Would You Buy It?

"A vehicle that costs 15k costs $10 to fully charge and has a range of 300 miles...Would you buy it?"

How does the defrost/heater affect the range? In my world, the warmest part of today is forecast to be 26° F. This is not the coldest time of the year by a long shot.

Ground clearance? Where I live piles of frozen snow and ice are quite common along and within the driving lanes. Will this vehicle clear them?

How do I siphon electricity from my neighbors car for my car? _{Oh, come on, that's funny!}

[edit] Where does the ten bucks for a complete charge come from? At what $ rate per kWh? How long to charge after a 300 mile trip?

" However, the decision to make standard the cold weather package- consisting of a battery heater, heated outside mirrors, heated steering wheel, heated front and rear seats and an HVAC duct to the rear seating area - and the addition of a quick-charge port as standard equipment ....

30 min charge time(est based on bs).....you can get charge for free at participating restaurants and malls and other locations..ground clearance dependent on wheel size....standard 16" wheels 6.3" min clr...

(see lyndoor™ for two headed portable charging lead...but you didn't hear it from me...)

not sure on the price per kwh used...

Okay... ya want it sugar coated, or right between the eyes?

Chevrolet Volt: Vehicle Specifications: Hit the tab there marked FUEL

The factory site shows the vehicle has a range of about 400 miles, but only 36 of those miles are from the battery.

Am I misreading this? I have been hearing so much good stuff about this car... Have I been snookered by the advertising doublespeak guys?

Wait... What? Chevy Volt? What does that have to do with the Leaf?

Please forgive the wayward previous post. Let me have it right between the eyes, I can take it, I'm a big boy, I need more sleep...

It's too cold to be thinkin...

Wow, it's 84°F here in the Valley of the Sun.

Spring training is just under way, the Cubbies are playing Oakland this afternoon. Be sure to put plenty of sun screen on if you're planning on go......................never mind, I forgot you're not here, you're up there.

_{I do this to my Minn. neighbors, too.}

Ah, I remember 84°F... We saw it three times last year, twice the year before.

Those were quite the heat waves.

Then I use the "It's too hot to think clearly" excuse when I say something dumb.

I know what you are saying. The cost of the A/C is killing me. We just had opening house at the new Marlins stadium this weekend. Got to go, the ice cream truck is here.

Actually the Volt has been named Motor Trend Car of the Year, Automobile Magazine Car of the Year and North American Car of the Year, and European car of the year....Have you driven one?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/03/volt-ampera-europe-car-year/

Chevrolet announced this week that they were reducing production plans. Total sales are still less than 8,000 units. Some folks seem unimpressed with 35 miles on Battery, as in, "Why Bother!"

That's nearly as many as they sold all last year...sales are accelerating...I rarely drive more than 35 miles in a day...besides that just means the engine starts charging the batteries, the range without stopping is nearly 400 miles...at an average of 99 mpg...

"How do I siphon electricity from my neighbors car for my car?"

Just hang an extension cord over the fence from a little used power point in his shed.

No.

Is that fuzzy math you are using?

Very fuzzy....lol

Would you rent your car out?

"Owners list their cars on the RelayRides website. The cars generally are no older than 10 years old and have fewer than 80,000 miles. Registered renters select a car they would like to use, make a reservation and pick up the car and the key from owners in person or through a lock box.

The starting price for RelayRides rentals is $5 per hour and includes gas, 20 miles of driving and insurance. RelayRides keeps 35% of the rental cost. The remaining 65% goes to the car owner. Monthly payments, which average $250, are sent to owners.

Nationally, 260 million cars are registered in the United States, according to Clark. Still, fewer than 1 million people use car sharing. That may change in the next few months when RelayRides partners with General Motors. The manufacturer has 6 million OnStar subscribers, whose cars will be available for rental through RelayRides and can be unlocked by smartphone."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2012/03/la-personal-car-share.html?track=icymi

If it's anything like the Prius or that Honda hybrid, then you would want to own it for the whole of its first service life and then budget to scrap it. Because there is little love for a used hybrid with a near expired battery and even less love for a battery powered car with a deceased battery pack.

Heck even electric forkifts get written off for the want of a new set of batteries.

No the Leaf is an answer to the "Green" question, which is really only about gulible vanity. (Don't get me started on the global green fraud........)

If I was looking for a new car, I'd be buying something diesel preferably capable of ingesting WVO as well as Dino Oil, to use as my daily driver. For My "toy's", well fun costs money how hard do you want to laugh?

Only as a toy. It clearly is not a vehicle for economy.

I can buy a nice used economy car for well under $10K and use the rest of the savings for gas for the life of the vehicle.

OK let's just say as an example you're spending $60 a week in gas(15 gal@$4), and I'm spending $10 in electrical...At what price per gal of gas does the Electric vehicle become your choice?...at present you are spending $200 more a month than me... at $6 a gal you're spending $360 more a month on gas than me.... at $8 a gal you're spending $440 more a month than me....

How does that work out in cost per mile?

The electric stays the same, the gas goes up exponentially...ha!

Well, are we including the cost of a new battery pack?

And we haven't talked about the fuel economy of the gas car.

At 40 MPG that looks like 600 miles for 15 gallons.

I see your point though.

Well, it is not about gas for me.

First, I do not give a rat's arse about fuel economy because I am big time into sports cars. I only have one car and it is not a gas miser at 400 hp. So, I am an atypical owner who loves to drive, be it groceries or road rallies.

Second, I also need range. As a single car owner I drive trips semi-frequently. Our last one was to the Blue Ridge Mountains near Ashford NC. I also have family north of me, south of me, and friends even further south by nearly two hours.

I average about 14K miles a year and some of my travel is for business.

Last, if economy was the goal it is hard to beat a small $3,000 used Honda if I do most of my maintenance. That leaves a lot of spare change for gasoline, even at $8 per gallon, which I doubt we will see for some time to come (spikes excluded).

The problem is the big cost of an EV. It's the batteries and the new technology that gets you. I could DIY my own for $10K or less, but I really have not the time or space to do that. Fun idea, but not in the cards for me, so I would be spending close to $30K for a new EV just so I could have a mundane driving experience. If I want to shell out $100K I could get a Tesla, which would be more fun, but the car is too tiny for a someone that owns but one car and does not represent economy when you factor in the cost of entry.

Even so, the batteries on any EV will need to be replaced at some point and the battery pack cost in today's dollars buys a new car like a Kia.

So, the real economy for an EV is just not there any way you shake it. It may be a fun experience and cool to show your friends, but not a solution right now for economic transport.

Lastly, consider this. There are 256 million registered vehicles in the US. That is a huge number of vehicles and if gas were to go to $8 per gallon or higher you would be facing economic collapse in the US(it won't take much at this point). If that happens having an EV would be useless because there would likely not be any electricity generated, no food at the stores, and no work at the job, so everyone would be about equal anyway.

Everyone is worried about an EMP pulse or a solar flare, but many other things could easily send us over the edge. I suspect that the US government will find ways to keep oil and gas flowing enough to keep tax revenue coming in. There really isn't a shortage of oil, just politics trying to keep a lid on it.

There are two previous threads that cover this topic and about the "leaf"

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/66237

and this one

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/16689#newcomments

Basically the Leaf is great if your not going anywhere too far.

It's not just the cost of fuel over cost of recharging that is at issue, but the "convenience" of refuelling is also a factor. If you run out of fuel, no biggy just grab that jerry can and hitch a lift to the nearest service station. Run out of electrons and you have to wait for a tow truck.

On the face of it, yes I would buy a Leaf. Unfortunately, the real world precludes me from doing so. In my part of Cold Cold Canada, a Leaf's effective range is less than 50 miles on a full charge. The requirements for having headlights on going to and coming home from work, interior heat, defrosting front and rear as well as the rolling resistance of the drive train drain a battery real fast. The effective range also decreases noticeably if I get stuck in traffic in these conditions.

This alone puts the Leaf in "toy" category at worst and "second car" at best.

Now lets look at several of the other issues in your supposition. $7K government rebate. I cannot in good concience agree with such a subsidy and do not think tax payers should have to pay. That is personal and not necessarily practical cmmentary.

Recharging at restraunts or other places? Possibly, but not for free and probably only if you are a patron as the place will have a limited number of charging stations.

If you live in an apartment building or condo, you may not have access to a charging location which can limit the number of buyers in a city considerably.

My turn for an assumption. Let us assume that every space that can have a charger does have one. Cost recovery is going to be a requirement and given the rate of technological advances, these stations may be obsolete quite quickly and that will drive the cost of a charge up considerably.

The next electrical issue is that the grid couldn't take a huge surge in pure EVs (does the term brown out mean anything to you) and there may be rotating electrical shortages which means you could come out from work and find that you got half a charge due to rotating outages and now you are leaving your EV at the charging station (for a fee of course) and taking the train home (if there is one).

Another point that many people forget is that a large portion of electricity is still generated by coal or natural gas and most of those smoke stacks are still unregulated so pollution is not necessarily cut down only relocated to the country.

These problems and others can be solved, just not in the short term because we have not made the spending of billions of dollars in this area a priority.

Until then, we will have to depend on EV technology like the Volt which is a full electrical vehicle because electical motors turn the wheels. The gas engine only provides power to the batteries if there is no chance to recharge it. You can recharge the Volt the same as any other EV or you can get home by using the gas engine to charge the battery. No walkng or trains or tow trucks requried.

Trying to look to the future, some form of electrical power is going to be part of any solution (my opinion). If you look at effective operating efficencies the most logical combination would be a diesel electric system similar to that used in locomotives.

Slightly sideways is the subject of emissions. If you look up the percentages, automobiles account for about 20% of today's pollutants. New cars (less than 4 years old) account for less than 3% of that total. I always hear about how cars emit so many pollutants. Old, unmaintained ones do. New ones don't. And, the one question no one has ever answered is what are governments doing to cut down on the other 80% of pollutants that come from industry.

As for sports cars, a good gas electric hybrid sports car will blow the pedals off most gas engined sports cars. Maximum torque from an electric motor happens at full load and 0 rpm so off the start you are dust and once the gas engine takes over, that will be all. The problem is that no one has built such a car yet. The closest is the Fisker Karma and it is a touch on the expensive side, but as some one said, "fun costs money, how big a grin can you afford".

I guess my Final Answer is Yes, but not today.

Clearly the EV of today is not for everybody...but when the batteries are replaced by fuel cells, that could all change...

Maybe future batteries will be based on "LENR" tecnology. Dr. George Miley at the Univ. of Illinois has a contract with NASA to develop power sources for future space craft. He has created an experimental battery using nickel and hydrogen that has 300 W/Kg. WHat is more important is that it runs without any charging (just have to heat it up to get it working). Here is more detail from a reporter:

George Miley of The University of Illinois is one such. Working on LENR as a possible power source to replace RTGs in the space programme, he will be presenting his work on March 23rd at the 2012 Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space meeting. The work is ongoing and we have seen much of it before. Even so, I'd like to highlight it as a reminder of the progress that is being made. In his presentation, Miley talks about LENR as a fact. He creates the conditions, measures the effect. They are repeatable and of real substance and demonstrate the potential for utility.

While I agree that the world will only begin to change when commercially viable devices are available, it is too easy to forget the giant leap that proving LENR alone would represent. Miley, it seems, does that and more, reporting proof of principle for creating a LENR battery at 350W/kg

"...just have to heat it up to get it working..."

And just where, exactly, does this heat come from?

Another point that many people forget is that a large portion of electricity is still generated by coal or natural gas

An argument I voice at every opportunity!

and most of those smoke stacks are still unregulated so pollution is not necessarily cut down only relocated to the country.

Maybe in Canada. In Europe, power station and other industry smoke stacks are highly regulated. SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) for the removal of NOx is old hat in that industry (relatively new in mainstream automotive...we launched a retrofit SCR "muffler" to market about 6 years ago) and SOx scrubbing was in place at least two decades ago.

I know from friends in the gas turbine industry that their GTs are tuned to produce single figure ppm quantities of NOx at rated speed and load. SOx is reduced by cleaner fuel.

All smoke stacks have monitoring equipment at their outlet and are monitored by government regulators.

There are also particulate traps (from memory these tend to be water spray arrangements) and heat recovery equipment, so what comes out if pretty clean.

The next industry to be targeted for pollution reduction is the shipping industry. This has its own set of problems, since the engines often run on bunker fuel - the almost-tar left at the bottom of a refraction tower. There are already low emission zones around particular ports and on enclosed seas such as the Baltic, where ships must run on cleaner fuel. I'm not familiar with the maritime regulations, but I do know that they are moving in a direction when after treatment such as is seen on trucks and cars today will be required on ships.

Work is being done, but it takes time and money - and vested interests for obstacles (as ever!).

Would I buy a Leaf or a Volt? No - for the reasons AH gave. Currently (pun intended) they're not practicval and total cost of ownership is too high.

"Would you buy it?"

No.

But, then, I no longer own a private vehicle of any sort, nor do I intend to acquire one in the foreseeable future...

Well, except that I don't really believe that Envia has the answer - yes.

The reason. I can easily generate my own electricity and run the car for almost nothing.

My oil refinery project has a few problems....

No,,,, I am 400HP. guy Like Anonymous Hero.

I do not believe the infrastructure is there to support these vehicles. Batteries being the biggest issue. Replacement cost are too high. As of yet the life of the battery is untested. The fact that they even give the price leads me to believe it will be short. There is little to go on as to what environmental issue these batteries will have. What will be come of the depleted batteries. EPA already restricts shipment of lithium batteries charged because of hazard the impose in their charged state. I wait to see a highway closed down for days due to an accident involving one of these vehicles. Are are our emergency response crews ready to deal with this type of contaminate. In the talk of going green are we just exchanging one environment hazard for another.

So no

Most turbo diesel get better mpg anyway.

"are our emergency response crews ready to deal with this type of contaminate."

Almost all are, but, the question is in what time frame. The resources are available, but frequently not at a local level. That means backing off, until the calvery arives. And that is a roll of the dice for location.

I am not sure what you think is in a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery, but the ones I am using don't have liquid electrolyte and can be pierced through with a crossbow bolt while fully charged. WHAT CLEANUP? Are you aware of the number of oil based catastrophies that occur almost daily.

[RANT]While you sit around and "wait for better technology" and drive your "I'm a 400HP kind of guy" fossil fule nightmares, what will your grandkids say? "Gees grandpa - didn't your generation even try to stop using oil?". The power is there and it's FREE. Wind, solar, tidal. Did you know that Scotland is aiming to go 100% renewable energy on their grid by 2020? (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/05/18093247)

Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap challenge, youtube Fully Charged) drives a Nissan Leaf and has driven 8000 miles since he has had it (late 2011), the power company and Nissan estimate that over 5000 of those miles were powered indirectly (into grid, out of grid) from Solar power generated by his home rooftop array. WAY before the batteries are out of warranty (let alone end-of-life) he will have saved MORE (from not buing petrol) than the difference in price from the Leaf to a regular modest petrol car.

Lithium is recyclable. When enough spent large form batteries are available plants will be profitable in doing so.

C'mon guys, yout all smart, we can do better.[/RANT]

While you rant and think everything is free our oil base spills become lithium smeared all over the highway. No matter what the state of the electrolyte is in it's still a environmental hazard. Is this hazard more damaging then the oil spill? Like the lead that was put in paint will it take a few generation to discover the hazards. So future generations complain about our use of oil. At least they will be here to do so. Some with the lead paint were not so lucky.

You like Bob are free to make any choices that you like. They wanted my choice. Right now I do not see these battery powered vehicle as an good one. Their development of an alternative power source for the automobile is in it's infancy. Technology changes too fast.

Road tar is essentially oil.

And lithium is a mind-affecting chemical. Is its form in a bettery such that it can't be absorbed by the human body? What prevents it reacting with water in the event of a "spill" or "hull breach" ?

"And lithium is a mind-affecting chemical"

Don't let word of this get around. The druggies will be stealing them and licking them, trying to gey high.

They will have to be recycled. I'm not sure about the regs in the US, but in the Eu, there are regs about how much (>90%) of a car must be capable of being recycled.

Also, I read somewhere (CR4??) that there are not enough Lithium deposits to supply all our battery needs. Whether or not this true, we'd be nuts to landfill stuff we've already mined.

The Lithium "shortage" is another "cry wolf".There is easily enough for the most optimistic sales projections for electric cars for the next 10 years - in North America alone.

"It doesn't make sense, financially, to recycle lithium now. Producers are mining way too much of it for the demand. Lithium isn't currently used for car batteries in any significant way - it's used for batteries in laptops, cell phones and cordless tools. All of these products took a hit during the recession, which meant a surplus of lithium existed in 2009, along with a fall in price. The only way the demand for lithium will surge is if electric vehicles roll out successfully in massive enough numbers to require a significant increase in manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries."

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/12/news/companies/electric_vehicle_lithium_shortage.fortune/index.htm

While battery life and cost are not fully determined yet, the Prius seems to be doing well. See the linked article

Mr. Roadshow, who covers the San Francisco Bay area has an avid group of readers who discuss our local roads and in particular, the Prius (Ugly Mostly) Link is to an article with local research of fleets of Prius history.

www.MercuryNews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_19648014?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com

I'm just not ready to depend on a battery as my sole source of motivation, in a vehicular sense.

Infrastructure and cost of distribution will be staggering at first. Then there's the problem of all these obsolete cars and tanks in the ground.

And if you run out in the country, you can't borrow 50 kw from the farmer, either.

We'll be closer in another 20 years, maybe close enough for viability. Who knows??????

Maybe the LENR battery is the start.

I'm not saying at all that you should abandon the oil powered cars. I have a 6 cyl. petrol car which I will transfer to club plates (classic) when I get the EV.

(Club rego. here costs about 1/4 of full rego - insurance is lots cheaper - and I can drive it for 90 days a year.)

My daily commute is 30km and I rarely need more than 60km in a day. SO, I'll have 2 cars just for me. The "spare" is 45 years old and fills the bill perfectly. The prefect recycling.

I'm coming to the idea that rather than western families having one car for each driving member, perhaps a pool of cars that each person uses as needed. That's what our family has realised that we are heading for.

Well you'd be thoroughly disgusted with me then, I own 3 cars and a light truck(my toy) and in total there are 6 cars/vehicles in the household. My daily commute is 95 km (not unusual for the Central Coast) it used to be 230km when I ran to Sydney everday. Being in an outer Urban area not supported by rail and minimal alternative public transport(buses) we have to rely on our own resources for most ventures.

Why so many cars (for me) well its a bit like having a tool box full of tools, each has its defined purpose, Daily commuter Hack, the weekend warrior wagon,the ever Useful Utility and my LTP(long term project for keeping my sanity). Then there's Her Indoors Chariot, and Missy's Missile. If there's a breakdown I don't have to panic, I can fix it when the resources (My time, money, parts)are available.

If I only lived 15km from work I'd be tempted to ride my bicycle on the sunny days

Nope the Leaf (and Prius and that Honda hybrid) doesn't stack up to any of my needs, being in Melbourne you'd be aware of a company that converts New Hyundai Getz's (and other vehicles) to EV's. They do a pretty good trade too. Ideal for going to the shops round the corner not so good for that cross country road trip.

No, not disgusted at all. The idea of a pool of cars for particular needs gets pretty close to what I was talking about. It's us city dwellers that need to get our act into gear. As you so rightly pointed out, if the EV hasn't got the range for you then that's not an issue.

But, there are millions of folk who could easily incorporate an electric car into their household.

The Leaf battery is warrantied for 96 months or 100,000 miles...that does not include the gradual loss of capacity of the battery over time. So the longer you have your Leaf, the shorter the maximum driving distance. I think I'll continue to look at Hybrids, at least they should be able to "go the distance".

Obviously if your commute is 100 miles a day, then the Leaf is not for you... until they get better batteries...or quick charge technology...or both...

So you won't buy an electric car because the price of petrol has increased over the years - OK....

I think you may be mixing inflation in your figures...currency loses value, like compounding interest in reverse...If you can remember how much money you made a week, and the percentage of that, that things cost you back then, then you have the real cost...I can remember $.32 gas, and the gas wars, I was making $2.50 an hour, and I bought a new house for $10k, you could buy a nice car for $2500 ....Plug in what I'm making now, and things are about the same...But I do understand about peak oil, and that at some time demand is going to outpace supply, and this means oil will have to come from alternative sources or cars will have to be powered with alternative means...and that means a transitional stage which will cause price fluctuations, and by converting to electric, or at least having both as an option, this can be avoided by an alert individual...

I may be including inflation, but it is certainly a factor in the bottom line. it doesn't matter where the costs are coming from. It still costs a lot to drive regardless of the energy source and the bottom line is the one we are concerned with. The enviromentalists can ride their bicycles and pay through the nose for non-poluting vehicles, but for the majority of the population that depend on transportation for their daily needs at the most affordable cost, the infernal combustion engine will always be there.

My solution is and has always been: get back to basic vehicles that used to be the norm in Europe, UK and Asia; the little Citroen 2CV's, Austins, Fiats, VW's. Those vehicles served millions, got 30+ mpg, were cheap to make and lasted forever. Of course Detroit wouldn't hear of such a thing because it would affect their bottom line; make lots of money and to hell with the environment. My first car was a 54 hp MG. I loved that car and it got me to where I needed to go. It could get to 70 mph and get 30+ mpg. What more could anyone want. We don't need cars that are capable of 100+mph. Just limiting the speed to say 75 would satisfy most people and it wouldn't drain the oil supply. Electric or hybrids are not the answer. The answer is re-education of the driving public to slow down and return to basics.

If there's one thing history has taught us, it's that you can't turn back the hands of time, you can't return to a bygone era...and another is that you can't force public opinion to change...Oh you can illuminate what was already known, and force people to do the right thing, but only to a point, go too far, and you've got a rebellion on your hands....No a much easier and effective way to go is new technology, new innovation, more sophistication, better efficiency and performance...time always moves forward, never backwards, history is littered with the corpses of those that would stop time...

I agree with your statement, but it will take a revolutionary new invention to accomplish what current technologies cannot. I'm talking something that is now in the science fiction realm, like teletransporters. I feel current technology has reached it's limit and can't go much further. A totally new technology is the answer. Batteries produce less than 2v per cell. Is it possible to make a cell that produces say 24v in the same cell package? I doubt it. A car battery has 6-2v cells totaling 12v per battery. Imagine if each cell of that battery produced 24v. That would be some battery, but I don't think it's possible. If there are aliens out there, maybe they will have the answers that us mere mortals don't.

All I'm saying is: there are limits to everything and at some point, we need to rethink our priorities and maybe return to basics. I just don't feel there will be any great leaps in our current technologies.

If you think technological advancement has suddenly flat lined you are very wrong.

Follow technological advancement of our civilization through history and you will see that in the last few hundred years it has expanded exponentially and there is no end in sight.

A century ago many people believed man could not fly. Please do not tell me that you are of that mind.

I'm not saying that technology has leveled off entirely; just I feel it has run it's course and any improvements will be small and not enough to really make an impact. I don't see any great breakthroughs in the forseeable future that will result in more bang for he buck. For that to happen, an entirely new and probably unheard of technology needs to be discovered. At any rate, it will cost the consumer more, not less. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any of this happening. Obviously you are an optomist; I'm a pessimist.

You are in for a joyful surprise then.

Oh I think this science of high capacity batteries is still in it's infancy, just in the last 10 years the change has been remarkable, and look at this latest breakthrough, doubling the energy density, and with supercapacitors just getting started, no I think this is a problem that will be solved sooner, rather than later....

Time marches on.

How would you like the engine from say a current Mini in the MG. With half the weight, it should get substantially better mileage and performance than the original did.

But what about crash worthiness? And ride quality? What about air conditioning, and roll up windows? What were the brakes like on the MG? How marketable would that car be?

Put an original MG on the market, and I would buy it in a minute- even though I have no use for an automobile these days. Ride quality? No better (of course, that depends on your taste- if you want to ride around in a padded box totally isolated from the feel of the road, the MG probably is not for you). Air conditioning? What better form of air conditioning than an open top? Brakes were good. Never had to worry about crash worthiness- never crashed...

Ride quality?

Compare the ride in a Mini, or the Fiat 500 to the MG. None of these cars will ever be described as riding in a padded box.

Air conditioning? Try selling a car on the west coast, or south of DC without air conditioning.

An open top?

Did you forget the poor fitting, leaky rattle prone folding tops of the lower cost cars of that era?

Brakes? Pick your favorite testing magazine, and compare the stopping distance of the MG to either of the above two vehicles. Do you remember the ritual of topping off the master cylinder? Where did that brake fluid go?

Crash worthiness?

Before mandatory bumper heights, the MG was going to go right under the bumper of any pick up, or van. Don't forget to duck.

I remember, and loved the quirky imports that we had in the 60s and early 70s, but, I also remember a few other terms. SU carburetors. Synchronizing carburetors. Setting points. Cleaning spark plugs. Scraping carbon. Ring jobs. Non syncronized low gear in the transmission. Relining the brakes. Brake fade. Starter bendix. I have made a living because of all of these terms. I don't hate the cars because of these things, I just remember that they were not the refined vehicles we enjoy today.

Yes, I do remember those cars, but remember, nothing is all good, nor is anything all bad.

Well, that is exactly what Mazda did. May I introduce you to the Miata?

Actually based on the English roadster, so the story goes, when they started in 1983. Today nearly 1 million cars have been sold around the world.

The BMW Z3 was inspired by the Mazda.

Right on the money. So was the Pontiac Fiero, and later the Solstice. But, they were too quirky for the masses, and just never caught on.

They paled in comparison to Mazda's creation. I am being kind.

Yes, you are. Did you know that the Fiero used a Chevette suspension system modified for rear engine-drive?

No, but that would make sense. GM, Ford, and Chrysler tend to be heavy with reuse.