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All-weather all-electric car test drive

I made use of the Styrian government incentive to rent an electric car for six days for a low amount of money. The registration was open since October 2017 but very soon booked out. The chosen car was a Hyundai Ioniq Electric.

It comes with a 28 kWh LiPo battery, has a motor with 88 kW (120 HP) and 295 Nm of torque. The claimed range is 280 km (NEDC) but in real driving conditions (at around zero degrees celsius outside) it was only 160km, which is medium-good. The average consumption after about 500 km driving was about 17 kWh per 100 km according to the car.

It was a slightly snowy Sunday afternoon when I picked up Dr. K and Cpt. Curbs. We went onto the motorway and the sun came out to blind us. At the next service station after about 15 km we parked the car in front of a fast charging point and tried out the charging process. It was very simple: open the charging lid of the car, connect the cable, choose the correct charge point at the touch display, present the NFC card of the charge provider to the reader and click start. Hyundai decided to put the charge lid where cars usually have the fuel filler cap. This means that you have to reverse park it at most charging points because the charging cables are thick in diameter but not very long.

After a few minutes we had charged more than 5 kWh of electricity and decided to head back into town. The weather changed from cloudy to rainy and then heavy snow. The car itself did not feel like a tool committed to save our planet. It felt like a normal car which was a surprise to me and it is a good thing. The short battery range is an issue but improving in each new car generation. I am looking forward to see how far we can drive in five years with one charge in a reasonably priced car. The torque of an electric engine is impressive, especially at city speeds. The roof of the car is low at the back seats. At least for a captain.

So long .. Andi

Hi there!

Yesterday i said farewell to my beloved Mazda and sold it. For a 24 year old car it was still an awful lot of fun to drive – will miss it!

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

Andi won a ride in a Porsche GT3 Cup already last November. On April 21st at 9 a.m. the open training session at the Hockenheimring started. The pit lane was still empty and the car was being unloaded and prepared. The driver took the Porsche for some warm-up laps while Andi was trying to put on the helmet. After some quick adaptions with duct tape the car was ready for the ride. 4 laps later with laptimes around 1:50:00 and overtaking nearly all other cars on the track the Porsche returned to the pit. Later in the day there were also many other really nice and rare cars on the track.

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

Andy got a new car! It’s a Mazda 3 – check out the cars section!

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

We took the chance for a roadtrip to St. Moritz over the Fuschertörl and the Stelvio Pass. The weather was perfect and so me and my brother had a nice time driving and spending some time together.

Let’s do that again next year!

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

It seems that springtime is near, so Andi got out for a spin. Unfortunately, winter has had its grasp on the R4 and damaged a fuel line, so he was stranded.

After a quick fix the R4 was ok again!

Hi there!

I just updated the cars section with 2 new additions:

• Andy got a very nice red 1987 Renault R4 GTL to play with primarily in summer!
• After I had to part with my Mazda, I thought to myself: “Why not get another one?”. And here I am with my “new” 1992 Mazda Xedos 6 V6 only this time with a proper manual transmission.

We are both looking forward to have fun with them in summer! And who knows, maybe we will do another road trip – this time “teamcurbs style” 🙂

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

Andy got a new car! It’s a Mazda 6 – check out the cars section!

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

I got a chance to test drive the new 5 Series GT and I must admit I liked it a lot. Not only the ride was very smooth thanks to Adaptive Drive, also the 3l Diesel engine produces enough horse power for this rather heavy car. Here are some details and pictures:

• 245HP 3l 6Cyl. Diesel engine
• 20″ M Doppelspeiche rims
• Adaptive Drive
• M Sports package
• 95k€

I can’t tell why, but getting out of the car I was a lot happier with my 325d than before 🙂

So long .. Cpt. Curbs

Teamcurbs was at the Auto Emotion 2011! Here are some pictures ..