On 03/05/2012 10:14 AM, scott wrote:
>> Screw fans, turn the air conditioning on! ;-)
>
> I thought it was only cars that cost at least half a million pounds that
> have air conditioning in them? And that you wouldn't know anyone or ever
> have been in a car with air conditioning?



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Regards
     Stephen

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On Thu, 03 May 2012 09:46:47 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>  turn the air conditioning on! ;-)

Hmm, wet + cold = hypothermia.

No thanks. :)

Jim

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scott escreveu:
>>> Pop quiz: You're 86 miles from home, you're in the shower in a public
>>> changing room, when you suddenly remember that YOU DO NOT HAVE A
>>> TOWEL. What do you do? O_O
>>
>> I put on my clothes.
> 
> Then get in the car, turn on the fans, and drive for 86 miles.

ah, I'm from Brazil. ;)

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On 5/3/2012 8:45, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 03 May 2012 09:46:47 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>>   turn the air conditioning on! ;-)
>
> Hmm, wet + cold = hypothermia.

I once got caught in a Rain Storm. A friend and I road-tripped from 
Philadelphia to Washington DC. (About a 3-hour drive, for our foreign 
friends.) We parked on the street, went and looked at things, and by the 
time it was time to head home, it was Raining. With a capital R. I mean, we 
were looking for the car, and we couldn't find it, because there was quite 
literally so much water in the air between head height and street-sign 
height that one could not read the signs. We couldn't have been more wet had 
we been thrown a swimming pool. Our underwear was soaked. We stopped 
bothering to step over rain gutters because our shoes couldn't possibly get 
wetter.

After wandering about 20 minutes in this, we found the car. A big old 
Lincoln, like they made when gas was $0.35/gallon. Now, this was my mom's 
car at the time, which means my dad, the auto mechanic, had been maintaining 
it. Which means that when the heater switch broke, he installed a light 
switch in its place. There was no temperature knob. The heat was on, or off. 
Which meant that the interior of the car was about 90 degrees (that's 33C to 
the rest of you) in about 5 minutes. Toasty!

I still believe I'm alive today, 30 years later, due to that light switch 
under the dashboard. My friend still mentions it occasionally to this day.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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>>   turn the air conditioning on! ;-)
>
> Hmm, wet + cold = hypothermia.
>
> No thanks. :)

In all cars I've been in you can use the air-con with heat, not just 
cool.  In winter it is much more effective at demisting the windows if 
you the A/C turned on (along with heat), especially if the occupants are 
wet.

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On 03/05/2012 10:14 AM, scott wrote:
>> Screw fans, turn the air conditioning on! ;-)
>
> I thought it was only cars that cost at least half a million pounds that
> have air conditioning in them? And that you wouldn't know anyone or ever
> have been in a car with air conditioning?

That certainly *was* the case once. Curiously, while A/C and electric 
windows used to be expensive luxuries that nobody but the Prime Minister 
could afford, today it seems that almost *every* car has these things. 
And I'm not sure how that happened... Presumably it still costs exactly 
the same amount of money to actually manufacture these things so...?

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Le 04/05/2012 09:54, Invisible a écrit :
> On 03/05/2012 10:14 AM, scott wrote:
>>> Screw fans, turn the air conditioning on! ;-)
>>
>> I thought it was only cars that cost at least half a million pounds that
>> have air conditioning in them? And that you wouldn't know anyone or ever
>> have been in a car with air conditioning?
> 
> That certainly *was* the case once. Curiously, while A/C and electric
> windows used to be expensive luxuries that nobody but the Prime Minister
> could afford, today it seems that almost *every* car has these things.
> And I'm not sure how that happened... Presumably it still costs exactly
> the same amount of money to actually manufacture these things so...?
> 


Manufacture, yes.
Conception, no.

In the production of cars, a significant amount of the price might be
due to the studies.
It uses to take 5 years to make a new car.
It means that if you produced only one item at the end, that item costed
5 years of salary of many peoples, at least.

Notice that the actual assembly does not take 5 years. It's only a tiny
fraction of the full time.

For instance, ferrari/lamborghini/... are producing in the range of 1
car a working day (or alike), whereas Renauld/Nissan/Citroen/Toyota are
producing probably in the range of 1 car every minutes.

Assuming you have a yearly model change, the former have 200 cars to get
back the cost of the studies, the latter have 100000 cars for that.

Assumes you have a low cost of studies at 10 Millions ($,€ or £) for the
5 years (very small budget).
The minimal price (not including the actual material of each car) would be:
* 50000 for the former
* 100 for the latter

Then you can add the price for the material & manufacturing.

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> That certainly *was* the case once. Curiously, while A/C and electric
> windows used to be expensive luxuries that nobody but the Prime Minister
> could afford, today it seems that almost *every* car has these things.
> And I'm not sure how that happened...

It happens with everything in cars.  Electric mirrors, tape players, CD 
players, MP3 capability, bluetooth, LCD display in instrument cluster, 
ABS, traction control, stability control, flat-tyre sensors, rain 
sensors, navigation, power steering, fuel injection ... the list is 
endless and will continue to grow.

> Presumably it still costs exactly
> the same amount of money to actually manufacture these things so...?

At the beginning manufacturing costs are negligible, you're paying for 
the development costs (maybe the car maker is in partnership with one 
particular supplier to develop the technology).  After several car 
cycles (decades) eventually you'll get to the stage where there are no 
further development costs - where you (as the car maker) have the choice 
of 100 different suppliers all making the same part and selling it 
barely above the manufacturing costs.

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On 04/05/2012 11:14 AM, scott wrote:

> It happens with everything in cars. Electric mirrors, tape players, CD
> players, MP3 capability, bluetooth, LCD display in instrument cluster,
> ABS, traction control, stability control, flat-tyre sensors, rain
> sensors, navigation, power steering, fuel injection ... the list is
> endless and will continue to grow.

And here I was thinking that they just make the same cars over and over 
again...

> At the beginning manufacturing costs are negligible, you're paying for
> the development costs. After several car cycles
> (decades) eventually you'll get to the stage where there are no further
> development costs.

Cars actually advance noticeably in a 10-year period? Not, like, a 
40-year period or something?

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> On 04/05/2012 11:14 AM, scott wrote:
>
>> It happens with everything in cars. Electric mirrors, tape players, CD
>> players, MP3 capability, bluetooth, LCD display in instrument cluster,
>> ABS, traction control, stability control, flat-tyre sensors, rain
>> sensors, navigation, power steering, fuel injection ... the list is
>> endless and will continue to grow.
>
> And here I was thinking that they just make the same cars over and over
> again...
>
>> At the beginning manufacturing costs are negligible, you're paying for
>> the development costs. After several car cycles
>> (decades) eventually you'll get to the stage where there are no further
>> development costs.
>
> Cars actually advance noticeably in a 10-year period? Not, like, a
> 40-year period or something?

Twenty years ago, in car CD players were almost unheard of.  ABS braking 
was reserved to luxury vehicles.  Driver-side airbags were starting to 
be more common.  You could still buy a car with a carburetor.

Ten years ago, not all cars had CD players, passenger-side airbags were 
now more common.  Electronic fuel injection was now the norm.  Most cars 
now had ABS brakes, but it was still used by the marketing dept as a 
selling point.  Hybrid cars were a curiosity.

Today, most cars NO LONGER have CD players, all cars have 6 to 8 air 
bags, GPS systems, keyless entry, same, better fuel efficiency, better 
traction control, braking, automated parking, etc...

Car maker NEED to find new things to entice the consumers to buy a new 
car every 3 or 4 year, or they'd be going out of business faster than 
they already are.

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