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First the current 5 cycle EPA test isn't limited to 60mph, it goes up to 80 MPH:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml

That isn't the real problem. The real problem is that 85% of "EPA Testing" is actually done by the manufacturer themselves. In effect this is a Take home test.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/the-truth-about-epa-city-highway-mpg-estimates
"While the public mistakenly presumes that this federal agency is hard at work conducting complicated tests on every new model of truck, van, car, and SUV, in reality, just 18 of the EPA’s 17,000 employees work in the automobile-testing department in Ann Arbor, Michigan, examining 200 to 250 vehicles a year, or roughly 15 percent of new models. As to that other 85 percent, the EPA takes automakers at their word—without any testing—accepting submitted results as accurate. "

Since EPA MPG plays a big part in overall advertising campaigns, and potential EPA penalties, there is strong temptation for manufacturers to cheat.

Two years ago Hyundai had an ad campaign featuring how all models of many of it's cars got 40MPG highway without needed special models. Hyundai scored big increase in sales. But later testing a Consumer Reports showed a few of Hyundais models got less than 40 MPG in CR testing. This is ODD because CR testing is more straight forward and the vast majority of cars beat their EPA Highway rating when CR tests them on it's own test. So the CR testing is something of a Sanity check for catching cheaters. Eventually Hyundai was found to have a systemic "mistake" in their testing (AKA cheating). They had to roll back mileage claims across the board and give payouts to customers.

The discrepancy between CR and EPA for Hyundai models before they were caught cheating was 1-3 MPG.

Fords new Hybrids are now falling short by 6-9 MPG and Ford has a new (successful) Ad campaign targeting Toyota, claiming better fuel economy. These new Ford hybrids are the first to make significant sales inroads against Toyota. If anything MPG advertising has even more effect on Hybrid sales.

It isn't hard to see how Fords interests are benefited by high test scores, on a test they administer to themselves, even more than they were for Hyundai before they were caught cheating. It certainly smells like something rotten in Dearborn Mi.

My 2001 Oldsmobile Aurora 3.5L is rated at 17 city, 25 highway, 20 combined and with 124,000 miles on the odometer I average 29.5 MPG in the summer and 27.8 in the winter.

Those numbers suck.

1990 Honda Civic DX 4-speed hatchback - 53 mpg. Winning!

EPA numbers on that car are flat-out wrong.
Good luck finding one these days. I've only seen a couple still going. They are worth restoration.

Alright, i'm willing to cede that you might be able to get some stellar numbers out of your Touareg, but aren't the EPA numbers still 20/29 city/highway?
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/32632.shtml

According to this, EPA standard fuel economy is still 23MPG combined. This is what i'm pointing towards when I say that it will be difficult to impossible to get to 38MPG in a truck with current crash standards. If i'm not mistaken there's not been a single truck that broke 30MPG in the new EPA testing methodology.

It's worse than that. Not only do they get a government loan with very favorable terms, the federal government gives a credit to those who buy their product.

Tesla’s loan of $465 million was to be paid back over ten years following the start of production of the Model S.

We have a $7500 tax credit for electric vehicles purchased in 2010 through 2012, up from $2500 from 2008 through 2009. Like most taxes, this credit has rules but this one only has the requirement that the credit cannot reduce the tax below zero so we can assume utilization will be very high.
    Telsa won't release detailed numbers but this site shows about 73% of reservations from the US for the Model S. They do release delivery numbers which show 253 through Sept 1st, 2012 and 1000 Roadsters through Jan 2010.

7500 * 253 * .73 = $1.36 million over 3 months for the S.
2500 * 1000 * .73 = $1.82 million over 2 years for the Roadster.

So the feds are out at least 3 million to date. Strangely, this credit is based on production numbers.

The credit begins to phase out for a manufacturer’s vehicles when at least 200,000 qualifying vehicles manufactured by that manufacturer have been sold for use in the United States (determined on a cumulative basis for sales after December 31, 2009). For additional information see Notice 2009-89

We'll assume Telsa makes 20000 Model S since that is it's production target for 2013. If 73% are bought by Americans with a tax liability greater than $7500:
20,000 * .73 * 7500 = 100 million. If the complete production run is done the potential total tax credits could exceed 1 billion.

More reading of the 10-K shows this:

In December 2009, we finalized an arrangement with the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA) that will result in an exemption from California state sales and use taxes for up to $320 million of manufacturing equipment. To the extent all of this equipment is purchased and would otherwise be subject to California state sales and use tax, we believe this incentive would result in tax savings by us of up to approximately $31 million over the period starting in December 2009 and ending in December 2013. The equipment purchases may be used only for three purposes: (i) to establish our production facility for Model S in California, (ii) to upgrade our
Palo Alto powertrain production facility, and (iii) to expand our current Tesla Roadster assembly operations at our Menlo Park facility. In January 2012, we finalized an additional agreement with CAEATFA that will result in an exemption from California state sales and use taxes for
up to $292 million of manufacturing equipment. To the extent all of this equipment is purchased and would otherwise be subject to California
state sales and use tax, we believe this incentive would result in tax savings by us of up to approximately $24 million over the period starting in December 2011 and ending in March 2015. The equipment purchases may be used only for two purposes: (i) to develop the Model X crossover vehicle and its production capacity in California and, (ii) to further upgrade our powertrain production facilities in California.

Up to $56 million in lost revenue from the State of California. I'm not convinced their operation is viable without the massive tax breaks they are receiving. Telsa operated at a 40 million loss in 2012 and I didn't go into the free parking, use of rest area charging stations, and other incentives given to drivers of electric vehicles.

That's like putting a gallon of gas into a car to drive 100 miles.

If my car actually used gas, it would do that...

I'm just sayin

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing)

They have similar issues with all cars. They did a nice test of five supercars. The results:

#5: Ferrari 599 - 1.7 MPG, rated at 11/15; and as James May pointed out, that works out to GBP 3.20/mile.
#4: Aston Martin DB9, rated at 11/17
#3: Mercedes McLaren SLR, rated at 12/16
#2: Lamborghini Murcielago - 4.1 MPG, rated at 8/13
#1: Audi R8 - 5 MPG, rated at 12/19.

And in the same segment they compared a Toyota Prius to a BMW M3, with the Prius hitting 17.2 MPG (rated at 48/45) and the M3 getting 19.4 MPG (rated at 14/20).

Amazingly Clarkson actually has sound advice in the end. It's now what you drive, it's how you drive it.

Still the article points out corn ethanol produces 1.2 unit for every 1 unit put, so the original claim is wrong.

True, the wiki article suggest that you get slightly more energy out than you put in. We'd get a lot more out with cellulose based production such as switch grass.

But, the production side is only half of the picture. The other side is any inefficiencies when actually using the ethanol as a fuel. Chemical analysis of the PRODUCTION side does not always translate into real world use.

You also have the USE side. According to the US Department of Energy E85 (85% ethanol - so-called FlexFuel) gives 25 to 30% less mileage. My car's manual (2012 Chrysler product) just flat out states 30% less miles per gallon, and it further states don't ever use it unless your car has a FlexFuel badge. (which my car does not).

E10 (10% ethanol), makes only a 3 to 4% drop in mileage (according to DOE). There are some stations in my area that have E15 (15% ethanol), reduces milage by 7.7% according to the DOE referenced study. My owners manual specifically warns against that as well. Essentially, the report indicated the reduction in miles per gallon continued as a linear trend with increasing ethanol content.

Further there appears to be little pollution benefit from using ethanol, contrary to the claims of some people.

Regulated tailpipe emissions remained largely unaffected by the ethanol content of the fuel.
As ethanol content increased,
  oxides of nitrogen (NOX) and non-methane organic gases (NMOG) showed no significant
change;
  non-methane hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions declined on average for
all ethanol blend levels tested. Neither pollutant changed appreciably from E10 to E20;
  ethanol emissions increased;
  acetaldehyde emissions increased;
  formaldehyde emissions increased slightly; and
  benzene and 1,3-butadiene were expected to decrease due to dilution, but measurements
were conducted on only a subset of the vehicles and have not been thoroughly analyzed
to date.

FFS that was my gut reaction, then backed up by someone from the article itself. You want a *study* to back up an ill-conceived move?

But fine, I'll expand on that and do the math for you.

The most popular hybrid, the Toyota Prius, has only sold a cumulative total of 3.3 million *worldwide* as of October 2012.

In the US alone, hybrids and non-traditional fuel vehicles make up only 3% of car sales, or about 2 million since 2007. Oregon has a population of about 3.9 million, or 1.25% of the US population. Despite this, Oregon makes up about 2% of hybrid and electric-only sales.

So, let's say all hybrid and electric vehicles since 2007 are still on the road, 2% of 2 million sold is a mere 40,000. Rates were deliberately left out in the proposed Oregon legislation, but let's use Washington's flat rate option of $100 a year. If all hybrid/electric car owners go with that, or we assume this is the average even if they track them using GPS or whatever, the state pulls in a mere $4 million each year.

In the Oregon DOT's 2011-13 budget, they have a total annual revenue of almost $2.5 billion ($5 billion revenue over the budget's 2-year span).

$4 million is peanuts for a government operation. It wouldn't even cover the cost of government-contracted development of the necessary devices for tracking in-state usage (you know they won't just re-use anything that's already out there).

In fact, the revenue from this is far worse than $4 million--I just realized that the Oregon tax only kicks in for vehicles rated at 55 mpg or better, but the Prius' official EPA rating is 50 mpg. The EPA actually rates none of the 2012 hybrids as 55mpg or better. So, remove the most popular non-traditional fuel cars from all the stats above and recalculate--downward. Going back to this chart, only around 70,000 plug-in hybrids and extended range vehicles have been sold since 2007. 2% of *that* is 1400, so you're pulling in a mere $140,000 a year.

Sure, this'll increase as years go by, and they even claim this is planning for the future, but that doesn't change the accuracy of the statement that fuel-efficient vehicles are still (i.e. right now) nowhere near the numbers they need to be for this to even make sense from a bureaucratic/administrative perspective.

So there's your study. The state of Oregon has been invoiced $10,000 in consulting fees, which I'm pretty sure is a bargain over whatever their regular consultants are charging for a "study" like this.

The feds rated it at 25/31, average 28 mpg. No way you were averaging 10 mpg over...

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/11683.shtml

That site is wrong. He'd be exaggerating if he claimed over 34 mpg. Last year I briefly had a 1988 Honda Civic sedan, filled it up and took it down the interstate at 80 mph and refueled at the same pump.

I couldn't believe that a 24-year old automatic transmission car got over 45 mpg.
It used the same engine block as the CRX HF and had mileage of about 130k.
I also couldn't believe that a roadable car could accelerate so slowly.

you should pay attention to their relative weight with respect to oil consumption per fiat

How much gasoline does a Fiat consume anyway? The U.S. government says 34/27 EPA MPG for the automatic and 38/30 for the stick shift.

Actually, EPA and DOE jointly sponsor a web-site that gives you not just EPA ratings, but allows users to enter in their own ratings. Here is the link to my car:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29712

You can see the EPA rating and the average user's rating are similar, but not exact. The more popular a car is, the more estimates there are. If you click on view individual estimates, it'll show you the locale, driving conditions, and the last time the estimate was updated. I found this site to be invaluable when trying to calculate how long it will take my hybrid to pay itself off in reduced gasoline costs. The answer, BTW, is 90-99k miles, or 5-6 years. Since the hybrid battery is warrantied for 100k miles or 8 years, it'll be fine.

Same here. I drive a 1998 Mustang (automatic). Last year I got 30mpg averaged over a full tank of gas. I consistently break 26mpg averaged over an entire tank. In pure city driving, I am never below 20mpg. Brand new it was rated at 26/17.

Part of it is that I rarely touch the breaks but rather look very far ahead and anticipate traffic patterns decently (using the breaks = lost energy due to friction/heat loss = decreased fuel efficiency). But part of it surely must be that the 1998 Mustang does better than presented. I can coast at a slight downhill (~5 degrees) at 50mph and retain that 50mph no problem.

tl;dr The car is about 15 years old and exceeds by far its original advertised fuel efficiency.

Been there done that..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CR-X#First_generation
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml

Do the math;
With regard to climate change/CO2 production it matters a great deal where the energy comes from.

Here in central Indiana our electricity comes from coal fired power plants down on the Ohio river. Each kW-h of electricity produces 1.88 libs of CO2 (ref Duke Energy mailings). The EPA rates the Nissan Leaf as using 34 kW-h to go 100 miles (ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf). So, doing the math going 100 miles through the Indiana countryside in the Nissan Leaf produces about 64 pounds of CO2.

How does that compare to burning gasoline? Burning that gallon of gas produces 20 lbs of CO2 (ref http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml), so the 64 lbs of CO2 for the electricity to drive the LEAF 100 miles is equivalent to 3.2 gallons of gasoline. That figures out to 31 miles per gallon.

Nissan LEAF -> 31 miles per gallon.

YMMV

Already been done and beaten by an order of magnitude. Much like these ultra fast vehicles you wouldn't use it as a daily driver though.

This is entirely plausible, but it depends greatly on where you live. Fortunately, thanks to the EPA that info is easily accessible, listing not only the tailpipe CO2 emissions in grams per mile, but the estimated upstream emissions for both electricity generation and gasoline production. Let's compare the 2012 Nissan Leaf, the most common EV, with the Toyota Prius C, a similarly-sized hybrid car.

Tailpipe Emissions:
Prius C = 177 g/mi
Leaf = 0 g/mi

Upstream Emissions:
Prius C = 45 g/mi
Nissan Leaf = 120 g/mi (Southern CA), 230 g/mi (US Average)

So, for my particular location (because our electricity is cleaner), a Leaf would emit less total CO2 than the Prius C by a score of 120 g/mi to 222. However, for the average person, the Prius would have a very slight edge of 222 g/mi to 230. Of course, the difference is that as electricity generation gets cleaner, the Leaf will emit less and less CO2 while the Prius C can only emit more.

Speed traps (financial influence) and trucking associations (delivery time beats diesel costs), while effective for political and popular influence, are likely biased sources of scientific info. My brief research, confirmed by personal anecdotal experiment, shows that driving slower (up to a point) does save gas. Cites: FuelEconomy.gov, MPG for Speed.

What type of gallon are we using here?
Here's the US Gov. Fuel economy page for a 2010 Volvo v70:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2010_Volvo_V70.shtml

It's highest rating on that is 27 HWY.

Not true. See here:

The energy required to move the rollers can be adjusted to account for wind resistance and the vehicle's weight.

You can quibble about how accurately drag is accounted for, but you can't say that it isn't.

I wonder if the European safety standards make a difference. I gather that Americans have put a fair bit of extra steel in their cars.

Certainly something seems to be different. On that chart, they give the Smart Fortwo 69 MPG. The US smart is EPA rated at 38. Some of it may be differences in calculations (though they do describe it as "mileage mpg US", whatever that means), but I gather that they also had to fiddle with the Smart to get it legal in the US.

In fact, 38 seems awfully low. I get nearly that in my Honda Fit, a much bigger car. It sounds to me as if they need to cleansheet the Smart to suit different rules for the US, and that we're seeing a mediocre retrofit.

This person is focused not on hypermiling, but on addressing the core vehicle that many ppl around the world regard as THE vehicle to own. Anywhere in the world, SUVs are regarded as high-end vehicles that many want. The problem is, that they get less than 20 mpg. That is insane. Here in America, the biggest drivers of the suburbans are not men, but women. Women that want to transport kids (not just their own, but others) around. Yet, about 20-30% of the time it is just 2 ppl in there (the mom and 2 kids). How far do they drive at a time? Typically, less than 10 miles. A serial hybrid that can also plug-in would change all of that. In particular, this person could actually turn this into a business.

I think where he is making a BIG mistake is in using Diesel. The big user of diesel is EU. They have clean diesel, so for them, it somewhat makes sense. However, around the world, NG is the up and coming thing. By moving to an NG seriel hybrid, this non-profit could make the argument and SALES PITCH in AMerica, that this a converted suburban has great mileage (above 40 if done right), but can also be charged at home. In addition, if the pitch is good enough, they could even argue that the NG could be fueled at home (that really works on farms where suburbans are owned by many men).

Regardless, hypermiling cars are being done in Academia. This person could address a whole other issue.

That is for the car that was rated for 300 miles/ charge.Drop the batteries down to the lowest value (which is only 160 miles/charge) and then you get a radically different value (i.e. greatly increased). However, EPA will only rate cars that are currently being sold. The 220 will come out this fall and the 160 this winter. At that time, the models will be rated and it will be substantially higher.
And note that focus does not have the speed, the carrying capacity, or the torque.

I'm not sure what your point is. That's the 2010 Polo BlueMotion, with the tiny engine I mentioned, it's not available in the USA so there is no "EPA window sticker", and my numbers come from the DoE's fine http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm site. C&D's review mentions "regenerative braking recuperates wasted energy when coasting or decelerating" and the Daily Telegraph's 2010 review of the same(?) Polo 1.2 BlueMotion said "The start/stop system works pretty well."

If you're in USA or Canada I don't see how you've ever driven a Polo, or a BlueMotion model.

I know that it's counter-intuitive, but the mass of CO2 created by burning a kilogram of gasoline is greater than one kilogram. Volume isn't very interesting, because CO2 is a gas and gasoline is a liquid, so it's no surprise that the volume of gas created is greater than the initial volume of gasoline. This fact (that the CO2 is more massy than the gasoline) is counter-intuitive because most people naively apply conservation of mass to the problem, and say most of what is produced is water, so the mass of CO2 must necessarily be less than the mass of gasoline. This is how folks get tripped up: the oxygen has mass, and a lot of it.

Gasoline is a mix of chemicals, isooctane, butane, and many others, but it's actually pretty close to CH2 in composition. Maybe something like CH2.5. To a first approximation, every carbon atom in gasoline is part of a CO2 molecule after combustion. Some of it is just carbon (soot) and some of it is CO, but the biggest component is CO2. Oxygen is 16 times as massive as hydrogen, so after combustion the mass of CO2 is greater than the mass of gasoline you burned.

here is a reference that describes the situation in greater detail.

Or, to look at it another way, each gram of the material sops up (44 g/mole * 1.72 x 10e-9 moles = ) 75nano-grams of CO2.

A gallon of gas produces 20 lbs or 9.1kg of CO2

So you'd need 9.1kg / 75ng = 120 billion grams of the material to absorb the CO2 output from a gallon of gas.

I don't know the density of this new material or its substrate, but if it's similar to common plastic tarps... A 20x100 foot roll of 10mil plastic film weighs 95 lbs (which probably includes the cardboard spindle).

So that's 43 kg for 20 * 100 = 2000 ft^3 = 185 m^2 or 232g/m^2

So, it would take (120 giga-grams / (232 g / m^2)) = 500 million square meters of this new plastic to absorb the CO2 from one gallon of gasoline (or 500 km^2 or a square 22 km on each side). That's about 4 times larger than the city of San Francisco.

Granted this would probably be used in a large belt that is continuously recycled to absorb CO2 then heat it and release, but still, that's a huge amount of material.

I know I don't have say this (it is Slashdot afterall), but please check my math.

2012 Prius V

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=31836

44 City, 40 Highway

It takes a certain amount of energy to fight wind resistance no matter what at highway speeds; hybrids get the regeneration advantage.

Thank you for that. The reality is, drivers of cars nowadays generally do get the advertised mileage. This wasn't true before the EPA standards were revised, but it is now. For example, concerning the Prius, compare the rated mileage with the average of real-world reports. Punch in any car you want there -- you'll find a surprisingly good correspondence.

And contrary what people have been saying elsewhere in this thread, hybrids are *not* only about "energy recapture". The energy recapture isn't even that efficient. What a hybrid lets you use is use a smaller, lower fuel consumption engine in the vehicle but still get the same sort of power output when you need it thanks to electric assist. The small engine is run harder, pushing it closer to peak efficiency. To pretend that doing this won't significantly increase the mileage is to pretend that big engines have the same fuel consumption as small engines. Beyond this, the best hybrids like the Prius and 1st gen Insight not only have hybrid drivetrains, but significant streamlining. Again, to pretend that aerodynamic drag is unimportant in terms of fuel consumption is pure idiocy.
.

The reality is that hybrids *are* efficient vehicles. Now, you can be a hypermiler like me, add custom mods, and outperform your vehicle's rated numbers (my 1st-gen Insight's FCD currently reads 2.3L/100km (102mpg) ;) ) (I'll admit, that's a little extreme even for me!). But I have little doubt that if I drove it as stock and in a normal fashion, it'd get around the rated 48mpg city/60 hwy

Well here's the deal

EPA has improved its methods for estimating fuel economy, but your mileage will still vary. Your Mileage Will Still Vary

If the EPA Fuel Economy Estimate is 25 MPG, the expected range for most drivers is 21-29 MPG. My car is an 2002 Oldsmobile Aurora rated at 16 city. 25 highway and 19 combined, my real world experience is I get 27.8-29.2 combined and frequently 38 Highway and always 32MPG.

Well here's the deal

EPA has improved its methods for estimating fuel economy, but your mileage will still vary. Your Mileage Will Still Vary

If the EPA Fuel Economy Estimate is 25 MPG, the expected range for most drivers is 21-29 MPG. My car is an 2002 Oldsmobile Aurora rated at 16 city. 25 highway and 19 combined, my real world experience is I get 27.8-29.2 combined and frequently 38 Highway and always 32MPG.

Well here's the deal

EPA has improved its methods for estimating fuel economy, but your mileage will still vary. Your Mileage Will Still Vary

If the EPA Fuel Economy Estimate is 25 MPG, the expected range for most drivers is 21-29 MPG. My car is an 2002 Oldsmobile Aurora rated at 16 city. 25 highway and 19 combined, my real world experience is I get 27.8-29.2 combined and frequently 38 Highway and always 32MPG.

Stop thinking there's a single silver bullet. Driving a fundamentally more efficient car thanks to electric propulsion and regenerative braking is part of addressing energy consumption. And "so-called green" is as meaningless a phrase as "green".

That lifecycle study was produced by a UK "anything but batteries" consortium looking for government money for efficient internal combustion engine and flywheel (?!?) technology. It all hinges on your electricity generation mix (its 500 g CO2 per kWh iseems sky-high), but even an EV owner in a midwest coal-fired state can put solar panels on the roof.

Meanwhile your Lingenfelter C6 (nice car!) is based off a Corvette that gets 19mpg combined EPA. At 12,000 miles a year, every year it will consume 630 gallons of gasoline, or 2 tons, that turns into 6 tons of CO2. And each gallon took an additional ~0.25 gallons to produce, spill, and deliver. Even without the solar panels, if you live in a natural gas or hydro powered area (here's the EPA's map), an EV is "all that much better". And that's before you consider all the geopolitical, terrorist, financial, etc. downsides of gasoline.

Kinda agree - my current Insignia (GM) comes to €27.000, or at current exchange rate: 35.000 USD. I could probably be talked into adding the difference up to 40K, although, as a techie on lowest salery rung, I'd be hard pressed to locate the additional 10K for this.

You get that back over 5 years in fuel savings. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/savemoney.shtml

It accelerates faster than a Porsche 911 and has other luxury features. Ergo it's a rich person's toy. That said, given the performance, the prices seem competitive, even ignoring fuel costs. From a cursory glance at the Porsche website, a new 911 costs around $80k in the U.S. with an estimated range of ~300 miles. Had to use fuel economy estimates for previous years since 2011 is an entirely new platform and the corporate site doesn't publish fuel economy numbers. My issue with the all-electrics is battery replacement. Figure you're plunking down at least $10k at the end of that 8 year warranty to replace your battery.

Fueleconomy.gov is your friend. Looks like a 2012 Porsche Carrera gets about 18/25 to 19/27 (22 combined) depending on options, for an average range of about 350 miles (400+ on the highway).

Wikipedia cites an 86% efficiency for inductive charging.

Gasoline engine efficiency is typically between 25-30%; Diesel engines do a little better, at between 40-50% efficiency. That said, the 86% efficiency rate of EV's is still over 30% greater than that of the most efficient internal combustion vehicles... and that's not good enough?

This is only for the charging. The actual production of the electrical power has additional losses.

According to the government, "Electric motors convert 75% of the chemical energy from the batteries to power the wheels—internal combustion engines (ICEs) only convert 20% of the energy stored in gasoline."

IANA electrical engineer, but 86% fueling efficiency + 75% fuel-usage efficiency sounds like it should blow 50% fuel-usage efficiency away any day of the week.

Though, I expect an electrical engineer to be able to correct my admittedly pitiful math if I'm wrong...

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/12280.shtml

The 95 Ram 2500 is supposed to get 12 MPG with the stock engine. So I'd say that's not bad at all.

madness. He should *charge* the restaurant a small amount to take it away for recycling.

he could... but unfortunately it's apparently valuable enough that people think it's worth stealing. Something that restaurants use to pay to have removed is now worth going to jail for, I imagine restaurants across the country will be looking at their oil grease in a different light now.

My question was what was the value of what was stolen? Since inedible kitchen grease (IKG) is usually disposed of, what value is placed on it? According to the article it's worth 40 cents a pound and a gallon of grease weights 7.68 lbs which means it's worth $3.07 a gallon. That seems incredibly high considering diesel fuel isn't much higher than that and this grease still requires a lot of filtering to remove the impurities and processing with chemicals to make it ready for a diesel engine to use. Filtering might remove some of the weight since many things fall in grease traps that isn't grease so 10 lbs of IKG might be closer to about 9 lbs of useable oil, making the price per gallon even higher. 100% biodiesel also gets 10% less mpg

If biodiesel costs almost the same as diesel fuel but gets worse mpg then whats the point?

Weirdly, if you check EPA fuel economy estimates on some of the higher mileage small cars (Ford Focus & Fiesta?) the automatics come up with higher mileage, or are very close behind. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best/bestworstNF.shtml

Did you go whole hog and get the supercharger from them?

Well according to fueleconomy.gov my old 540 also qualified as a cash for clunkers (18 mpg combined) and I have never gotten that bad of mileage, even last year when we had 2 bad snow storms in 1 week so that my drive home took 2 hours. I am surprised that yours with a manual and the next generation engine gets a claimed 16 mpg combined. The must have finally decided to put an aggressive set of cams in it as the M62 engine I have has some very mild cams with no overlap so it doesn't even need an EGR valve and no VANOS (yours probably has the Valvetronic system with double VANOS).

My engine has been tuned by Dinan, but I don't think that cost me all that much. The stock mileage is pretty crappy, too.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/20600.shtml

I wanted a four-seater convertible sports car with a high-mileage engine, but there simply wasn't anything on the market at that point. I'm looking forward to the Fisker Karma Sunset if they're able to get one on the market.

There is certainly a benefit to spending a lot of money on engineering, never the less horsepower is a function of fuel burned. If you prefer the comparison, my Subaru WRX gets 18/25 at 228 HP with AWD.

That's not very good for 2 wheel drive and ~ 240 HP. My 911 Turbo gets 16/23 with AWD and 470 HP.

The RX-8 has 16/23 Cty/Hwy. Not great, but also not really any different than other comparable performance cars and is not classified as a gas guzzler.

It'll take a lot more than "smart" government officials to fix this.

This article dumbs it down to high-gas mileage = death trap because they're light weight, so solution is make everything have better gas mileage, right?

Not always true: 2001 Ford Explorer 2wd SUV has a curb weight of 3769 and averaged 17mpg. 2011 Ford Explorer 2wd SUV has a curb weight of 4400 lbs and averages 20mpg. 600 lbs (18%) more, 3mpg (20%) better gas mileage.

So go ahead, require better gas mileage, but better mpg != lighter vehicles.

Besides this is already a problem because I can buy a used 2005 (last year they were made) 7,000+ lbs 15mpg Ford Excursion and outweigh almost every non-commercial vehicle on the road by 2,000+ lbs. Even a 2011 4WD Chevy Suburban is over 1,000 lbs lighter than a Ford Excursion.