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EPA Fuel Economy Myth: Too High, Too Low?
ThosLives asks: "I have seen here on Slashdot , and just about every other publication, numerous articles about fuel cells, hybrid vehicles, and the inaccuracies of EPA fuel economy stickers. For instance, today there is a review of the Toyota Prius that had the famous line 'Since no car really achieves the EPA estimated mileage...' I happen to drive a car with an EPA sticker of 21 city 25 highway (all figures in miles per gallon). I've driven the car for 47000 miles and the lowest I've ever seen is 23 and some change; the highest, 36.3 (I'm probably about 60% highway 40% stop-and-go and yes, the high was on a long highway trip). My all-time average is about 28.5. As most people get less than the EPA mileage, how does the Slashdot readership fare when it comes to EPA sticker vs actual experience, and on what type of vehicle?"
"Am I a rare breed that can drive my car (2.0L I4, 170 HP, 6-speed manual) aggressively (I've had coworkers and friends say 'woah!' more than I'd like to admit *grin*) and still stomp the EPA sticker? Did I get lucky with a phenomenal car? Am I enough of a counter-example to thwart the belief that the EPA figures are 'too liberal'? Are fuel economy issues just FUD from [insert lobby group of choice]? Or is the answer simply 'it depends on how you drive, what you had for breakfast, and the color of your neighbors' cat?'"
Of course, MPG greatly depends on how you drive, the state of the car, the fuel, the weather, traffic, and terrain.
The EPA numbers are a relative guide. They won't tell you exactly what you'll get for fuel consuption. However, you can easily use the EPA numbers to compare two cars' relative fuel efficiency. In fact, I submit that there is no better guide available for cars sold in the US.
(I've had coworkers and friends say 'woah!' more than I'd like to admit *grin*)
Ye who speeds, cuts people off, and winds through traffic, is the first to reach the red light.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
My girlfriend.....
They make blowup dolls that speak now? Wow. Did the cops ever nab you in the HOV/Commuter lane yet trying to sneak by with a naked "woman" in the passenger seat or did you think to clothe her?
how loaded your car is, how much you drive up hill, how often you brake or decelerate, now hard you accelerate, which way and how hard the wind is blowing (literally), how bald your tires are and whether they are aligned, is it a hot day, cold day...the list goes on.
seriously there are tons of physical factors that will affect your mileage. The EPA estimates are just that - estimates. Values that are in the ballpark of what you can expect to get.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
The car should be within the range of city to highway. If it isn't in there, then you should demand your money back.
I don't think that is that simple. The EPA tests are standardized, and I bet that if you drive in a manner, place and weather that the EPA tests use, you'd probably get those numbers. Drive in snow, rain, cold, heat (with A/C on) you might see something different. This is exactly why people say that benchmarks don't tell the whole story, the tests to arrive at the figures registered by the EPA is a benchmark, no more, no less.
Cars, like anything (say computers) are best at what they are designed to be best at. Just as Intel processors are very good at things that can be pipelined and demand high throughput, Via processors are very good at using low power and a small footprint. If you try using the device for something it wasn't OPTIMIZED for it will not perform - regardless of how great it can do what it is really meant to do.
If you look at Prius (and hybrid designs in general) they are based on city based use cases. Shut off the engine at the stop light & fuel economy goes up. These same cars on the highway won't perform as well. As to the 'Highway' and 'City' designations - these should be used a general baseline, not the rule.
I have personally found that some cars do better than their EPA while others don't. Lots of factors weigh in... age of the car, using the correct octane gasoline, how well you keep the car maintained, if you cary around 150 lbs of crap in your trunk, the kind of tires you use, is the car in alignment, and the list goes on.
The truth of the matter is that if you have the same circumstances that the EPA had when it tested the car, you can expect around those result.
As a prior poster put it:
Your mileage may vary.
The whole system should be dumped in favor of vehicle choice, not artificial limits put on cars by the government.
The truck exemptions (that allow for SUVs to have pretty much any fuel economy [or lack there of]) came from the late 1970s when most trucks were used by farmer and construction workers. The idea was to help those people, who generally are involved in small business and make peanuts anyway.
Times have changed, now everybody and his brother has an SUV or pickup truck (even if they don't admit it). The regulations haven't changed, not because of a scam, but because the federal beaurocracy is a mess. Sure, the oil-loving administration isn't going to hurry along any changes, but they aren't doing anything actively to prevent such changes either.
Or perhaps the last to make the green (or yellow)....
May such a driver be ever cursed with poor cellphone reception and the cold dregs of yesterday's Tarbucks beverage spilt on their lap.
Toyota doesn't mess around. They've also sold the hybrid technology to ford. Let's not forget that toyota is also releasing a hybrid which does 0-60 in 4.03 seconds and tops out around 155mph. Don't walk away from this thinking Toyota is maniacally evil, if anything, they've got their shit together more than most automotive companies.
Sorry for being a toyhead, they please me immensely. Something tells me, if the author of the article was driving a volta, miles per gallon would be the least of his worries. I think toyota pretty much tops the list of fuel economy, on any playing field. Prius wins in my mind, not strictly because of fuel consumption, but by the name that's behind it.
I need to be going around 90 mph to get around them before the next corner to avoid oncoming traffic. If I am passing 2 or 3 cars in the same passing zone, I usually do so at about 120 mph.
Then:
Humans sure have a strange way of dying.
Oh! The irony!
Or you can dispense with the notebook altogether if, like me, you always fill your tank fully at the gas station.
When you fill up, the pump will tell you how many gallons you just pumped into your car. When I get back into my car, I reset the tripmeter (the "second" odometer which can be reset) after noting the number of miles I've driven since the last fuel stop. Then it's just a matter of spending the next minute or so trying to do the division as accurately as possible without getting into an accident.
This method is certainly no better than what the parent recommended, but it definitely requires less paperwork.
I also feel the need to say that there are a lot of very serious things that can go wrong with your car that don't affect the fuel economy --- just because you're beating the quoted fuel efficiency rating doesn't mean you don't have to look at other things!
They also depend on what gas you put in the car. Some cars do drive better on supreme.
When I used to live about 400km from my hometown, I spent the first while driving home on regular, it took about half a tank to get there (45L tank?)
However, when on a whim I tried "Supreme," it actually took me just a little over a quarter... so milage and bang-for-my-buck was actually better on the more expensive gas. Possibly this also has to do with the mountainous terrain and the fact that the gas gave me more power - not sure.
I do know that I regularly stick injector-cleaner in, so I shouldn't be getting plugged there. Therefore, I'm willing to state that better gas can give you better milage (and not all gas stations give the same quality gas either)
at low rpm, minimum approaches zero. That's the problem with turbo's - they don't do anything until the engine is already running really fast.
I haven't driven a Turbo TT, but in a Subaru WRX, below 2000 rpm the car is just a wimpy 4cyl econobox. At around 2500 RPM it starts to pull and at 4000rpm it's get pretty silly. Grin inducing silly.
Assuming a tall 6th gear on the TT, there would be essentially no turbo boost at hwy speeds, probably around 2500rpm @70mph.
JON
Any one of these can swing fuel consumption. Driving my Jeep like a granny, shifting once I hit 1,500 rpm (not a problem since it has so much torque) gets me close to 18 or 20 mpg, even with big tires. If I drive around like "normal" people I'd be getting closer to 11 or 12 mpg in the city.
However, having lived in a suburb where I would have to drive 45 miles a day just for work, to now driving less than 5 miles/day if at all has meant that by moving to "the city" I have reduced my personal emissions/day tremendously.
One interesting to note about tire pressure. I left San Francisco (65 degrees) and pumped the tires to 33psi cold. By the time I got down to Fresno it was getting a bit squirrely. When I checked the pressure it had hit 40psi! I let it back down to 32psi and continued onward. Coming down the 10 heading into Phoenix it felt weird again. Lo and behold, the 115 degree ambient temp had pushed the pressure back up to 38.
The point being that you need to keep your tires inflated to the pressure that gives you the lowest rolling resistance. I'll be changing out the 33x12.5 to 33x9.5 tires.
Keeping the car well maintained is also a bonus.
Everyones mileage will vary. This is for one very good reason. The mileage of your car is determined on a chassis dynometer running the federal driving cycles for city and highway. The current cycle is the LA77 I belive. That would be a cycle designed in 1977 as if you were driving around in Los Angeles California. So every car is based of a very set driving. Obviously no one will ever drive just like this. Some peoples driving will get poor mileage some great just on their routes they drive.
The other factor is indeed how you drive. I drive very agressively, but at the same time I get good mileage. Why is this? Well largly because I have worked on projects getting getting highmileage for years, Futuretruck. I understand what the car is doing and what to do to run it where I can get the best mileage. And often if your driving right, you will get good mileage, since making the most of your car and its potential is a very similar thing to how to get good mileage, conserving energy and so forth. Its not how powerful your car is, it's how you drive. A professional driver can roast a fool even when driving much less of a car then the fool.
Also driving a POS car with no power for years got me good at making the most with little power, so now I don't need to use it all to do what people do with more power. People are often shocked with how my car performs when with me driving, and they have the same car.
The driving cycle the gov uses is just simply out of date, but even a upgrade won't fix the problem do to as stated, people drive differant in differant places. If you live in the mountains on dirt roads, well your won't do as good. But if you live in kansas and your area is paved, your going to do better.
Also as car become more varried in what they can do and their drive trains, (gasoline with an auto, vs say a powersplit hybrid with a turbodiesel) the model is going to be harder to fit.
Also models vary so much. Look at any one model but then look at how much you can change with options. You can had 500+ lbs to an SUV just optioning it from the base to the top end with all the power features and such. So even in a model you get lots of differance, even if the engine and tranny are the same.
And yes I'm sure many people will say my 19xx gets this many miles per gallon but my new one gets far worse. Yes this is true, but thats because makers have tossed mileage for emissions, which is a very good thing, and in doing that cost some mileage (aside from CO2 the other emissions are not directly linked to mileage, sometimes you hurt mileage to reduce emissions). Also new cars are so much safer to do more structure and such. Your 80s Japanesse cars were tin cans, they had to add a lot of weight to make it safe.
Things also apply to trucks vs cars. Most people who buy a truck/suv find that it gets better mileage then listed, few will get under 20mpg, just that the fed test isn't freindly to trucks, and some people are just morons and can't drive a truck and get good mileage. But for that there is the inverse and people who drive econobox's and don't get crap for mileage and no where near what it's listed to get.
If you get in mid 20s mpg with anything, be ok with that, into the 30s, great. For most people the differance doesn't relate to much money saved. Hell, if you buy a bottle of water out of machine, or a coffee at starbucks everyday you wasted more money then the differance in your cost driving to work that day.
"I don't think the EPA takes this into account; they're looking at a bad extrapolation of data based on emissions and a short test--almost a perfect, no-wind, flat-land drive."
I don't see how they could get any better. All parts of the country are different. In Phoenix we have mostly flat terrain with mild inclines in places, but it's bloody hot with thin, smoggy air much of the year, which will affect power and emissions. In Indiana they have more hills, significantly more humid air, and lower temperatures, but inclement weather more frequently that'll affect efficiency and power. Same goes for everywhere else.
Take out the eccentricities of the terrain and you get EPA test mileage, which is ideal-conditions testing, truly relevant to nowhere in particular, but not biased toward anywhere in particular either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The reason most people don't get the advertised mileage is because they goose it at most every opportunity and race up to the light and then get on the brakes. More sensible driving patterns will get better mileage. I like the hybrid cars because they provide real time feedback both in text and graphics as to your mileage and fuel consumption. I wish conventional cars would do this also.
My preferred method of transportation gets 1.2 gallons per mile....
Which is better than a hybrid car for certain numbers of people.....
Fellowship 9/11
All these SUVs are beginning to embarrass me. Everybody knows that reason that people buy them is because:
1) They get '$4000 cash back'. Or something like that and they need the money.
2) 'No interest and no payments until 2006!' Or some other absurd offer like that.
3) 'Just show your paycheck stub to trade in your current rust bucket and drive away in a giant houseboat on wheels for $100 down'.
4) You can write off the entire cost of the vehicle as a tax deduction. This got slipped in the middle of one of those 1000 page Defense budget appropriations bills years ago.
What is really getting to me about these people who drive around (alone) in these HUGE vehicles is that they have no sense of public shame. Everybody knows that American solders are getting killed in the Gulf daily to protect the oil supplies, so these assholes blatently drive around in a car that gets 10 miles per gallon (roughly 4 km per liter) and then they put some flag decal on their back window to show how much they support 'our boys'. If they really cared about whether or not the solders were getting killed then they would be driving a car that gets 30 MPG and there wouldn't be any need to send 130000 solders to the Gulf to ensure the oil supplies.
Everybody knows this. But all SUV drivers just don't give a fuck. And they seem so overjoyed to stick their HUGE vehicle in everybody's face to remind people that they either don't care or they're just too stupid to make the connection.
Everybody knows by now that the giant SUVs are just given away as tax write-offs. Myself, I would be ashamed to drive around in one of those because everybody would know that I cheated the taxpayers through a bogus tax-write off to get one. But they, the SUV drivers, just don't have any sense of public shame. They must think that the rest of us are happy to see them coming down the street in giant houseboat on wheels.
We're not. We're embarrassed by you. You make us look bad to the rest of the world. Everybody in the world looks at Americans now and says 'How can these people be so vulgar and stupid and have so much money?'. It's not a situation that has any real long term growth potential or stability. Then they start to analyse the situation and realize that the whole US economy is held up by the willingness of foreign parties to buy US government Treasury Securities to support the giant US government deficits and by the willingness of foreign parties to use the US dollar as a defacto global currency. So when the Chinese (who finance most of the US federal government deficits by buying Treasury bills) start buying the oil that they need directly from OPEC through private deals (not on the open market) and paying for it in Euros, the Americans are going to be in a bad situation. Because no one will need them or their bullshit anymore.
A lot of these SUV owners don't seem to realise that this giant piece of shit that they're aiming down the road is in all likelyhood the last new car that they are going to own. And, if things get real bad, they may find themselves living in it. That's their retirement housing: a Ford Expedition sitting on cinder blocks with the seats torn out and Winnie-the-Poo curtains on the windows. Renting a 5x5 meter plot in a trailer park built on a depleted Uranium dump site for $3000 a month.
Altough, around 2 months ago I performed a 'test'.
During the whole tank of gas, I accelerated as slow as I could never pressing the gas more than 1/4 of the way. I knew the lighs were going to turn red, so why accelerate? I eased on slowly and came up to the red using as little break as possible (a waste of energy)... maybe even rolling into the light as it would turn green and _then_ slowly accerlerating.
On the highway, I would stay in the right lane (insane for me). The speed limit is 70, but I would hold 63.
For the tank I averaged 35mpg.
Moral of the story. The car you choose does have a lot to do with your final MPG. But your driving habits also have a huge amount to do with your fuel usage.
1. Check your tire pressure at least once per week, preferably before you drive the car for the day. If the tires are properly inflated, you get lower rolling resistance, which can improve fuel efficiency as much as four percent.
2. Change the air filter once every three months. With a clean air filter, you get better engine breathing, which can improve fuel efficiency several precent.
3. Keep the fuel-delivery system clean. That means you should run something like Chevron's Techron additive to your fuel about three times per year to keep the fuel injectors clean. Also, consider having the fuel injectors removed and cleaned manually by a good auto repair shop every 36,000-40,000 miles or so. A dirty, potentially-clogging fuel injector can not only hurt fuel efficiency, it also hurts overall engine performance, too.
4. Replace the spark plugs at slightly shorter than manufacturer-recommended intervals. An improperly-working or worn spark plug can hurt fuel efficiency and overall engine performance quite a bit.
5. Don't drive too fast. Keeping the speed under 75 mph usually helps fuel efficiency since you're dealing with less air resistance when running at lower speeds.
6. Keep the windows closed on a sedan or coupe type vehicle if you're travelling above 40 mph. An open window causes considerable air resistance at higher speeds, so much so that you actually use less fuel with the windows closed and the air conditioner running than having the windows open when you're driving on the freeway.
I do not condone doing 90MPH+ in a population center (i.e. center city Philly), but once you're out on the highway or the backroads, let loose. If your car has the speed and breaking distance, you have nothing to fear.
Animals, cyclists, and children become irrelevant outside of cities? In rural areas, especially those without leash laws, a dog can be sitting in the middle of the road around a blind curve. Good luck. Speeding is less about cops and quotas as it is about gambling with life itself.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Have you ever noticed that when they widen a road, the traffic doesn't tend to get lighter? Same concept applies here. Just because the mpg gets better doesn't mean we won't need to import oil from the middle east or somewhere.
I get twenty kilometers per litre, that's about fifty miles per gallon, on average, and that's with a very ordinary turbodiesel, nothing fancy or especially fuel economic (and a pretty quick driving style).
"On longer trips of predominately highway i have had mileage about around 52-53 miles per gallon, this is with cruising at 70 mph."
You have to remember soemthing:
Diesel has more energy per gallon than gasoline. Somewhere around 14% more, IIRC. So don't go bragging about your MPG figure until you realize that Diesel MPG != Gasoline MPG.
Not to mention that diesel has a number of emmissions problems, particularly sulfur diesel (as is most diesel in the US). A vehicle like the Prius not only delivers higher MPG, it also works hard to keep emissions as low as possible.
I am driving around a perfect little European city car. It's called the Toyota Yaris. It has a 1.0L engine, manages to get me where I'm going, it's actually a bit spiffy on the pick up too. I drive it in Norway, the country with all the hills and moutains too, never had a problem on a hill.
I just checked the Brit site for MPG. Of course a British gallon is bigger than a US gallon, but it states it gets 52.3mpg. The conversion works out too 43.58mpg US. I do get the advertised MPG too.
BTW... if I had purchased the turbodiesel... my next car, I would get 53.5mpg and the car would do 0-60 in 12.9 seconds and drive up to 100mph (and that's the 1.4l, not the 1.5l)
'Are fuel economy issues just FUD from [insert lobby group of choice]?'
With the end of the oil reserves within clear sight, I'd say no, it isn't FUD. And apart from that we have a couple of potential disasters right in our faces:
1. Iraq seems to be a long way away from stability and success in any sense of the word 'success' as we presently know it.
2. Saudi Arabia is beginning to destabilize as a consequence of the increased terrorism that is a consequence of we-all-know-who attacking Iraq without thinking.
All we need now is Sharon and the ultra-extremists in Israel inflaming even more hostility in the region, so that situation gets out of control, and Israel starts throwing their non-existent nuclear weapons around.
I'd say, all in all, there is a very real risk that we can have a massive oil crisis in less than 1 year from now because of these things. Maybe it won't happen, maybe sense will prevail, but certainly not if people in general just turn up the volume on their favorite 'reality' TV show and sit on their hands. I believe that to avoid having it come crashing down, we need to get rid of the Bushes, Blairs and Sharons, and we - you and I - need to think seriously about a more frugal lifestyle.
Yeah, I know, most people won't take this seriously. You will eventually, though.
they get deductions and such because they can be classified as a truck and the wording in the legislation is sloppy and does not exclude vehicles that are primarily passenger vehicles. So something that was intended to encourage a business to buy a new dumptruck, for example, gets twisted to encourage Suzy soccer mom to buy a vehicle that she'll drive into a pool.
Your fine tan won't last long if you slide down some tarmac for a few yards.
Unless you just mean tanning your face, of course.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I think the law came about as a tax break for businesses so they could purchase new trucks FOR BUSINESS USE. Dump trucks, semis, work pick-ups, etc. The weight limit was set to something that was supposed to exclude vehicles such as light pick-ups and cars.
The unfortunate (unintentional? Debatable...)side effect was that more and more vehicles (such as SUVs) are exceeding the weight limit set in this law and therefore qualify for the tax break. Thus, the SUVs that are bought on this premise are bought not by the individual, but by the individual's self-owned business.
The doctor with a private practice doesn't buy the SUV for personal use, he buys it for use at his practice. The self-employed consultant doesn't buy the H2, it is bought by his company (which he owns) as a company car.
If this perception is wrong, please correct me.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Essentially, nothing. The problem is that people are buying the hummer and other SUVs as car-replacements. That means not only are they getting around in them on a day-to-day basis, but they are also driving them like they drove their cars: fast, hard, and with overdue maintenance. Larger, less efficient vehicles become even more inefficient (not to mention dangerous) when driven hard. Since the hummer is considered to be something of an off-road vehicle, it probably doesn't lose huge points on efficiency in that area. However, since most people are not using the hummer for its claimed intended purpose, it is grossly inefficient, but not shockingly more so than other, similar vehicles. I have a friend who drives a Durango as if it was a sports car and he gets about 8-10 MPG. Basically, a big part of the whole gas consumption problem is not just the vehicles but also how they are driven. We are going to need large, gas-hog engines for the foreseeable future to drive trucks and heavy equipment, but when those engines are overused in personal vehicles, those vehicles need to be thought of as trucks instead of as cars.
I am feeling fat and sassy
A friend just had a Prius as a loaner, and another friend just bought the Honda Civic hybrid.
Being new and eco-geeky, both cars have extra instrumentation to let you know how/what the hybrid gear is doing, including instantaneous mpg readings. I haven't talked with the friend with the Civic since shortly after she bought it, but the friend with the Prius mentioned that the readings on the mgp meter tended to modify his driving habits. I wonder how much mileage on regular cars could be improved just by this type of feedback.
As a counter-example, back in the late 70's a college friend's Chrysler had a simple form of this - a yellow light that would come on when you were driving 'too aggressively' for good mileage. So of course there were efforts to keep the light on as much as possible.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Try pushing a car in the wnter when it's sat overnight - it's a lt harder to get going.
That being said, I had 2 vehicles, identical make, model, etc., except that one was an automatic, the other a manual. Identical driving style - the automatic never got more than 25 mpg, the standard never less than 35, and sometimes over 40 for weeks on end.
Now if you REALLY want to save fuel, put a $1000 excise tax on vehicles with automatic transmissions, and a $1000 excise rebate on vehicles with manual transmissions, charged or paid to the first-time buyer. The nations' fleet would, in the course of a few years, be much more economical. (of course, this will never happen, because it makes too much sense)
Traffic is Us.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
- True and relevant. The USA's import situation is directly affected by the difference between production and consumption; reducing consumption cuts imports just as directly as increased production does.
- Perhaps true, but irrelevant. Oil is fungible, and while Persian Gulf oil goes primarily to Europe and the Far East it would be simple to re-route the tankers so that all of US imports came from there... or none of them. This would have no effect on US import dependence, the political implications of e.g. Wahhabi financing of hate teaching, or anything else of importance.
- Perhaps true, but equally irrelevant for the reasons stated above.
Roughly half of all US oil consumption goes for motor gasoline, while over half of all US oil consumption is from imports. You could make every passenger car in the USA run on electricity and you would still not eliminate oil imports (though you'd probably collapse the world market for oil for a while and bankrupt a kingdom or three).Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I think his argument was more that as you increase fuel economy, people will drive more. But that is probably slightly true, as the UK has more public transportation because gas is so expensive. But here in the US when prices doubled driving didn't half. So I'm guessing when the cost of gas (or atleast the cost per mile of gas) goes down driving won't significantly increase, but it may some.
Or they may actually have a need for one. It is not only idiotic, but also hypocritical to say that nobody needs an SUV ever. Sure, there are some pretty worthless cars on the road, but try and squeeze 5 200+lb guys into a prius and see how comfy they are. This is the same forum that says that they should have the right to watch their DVDs on whatever they want, have the right to do as they please with their own stuff (even people who buy dual Xeons servers when they mostly post on slashdot and watch porn, which is a total waste of electricity) so cut people some slack. I am looking at an SUV, but fuel economy was a big driving force. The one I am getting is going to get better mileage than the car I am trading in for it. It is not great, but if you have a problem with that, don't buy one and demand that auto makers are more socially aware and put money into alternate fuel development like hydrogen fuel cells.
"Speeding" does not kill, this is a fallacy that is perpetuated by the auto insurance industry and uninformed public officials. Accidents (collisions really) and deaths are mostly caused by idiots with cell phones, drunks, and inattentive drivers (and left lane hogs too). Think for yourself, don't believe the hype
The energy available to break arms legs and heads is proportional to the square of the velocity. Driving 75mph instead of 55mph nearly doubles (1.86 times) the amount of energy available to do damage.
That's not hype, it's basic physics.
This is due to design decisions on the part of the auto makers: the hydraulic torque converter is a huge energy sink. If they used CVTs or a hybrid with a generator between the engine and transmission input shaft (turning the RPM difference of the slippage into electricity instead of converting it to heat) the difference would be a lot smaller, perhaps even negative.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Diesels engines cost more, thats why US driver in general don't want them. Diesel fuel is cheaper and you do get better mpg. In Europe that cost of fuel easily outwieghs the higher cost of the engine very quickly. However in the US, I remember I figured out one time that with a Ford F-350 Diesel truck, I'd have to drive 100,000 miles before I'd break even. For me I believe that my next truck will be a used full size diesel powered truck that I'll keep for 10 years.
My buddy is an off-roader, and I go with him occasionally. I've seen the H2 in action, and trust me, it can't get out of it's way. I've seen one basket ball player, and one foot ball player, each driving his own H2, on two seperate occasions.
We had to winch both of them out with his K5 blazer (which is now painted on the side "H2 RESCUE TEAM".)
The H2 has the same transmission as many many many chevy vehicles, geared identically. How come they don't get 10MPG? The H2 is designed to be a gas guzzling, curb sitting POS, so people with more money than sense can look down on the commoners.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
It's a chicken/egg thing really. The only reason diesel costs more is that Ford/GM/etc have never needed them manufactured at high volumes. I actually have wondered when we'll get the first hybrid electric/diesel. It would work wonderfully for the hybrid SUV section. A relatively small diesel engine could provide ample power, plus the electric to keep you running in start-stop situations. Gas mileage would be through the roof (compared to your standard SUV gas mileage). I would guess that in the short term the cost of manufacturing a small diesel (say 60hp) would be about the same, if not less, as manufacturing the 120hp engine in the hybrid Escape, and it would provide comparable results. Plus, as volume increases, the cost of producing the diesel engine will go down, thus meaning Ford won't have to sell at a loss.
I have to disagree. We do *not* need large, gas-hog engines for trucks and heavy equipment. I know of *no* heavy equipment that runs on gasoline today (they're all diesels, or for the really big stuff, diesel/electric). Big gas trucks are inexcusable. An F-350 SuperDuty with the PowerStroke diesel will get 17-19 mpg while doing 70mph towing 4000 lbs through a hilly area (and have enough power that you don't know the trailer's even there). Conversely, an *empty* same truck with the gas V10 will get no better than 10-14 mpg. Point being, diesels make more power with much better fuel economy.
You may call me a troll for saying so, but if you (the universal you, not the specific you) buy a big truck/suv and get a gas motor, you're a total idiot.
The Sacred Chao says, "MU".
It would work wonderfully for the hybrid SUV section. A relatively small diesel engine could provide ample power, plus the electric to keep you running in start-stop situations.
Sorry, no. Diesels don't provide the high-end horsepower that gasoline engines do; they're much better for fuel economy and for towing, but these aren't important to SUV owners. Being able to drag race, and drive like they're in sports cars are important to most SUV owners, so diesels would never sell well in SUVs.
The point is that we reduce the dependency of the US on the middle east. The middle east has the US by the balls, and we've seen how they can be fickle with their fortunes. They'll cut production to raise prices, and then they'll increase it again once we complain a lot, but just a little bit. We're better off getting all of our oil from countries closer to here who are a bit more friendly to us. Also, the site had an interesting quote - "I don't think there's any question if broccoli were the number one export from the Middle East, we would not have gone to war in Iraq". You have to think that if there wasn't any economic benefit to those in power, would we have gone to war? I don't see us trying to liberate any of the african dictatorships.
And yet the Toyota Prius sells by the thousand in the US, and here's a car which is admittedly clever technologically, but isn't as economical as a decent modern diesel engine, and certainly doesn't drive as well, yet costs thousands more than a conventional-engined equivalent. In the UK they sell maybe a couple of dozen a year, no exaggeration, presumably because they're basically pointless. So why are Americans willing to shell out far more than they'll ever recoup in fuel savings on a Prius, but won't spend a few hundred more on a diesel which would not only drive a lot better than any hybrid, but in many ways will perform better than a petrol-engined equivalent?