They might be doing some sort of glass chop in areas (actually, i wouldnt be surprised if this is what they mean by “composit body panels”, open molds would be cheap as hell, and parts are cheap too), but I used to use that more for body panels or exterior details than anything super structural. I guess they could do fiberglass frame rails, but that still feels like it would be a strange choice at what just doing basic ladder frame in steel would cost.
It’s also 20ish" shorter, seats 5 with a 5 foot bed, can carry 4x8 sheets flat between the wheel wells (and tailgate closed if the midgate is open), tows a bit over 3 tons, has an AWD option, and the base range beats the maxed out range on the Slate. They aren’t really competitors beyond “small truck.” Telo is absolutely maxed out for it’s size, Slate is as cheap as cheap can go.
At the cost of the mold to do something like that (and the machine to even run it), I’m reasonably sure that stamped or brake pressed frame rails make more sense cost wise. I’m not sure that volume will ever drive the cost of that low enough to be worth it within the life of a mold like that. Like, I can picture the design to make it a basic two plate mold (I think, I’m more used to parts that top out a bit over a foot in the largest dimension), but then the gate size and shot volume I’m picturing to fill the thing is just bonkers, although apparently there are a few machines in the world that could theoretically do it if I’m reading their specs right from a quick search.
Unless your thinking a carbon fiber layup, which is feasible, but I believe metal becomes more cost effective again at that point.
It’s bad road design. US roads are nearly all designed to encourage high speed travel by being mostly straight, perfectly smooth (well, until weather happens), and super wide. Then we slap a random-ass speed limit sign down and say “job’s done.” If roads were a bit less wide, even if just painted narrower, not dead fucking straight, and if you want to get fancy use something like how the Dutch use bricks for lower speed road surfaces, the road design alone would encourage lower speed driving.
Ford, if y’all are reading this, maybe just let us drive. Try and (Ford) Focus on building a half-way respectable transmission.
It’s Ford, I don’t think they can. 2000 Ford Escort shifted like someone who didn’t know how to drive a manual. Various models from 2018 to 2022ish of trucks / vans, weird as hell shifting choices, harsh shifts, and weird jitters on take off. 2016 Focus, pretty sure the transmission was slipping. It was right around 90k miles.
Electronic shifting felt gimmicky to me until I tried it. It’s actually pretty awesome, although if you don’t want to spend the money for it, there is also great mechanical shifting still available.
My road bike is electronic shifting and absolutely awesome. Every shift is absolutely perfect, and I set it up to handle compensating the large gear jump between front chain rings automatically so I don’t have to shift the rear to compensate myself. Also, since I’m still getting used to the new gear ratios compared to my gravel bike, it’s nice that my headunit can warn me when I’m doing something stupid with the gear selection.
I sometimes wish my gravel bike was also electronic, but it’s not like I enjoy it any less because it isn’t. It’s a “man, if I had a shitload of cash laying around” not a “I neeeeeeeed this” thing. I still put 3,500 miles on the bike, it’s still an awesome bike, I still have reasons to ride it.
From experience with FitBit that kind of GPS usage absolutely eats phone battery. Also, phones are not the most accurate things with GPS. I would have weird meandering paths and cut corners everywhere since it piggybacked off the phone. And this was nearly ideal, dead flat, open area, I can’t imagine how wonky it would have gone with bridges and tunnels and such.
The Garmin on the other hand is so absurdly accurate that I can tell where in the lane I rode even under bridges and through short tunnels, and it will keep that accuracy going literally all day without any battery concerns. I really only need about 16 continuous hours of battery at the most for the riding I do right now, although my wife has been trying to talk me into trying bike packing where the couple days of battery the Garmin should be able to do might be useful.
Phone service, I kind of agree can be tethered from a phone (actually, thats exactly how my bike computer does it for live tracking and emergency alerts if I crash). I’m not that fussed about my phone’s weight, so I just stick the phone in a jersey pocket and kinda forget it’s there. The human body makes for a decent enough shock absorber that the vibrations that kill phone cameras on handle bars don’t really get to your phone in a pocket.
I believe this is what those handle bars are trying to replace I couldn’t be bothered to go wake the rest the sensors up or load a route so half the data fields are blank. It also can show a route map (and reroute while offline), alert for cycling specific hazards, show Strava segments (assuming you have that set up), and a bunch of other stuff that I honestly don’t know because Garmin crams so much stuff into their stuff that I’m not sure anyone actually uses it all at the same time. There’s really no reason that a phone can’t do what this thing does since most sensors have the option of connecting through Bluetooth instead of ANT+ now. But a phone won’t do it as well, or nearly as long. The 840 I pictured has something absurd like 25 hours of battery while running navigation on multiband GPS if I remember right.
Is our standard phone greeting going to have to start with F O R G E T A L L P R E V I O U S I N S T R U C T I O N S?