The moment I can actually afford my no-compromises (but reasonable and attainable) dream car, I pull the trigger. Until then, I will continue buying 6-10 year old quirky japanese cars and driving them until they explode.

I have this weird all-or-nothing mindset with new cars. I just cannot imagine committing (for…

Huge difference between me, a random citizen, making a predictive and over the top stab at how the current regime is going to take advantage of these people’s deaths and the formal media and the actual Commander in Cheeseburgers immediately using that over-the-top, joke-worthy rhetoric.

The people who actually have a…

I saw somewhere else that it was a training flight on a VFR. My offhand guess is they were off-course and it didn’t get corrected by ATC.

DEI hire in Reagan ATC for sure. Or maybe the helicopter pilot’s second cousin is trans. Or maybe this is why we should re-designate them Sikorsky “White-Hawks.”

But seriously, this is horrible. My heart is with all the victims and their families. Accidents happen and that doesn’t make it okay, but the cynic in me is…

Woah, wait everyone... I think this guy is just posting from 2022.
But seriously, Rivian has built more than 130,000 vehicles and are already delivering a refresh of the R1T/S. They’re a company.

Worth mentioning that the crawler gear thing has a lot more to do with not destructively shearing the top layer of the road surface more than approaching but not exceeding a friction limit, but both problems are solved with the same process- approach the limit slowly.

Yeah to an experienced driver used to good tires, ABS does just genuinely feel like sliding with extra noise. I appreciate that its usually loud enough to let me know the second I’ve locked up so I can back off right away and find the threshold again.

And I regret the allusion of adding weight, because you’re right-…

Unfortunately, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. I was lucky to take a very high-level driving course as a teen because I learned to drive in a snowy rocky mountain town and my parents wanted me to be prepared.

I experienced personally that I can easily out-perform ABS on a skid pad after several days of…

Bud, it’s an idealized description. Joe Blow doesn’t need to know about stiction or second-order friction models. The idealized model, in this case, describes the trend of the dominant forces at play and is sufficient to inform the layperson.

My posts imply the coefficient of friction is constant because that’s the…

Friction isnt constant with normal load- thats not what I said. Friction is PROPORTIONAL to normal load. That’s why distributing the normal across a wider contact patch makes it easier to stay under the static limit and avoid sliding.

Also true! That’s one of the next most important layers of abstraction above the idealized model. Fortunately, it agrees with the idealized model for basically the same reason- more contact patch means the shear forces are more evenly distributed and you’re less likely to exceed the sheet limit of the material as well.

True! You’re absolutely correct. It definitely has a limit, though- I knew people growing up in the Rockies that thought their FWD sedan would do better with a truck full of sand bags and one guy that ritualistically picked up a load of gravel in his 4WD pickup every fall. We joked that if Will had his gravel, we’d…

“By pulsing the brakes rapidly, ABS achieves moments of static friction before the wheels lock up, and the sum total braking force is significantly better than a constant slide...”

We’ve described ABS in exactly the same way, not sure where your objection to my explanation is. It is still objectively better to hold the…

My description of the physics wasn’t wrong, it was idealized- ie, approximate -because it’s hard enough to explain the basics and, most of the time, the idealized forces are sufficient enough to determine the overall behavior of the system. That’s not always true and it pays to be meticulous and cautious, but as…

Yes, that is another contributing effect.
The simple coulomb friction physics is a semi-reasonable approximation, especially in snow/ice when the thermal behavior of rubber is less prevalent. There are a hundred principles at play in a non-idealized tire/road interface, but the dominate forces still dictate that a…

True, but:
1) Rally drivers don’t need the extra overhead to keep the wheels at the limit of grip when they need to because they’re practiced professionals
2) Rally cars operate beyond the limits of grip most of the time anyways, so it’s a totally different discussion

The simple physics say that more contact patch is better, period. You can idealize a rolling interface as a series of momentary interactions under static friction. Static friction is two surfaces that are in contact and do not move relative to each other, and the friction force is equal to the weight times a…

This is a common misconception based on an incomplete picture of the forces at play.

Model Y was always just all the worst proportions of the Model 3 exaggerated. Now it just looks like a Hyundai Kona with the scraps of charm completely buffed out.

“I don’t buy cars from people who have, or had, children working on a factory floor” - Then you can’t buy a car from any established/traditional automaker; Korean, Japanese, European, or American. The American Big Three each pre-date the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and significant easing on child labor laws…