I doubt the new softer, weaker Viper will even sell 500 a year. The reason they were bringing the car back was it had a hardcore fanbase. But this base won't buy these posermobiles.
The hard-core fan base is small. The majority of motorists will be more appealed by the "soft" Viper, hence I believe it might actually sell in greater numbers because it becomes more usable.
What's your beef with ABS in a road car?
Just for reference, stability control is less for high speed than it is for bad road conditions and emergencies.
without ESP the Octavia would not be as shiny as it still is today.
at people suddenly switching lanes without indicating or looking while pootling down an Autobahn in a snow storm, yet
at computers for helping me sort it out - if the grip level for each tyre is significantly different then any driver this side of Senna would have trouble slowing down the car or swerving to avoid the idiot. Touch the brakes without any electronics and you start spinning.
Just admit that your statement was absolutely wrong
As an example of how wrong it is:
Road by my house has a speed limit of 50mph.
My car reaches 50mph in 2nd gear, so by your logic if I am going at a constant speed (50) in 2nd gear with CC turned on I should use less fuel than I go between 45-50 in 5th.
You're just looking for excuses. Nobody in their right mind would compare cruise control consumption in second gear with foot consumption in fifth. All my statements refer to going along in the same gear, the correct gear for the situation.
So do the drive with CC there and w/o CC back and observe your consumption gauge and then tell me if you see a noticeable difference. BUT you have to keep your foot 100% steady on the throttle no matter what.
With or without CC, the consumption varies wildly. You can probably guess, being German I love to keep a look at the data :lol: I can tell you time of day has a bigger impact on fuel than cruise control (huge traffic = more consumption, no traffic = higher speed = more consumption). Wind direction and speed has a bigger impact on fuel than cruise control. Outside temperature can have bigger impact than cruise control (cold = lots of cold running, hot = A/C).
In order to get any reliable data you would need a huge number of data points, getting a few readings is pointless due to other variables having bigger impacts.
We have the same CC likely...
Go down a steep enough hill in top gear at reasonable speed in cruise control, you will then observe that it entirely shuts off the fuel supply and even may speed up if the hill is steep enough.
Either you have no idea what you were talking about, or your cruise control sucks. Your choice
That's great but it still says nothing about "rolling" terrain.
Differences in elevation are goverened by this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy
tl;dr: Going up a hill needs energy, going down a hill gives back the exact same energy. At what speeds you go up or down does not matter for potential energy, that's where aerodynamic drag plays the biggest role because of its growth with v?.
You don't seem to be understanding a very simple point. CC will keep constant speed at all times, I won't, when I was doing the only drive of my life where I used CC it was an empty road with no one around, I didn't care if I droped to 45 on the way up and went up to 70 on the way down I kept my foot at the same exact place no matter what. So I wasn't using any more fuel on the way up (car just dropped to w/e speed current throttle setting allowed it to be) and used less of it on the way down. If I really wanted to save some fuel I could have released the throttle at the crest (something a CC will NEVER do) and let it coast down only going back on the throttle at the very end.
It is an illusion that you save fuel by coasting up a hill.
The energy it takes to store the potential energy comes out of your fuel, no matter what you do. In your foot-controlled case it comes out of the kinetic energy of your car, you slow down. That kinetic energy is restored by you applying the throttle on the way down.
The cruise control provides the energy for going up the hill while going up the hill, and uses the potential energy stored up there to go down the hill without much or any throttle.
The key difference is aerodynamic drag. On your way down you go much faster than the cruise control and get the penalty of aerodynamics. If you didn't go much faster you would lose time due to going up slower.
It's highschool physics. I mean, how hard can it be?
P.S. none of the hypermilers use CC, think about it.
The religious hypermilers are idiots, think about it.
Mindlessly staying on your god-given speed choice will ruin your consumption. You still have to make adjustments to perfectly fit the situation.