokestacks at the power plant instead of a million little smokestacks on the cars.  It doesn't clean up the environment and it doesn't even give us the power cheaply. 


 

[Ghoste]

It makes all the armchair environmentalists (read politicians and the general public who only know about the topic what they read in the daily news) feel all warm and fuzzy.  Kind of like hugging a plastic tree.

[1969chargerrtse]

I really doubt electric cars will make it in the foreseeable future.   


Compare the amount of space & weight & harmful chemicals that it takes to crank a car engine for 30 seconds:  It takes barely a teaspoon full of liquid gasoline, or a 40-pound lead/acid battery the size of a lunch box.

We basically can't store electricity worth a crap despite 100 years of working on the problem. 




And that doesn't even address the issue of "Evergy recovered versus energy invested." 

Fossil fuels come right out of the ground fully charged-up.  We just filter out the worst of the impurities and then light it up.  It's basically free power.  Whereas electricity is only a storage medium.  Electric cars are just switching to a few HUGE smokestacks at the power plant instead of a million little smokestacks on the cars.  It doesn't clean up the environment and it doesn't even give us the power cheaply. 


 

Totally disagree.  Hydrogen cars are not only on the way, they are here.  Honda's hydrogen FCX is due next year as a regular production car.  They are building Hydrogen stations as we speak.  Florida got it's first one this year CA has at least 17 , last count.  " Increasing the number of convenient hydrogen refueling options is one of the last remaining hurdles to widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles. Honda took a proactive approach to this challenge, and our research and development in this area is ongoing. "
  Hydrogen/electric cars are a snap, it was the infrastructure of the stations that has been the issue, and that issue is being solved.  They have already leased out quite a few FCX's and the people love them.   GM's Volt will be a plug in electric car and have a gas generator for back up.  That car is in production as I type, and GM needs that car big time.  As for battery powered cars,  they are working 24/7 to build the best long lasting/powerful batteries of the future.  Electric cars are already here, once the ball started with hybrids it was just a  matter of time.   Discovery channel did a whole show on them, and the research and money invested will be well worth it.  GM had what they called "Platform cars"  They built a platform all electric, you drop on the shell, sports car, van whatever.  Same platform, different body.  Hydrogen cars have a cell that takes Hydrogen and converts it to electricity,  We won't be needing oil from people that want to kill us anymore, thats a good thing.

Go here for lots of future car info.                           http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

It's not even a question?  They are here.  Read about fuel cells, very interesting site.

FCX Clarity is powered by an electric motor. The car you drove to
work today is probably powered by an engine. The big
difference is that the motor in the FCX Clarity gets its
energy from electricity, instead of from gasoline like most
cars today. So while the FCX Clarity has the power of an engine,
it also offers the uniquely clean, quiet ride of a motor.

The distinctive, streamlined design of the FCX Clarity is possible because the compact Honda– developed V Flow fuel cell stack and other powertrain components are distributed evenly throughout the vehicle. Auxiliary regenerated energy is supplied by a lithium-ion battery pack, increasing the vehicle's efficiency and range.

All of the advanced components in the FCX Clarity have been fine-tuned for ultimate performance in this Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) of the very near future.



Tesla 0 to 60  4second roadster.  Which uses something like 6,000 laptop type batteries, for power and goes up to 250  MPCharge

Tesla Motors chairman is Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, making billions there. Besides trying to launch the first commercial space rocket, he also founded Tesla Motors in the interest of producing electric cars.

In his post yesterday on the corporate blog, he tells us Tesla expects to begin Roadster production in earnest in the Spring of 2008. In case you don't know, the Roadster is a two-seater sports car with about 250 miles range per charge.

He also assures potential customers that their plan to build a $50,000 sedan is still a go and that the car will be unveiled in the first half of next year. He notes they plan to build 10,000 of these "model 2's" per year, whereas the $100,000 Roadster will be built at a rate of 2000 units per year.

Musk goes on further to note a 3rd even less expensive model will follow. He confirms that Tesla too plans to build an REEV (as opposed to GMs term E-REV) for "range-extended electric vehicle", and mentions Tesla will eventually go IPO.

Will they be able to rise up and compete with the General? I don't know, but at least they are based in the U.S.A.

[TruckDriver]

There are a few county's here that been using Propane now for years to power there cars and trucks. Schwan's http://www.schwans.com/ Has been using propane powered delivery trucks for a long time now too. And we all know a lot of forklifts are propane powered. So, I can see that happening too.

[Rolling_Thunder]

I'ld rather have a viper.

having driven both a Viper and a Z06 vette...    I'de have to take the vette...   

[TheGhost]

  Ever see a slot car take off on a track?  Tires spinning all over the place.  Electric cars are the future, absolutely 100% quarentteed.

And with your little electric engine, you get the oh so awesome buzzing sound to go along with your dramitically decreased driving range.


I'll stick to my gas guzzling V-8s, thank you very much.

[1969chargerrtse]

Just telling ya where it looks the future of car power is going, or coming from.  Last year GM gave the US Army it's first full size Hydrogen pickup for use.  Get ready for fast 4 wheel tire spinning, quiet fun.  I'm sure Ford and Chrsyler have things long in the works.  Mercedes has been using hydrogen test cars for years.  Merry Christmas, it's a coming.  The Chevy volt is super cool, I think it's going to go over real big.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/


Understatement of the year with electric cars (from the Volt ad)   "Off-the-line torque is instantaneous, giving you responsive acceleration"

[68charger383]

After seeing the price of gas go up and the crack down on CAFE ratings etc. I often think if right now is like the late 60s/early 70s and our1974 is only a few years off.

Better get my Challenger pretty soon before I miss the boat! 

[Mike DC]

   
Hydrogen cars?

Umm . . . that pretty much makes my point back there. 

Hydrogen is another form of chemical storage in the form of another combustible liquid, rather than electrical batteries.  Just like fossil fuels. 




But it suffers from exactly the same problems as electrical cars in the larger sense:  It's a storage medium, not a power source. 

Where do we get a cheap huge source of hydrogen?  Nowhere on earth because hydrogen bonds to damn near anything.  Every way we get (huge amounts of) hydrogen is to do some work (read: use energy) to get the hydrogen out of something else that's abundant.  We're still doing the work (burning a lot of coal among other things) to EARN the power that we get from Hydrogen.  We're essentially doing nothing to get energy from fossil fuels right now. 

So unless sombody discovers cold fusion tomorrow, there's no way in hell that hydrogen is ever gonna be anything like as cheap as fossil fuels still are.  The only way it would happen is to subsidize the living sh*t out of hydrogen production, and just move the huge power bill to somewhere else in the economy. 

   
 

[mally69]

No matter what they make now a days I still would rather have an old muscle car ( charger)   than anything new. All the new cars just DON"T have the awesome mean looks and the older cars in my mind just sound so much better.  No new car compensates for the older muscle cars no matter how much more power they make. And they can just keep their expensive price tags becuase that doesn't impress me either..     Yea they are nice looking , don't get me wrong.... just not to my liking is all...

[1969chargerrtse]

   
Hydrogen cars?

Umm . . . that pretty much makes my point back there. 

Hydrogen is another form of chemical storage in the form of another combustible liquid, rather than electrical batteries.  Just like fossil fuels. 




But it suffers from exactly the same problems as electrical cars in the larger sense:  It's a storage medium, not a power source. 

Where do we get a cheap huge source of hydrogen?  Nowhere on earth because hydrogen bonds to damn near anything.  Every way we get (huge amounts of) hydrogen is to do some work (read: use energy) to get the hydrogen out of something else that's abundant.  We're still doing the work (burning a lot of coal among other things) to EARN the power that we get from Hydrogen.  We're essentially doing nothing to get energy from fossil fuels right now. 

So unless somebody discovers cold fusion tomorrow, there's no way in hell that hydrogen is ever gonna be anything like as cheap as fossil fuels still are.  The only way it would happen is to subsidize the living sh*t out of hydrogen production, and just move the huge power bill to somewhere else in the economy. 

   
 

I don't want to have to dig up reference material I've read, so I won't (to tired), but there was a fuel comparison chart of all the sources we know of today and what it cost per mile.  Electric cars were the cheapest. Hydrogen cost more than Gasoline but got 3 times the mileage out of it.  No matter what we think  or know, Billions have been invested in a Hydrogen future, Hydrogen is everywhere, staions are all ready producing it.  This is something long thought out before building the car.   Let hundreds of years pass before judgement as we have done with fossil fuel cars, and were are we with them? Getting screwed by people that want us dead, because were not like them.  It's here, it's coming, and I think it's awesome.  It'll just make me appreciate my rumbling Charger even more.  Who knows a Hydrogen future could drop gas prices big time?

[89MOPAR]

Natural gas should be looked at more. This country has loads of it, in lots of places.

All I'm gonna say is - buy stocks in your local power company now.

  If you think your electric bill is high now, wait until there are electric cars all over the place.

[FJMG]

I find it amazing that many more people aren't questioning the touted fuel economy improvements of anything today? My old 1984 ford tempo with a 2.3l overhead valve, carbureted 4 cyl. gets 450 highway miles on 8 gal. of gas, regularly, and it has over 200,000 miles on it and has never even had the carb off! My wife's 98 saturn can barely get that! (Ford even made a diesel version of the tempo that goes an extra 100miles) Now they want me to spend way more money on a new hybrid or electric with 6000 batteries (I can't get my cell phone bat to last 2 yrs so I guess I'll replace 6000 bat at 100$ a pop??)
     Talk about batteries I'm sure there are members on this board who have been in construction for the past 30 yrs. Remember when cordless drills first came out? Why is it that the first drills were a couple hundred bucks, 9.6 volt and the batteries lasted 6-10 yrs. Now the so-called  top end 300$ drills only last 2 yrs or less under the same use? I have gone through 8 drills (various so-called top-end drills) in the last ten yrs. These salesmen keep talking us into the next big thing in cordless battery technology and we keep getting disappointed.
    Having said that, I have heard of the new (2yrs ago) nano-technology in battery charging but this only addresses charging times.