The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have

[Laura+Tom 2]

I think the normal petrol Fiesta is being sold in the US from 2009, I think I might look at one of the them when I move. I was interested in the Yaris as they sell them in the US as well as the UK however last time I looked (on a US site) you could only get them in a 1.5 with about 30mpg. In the UK they do over 45mpg and come in a smaller engine. Why oh why do small cars need such big engines? My Renault Clio only has a 1.2 and that's sufficient.

Edited September 9, 2008 by Laura+Tom

[PlatyPius 5]

In our data center we have, on average, 2 hard drive failures every year.

How many HD's?

I've owned over a dozen HD's, given some out to friends, and none ever lasted under 5 years. One even lasted 8 years before I got rid of it. Not a single failure. HD's are certainly reliable, and so far BEV's have been similar to that. As mentioned though the biggest problem is the battery cost and disposal. Lifetime shouldn't be a problem, and as BEV's continue to roll out, so will at-home charging kits.

I don't know if this is supposed to give your argument weight or not....

I don't know where AJ works, but since it's a Data Center, I'm going to guess that he is surrounded by storage arrays that have 6-12 hard drives EACH.

As for myself, I have that many hard drives between all of our computers here (The one Mags is using has 4 hard drives, mine has 3 - the main server has 6, and the other server has 4)

Forgetting all that, however, let me tell you about how dependable hard drives are.

I worked at HP for a year as a repair guy - standing on an assembly line, fixing the shiny, new, BROKEN HP computers as they came down the line. The number 2 failure (not including destroyed motherboards or CPUs with smashed pins) behind memory was hard drive death.

The worst hard drives known to man are Samsung, followed by Hitachi/IBM (we're talking desktop IDE/SATA HDDs). Maxtor has a tendency to either work or not work. If it lives past the burn-in time, it'll be fine. Probably 25% don't make it past burn-in. Seagate makes pretty good hard drives, especially SCSI ones. Western Digital makes the best PC HDDs, IMO.

Anyway.... In a typical shift, I would replace 10 hard drives that were DOA or DDRI (Died During Run-In). Figure that my line would assemble 400 computers in a shift, and the other repair guy on the other side of the line was getting as many bad HDDs as I was, and you have 20/400 bad HDDs. That's 5% dying within 2 hours of installation.

I have no idea where this was going, or why. I just remember that I giggled a bit when I saw "I've owned over a dozen hard drives!". I have 2 SCSI arrays in my basement (not connected to anything) that have 10 SCSI HDDs each. The drives are over 10 years old, and they work fine. I am not, however, going to extrapolate from that that all HDDs last a long time.

[IAMX 3,055]

Not interested anyways. Does nothing to reduce dependence on oil. Namely, foreign oil. Even if millions all at once decided to go this route, we'd still be forced to import and drilling would still have zero effect now, and little-to-none later on.

And certainly these cars that are coming out better not get a pass on emission tests just because they are fuel efficient. Prius' get the love they do because they use hybrid engines and are very, very low emitters.

To me going diesel is a joke (only years ago did I ever even semi-seriously think of getting a VW Golf, although that was at a much dirtier diesel era), and I'd rather see how the BEV's and HCV's do when they roll out in full force.

BEV's for instance, like hard drives, rely heavily on magnetism, which are extremely reliable running constantly at high speeds. Hard drives run for years straight without ever being turned off, reliably, at 7,200 , 10,000 , and 15,000 RPMs (SCSI for the 15ks), and the emission is only heat. The only concern is battery costs and disposal. Which certainly shouldn't be a problem given those in favor of nuclear power plants.

If you want to get smart with cars, go big (no ICE) or go home.

But at the same time, The hybrids only get in the mid 40's for gas milage. So the 65 mpg clean burning diesel uses less fuel than the hybrids.

Driving normally, for the speed limits, in a 2005 Prius company car I got 56MPG. Driving normally, the way I drive, I got 48MPG. I dunno what people are doing to get a Prius in the mid 40s and lower. Then again, I was mostly driving by myself, so..

I would imagine a Civic Hybrid having this trouble because of the higher amount of horsepower (though I <3 VTEC) and sensitivity to variable MPG, but something isn't adding up.

Looking at the latest Golf (largely one of the most popular diesel cars) with air pollution tests on diesel, out of 10, 10 being best, the Golf scored a "1". Then, again, to be fair, the Insight, which blows even the Prius away in mileage, got a 3. The Prius got an 8 and 9 out of 10. The new VW Jetta Diesel hasn't been tested for air pollution but given the trend I doubt it'll score high at all, and the mileage is terrible, and it's the best brand new diesel option out there. Every single car last year that had an air pollution score was no better than 3, and that was one car. The rest were all 1.

Given how badly polluting diesel cars are, they must be given a pass or something here in California without emission requirements, because this also doesn't add up. We have the most stringent emission standard requirements in the nation.

[PlatyPius 5]

I think the normal petrol Fiesta is being sold in the US from 2009, I think I might look at one of the them when I move. I was interested in the Yaris as they sell them in the US as well as the UK however last time I looked (on a US site) you could only get them in a 1.5 with about 30mpg. In the UK they do over 45mpg and come in a smaller engine. Why oh why do small cars need such big engines? My Renault Clio only has a 1.2 and that's sufficient.

Why?

Have you explored the US?

Cars are built to be driven in all areas of the country. As such, the engines are going to be bigger than they are in the UK. I lived in Wyoming for several years. I took my Hyundai Excel out with me. It performed fine here in Indiana. (1.5L engine with 88 HP). In Wyoming, it would barely get out of its own way. Why? Elevation, mainly. At the average elevation in Wyoming, a car loses 1/3 of its sea level horsepower due to a shortage of oxygen. So, not only did the Hyundai only now have about 60HP, but it had to climb mountains with that. It didn't work. I traded it in on a 4x4 truck with a 2.4L 4 cylinder with 142HP.

The Hyundai would have worked fine in the midwest, or in any city. But the US isn't made of just cities, just plains, etc. As such, makers tend to market cars here that will survive in ANY US location (excluding speciality cars, of course).

[IAMX 3,055]

In our data center we have, on average, 2 hard drive failures every year.

How many HD's?

I've owned over a dozen HD's, given some out to friends, and none ever lasted under 5 years. One even lasted 8 years before I got rid of it. Not a single failure. HD's are certainly reliable, and so far BEV's have been similar to that. As mentioned though the biggest problem is the battery cost and disposal. Lifetime shouldn't be a problem, and as BEV's continue to roll out, so will at-home charging kits.

I don't know if this is supposed to give your argument weight or not....

I don't know where AJ works, but since it's a Data Center, I'm going to guess that he is surrounded by storage arrays that have 6-12 hard drives EACH.

As for myself, I have that many hard drives between all of our computers here (The one Mags is using has 4 hard drives, mine has 3 - the main server has 6, and the other server has 4)

Forgetting all that, however, let me tell you about how dependable hard drives are.

I worked at HP for a year as a repair guy - standing on an assembly line, fixing the shiny, new, BROKEN HP computers as they came down the line. The number 2 failure (not including destroyed motherboards or CPUs with smashed pins) behind memory was hard drive death.

The worst hard drives known to man are Samsung, followed by Hitachi/IBM (we're talking desktop IDE/SATA HDDs). Maxtor has a tendency to either work or not work. If it lives past the burn-in time, it'll be fine. Probably 25% don't make it past burn-in. Seagate makes pretty good hard drives, especially SCSI ones. Western Digital makes the best PC HDDs, IMO.

Anyway.... In a typical shift, I would replace 10 hard drives that were DOA or DDRI (Died During Run-In). Figure that my line would assemble 400 computers in a shift, and the other repair guy on the other side of the line was getting as many bad HDDs as I was, and you have 20/400 bad HDDs. That's 5% dying within 2 hours of installation.

I have no idea where this was going, or why. I just remember that I giggled a bit when I saw "I've owned over a dozen hard drives!". I have 2 SCSI arrays in my basement (not connected to anything) that have 10 SCSI HDDs each. The drives are over 10 years old, and they work fine. I am not, however, going to extrapolate from that that all HDDs last a long time.

There's no statement greater than experience.

And hard drive failure is mostly the case of a lemon/DOA (which happens with all distributed hardware), or operating conditions outside the stated norm in the manual. You were right that IBM and Hitachi are the worst. I've gone 90%+ with WD, and the other 10% Seagate (SCSI mostly). The longest lasting HD's I had were WD, with the least noise. In my time as a QA tester, SCSI Cheetah's and the 10K Raptors were the most reliable (Cheetah a bit noisy), as well as the new 7200.10 drives. Personal experience for me is a bit more empirical because I work with hardware hands-on. So yes, I can say hard drives are very reliable, and yes, like all electronic brands, cheap pieces of ####### will be cheap pieces of ####### no matter what electonics you get. Quality costs more money far more often than not.

Anyways, using the hard drive model that BEV's do on larger scale, they will (and have) ultimately last longer with far less maintenance. If one has the money, they can pull one of the most popular electric/BEV converts and turn the CRX into a BEV monster, or, upconvert the Prius into a full BEV. I can't believe the mileage those get, and how little maintenance is required. Combustion engines are way, way too inefficient.

Edited September 9, 2008 by SRVT

[PlatyPius 5]

In our data center we have, on average, 2 hard drive failures every year.

How many HD's?

I've owned over a dozen HD's, given some out to friends, and none ever lasted under 5 years. One even lasted 8 years before I got rid of it. Not a single failure. HD's are certainly reliable, and so far BEV's have been similar to that. As mentioned though the biggest problem is the battery cost and disposal. Lifetime shouldn't be a problem, and as BEV's continue to roll out, so will at-home charging kits.

I don't know if this is supposed to give your argument weight or not....

I don't know where AJ works, but since it's a Data Center, I'm going to guess that he is surrounded by storage arrays that have 6-12 hard drives EACH.

As for myself, I have that many hard drives between all of our computers here (The one Mags is using has 4 hard drives, mine has 3 - the main server has 6, and the other server has 4)

Forgetting all that, however, let me tell you about how dependable hard drives are.

I worked at HP for a year as a repair guy - standing on an assembly line, fixing the shiny, new, BROKEN HP computers as they came down the line. The number 2 failure (not including destroyed motherboards or CPUs with smashed pins) behind memory was hard drive death.

The worst hard drives known to man are Samsung, followed by Hitachi/IBM (we're talking desktop IDE/SATA HDDs). Maxtor has a tendency to either work or not work. If it lives past the burn-in time, it'll be fine. Probably 25% don't make it past burn-in. Seagate makes pretty good hard drives, especially SCSI ones. Western Digital makes the best PC HDDs, IMO.

Anyway.... In a typical shift, I would replace 10 hard drives that were DOA or DDRI (Died During Run-In). Figure that my line would assemble 400 computers in a shift, and the other repair guy on the other side of the line was getting as many bad HDDs as I was, and you have 20/400 bad HDDs. That's 5% dying within 2 hours of installation.

I have no idea where this was going, or why. I just remember that I giggled a bit when I saw "I've owned over a dozen hard drives!". I have 2 SCSI arrays in my basement (not connected to anything) that have 10 SCSI HDDs each. The drives are over 10 years old, and they work fine. I am not, however, going to extrapolate from that that all HDDs last a long time.

There's no statement greater than experience.

And hard drive failure is mostly the case of a lemon/DOA (which happens with all distributed hardware), or operating conditions outside the stated norm in the manual. You were right that IBM and Hitachi are the worst. I've gone 90%+ with WD, and the other 10% Seagate (SCSI mostly). The longest lasting HD's I had were WD, with the least noise. In my time as a QA tester, SCSI Cheetah's and the 10K Raptors were the most reliable (Cheetah a bit noisy), as well as the new 7200.10 drives. Personal experience for me is a bit more empirical because I work with hardware hands-on. So yes, I can say hard drives are very reliable, and yes, like all electronic brands, cheap pieces of ####### will be cheap pieces of ####### no matter what electonics you get. Quality costs more money far more often than not.

Anyways, using the hard drive model that BEV's do on larger scale, they will (and have) ultimately last longer with far less maintenance. If one has the money, they can pull one of the most popular electric/BEV converts and turn the CRX into a BEV monster, or, upconvert the Prius into a full BEV. I can't believe the mileage those get, and how little maintenance is required. Combustion engines are way, way too inefficient.

See, now that gives your statement a little more weight. Just putting "I've owned a dozen hard drives" out there doesn't really do much. But saying that you have worked in a hardware support/repair/testing capacity means a lot more....

And I agree about the Raptors - my personal favourite for PC HDDs.

The most ITF (If The Field) failures of hard drives less than 5 years old that I have seen have been of Samsung or Hitachi/IBM drives. I have only witnessed a couple WD HDD failures - ever. (Not including DOA)

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

The Hyundai would have worked fine in the midwest, or in any city. But the US isn't made of just cities, just plains, etc. As such, makers tend to market cars here that will survive in ANY US location (excluding speciality cars, of course).

City dwellers think so.

FWIW. I'm a fan of clean diesel cars for now but as the oil runs out we'll transition over to EVs and other alternative fuels. Of course we'll need more power plants to do this.... nuclear, clean coal, hydro and solar.

[Laura+Tom 2]

I think the normal petrol Fiesta is being sold in the US from 2009, I think I might look at one of the them when I move. I was interested in the Yaris as they sell them in the US as well as the UK however last time I looked (on a US site) you could only get them in a 1.5 with about 30mpg. In the UK they do over 45mpg and come in a smaller engine. Why oh why do small cars need such big engines? My Renault Clio only has a 1.2 and that's sufficient.

Why?

Have you explored the US?

Cars are built to be driven in all areas of the country. As such, the engines are going to be bigger than they are in the UK. I lived in Wyoming for several years. I took my Hyundai Excel out with me. It performed fine here in Indiana. (1.5L engine with 88 HP). In Wyoming, it would barely get out of its own way. Why? Elevation, mainly. At the average elevation in Wyoming, a car loses 1/3 of its sea level horsepower due to a shortage of oxygen. So, not only did the Hyundai only now have about 60HP, but it had to climb mountains with that. It didn't work. I traded it in on a 4x4 truck with a 2.4L 4 cylinder with 142HP.

The Hyundai would have worked fine in the midwest, or in any city. But the US isn't made of just cities, just plains, etc. As such, makers tend to market cars here that will survive in ANY US location (excluding speciality cars, of course).

If I was planning to drive all over the place then I might get a bigger engined car, but mine will be mainly for city driving, and maybe the odd long distance. For anything else we'll probably use my OH's F100

[PlatyPius 5]

I think the normal petrol Fiesta is being sold in the US from 2009, I think I might look at one of the them when I move. I was interested in the Yaris as they sell them in the US as well as the UK however last time I looked (on a US site) you could only get them in a 1.5 with about 30mpg. In the UK they do over 45mpg and come in a smaller engine. Why oh why do small cars need such big engines? My Renault Clio only has a 1.2 and that's sufficient.

Why?

Have you explored the US?

Cars are built to be driven in all areas of the country. As such, the engines are going to be bigger than they are in the UK. I lived in Wyoming for several years. I took my Hyundai Excel out with me. It performed fine here in Indiana. (1.5L engine with 88 HP). In Wyoming, it would barely get out of its own way. Why? Elevation, mainly. At the average elevation in Wyoming, a car loses 1/3 of its sea level horsepower due to a shortage of oxygen. So, not only did the Hyundai only now have about 60HP, but it had to climb mountains with that. It didn't work. I traded it in on a 4x4 truck with a 2.4L 4 cylinder with 142HP.

The Hyundai would have worked fine in the midwest, or in any city. But the US isn't made of just cities, just plains, etc. As such, makers tend to market cars here that will survive in ANY US location (excluding speciality cars, of course).

If I was planning to drive all over the place then I might get a bigger engined car, but mine will be mainly for city driving, and maybe the odd long distance. For anything else we'll probably use my OH's F100

I wasn't saying that the cars are made for driving across the country, I was saying that they are made so that they can be SOLD in any part of the country. A micro-engined car could only be sold in certain parts of the US. That's why you're going to have a hard time finding any over here.

There the SMART, but it gets genuinely crappy mileage for its size. Best bet would be something like a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, or some such thing. If you're going to live in California, you can buy an Aptera when they come out.

[Laura+Tom 2]

I think the normal petrol Fiesta is being sold in the US from 2009, I think I might look at one of the them when I move. I was interested in the Yaris as they sell them in the US as well as the UK however last time I looked (on a US site) you could only get them in a 1.5 with about 30mpg. In the UK they do over 45mpg and come in a smaller engine. Why oh why do small cars need such big engines? My Renault Clio only has a 1.2 and that's sufficient.

Why?

Have you explored the US?

Cars are built to be driven in all areas of the country. As such, the engines are going to be bigger than they are in the UK. I lived in Wyoming for several years. I took my Hyundai Excel out with me. It performed fine here in Indiana. (1.5L engine with 88 HP). In Wyoming, it would barely get out of its own way. Why? Elevation, mainly. At the average elevation in Wyoming, a car loses 1/3 of its sea level horsepower due to a shortage of oxygen. So, not only did the Hyundai only now have about 60HP, but it had to climb mountains with that. It didn't work. I traded it in on a 4x4 truck with a 2.4L 4 cylinder with 142HP.

The Hyundai would have worked fine in the midwest, or in any city. But the US isn't made of just cities, just plains, etc. As such, makers tend to market cars here that will survive in ANY US location (excluding speciality cars, of course).

If I was planning to drive all over the place then I might get a bigger engined car, but mine will be mainly for city driving, and maybe the odd long distance. For anything else we'll probably use my OH's F100

I wasn't saying that the cars are made for driving across the country, I was saying that they are made so that they can be SOLD in any part of the country. A micro-engined car could only be sold in certain parts of the US. That's why you're going to have a hard time finding any over here.

There the SMART, but it gets genuinely crappy mileage for its size. Best bet would be something like a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, or some such thing. If you're going to live in California, you can buy an Aptera when they come out.

We'll be in Alabama. I've been looking at Yaris's, Golf's, hopefully the new Fiesta, the Hyundia Sx4 and a couple others.

[PlatyPius 5]

I've always loved Golfs.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

To the person who asked me how many hard drives.... I don't know. It's a data center. It's fvckin huge. And it's at capacity. I don't work in it, just near it, so I don't really know the details.

[Laura+Tom 2]

I've always loved Golfs.

Me too, but they have got quite expensive.

[IAMX 3,055]

There the SMART, but it gets genuinely crappy mileage for its size. Best bet would be something like a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, or some such thing. If you're going to live in California, you can buy an Aptera when they come out.

SMART is a godawful investment for anyone who is single and plans on being single and never having a family.

Even a Yaris, to me, is far too small. The Prius has plenty of room, but even for long distance trips, or big events which require lots of stuff, I pretty much am stuck with either an SUV or a van. Truck is not an option for me, unless I planned on hauling things around often or had a labor job.

And until the last several years, the VW Golf was the college student car here.

Edited September 9, 2008 by SRVT

[Laura+Tom 2]

There the SMART, but it gets genuinely crappy mileage for its size. Best bet would be something like a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, or some such thing. If you're going to live in California, you can buy an Aptera when they come out.

SMART is a godawful investment for anyone who is single and plans on being single and never having a family.

Even a Yaris, to me, is far too small. The Prius has plenty of room, but even for long distance trips, or big events which require lots of stuff, I pretty much am stuck with either an SUV or a van. Truck is not an option for me, unless I planned on hauling things around often or had a labor job.

And until the last several years, the VW Golf was the college student car here.

Yaris is big enough for me, will just be for pootling around town and getting to work and back. I've no kids and we arn't planning on having any so don't need room in the back. If anything needs hauling the truck can do that and if a bigger car is needed for anything my OH's Crown Vic or Grand Marquis will do the trick.