Most people are familiar with that car manufacturers let highly skilled race drivers take some of their cars around a racetrack and boast with performance numbers. This test is different though.
The purpose of this test is to give a general measure of how driveable a car is in the hands of an average driver. The main focus is driveability but performance is also taken into account in some situations.
Also, take these evaluations with a grain of salt. It’s for fun really, the intention isn’t to bash your cars or be rude.
ONLY SEND THE BIG, BEAMNG READY FILE. DO NOT SEND .CAR FILES, DUE TO MISSING MOD FIXTURES AND WHATNOT
HOW DOES THE TEST WORK?
The test works by you providing a car you’d like to evaluate and I’ll drive it in BeamNG. I will use a Logitech G29 racing wheel and gear shifter and drive it around the Automation test track and do three laps. This will happen with the “Time Trial” option in BeamNG and on the “Race Track Circuit”. After every lap, I will evaluate the experience based on a few basic heuristics:
- Ease of use: for example, Is it easy to familiarize oneself with? Can I throw it around corners right of the bat or do I need to be gentle with it to not die? Will my life insurance cost go up by just getting into the car or will I feel safe driving it?
- Learning curve: Does the car even have a learning curve? Is the learning curve steep? Is it possible to master it?
- Handling: is the handling predictable? Are the brakes good? Will the car kill me of I hit the throttle a bit too much?
So for example, a car that is very unpredictable, has poor handling such as a slippy rear end and that spins out if you hit the throttle a tiny bit too hard will not be considered not very easy to drive.
If I crash a car, it will be noted down and it won’t impact the judgement if it’s 100% my fault. If the car for example spins out because the brakes lock up suddenly below a certain speed, it will be noted as a negative thing. I will however restart the lap if I end up crashing the car too hard. A small bump or so won’t lead to a restart.
Performance is evaluated in varying amounts. If it is clearly a performance car, it will have a bigger impact whereas an economic commuter capsule will not have its performance measured too much.
Pricing information, interior quality and anything like that is disregarded in this evaluation. Only driveability and performance is evaluated here, from the view of an average driver. No hard data.
The evaluation will include a summary at the end with positives and negatives as well as a final veredict of how driveable it is.
WHO AM I?
I am a long time Automation player. Been here before the Steam release but I fully forgot all the login details of my original account. Email, account name, password, everything. I have many years of driving experience in real life but I ain’t no race car driver. I’m an average driver.
WHY WOULD YOU LET A PEASANT LIKE ME DRIVE YOUR PRECIOUS MACHINE?
Because it’s not the Stig who will drive your car. It will be people with varying degrees of driving skill and experience that will drive it. So if a peasant like me can master your expensive car, most people should be able to do that as well.
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER BEAMNG EVALUATION THREAD?
This is solely focused on driveability and a bit on performance seen from the eyes of an average driver. Cars from any year are accepted and from any segment.
WHAT CARS ARE ACCEPTED?
Since the idea of the evaluation is that an average person drives a car and evaluates driveability, primarily I would like production cars (including limited production) from any model year. Concept cars are okay as well but discouraged.
CAN I SUBMIT THE SAME CAR MULTIPLE TIMES?
No.
WHY HASN’T MY CAR BEEN TESTED YET?
Either could be because I get very busy occasionally with work, university and whatnot. Or it could be because you sent multiple messages in the same “private message thread”, pushing it back in the queue. I go through the submissions based on how they’re sorted in the inbox, and they’re sorted based on latest activity. So only send one message per “message thread” to be sure your spot in the queue is kept.
WHAT DOES APDT APPROVED MEAN?
It means a yokel like me can master your fuel guzzling beast without ending up in a coffin or intensive care unit. It’s certified to work for your average person!
I THOUGHT THIS WAS ABOUT DRIVEABILITY. WHY IS THERE A LAP TIME BOARD???
To show the concept of this evaluation. Please refer to THIS post. TL;DR is the lap times show that it’s not all about power. It’s about how well an average person can put down that power on the road and how driveability impacts lap times. As you can also see on the lap times table, a fast lap time doesn’t mean it’s a driveable car, since having a fast lap time doesn’t automatically mean it’s APDT Approved.
HOW DO I GET MY CAR EVALUATED?
Simple. Send in a car file for BeamNG via PM. Include marketing material (= post for the car in question in your car company thread) or if you don’t have a thread, include a short description of the car. That’s all. The idea here is I’m going in blind or just based on the marketing material since your average car buyer wouldn’t look up what the final drive ratio is for the gearing or the AF mixture.
ONLY SEND THE BIG, BEAMNG READY FILE. DO NOT SEND .CAR FILES, DUE TO MISSING MOD FIXTURES AND WHATNOT
We will have a scoreboard in the original post to see which car is the most peasant-friendly (best lap posted).
APDT lap times. How yokel friendly is your overboosted abomination of a suicide machine car?
- 1st: Kasai Calibri 1.8 Hillclimb Edition – 02:04.541
- 2nd: Lagau APG II – 02:05.777 – APDT Approved!
- 3rd: Armada Motors Ultima Turbo – 02:07.166 – APDT Approved!
- 4th: ELECTI Panther Prestige + – 02:10.854 – APDT Approved!
- 5th: Velo 445C – 02:10.977 – APDT Approved!
- 6th: Ökul S93 – 02:11.060 – APDT Approved!
- 7th: Sedici Model 2 – 02:14.360
- 8th: Nohda Super Strato 3 – 02:23.265
- 9th: Avi AWD – 02:23.311 – APDT Approved!
- 10th: Bramhall Virage VIII VSi 2017 – 02:23.616 – APDT Approved!
- 11th: Bridgell Flatt GTT Rally Coupe – 02:25.645
- 12th: Kasai Inou – 02:27.634 – APDT Approved!
- 13th: Fisto 1.0SDS-3H – 02:29.038 – APDT Approved!
- 14th: Jararaca Sedici Classic – 02:30.525
- 15th: 1969 Suzume Hosho GS – 02:41.608
- 16th: Bridgell Flatt Eco Wagon – 02:58.843 – APDT Approved!
- 17th: Teko Diplomat Special (V12) – 03:01.095