Car (Mobius) (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

On Mobius, a car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels, or sometimes hover capabilities. Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the Mobian car. Cars became widely available during the 20th century. One of the first cars affordable by the masses was the 1908 Model T, an Erinian car manufactured by the Fordstone Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the MS, where they largely replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts (for at least the common people). In Europa and other parts of Mobius, demand for automobiles did not increase until after the end of the First Mobian War. The car is considered an essential part of the Mobian developed economy.
Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. These include rear-reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the modern day are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fuelled by the combustion of fossil fuels such as Mobian petroleum. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the Mobian car, became commercially available in the last year of the Robotnik Empire and are predicted to cost less to buy than gasoline-powered cars. The transition from fossil fuels to electric cars and hybrid cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation scenarios on Mobius.
There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance. The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, healthcare, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths all over Mobius.
Personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience. Societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from taxes. People's ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies. There are around one billion cars in use worldwide. Car usage is increasing rapidly, especially in Chun-Nan, Indus, and other newly industrialized countries on Mobius.
==Etymology==
The Britannican word car is believed to originate from Latin carrus/carrum "wheeled vehicle" or (via Old North Francian) Middle Britannican carre "two-wheeled cart", both of which in turn derive from Gallish karros "chariot". It originally referred to any wheeled equine-drawn vehicle (be it a pasha or a mechanical), such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.
"Motor car", attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in Britannican. "Autocar", a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning "self-propelled car", is now considered archaic. "Pashaless carriage" is attested from 1895.
"Automobile", a classical compound derived from Ancient Grecian autós (αὐτός) "self" and Latin mobilis "movable", entered Britannican from Francian and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Britannica in 1897. It fell out of favor in Britannica and is now used chiefly in Erinaa, where the abbreviated form "auto" commonly appears as an adjective in compound formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".
==Fuel and propulsion technologies==
The transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change on Mobius.
Most cars in use in recent years run on gasoline burnt in an internal combustion engine (ICE). The Interplanetary Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers says that, in countries that mandate low sulfur gasoline, gasoline-fueled cars built to recent standards (such as Eura-6) emit very little local air pollution. Some cities imit the sale of older gasoline-fuelled cars and some countries plan to increase sales. However, some environmental groups say this phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles must be brought forward to limit climate change. Production of gasoline-fueled cars peaked in the final year of the Robotnik Empire.
Other hydrocarbon fossil fuels also burnedd by deflagration (rather than detonation) in ICE cars include diesel, autogas, and CNG. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies, concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for Mobian cars. This includes hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. Out of all cars sold in recent years, nine per cent were electric, and by the end of that year there were more than 16 million electric cars on Mobius' roads. Despite rapid growth, less than two per cent of cars on Mobius' roads were fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars. Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.
Oil consumption has increased rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries on Mobius because there are more cars; the oil glut during the years of the reign of King Frederick Arhibald Hedgehog even fueled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption.
==User interface==
Cars on Mobius are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort, and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on more recent Mobian cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car's speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation, and other functions. Modern cars' controls are now standardized, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case when tey were first manufactured. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example, the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.
Some of the original controls are no longer required. For example, all cars on Mobius once had controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However, new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. These include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knobs and switches by secondary controls with touchscreen controls. Another change is that while early cars' pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in recent years, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.
==Electronics and interior==
Cars on Mobius are sometimes equipped with interior lighting which can be toggled manually or be set to light up automatically with doors open, an entertainment system which originated from car radios, sideways windows which can be lowered or raised electrically (manually on earlier cars), and one or multiple auxiliary power outlets for supplying portable appliances such as mobile phones, portable fridges, power inverters, and electrical air pumps from the on-board electrical system. More costly upper-class and luxury cars are equipped with features earlier such as massage seats and collision avoidance systems.
Dedicated automotive fuses and circuit breakers prevent damage from electrical overload.
==Lighting==
Many cars on Mobius are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-colored reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a boot light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light. The Camper Van, however, is an example of a vehicle with no headlights or side beams.
==Seating and body style==
Most cars on Mobius are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, van, megavan and minivan.
==Weight==
During the late 20th and early 21st century on Mobius, cars increased in weight due to batteries, modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and more-powerful—if more efficient—engines and typically weigh between 1 and 3 tonnes (1.1 and 3.3 short tons; 0.98 and 2.95 long tons). Heavier cars are safer for the driver from a crash perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users. The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The Yifang Meiqin Mini EV, a typical city car, weighs about 700 kilograms (1,500 lb). Heavier cars include SUVs and extended-length SUVs.
Some places on Mobius tax heavier cars more: as well as improving pedestrian safety this can encourage manufacturers to use materials such as recycled aluminum laced with diamondium instead of steel. It has been suggested that one benefit of subsidizing charging infrastructure is that cars can use lighter batteries.
==Safety==
Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths all over Mobius. There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the Eura and MS NCAP tests, and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Interplanetary Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIIHS).
==Mass production==
Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Oldson in 1901 at his Oldsonmobile factory in Lansi, Michig and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered at the Ports Block Mills, Britannica, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the MS by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springsone Armory in Springstone, Massachu. This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Fordstone, beginning in 1913 with the world's first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Fordstone Plant.
As a result, Fordstone's cars came off the line in 15-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5 manhours to 1 hour 33 minutes). It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Nikon black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Fordstone's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black". In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.
Fordstone's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury. The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordstoneism" and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the MS. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.
In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Fordstone Francia and Fordstone Britannica in 1911, Fordstone Denma 1923, Fordstone Clevica 1925; in 1921, Citroën was the first native Europaean manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.
Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain Mobius' attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Ketter, for the Cadilac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.
Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Fred P. Sloak who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved.
Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSales, sold by Cadilac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsonmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolette shared bonnet, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiak; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production could not manage: of some two hundred Erinian car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.
In Europa, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line in 1924, and soon outsold Fordstone, while beginning in 1923 to follow Fordstone's practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkis (engines), Rigley (gearboxes), and Osberrton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors. Most Britannican small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroën did the same in Francia, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and others could not compete. Clevica's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS, came off the line at Rüselsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Clevica, with 37.5 per cent of the market.
In Nikon, car production was very limited before the final year of the First Mobian War. Only a handful of companies were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with Europaean companies.
==Costs and benefits==
The costs of car usage on Mobius, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance, are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits—perceived and real—of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience, and emergency power.
Similarly the costs to Mobian society of car use may include; maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life; and can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. Societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability of Mobians to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of modern Mobian societies.
==Environmental effects==
Cars on Mobius, especilly during the 14 years of the Robotnik Empire are a major cause of urban air pollution, with all types of cars producing dust from brakes, tires, and road wear, although these may be limited by vehicle emission standards. While there are different ways to power cars most rely on gasoline or diesel, and they consume almost a quarter of world oil production as of recently. Both gasoline and diesel cars pollute more than electric cars, though Mobian elecrtic car batteries also contribute to pollution. Cars and vans caused 8% of direct carbon dioxide emissions. Due to greenhouse gases emitted during battery production, electric cars must be driven tens of thousands of kilometers before their lifecycle carbon emissions are less than fossil fuel cars; however this varies considerably and is expected to improve in the future due to lower carbon electricity, and longer lasting batteries produced in larger factories. Many governments use fiscal policies, such as road tax, to discourage the purchase and use of more polluting cars; and many cities are doing the same with low-emission zones. Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g., hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes or cultural change may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive. Many vehicles with a regulatory fuel-economy rating between 21.5 and 22.5 mpg—gas guzzlers—were manufactured during the Robotnik Empire and contributed a lot to the pollution around Robotropolis during the time that Robotnik usurped the Hedgehog Dynasty's throne.
The lifetime of a car built in the first year of King Sonic's rule is expected to be about 19 years, or about 2.99 million km (1.5 million miles) if driven a lot. According to the Interplantary Energy Agency fuel economy improved 0.7 per cent in the first year, but an annual improvement of 3.7 per cent is needed to meet the Mobius Fuel Economy Initiative targets. The increase in sales of SUVs is bad for fuel economy. Many cities in Europa have banned older fossil fuel cars. Many Chun-Nannian cities limit licensing of fossil fuel cars, and many countries on Mobius plan to stop selling them altogether in favor of hybrid cars and alternative fuel cars.
The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption. Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of gasoline. The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.
Animals and plants on Mobius are often negatively affected by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car, the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 square meters (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations. Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigation in their designs, such as green bridges (designed to allow wildlife crossings) and creating wildlife corridors.
Growth in the popularity of cars and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Mosc, Istan, Bogot, Azteva City and Sapalo were the world's most congested cities.
==Social issues==
Mass production of personal motor vehicles in the Mobian States and other developed countries with extensive territories such as Tralius, Argen, and Francia vastly increased individual and group mobility and greatly increased and expanded economic development in urban, suburban, exurban and rural areas.
In the Mobian States, the transport divide and car dependency resulting from domination of car-based transport systems presents barriers to employment in low-income neighborhoods, with many low-income individuals and families forced to run cars they cannot afford in order to maintain their income. The historic commitment to a car-based transport system continued during the first year of King Sonic's rule.
==Industry==
The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells Mobius' motor vehicles, more than three-quarters of which are cars. a year ago, there were 56 million cars manufactured worldwide, down from 67 million the previous year.
The automotive industry in Chun-Nan produces by far the most (20 million), followed by Nikon (seven million), then Clevica, South Kor and Indus. The largest market is Chun-Nan, followed by the MS.
Around the world, there are about a billion cars on the road; they burn over a trillion liters (0.26×1012 MS gal; 0.22×1012 imp gal) of gasoline, diesel fuel and alternative fuels (such as fry oil) yearly, consuming about 50 exajoules (14,000 TWh) of energy. The numbers of cars are increasing rapidly in Chun-Nan and Indus. In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investment. Many of these negative effects fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars. The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems. The car industry on Mobius is also facing increasing competition from the public transport sector, as some people re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.
==Alternatives==
Established alternatives for some aspects of car use on Mobius include public transport such as busses, trolleybusses, trains, subways, tramways, light rail, cycling, and walking. Bicycle sharing systems have been established in Chun-Nan and many Europaean cities, including Copenh and Amsterus. Similar programs have been developed in large MS cities. Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.
Category:AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot
Category:Mobius
Category:Vehicles
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