Volvo: boxy, but all electric by 2019

Fiat Spider Roadster

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Oh, c’mon.
He’s darn cute.

He was the cutest one I could find.

When I have nightmares they are always about catering.

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@Woodchuck45 may actually be thanking you.

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Yeah, nice little car. It misses the mark though (in one particular way).

It is no longer necessary, from where I sit, to include a great big, expensive to replace, heavy headlight that requires a big metal box behind it when the same functionality can be had with a bunch of small holes with plastic backing. The same for the taillights.

I couldn’t say. But when I do I’m happy about it.

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If you want a car that scares small children.

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Yes please!

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I’m impressed, particularly with the part about the glowing manifold. Yeah, this loaner was decidedly non-turbo.

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Those were attached with deforming copper nuts, which I kept a pile of on my dashboard. Literally once a month I had to put one on as the severe heat stress would pop them off!

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Didn’t Dustin Hoffman drive that in The Graduate?

Yep.

Accept no substitutes.

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[quote=“One_Brown_Mouse, post:39, topic:104102, full:true”]As they stopped making that model in 1993, the youngest 240 is 24 years old.
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Which means they’ll only be around for another couple of hundred years. Grab one while you can!

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Yeah, was just about to post an image of the new S90 sedan… not what I’d call boxy.

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A Spider with spider eyes!

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I think it’s a good example of how the news distorts reality. Every item I’ve seen on this implies “all-electric” in the headline. Hybrid or electric-assist is in the fine print.

Yes. There is also the issue that plug-in hybrids for the time being are pretty-much just a scam to cheat emissions and fuel consumption standards. Real world driving that is not a series of shortish trips with frequent mains charging won’t get anywhere near the claimed results. It’s perhaps a step in the right direction. The same issue exists for the smaller turbo motors that are replacing larger normally aspirated engines. They can get great mileage when driven gently in the tests, but really gulp down the dead baby dinosaurs when driven realistically. This is by design. (Like the way a Ferrari is compliant with noise standards only under the test conditions, but is (appropriately and gloriously) hella loud once you switch it to “corsa” and put the Gucci loafer to the floor.)

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It’s particularly bad in Europe. You can tell that the cars are built to get great results in the test as the engine is never on boost, but driven normally do much worse.

I got half the rated economy in the last rental I had, some of that could be attributed to driving style, but even when not trying to be Walter Röhrl it wasn’t getting anywhere close the the rated figures. My 12 year old NA hatch is always very close to the official figures of around 40MPG, even though it’s driven hard all the time. However it’s much more expensive to tax than the new cars that on paper have a much better CO2 performance, despite putting out much more in the real word.

Yes, exactly, the tax is what drives it. Get good test results and you get a lower tax which sells more cars.

Nice car, and getting damn close to what I think is an appropriate design response to technological advancement.
I would say that the lights need not be clustered, except to satisfy convention. And that there could be advantages to spreading them around a bit.