We live in an automotive age where a fairly mundane hatchback can pack more horsepower under the hood than a supercar from the 80s. The same 2024 Honda Civic Type R laps the Nürburgring faster than the dream of millions of car owners in the late 2000s : the Lamborghini Murcielago SuperVeloce LP670−4. At that time, by the way, it was only possible to find side airbags for the head and torso on premium models. And now even a cheap small car has them and an automatic braking system, which involves a number of video cameras and sensors.

For Kia, electric windows were a breakthrough in the 2000s. Now the Kia EV6 GT, an electric car for the general public and for the whole family, is equipped with an augmented reality head-up display, semi-autonomous adaptive cruise control and a parking assistant. And it accelerates to hundreds in 3.5 seconds.

That is to say, progress has come by leaps and bounds and made cars better. But what nonsense: to save the weight of the car and reduce its dimensions, almost all car manufacturers abandon naturally aspirated engines in favor of turbo engines with fewer cylinders. And a supercharged engine, due to its body kit (turbine, intercooler, etc.), practically does not differ in weight from a naturally aspirated engine of similar power. This negates all benefits in terms of fuel consumption, driving behavior and braking power.

In Britain, the Royal Automobile Club recently conducted a survey and found that out of 300 modern passenger models from 28 car manufacturers, only 8 have at least a “dock cat” as standard. At best, owners of other vehicles will be provided with a “self-repair tool” for tires. Which is useless if the tread is seriously damaged or even the slightest cut in the sidewall. How wonderful is that: because of a banal flat tire you don’t know how long you’ll be waiting on the side of the highway for a tow truck…

The paradox is that most of the things that make modern cars better than their predecessors are very heavy. First of all, we talk about batteries. Take the latest BMW XM Hybrid for example. It weighs about three tons. Despite the fact that the mass of the BMW X5 (with approximately the same wheelbase) does not exceed 2.3 tons. It turns out that the ‘super stupid’ power plant of the BMW Weight saving? No, we didn’t hear that. By the way, if someone in Russia wants to buy a fashionable Tesla Cybertruck, they will first have to acquire freight rights. Because the total mass of this extra large electric chisel is greater than that of the Gazelle…

That is, it turned out that the means by which designers tried to make cars lighter, more economical and more convenient are slowly becoming an end in themselves. Who would have thought twenty years ago that a car would have to become almost one and a half times heavier to reduce fuel consumption and improve dynamics? But there you go!

We live in an automotive age where a fairly mundane hatchback can pack more horsepower under the hood than a supercar from the 80s. The same 2024 Honda Civic Type R laps the Nürburgring faster than the dream of millions of car owners in the late 2000s : the Lamborghini Murcielago SuperVeloce LP670−4. At that time, by the way, it was only possible to find side airbags for the head and torso on premium models. And now even a cheap small car has them and an automatic braking system, which involves a number of video cameras and sensors.

For Kia, electric windows were a breakthrough in the 2000s. Now the Kia EV6 GT, an electric car for the general public and for the whole family, is equipped with an augmented reality head-up display, semi-autonomous adaptive cruise control and a parking assistant. And it accelerates to hundreds in 3.5 seconds.

That is to say, progress has come by leaps and bounds and made cars better. But what nonsense: to save the weight of the car and reduce its dimensions, almost all car manufacturers abandon naturally aspirated engines in favor of turbo engines with fewer cylinders. And a supercharged engine, due to its body kit (turbine, intercooler, etc.), practically does not differ in weight from a naturally aspirated engine of similar power. This negates all benefits in terms of fuel consumption, driving behavior and braking power.

In Britain, the Royal Automobile Club recently conducted a survey and found that out of 300 modern passenger models from 28 car manufacturers, only 8 have at least a “dock cat” as standard. At best, owners of other vehicles will be provided with a “self-repair tool” for tires. Which is useless if the tread is seriously damaged or even the slightest cut in the sidewall. How wonderful is that: because of a banal flat tire you don’t know how long you’ll be waiting on the side of the highway for a tow truck…

The paradox is that most of the things that make modern cars better than their predecessors are very heavy. First of all, we talk about batteries. Take the latest BMW XM Hybrid for example. It weighs about three tons. Despite the fact that the mass of the BMW X5 (with approximately the same wheelbase) does not exceed 2.3 tons. It turns out that the ‘super stupid’ power plant of the BMW Weight saving? No, we didn’t hear that. By the way, if someone in Russia wants to buy a fashionable Tesla Cybertruck, they will first have to acquire freight rights. Because the total mass of this extra large electric chisel is greater than that of the Gazelle…

That is, it turned out that the means by which designers tried to make cars lighter, more economical and more convenient are slowly becoming an end in themselves. Who would have thought twenty years ago that a car would have to become almost one and a half times heavier to reduce fuel consumption and improve dynamics? But there you go!