Have VAG totally lost the plot?

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Have VAG totally lost the plot?

and would give near 50mpg on motorway runs.
but near is not 50mpg, these modern 1.4 petrol cars with the same power as your old 1.8 will do 50 to the gallon all day every day and not just on a motorway run.

They also chuck way less crap out the exhaust pipe, it’s not just about CO2 or even other gasses, but I can bet there was a lot more unburnt fuel in the tail pipe of your old Audi than any modern euro 6 car.

Now sitting in traffic today, you might not really notice what’s coming out of the exhaust of a 20 year old car. But if you ever find yourself stuck behind a 80s car you’ll know you’re behind it, even if it’s 10-20 cars in front you’ll smell the fumes. Now imagine that difference between the 80s and say the early 2000 and then apply that difference again between something built in 2002 and something new on the road today.

Things haven’t improved “slightly” they’ve come on leaps and bounds in the last 20-40 years. I remember walking to school on a cold morning in the 80s in a soup of exhaust fumes, you could taste the petrol in the air. This is why we need to keep improving these things especially as the number of cars on the road keeps getting bigger.

I know people moan about were electric cars get their power from but honestly a coal fired power station out in the countryside miles from anything venting it’s fumes 200 feet in the air via a air scrubbing flue, is still a million times better for people’s health than tens of thousands of cars venting those fumes in your street.

Recently the council near us has been doing a lot of road works causing big tail backs through our town and while we live set back from the main road, we’re still close enough that when I open the door in the morning to get the milk in, you can cut the fumes with a knife some mornings
 
The 1.8..with less power and torque than a 1.0 in the modern era.
I wasn't meaning that 1.8 was powerful, was just a comparison of how the advances in audi end up with the same power as the basic A3.
 
I wasn't meaning that 1.8 was powerful, was just a comparison of how the advances in audi end up with the same power as the basic A3.
Same power with greater economy and better driveability would be an advance though.

While I'm not over enamoured with the modern era of engine design they do have genuine advances in most things except "can I fix it with a hammer?".

Having had one of the new style engines for years I think they work in the correct context. Which is when fitted to a car they can move around quite happily off boost. They are very capable of delivering catastrophic economy if you are constantly boosting hard..so in a heavy car I'd not want one for both longevity and costs but in something small and light that it doesn't have to be rung out in they work well.
 
The good old days, and we're still alive!!
We are yes or we wouldn't be having this conversation but plenty are not.

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/60/12/1035

for those of you who do not want to read the whole thing. In 1968 50 children per 100,000 were dying from respiratory illness.

In 2000 this had dropped to 16.3 children per 100,000 This is only one study

The WHO did a study they published in 2014, that one in every 8 deaths every year in the world could be directly linked to air pollution and respiratory illness.

I don't think inhaling aerosolized petrol droplets as a child probably did me any good. I don't think you can claim it didn't do me any harm, given the problems I get with my lungs these days if I get any infection/cough or cold.
 
I dont think you can put all of that on cars, heavy industry has been decimated over the same period, same with all the power generation - both much more significant factors in air pollution.

Stats can always be manipulated to say what you want, like I bet people die every time you leave the house, doesn't mean you are the cause, or hospital are really dangerous as more people die there than anywhere else.
I'm not a climate change denier, but I do believe they are all severely twisting the facts for their own agendas (financial, distraction, whatever, take your pick).
 
Well I think we can be sure that in the future there will be studies and statistics that:

o EMF (electromagnet fields) and other radiations from electric vehicle do harm
o Quieter electric vehicles cause more pedestrian casualties
o Eletectic vehicles result in more technician deaths (electrocution)

On a different safety take......

We have seen that some people have driven off with the fuel filler still attached to the car.

Is it possible to drive off in an electric vehicle with the charge cable still attached? I would think that attemtping to do so would be more likely compared to fuel filling. With fuel filling you have to attend to the pump. With electric charging you pull up, plug in and go for a coffee for 20 minutes and come back in a hurry to get away quickly and make up lost time :)
 
Is it possible to drive off in an electric vehicle with the charge cable still attached? I would think that attemtping to do so would be more likely compared to fuel filling. With fuel filling you have to attend to the pump. With electric charging you pull up, plug in and go for a coffee for 20 minutes and come back in a hurry to get away quickly and make up lost time :)
I don't think there is any EV that will allow you to to take it out of Park if a charge cable is connected.
You're more likely to have a faulty charge connector refusing to allow the car to move than being able to drive off with cable attached
 
I dont think you can put all of that on cars, heavy industry has been decimated over the same period, same with all the power generation - both much more significant factors in air pollution.

Stats can always be manipulated to say what you want, like I bet people die every time you leave the house, doesn't mean you are the cause, or hospital are really dangerous as more people die there than anywhere else.
I'm not a climate change denier, but I do believe they are all severely twisting the facts for their own agendas (financial, distraction, whatever, take your pick).
No one is putting this specifically down to only cars, but it would remiss for anyone to think that vehicle emissions do not make up a massive portion of the pollutants that lead to this.

Pollution is still responsible for 30,000+ deaths in the UK every year.
Almost all industries with big chimney stacks bellowing out smoke have disappeared from the UK now.
What do remain tend to be things like coal and gas fired power stations which are no where near high density urban areas like city centers.
Yes consideration has to be given to domestic heating systems, like gas boilers, but that pollution goes down in summer. Vehicles do account for 35% of NOX in the air and 27% of all the pollution in the UK comes from road vehicles.

hence why If you look at detailed pollution maps you can see lovely clear red lines following the motorways and joining up the big red blobs which are city centers and towns.

Nobody is Manipulating the data to make cars seem like they cause pollution when they don't. You don't need to be a genius to know inhaling the exhaust directly from the tail pipe of any car isn't a sensible thing to do.
 
Well I think we can be sure that in the future there will be studies and statistics that:
o Quieter electric vehicles cause more pedestrian casualties
o Eletectic vehicles result in more technician deaths (electrocution
I think this is a very real problem. In fact push bikes can be just as much of a menace - if perhaps less lethal. With all the new cycle paths being layed down in Edinburgh now, especially the ones on the pavements in Leith Walk - google it, it's so ridiculous you've got to laugh at it! - as part of the redevelopement around the trams and the ones along the old railway walkways, I'd like to see all bikes compulsorily fitted with a wee noise maker so you know they're coming. Under these conditions, where cyclists and pedestrians are next to each other, Many cyclists go to fast and collisions have been occurring. This s only going to get worse as more cyclists use these new lanes.

Interesting one about the electrocution risk isn't it? Might be worth knowing, percentage wise, how many properly trained domestic electricians are electrocuted every year and comparing that, pro rata, with properly trained vehicle technicians? I'm sure there's going to be deaths among the DIY car guys once electric cars get old enough to be cheap enough for people to buy them who can't afford the workshop labour rates and try to "fix" it themselves.
 
Well I think we can be sure that in the future there will be studies and statistics that:

o EMF (electromagnet fields) and other radiations from electric vehicle do harm
Very unlikely the anti phone brigade had been trying to prove that since the early 90s.
There is some circumstantial evidence of people who live under very high voltage power lines getting illnesses, but I am not sure if those illnesses are any more prevalent than the rest of the population
o Quieter electric vehicles cause more pedestrian casualties
I think this is going to happen, or at least cars will have to emit some sort of noise at lower speeds while maneuvering to prevent people getting knocked down. I'm going to further suggest this is going to effect older people more than younger people.
Electric cars do emit (to me at least) a very audible high pitched electric hum especially when moving slowly in car parks, however I know my parents no in their 70's cannot hear it.
Many times I have watched younger people stop and wait for an electric car that an older person has seemingly not noticed.

o Eletectic vehicles result in more technician deaths (electrocution)
Again I think this will happen, whether it will cause a massive increase in death I am not sure but definitely a lot more injuries and burns.
Interesting one about the electrocution risk isn't it? Might be worth knowing, percentage wise, how many properly trained domestic electricians are electrocuted every year and comparing that, pro rata, with properly trained vehicle technicians? I'm sure there's going to be deaths among the DIY car guys once electric cars get old enough to be cheap enough for people to buy them who can't afford the workshop labour rates and try to "fix" it themselves.
Deaths through electrocution are surprisingly low in the UK, some data I found on office of national statistics suggest somewhere in the region of about 21-22 a year (based on data from 2001 - 2017.

My father in law owns an electrical contractors in Yorkshire, I worked 10 years as an electrical engineer for companies like FLUKE Electric shocks happen very frequently , but most go unreported as they don't do any harm at all. Electricians love sharing stories on how they have had their worst shock or the biggest bang they have witnessed, the most impressive story I heard was one of my old lecturers who was involved as an apprentice in the building of magnox nuclear power stations.

In my days at FLUKE we had one piece of calibration equipment we made, that contained a voltage multiplier to calibrate high voltage test equipment. This multiplier had 1000volts on the painful end and in my time there I took several belts off that device. it would sting for a bit but it had virtually no current behind it so wouldn't kill you.

An electric car battery is going to be relatively safe as its not a grounded circuit, isolated by the rubber tires, if you grab hold of a live wire, you're going to be live yourself but its not going to cause an issue unless you're complete the circuit by connecting yourself to the negative of the car battery. you'd likely be safe to even touch the shell of the car, as it would be a risk if just touching a battery wire and the shell would link you to potentially 700V+ on an electric car battery. I do not think they use the body of the car to ground the battery negative.

The main issues are going to come from people blindly cutting or drilling into high voltage wires. or more likely as the cars get older and some Muppet tries to weld a car without isolating the battery, I think fires will be a much bigger issue than electrocution.
 
Well my post was to open discussion and not say yeh or neh to any one item/issue. I think we are all mature enough to know that "there are issues" with just about everything in life.

I like @AndyRKett comment about HV and 1000V.

Been there but 300 or dare a say 600 times higher. During my industrial Training (1976/77) I worked at ******. More specifically on then state of the art HV solid state power supplies. 10kW @ 100kV and lower at power (300W?) at +300kV and -300kV.

I can now reveal to you all the real meaning of unrelived frustration and nerves on edge for days afterwards. Today this would not be allowed under Health and Safety regs.

You have a high volatage safety cage with the HV kit inside. The multiplier stacks (Cockcroft Walton) had a habbit of breakdown/flashowver. All over in and instant/flash with no real residual traces as to where and at what voltage the breakdown occured. Ozone sniffers did not help.

Enter the mug. Sit him on a chair ouside the cage with blackout blanket. Slowly ramp the voltage up whilst mug looks for corona or final discharge or loud bang. "Can you see anything?". "Can you hear anything". On and on till FLASH BANG! "Did you see it?". Not sure. "Let's run that again".

Absolute torture. You know what is going to happen, you don't know when, but you are expected to observe and report. Flash, bang and you are left frustrated with no relief. Walking away and beating hell out of a locker cupboard would not satisfy/relieve your frustration. I think I did suggest that this could be solved by connecting me to the flashover electrocution but this was considered potentially harmful.

Been screwed up ever since :)

 
All this health and safety weakens the gene pool, let darwinism take it's course :D
I work in the high voltage / power area, and working in the far east is very refreshing where common sense leads the way. Though india was terrifying, european typical people would probably end up dead there.
And try beijing for pollution, makes you realise scotland's pretty clear on the air quality.

And lets be honest, a fluke 1000v tester wouldn't killed anyone, no real power behind it, just makes you jump for being stupid.
 
All this health and safety weakens the gene pool, let darwinism take it's course :D
I work in the high voltage / power area, and working in the far east is very refreshing where common sense leads the way. Though india was terrifying, european typical people would probably end up dead there.
And try beijing for pollution, makes you realise scotland's pretty clear on the air quality.

And lets be honest, a fluke 1000v tester wouldn't killed anyone, no real power behind it, just makes you jump for being stupid.
I did fine electronics, I let people with hammers deal with anything higher powered.

being the only FLUKE factory in the uk we made the stuff China couldn’t in this case not a “tester” but a pure 1000v either ac or dc (down to I forget how many decimal places ) so you can plug a tester into it and be sure the tester was reading an accurate 1000v, yes bugger all current but 1000v DC does hurt I can assure you.
we made other devices that would give a fixed current or voltage level for use in Standards labs, a box about the size of a Sonos speaker with a connection for 1v or 10v down to ?12 decimal places I forget now but about £10k if you want one.
we also made all the comark stuff used in hospital Labs to monitor temperatures again needing to be highly accurate. And we made “probes” I hated that name, that virtually every car manufacturer in the world uses on production lines to check electrical systems while building their cars. BWM once uses some very interesting technology.

the problems with relying on common sense is i might see a job is dangerous and going to kill someone but they poor employee who doesn’t understand the dangers goes in and get killed then it’s it really there fault if the boss told them it was safe. though Really stupid stuff like not being allowed kettles in Hospitals because someone might scald them selves is a Darwin thing if you can’t use a kettle, you probably shouldn’t be working in a hospital
 
Hijacking this thread slightly but still in keeping with the tone of the title

I saw one of these on the road today 5A9E4599-092A-49E1-A8A9-6BA0C95A51C9.jpeg
I didn’t know the ID buzz was now out and about on the road but turns out you can now order one. I am very used to the prices of the very fancy transporter models they make but this is actually quite small not much bigger than the ID3 but it turns out these start at £55k and for anything other than the basic model about £63k, look on eBay and VW Dealers are selling their demo cars for over £70k.

I get that these are not a high volume car but even VW has to rely on selling some cars so these prices are insane, 20-25 years ago you could have a Ferrari for that money, or 10 years ago a high end merc or bmw now you can buy a family van, a people carrier at best
 
Hijacking this thread slightly but still in keeping with the tone of the title

I saw one of these on the road today View attachment 420457
I didn’t know the ID buzz was now out and about on the road but turns out you can now order one. I am very used to the prices of the very fancy transporter models they make but this is actually quite small not much bigger than the ID3 but it turns out these start at £55k and for anything other than the basic model about £63k, look on eBay and VW Dealers are selling their demo cars for over £70k.

I get that these are not a high volume car but even VW has to rely on selling some cars so these prices are insane, 20-25 years ago you could have a Ferrari for that money, or 10 years ago a high end merc or bmw now you can buy a family van, a people carrier at best
Don't worry ID2 is coming!

A car I feel like required the sabotaging of the current Polo/Golf just so people wouldn't go isn't that just a golf 7/polo whatever mk the previous one was..

ID 2all 1 front nose to left.jpg
 
I stopped at m.way services the other day


Elec charging bays were between the Building and the Disabled parking...

A guy was shouting into his phone as I passed.. attempting to charge a VW Transporter

Ten minutes later.. he was still shouting into the phone as he was being guided through..

Remove cable.. reset post.. re insert cable


After another 5 minutes we drove past.. with another 2 hours of petrol left..

And drove over a wheel locking key on our way... :)
 
Don't worry ID2 is coming!

A car I feel like required the sabotaging of the current Polo/Golf just so people wouldn't go isn't that just a golf 7/polo whatever mk the previous one was..

View attachment 420458
I saw this announcement the other day. I think the aim is to get this car in at £25k with another one planned for £22k. Electric car pricing has seen a massive jump in what's being charged for otherwise quite dull and boring cars.

Its not that long ago a small car was sub £10k and a medium sized car was sub £15k, now the likes of a focus or golf are £30K plus.

You can clearly see that is basically a Polo, with the new headlight styling of an ID car. I think the ID3 is a little ugly and I think VW have realized that people would like their electric car to look a bit more conventional

I have been looking around at the moment for a future replacement for the Golf, I'd like another soft top but unless they bring out a golf Mk8 cabriolet I am not that into the T-roc at the moment not enough engine options and low spec add ons.

I have looked at the Arteon Shooting break I'd quite like the 320BHP 'R' but at the moment I believe they are about £53k In 2015 when I got my golf the Golf R at that time was about £30-35k
 
I stopped at m.way services the other day


Elec charging bays were between the Building and the Disabled parking...
Our tiny town centre car park was recently devastated by 12 bays being converted for electric charging. The most I've seen have been two 'in use', but then only one car was charging, the other, was an electric car, but not plugged in. I'm guessing some owners think they have to park in those bays if they're electric. If so, could cause issue elsewhere in the future.
As you walk from the car park towards the town centre, a lamppost proudly displays an advertising board, announcing the 12 charging bays. But this is a one-way street, and the board is facing the wrong way. Only people to read it are those walking, from the car park. They've probably noticed the bays already. Good to know our council tax is spent effectively.
 
You can clearly see that is basically a Polo, with the new headlight styling of an ID car. I think the ID3 is a little ugly and I think VW have realized that people would like their electric car to look a bit more conventional

I have been looking around at the moment for a future replacement for the Golf, I'd like another soft top but unless they bring out a golf Mk8 cabriolet I am not that into the T-roc at the moment not enough engine options and low spec add ons.

I have looked at the Arteon Shooting break I'd quite like the 320BHP 'R' but at the moment I believe they are about £53k In 2015 when I got my golf the Golf R at that time was about £30-35k

It looks like a Polo to the point I wouldn't be surprised if they killed the Polo...or sold it badged Polo with a petrol engine.

The silhouette is so conventional it looks like it's been engined to be powered by ice or electric. Which I imagine would be a decent way of bringing the overall cost down...if not exactly revolutionary.

Entirely summation but I'd not be surprised at all to hear new budget MEB is a modified MQB AO and a battery pack arranged in a T shape with a front motor...ala every small Stellantis ev.

Every representation for the MEB I've seen so far has a skateboard set up and rear motor..but unless under the bonnet is empty and the boot is full of motor that's not likely here.

Think my VW group guilty pleasure would be the Skoda Superb Lauren and Klement 4x4 dsg. Other known as the moment the parts bin randomiser took a taxi body and stuck a Golf R power train under it.
 
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