10 Techno-Cool Cars

mrv writes "The IEEE Spectrum picks their '10 Techno-Cool Cars'. The article picks vehicles from the 2003 or upcoming model years, that feature significant jumps in performance, convenience, or comfort, are technologically bold, and otherwise cool (for engineers, not just the 'motorhead' type)."

Where is the Honda S2000

[Squeezer]

It puts out more horsepower per liter then any other naturally aspirated engine in production (120 HP/L, 240HP total) and revs to 9000 RPM. Does the quarter mile in 13.8 seconds stock, and handles better then most cars on the road.

Why is it not mentioned in the article?

Vrroomm

[Anonymous Coward]

With separate bubbles for the kids!

America Under-represented

[Scott Hussey]

Doesn't speak well for American engineering. Mostly European and Japanese makes it looks like. Maybe when GM gets their fuel-cell cars in production, America will look a little more updated. Or maybe the Ford Model U [autoguide.ee].

No WinCE

[Dynedain]

Glad to see that the BMW-Windows hybrid is NOT on the list....showing these guys are impressed by well thought out, practical solutions, not gimmicks and gadgets

No RX8?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man that just ticks me off that they are not putting the RX8 in there. I mean the Rotary engine is coming back and it is suppose to be pretty nice with the RX8. These engines are amazing....why not point that car out?

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[panurge]

Because there is nothing technically interesting in high output high rev gasoline engines. That's just development, putting well established racing technology on the road unlike the cars in the article which have genuinely new technology, at least for cars.

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[binaryDigit]

Well as cool as the S2000 and Enzo are, they either are just very refined (S2000) or are priced in such a way that most people will never benefit from their hi tech (Enzo).

There really isn't anything all that groundbreaking tech wise with the S2000. Honda just paid a lot of attention to detail and applied what their extensive engine know-how to create a very highly tuned motor mated to a firm and responsive chassis. Hardly hitech, but definitely way cool from a gear head point of view.

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[flewp]

Actually, cars WILL benefit from technology on the high tech cars. Sequential gearboxes are starting to make their way onto more accessible (in terms of price) cars. Basically it's a trickle down effect in a way. Also, what allows the S2000 to be refined? Technology and engineering.

Brake by wire? Sounds horrid.

[sulli]

The usual hydraulically controlled brakes are no longer prime; the brake pedal you push is like a mouse click to a computer.

So when the computer crashes, so do you? No thanks.

thoughts

[oyenstikker]

1.) Smokey Diesels.
Diesels do not have a history of being smokey. 1 diesel engine, the 70s GM diesel V-8. It was an America only engine. EU doesn't have a problem with diesels.

2.) 8/4 Cylinders.
Lets hope it fares better than GMs infamaous 8-6-4 of the 80s.

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[binaryDigit]

Actually, cars WILL benefit from technology on the high tech cars.

Right, but if you notice the cars they chose are all geared toward the general consumer, vs 200 unit annual run more expensive than the average house (excepting Bay Area) type vehicles.

Also, what allows the S2000 to be refined? Technology and engineering.

Right, but nothing ground breaking. That's what makes the S2000 so damn cool. It doesn't rely on massive amounts of high tech "drivers aids" to get at its performance. It's just tried and true automobile engineering taken to a very high level.

These cars

[SlashdotTroll]

...all these cars have PUSSY written all over them.

These cars couldn't even push themselves out of a wet paper bag!

Re:America Under-represented

[SoCalChris]

Volvo Safety Concept Car - Volvo is owned by Ford
Saab 9-3 - Saab is owned by General Motors
Honda Civic GX - I'm pretty sure that Honda has a design studio in California
Honda FCX - See above
Cadillac XLR - Owned by General Motors
Audi A8
Mercedes-Benz SL500
Fiat Stilo
Chevrolet Trailblazer - Owned by General Motors
Toyota Prius

So, in review four of the 10 cars are American, and two of them were probably designed in America. That's not bad considering that most of the "high end" cars that you would expect to see on a list like this such as Mercedes, Audi, Lexus etc... aren't American.

Fuel efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that only the Asian car-makers are the only ones making any effort to reduce their cars' fuel-intake? Why are only Asian car-makers selling hybrids? Where is the competition in the other parts of the world, particularly the US? There's at least the Fiat from Europe in that list, but none of the US brand cars seem to make any headway in this area, and don't even seem to make any effort.

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[DavittJPotter]

It just makes me laugh when people talk about 'penis envy' or 'penis replacement' when someone has a sports car/high horsepower car. Get over yourselves and your own shortcomings.

Building or owning a high-performance/high-horsepower car is for most people, a fun and rewarding hobby. You own something a small percentage of the population 'gets' or understands. Dropping the hammer on a 500hp Camaro or Mustang is an adrenaline-pumping experience. So is being the passenger, for that matter!

Let me put in geek speak: Do you really need a GeForce4 4600Ti for your video games? Really? And an overclocked Pentium 4 2.4 GHz? 1GB of RAM? No, you really don't. You may step in here and tell me about 'frame rate' and 'playability', etc., etc., but I'll put it this way. If you want more and more framerates, that's your power/speed addiction. Yeah, a freakin' VW Bug will get you there, but a Corvette will get you there in style and with some fun along the way.

Most of us don't drive our high-performance/high-horsepower cars daily - they're too expensive, and we don't want the speeding tickets and wear & tear.

Talking about a car as a penile replacement is stupid. Yeah, I've seen the Corvette/BMW/Mercedes owners that think they're God's gift, but most people just like a cool car that they find fun/sexy/exciting/good looking.

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[Kysh]

The Honda CBR600F4 and Yamaha R6 both produce
120hp at the crank, for 200hp per liter. They are
both normally aspirated, water cooled engines, which
rev to 14500 and 15000 rpm respectively. They both
do the 1/4 mile in around 10.80.

Yes, I know this article was about cars, but your
'more horsepower per liter then [sic] any other
naturally [sic] aspirated engine in production'
needed refutation.

Re:Chevrolet Trailblazer: Four or eight cylinders

[Anonymous Coward]

I had one of those abominations. It was called an V-8-6-4, or at least that's what the metal logo on the side of the car said. It was truly horrible. I think the V8, like most American made ones at the time, had about 120 HP. I know that doesn't sound like much now, but the same model year Corvette only had 160 HP. The biggest problem with the car was lack of power despite the claimed rated power. I think it was rated at about 13 seconds to 60 MPH. In real life, it took about 20! I didn't time it, but running off of four cylinders I think it was somewhere around 30 seconds to 60. I had a four cylinder Regal from the same year that only had (if I remember correctly) 70 HP, and it was faster to 60 than the 8-6-4.

The next problem was spark plug fouling. Because two or four (depending on the load) of the cylinders don't always fire, they don't stay hot enough to burn the oil off of the plugs. After the plug gets covered with oil, it doesn't fire so it can't ever get hot enough to fire again without removing it and cleaning it by hand. Fortunately under the hood, it wasn't cluttered at all and changing plugs was a 10 minute operation. The new Trailblazer also has this problem, but changing the plugs is about an hour long operation in the new ones since you have to remove other parts to get to the plugs. As far as I know, all most all of the complaints about the engine only running on four cylinders was due to plug fouling.

The other problem, and this made the plug fouling worse, is that oil was sucked past the rings by the low pressure in the cylinders that aren't firing. Until I disabled the 8-6-4, I had to put a quart of oil in the car about every 250 miles! Lotus has a new system that changes the exhaust valve timing to keep the pressure in the unused cylinders high, so you don't end-up sucking oil from the crankcase into the cylinder. The new Chevy engine has no means of dealing with the problem.

After disabling the 8-6-4 crap, I got just over 24 MPG on the interstate. I don't know why GM thought it had to get better mileage than that. I replace it with a new Honda Accord. The Honda got no better gas mileage than the Cadillac, and I literally spent more than I paid for the in repairs the five years I had it. If the Caddy just hadn't been so slow, it wouldn't have been a bad car.z

Re:Where is the Honda S2000

[Black Rabbit]

Car size is very much related to gas prices. That's why GM, being the money grubbing scum-fucks that they are, tried to get away with putting those horrendous Diesels in their full sized cars in the early 80's, engines that were basically 350 gas motors with cheap Diesel heads on them. Didn't work worth a damn, and Diesel in North America still suffers from the bad image that these engines produced.

Re:America Under-represented

[Moofie]

Uh, somebody bought it, from SAAB, in the first place, right?

SAAB doesn't care about resale values.