It's a title that's near and dear to me, as applied to movies... simply... I can no longer stand the dross coming out of Hollywood. Action movies don't need to be smart, I get it! But, as "Iron Man" has shown, non-smart movies don't have to be unbearably stupid, either, not like "G.I.Joe".
Entre Formula One. A sport, yes... and an expensive one, at that, but also a form of entertainment. One team in particular, Ferrari, has been responsible for much of the entertainment value over the past two decades. Right now, they're in a clinch. Felipe Massa's injury last month, and Michael Schumacher isn't healthy enough to make his highly publicized comeback yet... so they're short one driver.
Who do they pick? Luca Badoer. test driver extraordinaire.
Here's a guy who hasn't raced in decades. He was never the best driver or the fastest, though, since he drove mostly for the smaller teams, that's understandable... but he holds the distinction of the most starts without a point in F1. That's not good...
And Badoer doesn't disappoint, given his record. four instances of speeding in the pits.... before the race even starts. Gets a penalty for crossing the white line at the pit lane exit in the race. Doesn't beat anyone who has a car at least half-as-good as his. Sure, he brought the car home in one piece... but so did Jamie Algesuari, who's half his age and only on his second race.
I've been told, here and there, to give the guy a break. He's got to get his feet wet before scoring anything... but the question is: why should we give him a break? Why should we not give Ferrari grief over this strange choice of a replacement for Massa? Renault brought in Romain Grosjean... and in his very first weekend in a Formula One car, he manages to pace his team-mate, double world champion, Fernando Alonso.
Ferrari many have no chance of winning this year's title, but they owe it to the fans to put up a game fight. And putting in a placeholder like Badoer simply isn't going to cut it. C'mon, Ferrari, I expect more. Give me Robert Downey Junior... not another Channing Tatum.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Lists, lists, lists
It's getting close to that time of year again.
Once again, various organizations are getting set to deliver their verdict on which new cars are the best on sale today.
Of course, the alchemical and sometimes thaumaturgical calculations and machinations involved in deciding the winners of such awards sometimes leaves non-automotive enthusiasts... and even some enthusiasts... hell... even some of the judges who vote on these things... confused.
As well they should be... there's really no system that can't be gamed to produce any results you want. Since bench-racing is a favorite pastime of most automotive enthusiasts, those of you who know what "0-62", "bhp" and "lateral g" signify can understand this. It's tempting to give scores for performance... or for "value-for-the-money"... such cheap tricks the media employs to convince the manufacturers that their cars should be cheaper and better!
But things get awfully wooly when you start adding subjective scoring to the mix. Some awards are decided subjectively for items that most lay-people will never notice... the cleverness of the engineering of a car's engine mounts... the use of cylinder deactivation for fuel economy... hybrid implementation... etcetera. Such subjectively decided criteria have led to some pretty crappy cars being crowned for no other reason than their uniqueness. I'm looking at you, Motor Trend and "European Car of the Year"!
Others may try to rigidly structure subjective observations into a quantifiable table. But they find that the scoring then gives them an answer that nobody was expecting. Car and Driver has all but given up on its methods of calculation and has created a master subjective score: the "Gotta-Have-It" score. One score to rule them all. Or at least one score to make the numbers look nice and neat at the end of the day. Such baldfaced manipulation is tantamount to an admittance that their scoring system sucks, but at least their "TenBest" list doesn't rely on scoring, but are rather editorial picks debated by the whole staff.
Which brings me to the inspiration for this post: the "C! Awards 2009". This is one list I usually agree with. Because it's a list created by car enthusiasts for car enthusiasts... but with an eye towards practicality and grounded in reality. Well... as real as any list with three categories for high-end supercars costing more than my house can be.
One funny disclaimer, though, for the list. It notes that category winners aren't always comparo winners. Even the new editor-in-chief, James Deakin, says he doesn't agree with every award, but hey, that's democracy.
I find it funny that many people have criticized the magazine for dropping scoring from their comparisons in the past. I don't actually care about scoring. I think the way Top Gear Philippines does it works. Just pick a winner. There was a time C! didn't do this for their comparos, which made them somewhat pointless. I'm ambivalent about the new scoring system. It seems to be continually under development, and criteria can vary from comparo to comparo. What I'm not ambivalent about is the category winners for the "Editor's Choice" awards, since they seem to have picked the right winners given their categories, for the most part, though there are some that could go either way.
It's a challenge facing the "Philippine Car of the Year" panel. With a voting panel the size of a small barangay, it's impossible to sit around a table with some beers to decide the winner, so a scoring system is a must. I haven't agreed with all the category winners in the past, and I still think that older cars still on sale should be made eligible (how do the new cars really stack up to the old guard, I wonder?), but you can't deny that most have been good cars. And if you weren't there, you don't know how or why a car won. It could be that your favorite horse rides like a bucking bronco over potholes and got negative marks from the judges for it (as well it should!), or a car you think is "boring" turns out to be more practical and easier to drive than that flashy new model. This is the advantage of having all the contestants available at the same time and at the same place. It's a proper comparison. Of course Gwyneth Palthrow was great in "Shakespeare in Love" (one of the most controversial Oscars of the past decade...), but how would that performance stand out if you had every Academy nominee for that year reprise the role on stage in front of a voting audience? Exactly. The outcome might have been completely different.
I think what the PCoTY lacks is an explanation of how a winner won, which would satisfy both enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. A detailed press release... or... hopefully... a publication? :)
As this is a growing organization, there has to be a continuous refining and tweaking of the rules, to make them fair and balanced. Of course, there comes a point where you have to accept that no scoring system in the world will be perfect. At which point, it's up to the judges to be as fair and impartial as possible, to give the best results possible.
Once again, various organizations are getting set to deliver their verdict on which new cars are the best on sale today.
Of course, the alchemical and sometimes thaumaturgical calculations and machinations involved in deciding the winners of such awards sometimes leaves non-automotive enthusiasts... and even some enthusiasts... hell... even some of the judges who vote on these things... confused.
As well they should be... there's really no system that can't be gamed to produce any results you want. Since bench-racing is a favorite pastime of most automotive enthusiasts, those of you who know what "0-62", "bhp" and "lateral g" signify can understand this. It's tempting to give scores for performance... or for "value-for-the-money"... such cheap tricks the media employs to convince the manufacturers that their cars should be cheaper and better!
But things get awfully wooly when you start adding subjective scoring to the mix. Some awards are decided subjectively for items that most lay-people will never notice... the cleverness of the engineering of a car's engine mounts... the use of cylinder deactivation for fuel economy... hybrid implementation... etcetera. Such subjectively decided criteria have led to some pretty crappy cars being crowned for no other reason than their uniqueness. I'm looking at you, Motor Trend and "European Car of the Year"!
Others may try to rigidly structure subjective observations into a quantifiable table. But they find that the scoring then gives them an answer that nobody was expecting. Car and Driver has all but given up on its methods of calculation and has created a master subjective score: the "Gotta-Have-It" score. One score to rule them all. Or at least one score to make the numbers look nice and neat at the end of the day. Such baldfaced manipulation is tantamount to an admittance that their scoring system sucks, but at least their "TenBest" list doesn't rely on scoring, but are rather editorial picks debated by the whole staff.
Which brings me to the inspiration for this post: the "C! Awards 2009". This is one list I usually agree with. Because it's a list created by car enthusiasts for car enthusiasts... but with an eye towards practicality and grounded in reality. Well... as real as any list with three categories for high-end supercars costing more than my house can be.
One funny disclaimer, though, for the list. It notes that category winners aren't always comparo winners. Even the new editor-in-chief, James Deakin, says he doesn't agree with every award, but hey, that's democracy.
I find it funny that many people have criticized the magazine for dropping scoring from their comparisons in the past. I don't actually care about scoring. I think the way Top Gear Philippines does it works. Just pick a winner. There was a time C! didn't do this for their comparos, which made them somewhat pointless. I'm ambivalent about the new scoring system. It seems to be continually under development, and criteria can vary from comparo to comparo. What I'm not ambivalent about is the category winners for the "Editor's Choice" awards, since they seem to have picked the right winners given their categories, for the most part, though there are some that could go either way.
It's a challenge facing the "Philippine Car of the Year" panel. With a voting panel the size of a small barangay, it's impossible to sit around a table with some beers to decide the winner, so a scoring system is a must. I haven't agreed with all the category winners in the past, and I still think that older cars still on sale should be made eligible (how do the new cars really stack up to the old guard, I wonder?), but you can't deny that most have been good cars. And if you weren't there, you don't know how or why a car won. It could be that your favorite horse rides like a bucking bronco over potholes and got negative marks from the judges for it (as well it should!), or a car you think is "boring" turns out to be more practical and easier to drive than that flashy new model. This is the advantage of having all the contestants available at the same time and at the same place. It's a proper comparison. Of course Gwyneth Palthrow was great in "Shakespeare in Love" (one of the most controversial Oscars of the past decade...), but how would that performance stand out if you had every Academy nominee for that year reprise the role on stage in front of a voting audience? Exactly. The outcome might have been completely different.
I think what the PCoTY lacks is an explanation of how a winner won, which would satisfy both enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. A detailed press release... or... hopefully... a publication? :)
As this is a growing organization, there has to be a continuous refining and tweaking of the rules, to make them fair and balanced. Of course, there comes a point where you have to accept that no scoring system in the world will be perfect. At which point, it's up to the judges to be as fair and impartial as possible, to give the best results possible.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
It's a Congested Life
Traffic in Manila nowadays, is, I don't need to tell you, pretty shitty.
Thanks to Gloria's promise to finish the Skyway ASAP, I'm stuck with Ramos-era congestion on my trips up north. I should be glad I no longer do this on a daily basis, but I feel sorry for anyone who still does.
I haven't resorted to being a complete asshole, yet. I don't drive on the grassy shoulder to get around traffic. But I have found that sometimes it's much, much faster to just get off on the long detour to the Filinvest Toll Gate and U-turn after the Toll Plaza and get back on just before the bridge.
Saves me twenty or thirty minutes. Still leaves me with two hours of clutch-pumping, finger-tapping boredom. Two hours to go a mere thirty kilometers. I could walk faster than this.
What's even more maddening is the Lynx's tendency to either die out on my "rich" map as the ECU enrichens the fuel mixture even further to deal with the heat, or to start idling high on the "lean" map because it's still running too lean.
That's something I finally attempted to fix yesterday, with a borrowed laptop at Speedlab... leaning out the mixture on the "rich" map slightly, and adding fuel to the areas of the map it would only see at high idle. Copy-pasted different iterations of this map, with slight fueling differences to three of four of the available mapsets on the Unichip Q (leaving one blank except for idle enrichment, just to see how LPG runs without interference) and consigning my previous "lean" map to the rubbish bin. (It never worked well in the cold, anyway)
Works much better now, although I still have some hot idle problems with the leanest of my maps after a really stressful flog. But at least I'm getting a better handle of ECU tuning.
Eventually, I'm going to have to learn how to use the temperature sensor intercepts and the Lambda function, but that's something best done when I have more time on my hands.
Hopefully, by then, I will have figured out how to make the Dastek tuning program work with Windows Vista.
Thanks to Gloria's promise to finish the Skyway ASAP, I'm stuck with Ramos-era congestion on my trips up north. I should be glad I no longer do this on a daily basis, but I feel sorry for anyone who still does.
I haven't resorted to being a complete asshole, yet. I don't drive on the grassy shoulder to get around traffic. But I have found that sometimes it's much, much faster to just get off on the long detour to the Filinvest Toll Gate and U-turn after the Toll Plaza and get back on just before the bridge.
Saves me twenty or thirty minutes. Still leaves me with two hours of clutch-pumping, finger-tapping boredom. Two hours to go a mere thirty kilometers. I could walk faster than this.
What's even more maddening is the Lynx's tendency to either die out on my "rich" map as the ECU enrichens the fuel mixture even further to deal with the heat, or to start idling high on the "lean" map because it's still running too lean.
That's something I finally attempted to fix yesterday, with a borrowed laptop at Speedlab... leaning out the mixture on the "rich" map slightly, and adding fuel to the areas of the map it would only see at high idle. Copy-pasted different iterations of this map, with slight fueling differences to three of four of the available mapsets on the Unichip Q (leaving one blank except for idle enrichment, just to see how LPG runs without interference) and consigning my previous "lean" map to the rubbish bin. (It never worked well in the cold, anyway)
Works much better now, although I still have some hot idle problems with the leanest of my maps after a really stressful flog. But at least I'm getting a better handle of ECU tuning.
Eventually, I'm going to have to learn how to use the temperature sensor intercepts and the Lambda function, but that's something best done when I have more time on my hands.
Hopefully, by then, I will have figured out how to make the Dastek tuning program work with Windows Vista.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Fuel Consumption Conundrums
Fuel economy is one of those topics that everyone seems to have an opinion on, but which very few can give accurate facts about. Unless you're a hypermiler or a Prius owner, you're probably about as adept at calculating your fuel usage as I am at calculating income tax returns (and no, I don't know how to do that).
But even for those of us who do know something about calculating fuel use, sometimes, the numbers just don't add up. We fudge some numbers, try to make concessions to test methodology variations, and... well... sometimes we just have to guess.
Terrible, isn't it?
This has been on my mind for the past few days due to a very unusual car... the Toyota Corolla.
It's not an unusual car, per se, but it's unusual in the fact that it has a very big engine in it... a two liter lump from the Toyota Camry. Now, I've always championed the fuel economy of Toyotas... though their cars of late don't impress me otherwise... as a sign of engineering expertise used correctly. I wasn't expecting Yaris or Prius-like numbers from the combination of small car, big engine, auto-box, but I was hoping for the Corolla to post numbers significantly better than some of the two liter porkers that have gone through my hands, lately, like the Dodge Caliber or two-liter Ford Focus.
But did it? No. Maybe. I don't know.
Confused? So am I.
My co-tester, Carlo, drove the car for two days. Claimed brilliant economy... doing 9 km/l on one day, and an amazing 16 km/l the next. All in-city driving, though the 16 km/l was not stop-go traffic. I was, frankly, skeptical, but he had the gas receipts to back it up.
My turn at the wheel got me two days (with two separate fill-ups) of 6.5 km/l in pure city weekend driving. Mostly low speed stuff between stoplights. Just about what you'd expect from a slushbox equipped two point oh on Manila streets... so... maybe the car is better on the highway, right? Automatics love highway driving, with their long gearing and smooth shifting.
On the highway, the trip computer, previously pessimistically under-rating economy by 0.2 km/l, was enthusiastically proclaiming a mixed 12.5 km/l, with highs of 16-18 km/l at maintained speeds of 80 km/h. It only sunk down to 12.5 km/l due to the stops we made along the way.
Imagine my disappointment when a trip to the pumps and a quick set of calculations on the back of the gas receipt netted me 10 km/l. A quick drive around, to do acceleration and handling testing, (with the trip computer reset) gave me 7 km/l by the clock and 8 km/l on the receipt from the same pump.
What the hell was going on?
Granted, you expect onboard fuel consumption computers to be inaccurate, but you don't expect this kind of schizophrenia. The odometer was accurate by our GPS meter, but that doesn't really matter if you're comparing onboard calculated economy to trip economy based on fuel consumption and odometer readings.
The first clue I had when trying to puzzle this all out is the "Range" readout on the Corolla's trip computer. We make it a practice to fill up the tank to the automatic shut-off on whatever pump we're using. Of course, there are pump variations, but with our schedule and drive locations, you can't always return to the same pump. But looking at the "Range" readouts showed how ridiculously large the variance in fill-up levels was on the Corolla. On most pumps, the "Range" went up to 299 kms at the "full" mark. On the last pump I used, it went up to 360 kms. That's a difference of potentially 3-6 liters! And the "Range" calculations don't reset with the trip computer... they're calculated internally, and don't change whether the last hour was driven like a hypermiling loon or a gas-guzzling hoon.
This indicated that, much like the Prius Toyota had lent us two years ago, the Corolla's filler neck is a literal pain-in-the-neck for accurate fuel consumption. Most cars will have a variance of one or two liters, but this was off the scale.
Given some quick corrections based on assumptions of how far off each pump was, we ended up with the 16 km/l trip being around 12 km/l... one 6.5 km/l trip being 7.5 km/l, and the 10 km/l trip being 12-13 km/l. The trips where we were able to fill up at same pump (6.5 km/l in the city... 8 km/l in hard driving) remain unchanged. Maybe. Maybe there are bubbles in the system that make these inaccurate, too. We're not really sure.
But short of jumping up and down on the rear bumper at the gas station and topping off till gasoline comes out of the overflow pipe (which would render all calculations moot, anyhow), I don't know of any other way we can assure reasonable accuracy, except to drive far enough to deplete the tank and lower the percentage of inaccuracy.
If you're doing this kind of testing at home, that's what you've got to do to make sure you're getting real numbers. Drive as far as possible on one tank then fill her up (at the same pump) and measure from there. It's not 100% accurate, but it's the best you can do without taping a fuel bladder to the hood of your car.
For our next Toyota test... that's what we'll probably be doing, maybe with an IV bottle stolen from the hospital dispensary.
But even for those of us who do know something about calculating fuel use, sometimes, the numbers just don't add up. We fudge some numbers, try to make concessions to test methodology variations, and... well... sometimes we just have to guess.
Terrible, isn't it?
This has been on my mind for the past few days due to a very unusual car... the Toyota Corolla.
It's not an unusual car, per se, but it's unusual in the fact that it has a very big engine in it... a two liter lump from the Toyota Camry. Now, I've always championed the fuel economy of Toyotas... though their cars of late don't impress me otherwise... as a sign of engineering expertise used correctly. I wasn't expecting Yaris or Prius-like numbers from the combination of small car, big engine, auto-box, but I was hoping for the Corolla to post numbers significantly better than some of the two liter porkers that have gone through my hands, lately, like the Dodge Caliber or two-liter Ford Focus.
But did it? No. Maybe. I don't know.
Confused? So am I.
My co-tester, Carlo, drove the car for two days. Claimed brilliant economy... doing 9 km/l on one day, and an amazing 16 km/l the next. All in-city driving, though the 16 km/l was not stop-go traffic. I was, frankly, skeptical, but he had the gas receipts to back it up.
My turn at the wheel got me two days (with two separate fill-ups) of 6.5 km/l in pure city weekend driving. Mostly low speed stuff between stoplights. Just about what you'd expect from a slushbox equipped two point oh on Manila streets... so... maybe the car is better on the highway, right? Automatics love highway driving, with their long gearing and smooth shifting.
On the highway, the trip computer, previously pessimistically under-rating economy by 0.2 km/l, was enthusiastically proclaiming a mixed 12.5 km/l, with highs of 16-18 km/l at maintained speeds of 80 km/h. It only sunk down to 12.5 km/l due to the stops we made along the way.
Imagine my disappointment when a trip to the pumps and a quick set of calculations on the back of the gas receipt netted me 10 km/l. A quick drive around, to do acceleration and handling testing, (with the trip computer reset) gave me 7 km/l by the clock and 8 km/l on the receipt from the same pump.
What the hell was going on?
Granted, you expect onboard fuel consumption computers to be inaccurate, but you don't expect this kind of schizophrenia. The odometer was accurate by our GPS meter, but that doesn't really matter if you're comparing onboard calculated economy to trip economy based on fuel consumption and odometer readings.
The first clue I had when trying to puzzle this all out is the "Range" readout on the Corolla's trip computer. We make it a practice to fill up the tank to the automatic shut-off on whatever pump we're using. Of course, there are pump variations, but with our schedule and drive locations, you can't always return to the same pump. But looking at the "Range" readouts showed how ridiculously large the variance in fill-up levels was on the Corolla. On most pumps, the "Range" went up to 299 kms at the "full" mark. On the last pump I used, it went up to 360 kms. That's a difference of potentially 3-6 liters! And the "Range" calculations don't reset with the trip computer... they're calculated internally, and don't change whether the last hour was driven like a hypermiling loon or a gas-guzzling hoon.
This indicated that, much like the Prius Toyota had lent us two years ago, the Corolla's filler neck is a literal pain-in-the-neck for accurate fuel consumption. Most cars will have a variance of one or two liters, but this was off the scale.
Given some quick corrections based on assumptions of how far off each pump was, we ended up with the 16 km/l trip being around 12 km/l... one 6.5 km/l trip being 7.5 km/l, and the 10 km/l trip being 12-13 km/l. The trips where we were able to fill up at same pump (6.5 km/l in the city... 8 km/l in hard driving) remain unchanged. Maybe. Maybe there are bubbles in the system that make these inaccurate, too. We're not really sure.
But short of jumping up and down on the rear bumper at the gas station and topping off till gasoline comes out of the overflow pipe (which would render all calculations moot, anyhow), I don't know of any other way we can assure reasonable accuracy, except to drive far enough to deplete the tank and lower the percentage of inaccuracy.
If you're doing this kind of testing at home, that's what you've got to do to make sure you're getting real numbers. Drive as far as possible on one tank then fill her up (at the same pump) and measure from there. It's not 100% accurate, but it's the best you can do without taping a fuel bladder to the hood of your car.
For our next Toyota test... that's what we'll probably be doing, maybe with an IV bottle stolen from the hospital dispensary.
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