Emissions and the car industry | GTAMotorcycle.com

Emissions and the car industry

bigpoppa

bigpoppa

Well-known member
I dont know much, if at all about cars, so curious to hear from others who do...

Has the modern obsession with emissions, fuel consumption and noise regulations 'sanitized' the car industry?

Do manufacturers still build interesting engines/engine configurations/cars?

Maybe its just me, but it seems everyone is building the same small displacement inline 4s with turbochargers..

Are there any cars current or near recent models out there with 'soul'?

Not even necessarily super high performance ferraris with unobtanium price tags...just regular cars with the feel of some of the old classics...think moto guzzi's of cars.
 
Were crossing a chasm right now, from ICE to EV.

I expect all the investment and manpower will go to core EV technology, not so much to performance.

My guess is EV will rule the dragstrip soon, as and once racing is electrified the small snotty car will make a resurgence.
 
In my opinion it isn't the engines that have sterilized cars, it's the lack of manual transmissions, and the bloat due to safety measures. Pedestrian friendly hoods, more airbags than radio presets, and the limitless lengths of wire for everything add a ton of weight.
I understand the importance of safety equipment, but they do have a cost.
 
The popularity of engine layouts have less to do with emissions and more to do with cost.

I4s are cheap to manufacture and cheap to service.

There are many other engine configurations that are well within reach of the average buyer.

Subaru's flat 4s
BMWs 3-series (which is basically the Honda Civics of the corporate world) are mostly inline 6s
Muscle cars have their v8s and their little sister Pony cars are mostly v6s
Volkswagen has the W8.

Discontinued engines include Mazdas rotary and VWs VR5.

Want a feel of an older, classic car? Learn to drive manual and dont use the cruise control.
 
The biggest reason for lack of ‘fun’ or ‘spirit’ in the industry is very simple. Lack of demand.
If there was a big demand for such cars, the market would be bigger. As it is manufacturers are selling what (for the most part) the public wants.

Average Joe and Jane don’t care about performance, feel, connectedness to the car or anything else. They want a safe, reliable, and cheap to run car.

Sure there are variants in the brands and price brackets…but people simply don’t want what enthusiast want.

Hell even the enthusiast say ‘if you do XZY I’ll buy it’. But they don’t when it comes out because there’s always something wrong with it. And that something is primarily price.
 
In this emission-regulated world, you can still buy a Dodge Hellcat with a supercharged V8 and 700+ horsepower (for now - this is the last year).

The "sanitizing" has more to do with the general public buying identical looking trucks and SUVs differing only in size. Compact and sporty vehicles don't sell in large numbers.
 
Lightcycle said:
The popularity of engine layouts have less to do with emissions and more to do with cost.

I4s are cheap to manufacture and cheap to service.

There are many other engine configurations that are well within reach of the average buyer.

Subaru's flat 4s
BMWs 3-series (which is basically the Honda Civics of the corporate world) are mostly inline 6s
Muscle cars have their v8s and their little sister Pony cars are mostly v6s
Volkswagen has the W8.

Discontinued engines include Mazdas rotary and VWs VR5.

Want a feel of an older, classic car? Learn to drive manual and dont use the cruise control.
Click to expand...
There are still some late model cars with sticks, I have a Jeep, Cruze and a Jetta — all stick.

With the exception of a few company cars, I’ve always driven manual shift.IMG_0407.jpeg
 
Lightcycle said:
Volkswagen has the W8.
Click to expand...
W8 is pretty rare. They only made 11,000 of them a few decades ago.

VR6 is far more common and you can still get it in the atlas but it is a far different engine than the wookie engine that was in the hatchbacks

HPA sells a VR6 Turbo crate engine with 550 hp and 550 ft lb that you can drop in a lot of things. Nothing like that from the factory though and the upgrade costs as much as a decent car (~40k USD plus your donor DSG Golf R).
 
A manual transmission nowadays is an anti-theft device. Most potential thieves don't know how to drive them.

I'm okay with my Bolt not having a transmission at all. Means punching the accelerator results in acceleration NOW. No having to work clutch and gear lever in preparation, but also no waiting for a turbo to spool up, no waiting for an automatic transmission to downshift from 8th to 3rd.
 
Back to the original question. Global warming + CO2 emission limits in the worldwide market are going to affect things going forward. There's an emerging consensus in much of the rest of the world to eliminate combustion engines in light-duty vehicles from 2035. The EU has already mandated this, but China and India are headed in that direction as well. And, for the most part, the auto industry is on board. (GM is. VW is.) The US market, except for California and some areas that copy California regulations, has political resistance to doing so, but if the rest of the world goes and the biggest market in the USA goes and the auto industry goes, the rest of the USA will be dragged along kicking and screaming.

Now ... unintended consequences. This is for light-duty vehicles only. It's pretty likely, especially in some parts of the US market, that this will merely drive people towards buying enormous trucks >8500lb GVWR such that they can have their combustion engine and flip the bird at the guv'ment for "forcing us to buy EVs" (and then complain about how much the guv'ment is taxing them). It is also pretty likely that the switch to EV will result in a market switch towards enormous EV trucks and SUVs in general because they're no longer constrained by corporate average fuel economy requirements. And that's why I bought my (VW Golf-sized 5 door hatchback) Chevy Bolt and plan to take care of it for as long as I can, because I'm not so sure a compact sensibly-sized vehicle will exist in the North American market in the not too distant future, whether EV or otherwise.
 
SVeezy said:
Showing your age
Most manuals have the reverse on the upper left now lol


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Click to expand...
That's part of the anti-theft mechanism. If they manage to get it going, hitting reverse instead of a presumed sixth lets you run them down and beat them. Bonus points if you change the map decal on the shifter to encourage that behaviour.
 
Forget performance! What happened to a choice of colours other than black, white or silver?
 
guzzirider said:
Forget performance! What happened to a choice of colours other than black, white or silver?
Click to expand...
There is still lots of beige (or champagne if you want luxury beige). Back to Brians point, people want big vehicles. Most big vehicles don't look great in loud colours. Small vehicles look great in loud colours but there aren't many of those for sale.
 
I'm a huge Taco fan and Toyota has made me look at colours that I normally wouldn't have considered for any vehicle:

2019-Toyota-Tacoma-TRD-PRO-1681998486992.png


I particularly like the TRD Pro in Voodoo Blue!
 
Part of the problem is people assume they have to buy a vehicle off the lot.
My 1993 Dodge van was custom ordered from the factory and I had a choice of 20+ colours including 3 shades of blue.
 
guzzirider said:
Part of the problem is people assume they have to buy a vehicle off the lot.
My 1993 Dodge van was custom ordered from the factory and I had a choice of 20+ colours including 3 shades of blue.
Click to expand...
VW had Spektrum for a while. It had a lot of awesome colours. Added $2,500 to the bill if you used it.

2019-VW-Golf-R-color-chart.jpg
 
I argue that the ICE has never been better than it is today. Emissions and economy regulations made manufactures up their game and played a big factor in that. Sure there were some very dark days in the 70s and early 80s that were also due to regulations before the manufactures got their act together.

Vehicles are boring now for many other reasons. Small to mid size high performance ICE vehicles can be made today within the frame work, very few people buy them.
 
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