No Happiness in Life: Why Any Car News Causes Despair
Not long ago, we published news about AVTOVAZ’s new engines. And, of course, comments immediately appeared from those who reacted negatively. Sometimes such reactions make you want to throw your hands up and not report anything new: no matter what we write, some will always find a reason to beat their chests and tear any country’s auto industry to shreds. Although, it must be said, the problem often lies in that very chest, not in the auto industry.
I won’t rewrite the news; you can read it here. If you don’t want to open the link, let me remind you of the gist: AVTOVAZ is launching production of new 1.6 and 1.8-liter engines. Good? To me, it’s even very good. But even here, some found a reason to nitpick. For example, they inexplicably tacked on laments about the lack of a proprietary automatic transmission. We’ve already talked about this: such an automatic would cost as much as a Sukhoi Superjet, due to low production volumes and huge investments in development and manufacturing. Let’s make the same claim against, say, BMW: why are they using some ZF? Where is BMW’s own automatic transmission? Shame on them, weaklings. Or let’s recall some Jatco automatic transmissions, which were shoved into everything from Nissan and Infiniti to VAZ and Suzuki. Are they all too weak to build their own gearboxes? Maybe not, but it’s much more profitable this way: there’s a manufacturer that supplies its automatic transmissions to many companies. That’s a normal business model. Where would AVTOVAZ supply its own automatics? To itself? Ridiculous.
Another ridiculous complaint is the lack of a turbo. Yes, yes, now is the perfect time for a mass-market car manufacturer to put turbocharged engines into series production. They are so needed for the Lada Iskra and Vesta right now. That’s not even irony, it’s sarcasm. Do you even know what you’re talking about? How many buyers would a turbocharged Iskra find? And who would ultimately pay for creating such a version? That’s right – the buyers of regular Nivas, Grantas, and Vestas. Does anyone need that?
And finally, the cherry on top. I’ll quote it anyway: “135 hp from a 1.8-liter engine. Another 25 years, and they’ll reach the level of 140-145 hp, like Japanese engines from the early 2000s, while simultaneously absorbing a certain number of billions in investments.” Oh really? Come on, let’s recall Japanese engines from the early 2000s. Seventh-generation Honda Civic: 1.7-liter D17A – 120-130 hp, 1.7-liter D17Z – 127 hp. Second-generation Mazda6 in the GH body: 1.8-liter L813 – 120 hp. And it was produced not exactly in the early 2000s: from 2007 to 2012. Maybe Toyota made 1.8-liter engines with 140-145 hp? Nothing of the sort: the 1.8-liter 1ZZ-FE – 125-132 hp, the 7A-FE of the same displacement – 105-120 hp, the 7K-E – a mere 82-84 hp. True, in 2007 the 1.8-liter 2ZR-FAE appeared, and it actually has higher power – 140-150 hp depending on the modification. However, it burns oil, often glitches with the Valvematic system, suffers from carbon buildup in the intake, and has some other specific problems of a fairly highly-strung naturally aspirated engine. Do we need that from VAZ? I doubt it. By the way, the hybrid modification of the current 12th-generation Toyota Corolla in the E210 body has a 1.8-liter 2ZR-FXE with only 98 hp, and only together with the electric motor does it reach 122 “horses”. Powerful, isn’t it?
In general, we have a lot of crazy comments. Some of them amuse me greatly. For example, in our “Kolesa.ru Renders” section, many spout incredible nonsense about how we enslaved AI, which draws us some pictures for free. Although, if you use your head and look at who has been running this section and since when, a lot becomes clear: its regular author, Nikita Chuiko, graduated from the “Automotive Design” faculty of the Moscow Automobile and Highway Institute (MAMI), has worked in design for 19 years, and has been on our team for 10 years. But commenters are sure that all his renders are the work of AI, which appeared not so long ago. I’ll keep quiet, I suppose.
It’s a pity, of course, that absolutely any news gets negative comments from armchair experts. For some reason, many of them think that if you don’t criticize AVTOVAZ or GAZ, you’ll be considered a fool. Praise a “Chinese” car – you’ll gain a reputation as a dimwit. Well, we’ll live with it. Because there are still far more reasonable people among our readers, and we are always happy when we can tell them something new and interesting. But I won’t bother responding to all kinds of nonsense: I’ve already gained a reputation as a snob (or rather, even a “snob” according to the spelling of one such commenter), so I have nothing to lose. Although, to everyone else, both I and all other authors have responded, are responding, and will continue to respond as much as possible. So thank you all for the feedback and reasonable points of view expressed under our publications – they are truly important and interesting to us.
