Kotseng latest or outdated? Which one?

[kuyabanoy]

i believe you're just the anti-retro type that you were talking about hehe just kidding

well for me, i believe dun sa quote before na Newer doesn't always mean better

"newer doesn't always mean better." I say you are a lady. . . with good taste.

I like my old civic.

[renzo_d10]

Source .......

The dumbing-down of the automobile
Written by : Vernon B. Sarne
April 05, 2010

I was recently editing a test-drive article and checking the vehicle’s spec sheet when I realized something: Today’s cars are being equipped with so much safety equipment and so many electronic driving aids, you’d think they were designed for zombies. Many current models boast high-tech features that help make the average person a better and safer driver. It’s good if you think about it, but it also makes you wonder if this is not resulting in a generation of dumb drivers.

Foremost and oldest on this list of features, of course, is the automatic transmission. Carmakers have virtually eliminated the need for the driver to manually engage the clutch, letting electronics do it for convenience’s sake. The complaint, however, is that humans are still far more efficient than electronics in shifting through gears. When overtaking, for instance, we always wish we had a manual gearshift instead of a device that awkwardly hunts for gears.

Not anymore. With the advent of the dual-clutch automatic transmission—in which a gear is always engaged because there are two clutches simultaneously functioning—tomorrow’s computerized gearboxes will have the shifting efficiency of a professional race driver. Maybe even better. In fact, I recently read a story about how Ferrari and Lamborghini are soon completely phasing out manual transmission from their cars. The California—apparently the last Ferrari to have a conventional manual gearbox—accelerates from zero to 100kph faster with an automatic transmission than with a manual. We’ve already entered the era in which computers are beginning to outdrive humans.

This naturally begs the debate as to whether people today are better or worse drivers than they used to be, say, 30 years ago. To make this conundrum easier to comprehend, consider this question: Is Fernando Alonso, who won two Formula 1 championships driving with traction control, a better driver than Jackie Stewart, who won three titles steering his car all by himself? Some opine that Lewis Hamilton wouldn’t have survived driving in the time of Juan Manuel Fangio, when F1 was so unsafe that drivers competed wearing regular shirts and crashes frequently claimed lives.

Present-day drivers, I think, are too spoiled. We have sensors that scream at us if we’re about to bump something while backing up. We have cameras all around the car that show us nearby objects so we won’t hit them. We have hill-start assist that prevents our stationary car from rolling backward on an incline. We have cruise control that allows us to rest our right foot after we set our cruising speed on the open highway. We have antilock brakes that let us steer the car even after jamming on the brake pedal. We have adaptive headlights that follow the path of a winding road. We even have fuel-economy data that helps us refine our driving style so we can save a few bucks.

I was at Ford’s R&D center in Michigan earlier this year, and was shown a car that could parallel-park itself. All you had to do was step on the gas. This obviously is good news for people who can’t parallel-park to save their lives. But I have to ask: Isn’t parallel-parking such a basic driving task that if one can’t perform it decently, maybe he or she doesn’t deserve a driving license to begin with? What’s next? A car that will do the driving by itself?

Actually, it’s no longer such a far-fetched idea—this car-driving-itself thing. In 2007, BMW let me ride an experimental self-driving car around a racetrack in Europe. I was in the driver’s seat and made no input as far as vehicle operation was concerned. I neither touched the steering wheel nor stepped on the pedals. Yet the car drove itself around the track at full throttle, even through the challenging curves. The car was programmed to follow the contours of the track using its navigation system. The experience was surreal, believe me. There was nothing like it. With cars like this, I thought, our kids wouldn’t even need to learn how to drive. Remember, this was nearly three years ago. I won’t be surprised if they have already perfected the system. Perhaps the only obstacle to this now is the cost of the technology, so expecting to see self-driving cars on the road in our lifetime is not entirely a demented exercise.

Well, the Volvo XC60 already has a system that simply won’t let you run over a pedestrian at 30kph or slower. The car will stop itself if the driver is such a jackass that he keeps composing a text message on his phone even while passing through a school zone. This tells me that the long-term plan of the auto industry is to make cars that are so intelligent it doesn’t matter if cretins are placed in their driver’s seat.

And so I somewhat pity the kids of today. By the time they’re old enough to drive, they probably won’t even have a clue about what “shifting gears” really means. They will miss out on that exhilarating and liberating feeling of being personally in control of how a car hits its stride. And they will only know the joys of driving through a PlayStation console, never on an actual road.

Enjoy driving while you still can. Ten years from now, you’ll most likely just sleep through the ride. Which isn’t such a bad prospect, if only to avoid seeing billboards of a ***agenarian Willie Revillame.

[uls]

There's a point however where cars can be TOO new, TOO good, TOO pampering. I consider myself a proper driving enthusiast, and I want the feeling of honesty and participation in the act of driving - that there was my own contribution in doing a fast lap time, or just a fun drive through my favorite roads. To that effect, I don't want things like slop in the steering, voodoo in the throttle modulation, or dullness in the suspension's responses. Unfortunately that's where new cars can interfere with the pleasure of driving and reduce it to a task you do with an appliance.

I think cars in the late 1990s were generally the best. They played that blend of new and old, mechanical and cushy quite well - without excessive nannying or isolation. They were modern, but still felt organic.

But that's just me.

electronic stability, traction control, and all those electronic driver assist

excellent road noise suppression, excellent vibration damping

di na "organic" ang mga new cars

they're designed to insulate you from the outside world

it's like you're in a surreal environment when you're in a new car

like you're in a cocoon

the outside world seems unreal

[isa1023]

Future electronic cars could imply the following:

No more need for a driver's license
Why need one? You don't even have to know how to steer and brake.

No more traffic violations, no more kotong cops
That's upon assumption than everything is controlled by navigation systems. But if such a system fails, that means mass havoc.

No more motorsports
Dude why would I care to watch Kimi or Montoya anymore? What happened to skills? AFAIK, one reason why Montoya quit F1 is because of the sport's huge dependence on electronics.

[isa1023]

I think cars in the late 1990s were generally the best. They played that blend of new and old, mechanical and cushy quite well - without excessive nannying or isolation. They were modern, but still felt organic.

I couldn't agree more. Nothing beats the simplicity of 1990s cars.

Take EFI, rechippable ECUs, all power features, power steering and 4-wheel disc brakes and relatively cheap gasoline (and sunroof) and that's all you'll want for driving.

Well, I should admit modern audio-video systems are way much better than they were in that circa.

[Type 100]

I couldn't agree more. Nothing beats the simplicity of 1990s cars.

Take EFI, rechippable ECUs, all power features, power steering and 4-wheel disc brakes and relatively cheap gasoline (and sunroof) and that's all you'll want for driving.

Well, I should admit modern audio-video systems are way much better than they were in that circa.

Locally, that era was when ABS was slowly being introduced into mass-market cars, too. As far as nannying goes, in addition to airbags, that was the quota IMO - nothing else needed.

Anything else, like Uls said, just puts you in a cocoon and promotes bad driving.

[scharnhorst]

my favorite car of all time... is an oldie.



anybody else fancy the red-head?

[the_jet]

my favorite car of all time... is an oldie.



anybody else fancy the red-head?

Wow, my all-time fave too- Testarossa! slurp!

[leopaul]

Wow, my all-time fave too- Testarossa! slurp!

Ha! Ha! OK naman yung style pero, rare naman...

[jeanlee411]

There are keeper cars. There are iconic cars. And cars you just simply loved.

The first may be due to its being revolutionary. The second because of desirability. And the third may be just attachment because it "stood for something" in your life.

Dito lang sa Pinas daming mahlig sa oldies, minsan mas malaki pa nagagastos nila para i restore or i maintain yung kanilang oldies kesa bumili ng bago.

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