The Citroen GT, new Lamborghini, BMW X1, and Ford Mustang have all been “featured” in a series of teaser photos and videos over at some “other” automotive websites. They show nothing. A wheel, part of a bumper, a section of a taillight. The goal is to get the car into the news and readers’ minds, and it’s successful from a PR standpoint at doing that. But it’s also successful at pissing me off. The teasers don’t really give an indication of what a car is going to look like, which leads me to find them completely useless. I’d blame the manufacturers, but since they all do it, that’s totally futile. Rest assured, however, that when all these cars make their proper and full debuts, we’ll have pictures for you – including many shots from the Paris auto show, which begins in just a few days, thanks to our European correspondent Martin Schwoerer.
I notice you guys never really do spy shots, either, even when there’s barely any camo! Those are useful, I think.
Seen the new Lacrosse?
@Romanjetfighter:
Well the lack of spyshots are a little different. Sometimes they are just too covered in camo to be worthwhile.
But in other cases, they are privately owned by the photographer and can’t be republished without paying royalties. Since we spend all our money on the private jet and yacht full of beautiful people, not much is left to buy “good” spy photos.
I did see the new Lacrosse. Looks great. Hopefully it’ll be different to drive than the Malibu. Not because the Malibu’s bad, but so that the Lacrosse can justify its existence or price.
I completely agree that hybrids are a crock of shit.
However, if I understand correctly, a big problem with hydrogen is the containment of the energy, ie making sure the energy can’t leak away out of the tanks because it is so volatile.
This problem also means hydrogen is not yet as efficient as you would hope because the fuel just vanishes from the tanks.
Another problem is obviously that creating hydrogen out of carbonhydrates obviously kind of limits the advantages in the “dependance on foreign oil”.
What I really hate is when some pre-production car with minimal camoflage gets parked on a major street in a major city, some people photograph it, and then auto websites act like they are posting a major score instead of just falling for guerilla marketing.
Auto sites have reached a new low in publishing “spy” shots of the new Camaro, and the staged “spy” shots of the fugly Porsche sedan are getting old also.
JJ: That’s incorrect.
Hydrogen isn’t very volatile. In fact, it’s the most common element in the universe.
And for more than a century hydrogen has had lots and lots of industrial uses. In fact, there’s probably a hydrogen pipeline running under the street of your nearest medium to large sized city.
It’s just a gas.
I hope they got permission to blatantly steel the Gran Turismo logo. Considering it’s not by Citroen it’s by Sony. And I don’t see the trademark TM next to it. Somebody’s gonna get sued.
@Redbarchetta:
I’m sure it’s up to trademark standards.
Hydrogen…..SO where do you get the Hydrogen? Turns out that is the problem. Costs lots of energy to get it.
You have to remember, almost EVERY energy source is just storage, petroleum, batteries, hydrogen, coal, trees……. The trick is we didn’t expend any energy (well not too much) for the oil, mother nature and 100’s of millions of years did that for us, all we do is “harvest” it. Most of the other sources (except Nuclear and Solar) we have to first make the energy, then store the energy, then recover the energy. All of those steps require energy and have inefficiencies.
Not to mention the LACK of infractructure for Hydrogen. What gas pump do you drive up to that has hydrogen at 10,000 psi for sale?
Mass produced cars with Hydrogen fuel cells……not in the next 20 years, if ever.
Like I said in my Better Place editorial post the future is in cutting the middle man out and getting the electricity directly fed to the cars off the roadway. Hydrogen is a waist of time unless you are using it in a fusion powerplant to generate electricity for rush hour traffic. Use the ton (in size and weight) of batteries to store the electricity in giant warehouse building not to haul around in cars that need to be light to make them more efficient.
We have had power delivered right to our homes and businesses for almost 150 years it’s about time we figured out a way to to it for trasport, AGAIN. Since trolley cars, subways and maglift high speed rail don’t cart around a million tons of batteries.
1981.911.SC:
Not tomorrow, obviously.
but, if we ever turn away from internal combustion engines, we’ll be turning to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
That’s all I’m saying.
Somebody’s got this wrong. Hydrogen is bloody dangerous. If you’re using it to generate steam, for example, there must be a flame trap every ten feet on the supply line. If it gets away from you, BaBOOM!!
A wheel, part of a bumper, a section of a taillight.
So how is this any different from the Wheel, the Bumper & the Taillight photos of production vehicles on the homesites?
Nice burn of the Slant Six.
I would have said four horsepower, myself. And, because it’s reliable, you’d be stuck with that engine for twenty years.
JJ: That’s incorrect.
Hydrogen isn’t very volatile. In fact, it’s the most common element in the universe.
And for more than a century hydrogen has had lots and lots of industrial uses. In fact, there’s probably a hydrogen pipeline running under the street of your nearest medium to large sized city.
It’s just a gas.
Hmm…I could be mistaken or maybe volatile is the wrong word (when it gets technical my lack of knowledge of technical terms in english shows sometimes).
What I was getting at though; for use in cars, ideally you want the hydrogen to be in liquid form in the tank(s). However, for that to happen, it has to be in a very cold and or highly pressurized environment, because otherwise it will turn into gas, and will be able to ‘leak away’ + the volume would be a problem for driving range. So you need to find a practical and energy efficient way to pressurize or cool the tank.
Also, although Hydrogen (the atom) might be the most common in the universe, pure H2 (the molecule, ie the gas in normal earthly circumstances) is really not that common at all on earth, but makes up just .00005% of the air in the earth’s atmosphere. Obviously, that’s because H atoms very easily react with other compounds, which means most of them are tied-up in carbonhydrates, water, etc.
In stars, including the sun, the energy is created by a proces of nuclear fusion in which the Hydrogen is transformed into Helium (if my memory doesn’t fail me), so that’s why in the universe, there are large amounts of pure hydrogen. So, you just need to find a way to get it here on the cheap, and you’ll be able to buy that Pontiac G8 GT….And a Wally yacht.
I noticed you guys dont do spy shots. Thats wat everyone else is saying anyways.
Concept cars. They get my goat.
Would rather have a load of batteries in my car than a tank of hydrogen. Espeically since it’ll be supplied by big oil. Want less of them in my life and budget.
I think hydrogen is just a distraction device that GM has enjoyed using since the concept cars of the 60’s.