I was on the Interstate last night and had a chance to see it adapting speed for a slightly slower car. This is obviously no substitute for being alert about surrounding traffic, but still pretty nest.
One of the dumbest regulations from Jimmy Carter's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (and it had a lot of competition) was a requirement that cars could be stopped with very limited brake pedal pressure. In itself, this was not ridiculous.
The side effect was that to achieve this goal, manufacturers switched to very soft brake pads, which could not tolerate very many repeated hard stops without fading. Checrolet's amazing 9C1 police package for the Nova, Malibu, and Impala must have had some exemption or perhaps some gentleman's agreement because these were specialized packages that only a very civilians knew how to order.
I do not think the regulations have changed but the brake pedal requires some effort. I suspect the pads are hard and fade-resistant. You just have to get used to more effort when stopping.
The traditional concern about turbocharging was something called turbo lag. The distance between the turbocharger input on the exhaust manifold and the pump stuffing more air down the engine's gullet meant that it could take a second or two for the extra power to become available.
Maybe it is the enormous range of forward gears, but there is no noticeable turbo lag. I was in the right lane when I noticed that my lane was about to disappear for upcoming construction. The light turned green. I put my foot down. Whoosh! I have not felt so preternaturslly empowered by a gas pedal since my 1978 Camaro Z28!
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