howitzer

Now also available for ordering (delivery in few weeks) here in Finland for 373,90€. The same store has the Liebherr for 319,90.

Not rare or expensive, has appeared also in black in dozens of sets, though LBG is the most common colour. The last use in black was 5 years ago though, with Xerion.

I think the main conceptual difference between real modern cars with steerable rear wheels and the steering in 8880 was that the both axles of 8880 were directly linked to each other and the steering wheel. This makes the implementation quite unrealistic, as it's not what real cars do and also it cannot perform the most important feature of a modern rear-wheel steering, which is the stability increase provided in high speeds as the rear wheels steer in the same direction as the front wheels. The increased agility provided by the rear wheels steering in opposite direction in low speed is of course nice, but such a small advantage that it gets pointless considering the increased complexity of the rear axle with steerable wheels. I see this steering issue somewhat similar to how the main rotor of 8856 was built: tilting the whole rotor is a fun feature, but not what real helicopters do, and considering that TLG had released a helicopter with collective pitch previously (852, with much more limited parts palette), it makes the 8856's tilt-feature feel a bit of a cop-out, especially with the new parts they made in order to make that feature happen. So ideally, a 4WS car should implement both steering modes, but this presents a dilemma as the high-speed mode cannot properly be demonstrated in Lego form because they cannot drive fast enough. This is why I feel that TLG should simply forget about four-wheel steering when making models of real cars. (Yes, there has been cars with 8880-like linked steering, but let's be real: while there has been all kinds of weird cars, vast majority of them have all the same features.)

So apparently there are few cars which have this kind of feature, but vast majority don't, and the way it was implemented in 8880 doesn't seem very realistic to me (very different from the ones mentioned in your link).

Steered rear wheels are really uncommon due to the inherent instability in such an arrangement (while front wheel steering is inherently stable). Multi-axle steering is of course used a lot in things like agricultural and construction vehicles, but not in normal cars.

Yep, I might even buy such a car set. Even if I have little to none interest in cars in general. Previously TLG has made successfully almost every important function conceivable for a car set, so now lets see them in one single, contemporary model. (8880 was of course great, but the 4-wheel steering is pretty unrealistic and as I understand it, the suspension wasn't exactly flawless either. 8865 on the other hand, was really fun to drive around with its smooth suspension and nice Ackermann geometry.)

Current electric cars are definitely good enough to replace vast majority of normal cars (not heavy equipment such as long-haul trucks). The price is still a problem, but that will change too as manufacturing numbers increase and proper aftermarket forms. I wouldn't be at all surprised if manufacture ICE-cars in the Europe would mostly stop by 2030. In Finland new registrations of electric cars are increasing explosively while registrations of diesel- and gasoline-powered cars are going down in similar numbers, and people here are notoriously stubborn in keeping with their old cars. But yeah, it's true that electric cars aren't as interesting when transformed into Lego form, so I wonder what TLG will do about this.

When the basic idea of the product is that customers can use it to make their own creations, it would be outlandishly absurd for TLG to even try to file lawsuits against MOC makers, even those who sell instructions for profit. So no, they won't do that, and if they did, that kind of lawsuit would be thrown out of the court sooner than you can say "infringement".

Yep, the world is full of very nice cars, other than the supercars/hypercars, so it would be nice to see more variety also in the 1:8 category. Also, you're entirely correct about the transmission and steering, for some reason TLG seems to often ignore for example the Ackermann geometry even though that should definitely be a normal thing with every 1:10 and larger car.

Toys have very different field of application, userbase and requirements of durability, safety, etc. so I see no problem in patenting something that was specifically developed for toys even if the basic principle had already been applied elsewhere. I think the Torsen differential is a similar case. Other than that, I think @kbalage said basically everything that needs to be said on this topic.

Neither of those have anywhere nearly as much System parts as Sheo's model, so the argument still stands that they represent completely different styles.

I think that I'd want to keep all the important functions and their basic layout: to have 4-wheel steering and fake engine in the chassis and boom functions (raise, extend, hook) and driveline to make the superstructure rotate and outriggers extend, all driven by a single motor with a distribution gearbox in the superstructure.

Sheo's model uses tons of System bricks for exterior, which makes it look great, but that's not Technic. While TLG also uses a few System pieces here and there, Technic models are usually almost completely built from Technic pieces, even when System could've been used for much better effect - but as others said, that's not the style of Technic.

Very good, we've been desperately needing such a book. Technicopedia has been my go-to resource for historical look, but since it stopped updating, there's not much info on anything from the last 20 years, which makes it severely deficient. It appears that your book is doing extremely important work to fill that gap. I wonder though, if you'd be interested in publishing this also in a website format? The pdf is nice when you want to just sit back and have a long reading of the history, but when looking for some specific tidbit of information, a website would be much better as you can access it easily from anywhere without large downloads and so on.

It would be nice to see how much the size of large official sets could be reduced without compromising functions or looks. For example, some argued that 42082 was unnecessarily large, but could it be made significantly smaller without removing or completely redesigning some functions? For example the outriggers were driven from the motor in the superstructure which also had gearbox inside for driving all the functions as needed, could it be made much smaller?

In Finland we have this saying which roughly translates to something like "It's not stupid to ask" and I think it sums this up pretty nicely. If you want to sell it, you can ask however much you want and no matter how exorbitant the price, it's not you who is the stupid one if someone buys it. This of course applies only to stuff that is not in any way necessary for living. I've never really understood why someone wants to buy extremely expensive stuff that has little intrinsic or practical value, no matter if it's a painting or a fast car or a Lego set. But if someone does want to do so and can afford it, who am I to deny them that.

No way they are going to produce an aircraft that actually flies in a controlled manner. There's just too many requirements that the batteries, motors and flight control hardware have to meet for it to be practical within the strict safety and durability demands that TLG puts on their products. Not to mention that Lego isn't ideal for chassis building either on flying things, there's just too much excess weight. But I'm totally OK with that, I wouldn't use the Liebherr for my yardwork and neither I will expect my aircraft models to actually fly. They are models and toys and if I want the real thing, there's much better options for that.

Time would be ripe for a big aircraft set, discounting the Osprey the last large scale aircraft was the coaxial helicopter of 2016 and before that the cargo plane in 2015.

Here in Finland most retailers actually sell at RRP and discounts are few and far between. But then there are couple of retailers which have much lower prices almost across the board and generally a very good selection too. So I have little or no reason to buy from any other retailer beside those, which makes the situation a bit strange. Most of the time I buy from here: https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/catalog/11160c/LEGO-Technic but sometimes this retailer also has good prices: https://www.tokmanni.fi/lelut-ja-lastentarvikkeet/lelut/lego?item_brand_name=2227 Verkkokauppa.com also quite often has sets with damaged boxes on discount, I bought for example the Volvo hauler with such a discount for 145€.

Oh, I somehow missed totally this topic. Thanks for pointing it out!

I already voiced my opinion on the 51515 set, but the Liebherr is indeed a real contender for the best PU starter set considering its vast amount of electronics. It has a few shortcomings though: no tires, no differentials, relatively few gears and not much in the way of gearbox parts but those are easily remedied by adding another set such as 42128.

I'm sure the CAT has increased production cost, even disregarding the electronics. Current material shortages, increased shipping costs etc. play a part here, but it's impossible to say how much. (Of course there's also some normal inflation to take into the account but that shouldn't be very much after only 5 years.) As for the BWE, it was a set with unprecedented amount of "heavy" parts, especially 5x7 frames, which might made it somewhat heavier than a typical Technic set (I haven't actually checked this though, so I might be wrong.) Another thing to consider is that the electronics were soon-to-be obsolete PF components, so TLG probably just emptied their warehouses of stockpiled XL (and for 42028 L) motors and thus they might have been sold for less money than otherwise. I think those two sets were also regarded as notoriously inexpensive even upon their release.

Sorry, but large corporation economics doesn't work like that. They did indeed increase profits for 2020, but that probably came mostly from selling what they had in stock, meaning that they have a deficit in their inventory, all the while all kinds of cost increases are incoming. There's no guarantee that the increase in sales is going to last, rather it's probably just a fluke that's going to go away when the world opens again and spending habits return to normal. TLG, however, has to plan ahead and the cost increases won't go away any time soon as the economy is booming in many parts of the world and they have to plan ahead - this means that while the aforementioned profit can be reinvested to cover some of the cost increases, it might not be enough and something else has to be done also to make sure they don't run into severe shortage of inventory in the coming years. It's really bad for business if you don't have enough stuff to sell while the customers have other places to spend their money into. Or maybe it's just the evening of prices across the Europe. Considering that online trade is increasing constantly, I'm sure TLG sees the need to even out the prices, and in this the Germans lose a bit while people in some other places gain a bit.

If there ever was a Technic submission that stood a chance, this would be it. Real life space-themed submissions have done pretty well in the past (ISS, Saturn V, Women of Nasa, Curiosity, Hayabusa) and this one has also similar novelty gimmicks that probably had a significant impact on the approval of sets like the Grand piano or the Typewriter so that might help too. Still not holding my breath, considering no Technic submission has ever been approved.

Maybe the RI hub could be used with its rechargeable battery, not sure though if you can run it while plugged in. (I guess I'll have to test this...)