In 1988 Chrysler minivans could have either a 2.5L N/A I4 or a Mitsubishi-sourced 3.0L V6. My parents had a 1988 Caravan SE with the V6. The 3.0L V6 was a fine engine, it did have a tendency to burn oil when they got high mileage on them. The highly sought after Turbo 2.5L came out in 1989, they are prized today. The 2.6L I4 (also a Mitsubishi engine) was discontinued for the 1987 model year (IIRC).
Years ago a local news show ran a segment featuring police officers favorite excuses drivers gave them. It included the actual officer stating why they made the stop followed by a reenactment and ending with the actual officers comments. The only one I fully remember was a young woman in a Gen 1 Mazda RX-7 caught on RADAR driving 115 mph in a 55 mph zone. The reenactment had an early 20s actress behind the wheel with the actor cop at the window. He informed her that the reason he stopped her was for 115 mph. She replied “That’s impossible”!. He informed her his RADAR was calibrated that morning. She said just look! She was pointing at her speedometer and telling the officer her car could only go 85 mph! The actual officer’s ending comment was: “I wish I could have issued a second citation for driving while clueless”!
Didn’t mean it to appear as a joke. I’m aware of the examples you cited and said here before that the driver will become more of a request than a command interface in the future. There are also a few military examples of this in aircraft that can outperform human capability so they are purposely limited by computer intervention.
This idea scares a lot of people that the steering wheel could be a simple encoded rotary switch with no actual connection other than electrical input to a computer
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I’m kinda in a weird place on it. Instinctively it scares me because at some level, I want an actual linkage between the control and what I’m controlling. On the other hand, control electronics have gotten so reliable that the possibility of a failure due to the electronics is pretty remote. Planes fly-by-wire all day every day, and very rarely have issues with the actual fly-by-wire. You’re much more likely to see a mechanical failure on a plane (and even in the example I cited above, the electronic screwup was due to a mechanical – and also human – failure). You hear a lot about landing gear that won’t go down, or engines that burst, or tires that blow, but I can’t think of a single failure in a commercial airliner that involved the controls being unable to operate the control surfaces, unless you go back to the pre-fly-by-wire planes.
So even though I instinctively cringe at removing that mechanical link, intellectually I know that it’s vastly more likely that a wreck-causing failure is going to happen because of the usual suspects – broken parts due to owner neglect – blown tires, broken ball joints, etc.
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I agree, Infiniti should be able to tune feedback in. Seems odd they ignored the traction limit force feedback reduction that the tires provide.
I actually own one of those force feedback wheel systems… and Yes, it is pretty amazing.
I did a steer-by-wire project for a forklift. The kind you stand up and drive and about 7 mph max. We used a force-feedback unit for that system to prevent abrupt steering motions from trying to dump the driver out the side of the truck. It only provided restriction (damping) but not return force. That was a simple spring. It was enough feedback to make it work properly. This was one model of the truck.
My concern is not so much the feedback as the failure mode. The forklift system had redundancy in the sensor system. The fail-safe if there was a steering loop error was a shutdown of both the steering and the truck. Highly recommended in the US regs, required in the EU. Not such a bad failure mode at 7mph on a truck capable of weighing 6-8 tons loaded. Since there is no mechanical connection from the steering wheel to the steered wheel, there can be no “fail soft” like the current assisted steering. We get a 'no power assist mode" but the steering still works.
I don’t know what Infiniti’s fail-safe mode is and don’t want to find out the hard way!
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I wanna agree with that, I DO agree with that, reluctantly… but I don’t LIKE it so I can’t press the little heart
So +1 to @TwinTurbo
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120 mph speedometer was pretty much the standard. My 1981 Mazda RX-7 had the 85 mph speedometer but could have exceeded 120 mph. My 1990 Mazda RX-7 GTUs had a 160 mph speedometer and topped out at around 130 mph. My 16 year old step son and a couple of buddies went to the Kawasaki motorcycle dealer to drool. He told me the Ninja 1000 could go 200 mph! I remembered the Kawasaki KZ 1000 was a few years earlier the fastest production motorcycle at about 150 mph. I was grocery shopping and saw the Ninja 1000 on the cover of a motorcycle magazine and checked the road test. Top speed 153 mph. I asked him how he knew the top speed was 200 mph? “It’s right there on the speedometer”! My 2010 Kia Forte SX 6 speed M/T was road tested by Road and Track at 6.9 seconds 0 to 60 and 136 mph top speed. If I had it in high school in the late 1960s I could have embarrassed many stock Mustangs and Camaros! I have no desire to confirm those numbers. It has a 150 mph speedometer.
My Forester has numbers for every 20 MPH. I agree, very annoying. Only the bottom half of the speedo is useful.
Looks like nissan has this fail safe, wonder if infinity is similar- https://www.caranddriver.com/features/electric-feel-nissan-digitizes-steering-but-the-wheel-remains-feature
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What ever the Car and Driver article was supposed to be was terribly annoying trying to read vertical. Throttle by wire is useless enough. Steering by wire could be suicidal!!! Let me drive my effing car!!!
Cars are not maintained like airplanes., my least favorite part of my Camry is the electric steering. The second least favorite is the drivers seat adjustment. Even though the seat has a height adjustment, If I move it all the way back, it drops down. If I adjust it taller, it moves forward. I want it all the way up and all the way back. I don;t see why a seat with vertical adjustment has to have a seat track that curves down as it moves rearward.
The seat moves down when moving back to allow for taller drivers, the vertical adjustment has it’s limits. Consider this from the other side, the seat elevates when moving forward to suit your wife.
I drove Chrysler products for years, they had nothing like the steep downward slope of my Toyota or any GM products I have driven. I see no reason to have too short a vertical travel. There is a lot more than a foot difference in my height and my wife’s. We both like our seat at the same height but she likes the back upright and I recline it quite a bit, partially for headroom, but I need the height for my hips and knees so I can get my thighs down onto the seat and not have all my weight resting on the base of my much abused spine.
Now that I like and can press the heart icon.
Nissan/Renault is the parent company of Infinity so I’d expect that is how they solve that problem. Still seems overly complicated to provide isolated steering.
I can’t argue with the handling benefits with respect to stability control systems. 4 wheel steering was another complicated system to aid handling that fell out of favor a couple of decades ago. Hitting the brakes to stabilize the car cannot be subtle or the brakes would be lightly applied so much your pads would only last 10K miles. You want the greater affect of the brakes to be a “hail Mary” final solution. Combine steering with brakes and the steering can make the small adjustments without resorting to the brakes. Electronic damping in the shocks and struts can help that too.
They also aren’t used nearly 24/7 like airplanes. I do take your point that owners don’t maintain cars very diligently, but we’re talking about solid-state electronics and electric motors/pumps here. These are things that can conceivably last the life of the car without ever being messed with.
Interesting that you don’t like your electronic power steering. I have that in my MR2 and, beyond not really understanding why a light-weight car with no engine in the front needs power steering at all, it’s never bothered me.
The electric power steering was very “fussy” on the highway. The toe in specs on this car are dead straight ahead and it got a little better when I had the mechanic set the alignment to the toe in side of the tolerance but it still needs constant correction on the highway . It seems to have no self centering tendency, unlike anything else I have driven and I have driven a lot of things. For most of my road driving career, it was a different tractor every trip. I only had one company that I had a steady tractor with and they went bankrupt 3 years after opening a Buffalo terminal. That job was pretty nice, I really liked that R model Mack. No power steering but that was OK, I got a lot better feedback in bad weather.
OP, if you are planning to actually go as fast as the car will go, be aware that problems in suspension system and braking system may show up like gangbusters, problems you wouldn’t even notice at normal speeds. Even a slight bump or wind gust could cause you to loose control. I tested my first car’s max speed one time, and one time was enough. I nearly lost control going around a very mild corner on the freeway at 90 mph due to the wind shifting directions. Just suggesting you observe a little common sense is all. If you must do this, ever hear of the Bonneville salt flats? 
The speedo in my Tucson goes up to 160mph, crazy IMO.
Maybe someone with a death wish could go down a hill steep enough to reach that speed.
Some planes like our stealth fighter jets can NOT be flown with direct controls. Way too complicated. Needs fly-by-wire with computer assist.
The F-117 Stealth Fighter required that. I recall it being compared to the bumblebee which is scientifically unable to fly.