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Hybrid Drivers Provide Real-World Mileage Data
The hot-selling Toyota Prius averages 48 miles per gallon among over 150 cars from across the country, with most drivers achieving between 45 and 51. The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid delivers 30 miles per gallon while Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV averages 28. All hybrid owners are encouraged to post their data for these and other cars on the Internet's largest hybrid mileage database.
Reliable fuel economy figures are increasingly important as consumers explore their options in an emerging hybrid car market. Hybrids, like the new Lexus RX 400h, pair combustion engines with electric motors that recharge while driving to improve gas efficiency. "Until lately," said GreenHybrid creator Jason Siegel, "consumers have associated hybrid vehicles with a small niche of fuel-conscious environmentalists, but today's hybrids offer the best combination of high performance, great mileage and luxury features of any cars on the market."
Basically, I floored it when taking off and took the car to the max.
You know what I found, I got 25 MPG in BOTH cases. In fact, I got slightly better milage when I was agreessive. Granted, this was not completely scientific, but it made me wonder about doing more accurate testing. I expected to see a 5-10 MPG difference. To follow up, I drove the last tank at a normal "in-between pace".
I was talking to someone at work about it and they thought that maybe today's engines are tuned so well and change with different environments that it doesn't make a difference. It only makes a difference if you are stopped a lot like in traffic jams.
Anyone in Central Indiana want to join me for some more scientific testing?
If you have to pay $5000 over the sticker price because of demand, are you really saving money? The demand is ridiculous.
I guess they didn't have enough charge in their electric batteries... Wait for it, once their done braking there should be a little bit left! Oh wait, they didn't fill up on gas because prices are so high... oh well.
nyudlink: here.
how do you know this?
Before anyone gets confused, I just want to point out that the Accord hybrid is not supposed to be super-efficient like the Prius. It's the top-of-the-line Accord, and the hybrid power is mostly used to increase performance while retaining similar fuel economy to the slower models. It's quite zippy; IIRC it has better 0-60 times than a V6 Mustang.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Turbo-Diesel owners have been seeing numbers in this range, or better, for years.
Seems what the market needs is a diesel/electric hybrid to get numbers that will impress any diesel owners.
Otherwise most TDI Volkswagens have been able to outshine these numbers for years. Plus you can't run a Prius on used cooking oil.
And ./'ed within 5 seconds...
They should switch to a premium unleaded/apache method :)
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
Honestly, I wish I could drive going at slower RPMS; that way because I feel more sane. But other drivers seem to take any kind of slowdown as an invititation to zoom past.
Maybe I just live in an insane area. (Washington D.C. Metro area).
Coincidence? I think not!
People who buy hybrids will be inclined to submit exaggerated mileage claims in order to make themselves feel better about spending more money for a hybrid. This is the same phenomenon as people on a diet who under report/underestimate their calorie intake.
Hybrids will only make economic sense if gas prices reach $5 or $6/gallon (in the US). As it is now, the return on investment is awful. Only buy a hybrid if you want to feel good about yourself.
Self awareness - try it!
EPA estimates have never been really useful indicators of real-world results, nor were they intended to be.
What they do provide is a car-to-car comparison that is consistent regardless of driving style, load, weather or other conditions. When you compare EPA mileage statistics, you're comparing apples to apples.
Hybrids throw a monkeywrench into the mix, so we'll probably see an adjustment to the EPA methodology at some point.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
While I'm all in favor of gas economy, I have to wonder how much more unbiased fans of these cars are than (potential) opponents of them. As it is in the government's best interest for us to keep buying gas, they have an incentive to understate fuel economy in very efficient cars. This is not to say that they actually do it; merely that they have a reason to. However, fans/drivers of the cars might be rounding their numbers or interpolating them from memory, for example. This is not a scientific study, and it is important to remember that.
I get about 8-10 mpg improvement by using the cruise control at any speed. I have a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid and get about 38-41 mpg on average.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
The "Small Environmentalist" niche wasn't bringing in the bucks so here you have it.
Anyone remember when Marlboro was a wussy cigarette brand?
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I have a 1978 British Mini (the old ones) and the gas mileage is anywhere between 50 and 60 mpg. Here we are almost 30 years later and we are getting- lower gas mileage?
:)
Granted the Mini does not weigh anything and lacks AC- still. The 1 liter engine kicking out 55HP (in my slightly modified engine) is more than adequate to move such a light vehicle. Add to that a suprisingly roomy interior (it will seat 4 people comfortably despite being only 10 feet long) and a car that will corner like a go kart and you have to ask yourself what the auto industry is thinking. Not to mention being able to park _anywhere_
We have materials today that Alec Issigonis (the guy who created the Mini back in the 50's) could only dream of- lighter, stronger and easier to shape- and yet cars today are far heavier. We get worse gas mileage- sure the cars are more powerful but then again they have to be. I realize some of this weight is the result of safety improvements and the like but it just feels like there has to be a middle ground.
-sirket
For both Windows and Linux?
The Prius get's 45 MPG average? nice.. now if only they coudl design the body so that owners might actually be able to pick up chicks .p
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Really sorry, guys. Slashdot sent me so many referrals the whole server went down! I won't be able to get ahold of my host for 2 hours, so please sit tight. Very sorry.
Jason Siegel
GreenHybrid.com
I drive an old Nissan 240sx, which is a mid-grade sports car. It has gobs of torque, adequate horsepower, and handles like a knife in the back. I try to drive fairly responsibly, although I frequently yank the hell out of second gear. I get ~25mpg in town, and ~30mpg on the interstate. That means I've already got the hybrid Accord beat. Granted, mine is essentially a two seater (a third person can sit sideways in the back two "seats" for short distances), so someone with a hybrid Accord who does most of their driving with three or more people in the car is more efficient overall, in theory. But still.
The Insight is impressive, with most users at GreenHybrid.com reporting 60+mpg, but until the cost of Hybrids comes down significantly, I don't feel nearly as guilty about my little gas guzzler.
Now, let the endless jokes about the fuel source of their webservers commence.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
The amount of energy used by an average automobile over its lifetime (manufacture, operation, maintenance and disposal) that comes from the gasoline used to drive it is only a fraction (around 1/5 to 1/3) of the total.
A hybrid does reduce the total energy consumption of a car over its lifetime compared to a conventional car, but not by all that much. It still takes all the same materials and manufacturing processes to build, and poses the same disposal problem once it wears out.
The answer is a combination of fewer, longer-lasting, more-efficient cars, and less driving.
So, what's the point of having a hibrid?
By the way Honda Civic gets even better mileage.
I have a 2004 honda accord V6 EX model, pretty much top of the line and I get consistent 30mpg highway and about 26 in the city. I can't imagine how a hybrid would get pretty much the same while claiming "fuel economy".
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Hybrids are a nice interim solution, but they are nothing more than a more efficient version of the internal combustion engine. A big heavy hybrid SUV is still a gas guzzler.
It's great to see people jumping on the hybrid bandwagon, but only if it leads to truly green solutions using renewable energy. If people think hybrids are the ultimate solution, they will be sadly mistaken.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Is it a myth that if you go above 55, your fuel consumption stops being linear to your speed? Here's why I think it is: back when this myth was invented, cars were not as aerodynamic as they are now and that's why it may be true for cars that were built way back when.
-Palal
For some reason Hondas seem to get decent mileage even with leadfoot drivers. With other cars, flooring it to accelerate definitely cuts into gas mileage. Just my non-scientific observations.
...is not a hybrid, is not expensive, and gets 46-53 m.p.g. I have checked it on about 20 tanks. But, no tax refund.
Drive so that you minimize your braking.
And shift 4200-4500RPM when accelerating.
You'll see a noticeable increase in city mileage.
If you mix city and freeway, keep it at 65 on the freeway.
Before you do any of this set tire pressure to max recommended.
In the 98 Civic and 94 E-150 van I get 20% better mileage if I drive as I've recommended above.
Only in the US do people treat motorcycles as weekend, sunny day only play things. The UK weather is piss and that country is as bike nutty as it can get.
My pitiful, air-cooled 750cc 4cyl bike gets 47-53MPG and I can give a corvette a damn good race. i can filter past miles and miles of logjammed cars choking on their exhaust fumes and ride in HOV/commuter lanes at will. I do all my grocery shopping by bike and carry even small machine tools on the back (table saws, sanders etc). I and others like me ride year round in all weather and even in Wisconsin and Chicago winters. Think about it. how much time is your 4-place car/suv running around with only the driver's seat occupied?
My 2000 Saturn gets 40 miles to the gallon! How is this an improvement?!?!
For ordinary cars, you have the tank fill method, but I wonder if that is only accurate to about half a gallon. I try to get the same gas nozzle and park the car the same way because I figure if the car is tilted one way or the other you will get a different air bubble in the tank. Also I figure the shutoff is the same sensitivity. Even so, on a 10 gallon fill, my guess you are accurate to 5 percent (about 1 MPG in your case).
Do you get pretty much 25 MPG every time, or do you get 23, 24, 26, 25, 27, 24 -- that is more my experience (without changing any variables)?
The Green Hybrid site is slashdotted, but I wonder if they have data on non-hybrids -- comparing the Corolla or Camry against the Prius, comparing hybrid and nonhybrid Civics. In addition to the real-world data on the hybrids, it would be interesting to see real-world numbers on everything else and correlate it with EPA. That way I can see how I am doing with respect to drivers with other driving patterns and make some guesses regarding my real-world mileage from the EPA numbers of a car I am thinking of buying.
The other thing that could be done is that all cars have this OBD-II plug right under the steering column. Someone should come up with some kind of data logger that you could drive your car around -- to work, to Grandma's, whatever your personal drive cycle is -- and compare predicted mileage against actual mileage and make predictions of what you would get in another car model. I understand that if you are buying an 18-wheel truck, you can get fuel use predictions based on the truck route you want to cover, and this is a big, big factor in the economics of a truck purchase. I guess the technology exists in principle to do this with cars, but the usual people who sell cars don't even want you to know this.
I had a 1969 bug that got 25-28mpg. In 36 years that can't do better than 2-3mpg better?
That's utterly pathetic.
The cost savings is almost non-existant. I can get(I HAD one) a standard civic that gets me 30-40mpg, and without the extra initial cost. $5000 = 2000 gallons of gas at $2.50/gal. 35mpg * 2000 = 70000. So if you drive 18,000 miles per year, you start to break even around year 4 of owning the car.
Conservation? The amount of energy and oil in the plastics and other materials used in the production of a car, and where does the OLD car go? Its SO wastefull to buy a new car. Not to mention it still uses gas to operate and oil to lube. Conservation my ass.
I can't believe anyone wants a hybrid....
I get 42mpg in my daily drive, but not batteries to keep charged!
oy, here's a bitterly ironic vision for all those excited by hybrids as harbingers of social change vis a vis fossil hydrocarbons: Toyota sticks a finger in the US auto industry's eye by proofing and popularizing the technology. This, kiddies, is called subversion. Then Toyota and the rest of the automotive powers-that-be channel the upswell of interest in hybrids into cars that don't improve on current fuel efficiency standards. Presto: Containment!
Everyone should have motorcycles and have less cars. Even though motorcycles are less efficient they take a lot less petrol/gasoline to run. People in America worry about cars, ther are so many cars here. Let's say there are 300 Million people in this coutry. Out of which 20% own cars and 80% own more than one car. And on average each car gives 20 mpg, and each person drives there car 20 miles round trip to work 5 days a week. So just in a week we have 300x10^6x0.2= 60x10^6 people own cars 60x10^6*0.8*2=96*10^6 cars. 98*10^6*20miles*5days/20mpg=490 MILLION Gallons of petrol/gasoline. No wonder gas prices are high, just make people live closer and ride motorcycles. Over all less gas. Anyway all the high gas prices are due to the Gentoo guys who live in their parents' basements and ride there SUV's to their Gentoo meetings... .. Ok maybe not ....
But a lot of these high gas prices are due to speculation of how certain crude oil depedent companies due etc. and how the big boys in the market play.
But my next secondary mode of transportation is a hybrid ( once i figure out how to get rid of my mom's SUV... shoot they know I use Gentoo ... ) and primary is always the chick mobile my bicycle ( the pedal love ...you can come too )
...is the visual display which tells you the target mileage given your current acceleration.
I drove a 04 Prius for a few months and found that the display which tells you the fuel economy you're getting is very helpful. After about a day you realize that speeding up hills eats at your economy and braking appropriately helps too.
If all cars had this feature, fuel economy would be increased. Regardless of the fact the Prius has a hybrid engine, low rolling resistance tires, etc, this simple display is a big psychological factor.
Most people never realize their driving habits affect fuel economy because it only hits them every two weeks at the pump. By that time they never link it to how they brake or accelerate. By closing the feedback loop, you start to change your driving habits.
Only expensive cars seem to have this feature, yet it's ridiculously simple to implement off a modern ECU. I wish they'd make it standard equipment and not a luxury feature.
The problem with hybrids isn't their short-term fuel efficiency (which we didn't need 150 folks to document, out of tens of thousands sold). The problems are:
1. Premium cost over traditional fuel combustion engine (ranging from $3,000 - $5,000 over the same non-hybrid car).
2. Long-term reliability and replacement costs of hybrid system (especially the batteries). 5 or 10 years from now, are these cars going to be proven as reliable as their traditional combustion-engine brethern? Or are they going to be visiting the shop more often to fix issues in their hybrid systems, replace their batteries (which do have a pre-determined lifetime), or whatever??
The answers will come in time, but not from the data of 150 measly vehicles.
PS - The dork who compared a 40-year old car to a modern vehicle just doesn't get it. Modern vehicles meet modern safety standards, including such luxuries as airbags, enhanced structures that help prevent serious bodily injuries, and a little more leg room. Yes, if I built a go-cart, I could probably also get 50-60 MPG. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to drive it on I-95.
--
D'oh
haha nice one well, i personally am not interested in picking them up, but it does boost the ego, when a girl passes by and thinks your car is hot. even told my gf "this is my new "penis compensation chick-maget."
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
I bought a brand-new VW Golf in March of 2004 (yeah, I know, it isn't a hybrid). When I did I decided to keep track of every fillup I did in the car to find out exactly how it has done. I then whipped out a couple perl scripts to do some analysis. It's generated some interesting (for some definitions of "interesting") graphs and tables for me to stare at. Have a look at its webpage for an example.
Posted from the wireless couch.
or are those numbers pretty piss-poor for hybrids? I remember when the Insight was pimped as having 70mpg and the Prius 60. Nobody comes close to those figures now. 30 mpg for a V6 Accord? The normal Accord gets only 7 mpg less (ajusted from vendor inflation. Hybrid:37 Normal:30). The variance in the Escape is less than that.
How can these cars be touted as environmentally friendly when you could easily increase your gas mileage by driving a 4-cylinder instead. That way, you get the gas savings and you aren't throwing away a huge battery full of toxic waste when you're done.
Calling the Ford, Lexus, and Honda Accord "environmentally friendly" hybrids is disingenuous. They aren't helping the gas problem whatsoever.
I have owned a Honda Civic Hybrid for almost three years. I'm very happy with it. I get between 40 and 44 miles per gallon, measured at the pump. I do mostly city driving.
I don't find the EPA estimates for my car that misleading (48 city / 47 highway), thought the highway may be a bit low for my car, and the city a bit high for my car. But I live in a hilly city.
I think the reality is that people used to never care about gas milage, and now they are paying attention. There are big variations depending on terrain, speed, driving style, and even between different cars.
It looks to me like they ought to figure out a way to get better mileage out of their server, so it can survive a slashdotting...
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
My Porsche 3L Porsche 968 (at 11 years and 91,000 miles old) gets 32+ MPG on the freeway, and mid-20s in city traffic. My BMW motorcycle gets over 70MPG. (Granted, those of you who don't live in SoCal probably can't motorcycle commute 49 weeks out of the year the way we can ;) I expected a lot more out of the Accord. (I don't expect anything from Ford, except maybe mechanical problems. ;)
geek. lawyer.
Cheap, basic transportation. I'll buy my own seat covers, floor mats, stereo, etc.
I hate the inflated prices car makers charge, getting people to buy on credit what they can't really afford to own. I guess I'm the only one, though.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Also completely unscientific, but I did roughly the same thing in a 2003 Echo with a 1.3L engine. Driving aggressively, I use 6.5L/100km; driving normally, I use 6.2L/100km; driving "smoothly", I use 5.8L/100km. Definitely noticeable.
I used to swear I'd never drive a "pregnant roller skate" but after buying a Geo Prizm (~Toyota Corolla with GM tag) 10 years ago I have flipped, and I'd be interested in a Mini like yours if I could find one now.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Most of your car purchase money goes into someone's health insurance. The difference between a land yacht and just basic transportation is not reflected in the sticker price. When someone buys the GM land yacht, they are keeping some old guy who worked for GM off Medicaid (Medicare doesn't pay for everything and you still need private insurance).
Yeah, I have this display on my '98 Jeep Cherokee, and it is kind of distressing, with getting 4 to 9 mpg accelerating, and then 20-30 braking to a stop light.
However, I just don't care about how much gas I use (obviously- it is a Jeep), but it is cool to see 65-75 mpg going downhill from my house for 5 miles.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Hybrid cars seem like the answer to rising gas prices, increased pollution and growing dependence on foreign oil
Although I am the proud owner of a new Toyota Prius, I can unoquivically say that hybrid cars are not the answer; they are a stop-gap measure that may extend the period of time that oil is a primary fuel on the planet Earth. However, they are too little too late; I have the income to allow me to "do the right thing" but really, I should either move closer to where I work or take public transportation to really do the right thing. I'm not going to do that, and my neighbors are going to bitch about how much it costs to drive their SUVs but they don't look like they're selling them anytime soon.
So who cares what the mileage figures are? The hybrids are far better than the other cars on the road, but they won't amount to any appreciable percentage of the cars on the road until gasoline is priced high enough to force it, or the government mandates it. Neither is going to happen, so unless there's some miraculous breakthrough that provides a cheap source of hydrogen pretty damned soon, it's all moot.
Yeah, I'm kinda pessimistic about energy usage in the U.S. We're kinda like the guy who jumped off the really tall building saying, "Nothing will happen!" who could be heard saying as he fell past each floor "So far, so good!"
Still, I bought a Prius to support the company that made the R&D investment to give us a stop-gap solution, even if we're not moving to a viable alternate energy source with the urgency we should. Meaning, I don't know if my partial gesture will matter, but it's better than driving the car it replaced at half the mileage.
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
The Prius won't look so good for long.
Thanks
-Palal
15 years of innovation and a completely new engine design, and we end up with a somewhat safer version of the Geo Metro (40% heavier... and with half the cargo space.)
1990 Geo Metro XFI Specs & Mileage
Weight: 1694 lbs
Cargo Volume: 31.4 cu. ft.
Front leg room (Max): 42.5 in.
Rear leg room (Min): 32.6 in.
Crash Test: Driver ***, Passenger ****
City: 53 MPG
Highway: 58 MPG
Combined: 55 MPG
2005 Toyota Prius Specs & Mileage
Weight: 2890 lbs
Cargo Volume: 16.1 cu. ft.
Front leg Room (Max): 41.9 in.
Rear leg Room (Min): 38.6 in.
Crash Test: Driver *****, Passenger ****
City: 60 MPG
Highway: 51 MPG
Combined: 55 MPG
I put the same sticker that boosts mobile coverage on the side of my car....
When I get into a car accident, I want to come out alive.
If everyone were driving a mini, then I suppose an auto accident might not be all that bad. But over half the people where I live are driving a pickup or SUV. And mind you, it always seems like the size of the car is inversely proportional to the stupidity of the driver; therefore, there are alot of stupid drivers where I live who think that the dotted-yellow line in the middle of the road just signifies that the road is twice as wide. Driving a car around here that's only as long as an SUV is wide means that when SUVs do run into me, they'll most likely wonder how the mosquitoes got so large this time of year.
Use Coral! It's your friend! http://www.greenhybrid.com.nyud.net:8090/
WASTE - The Secure P2P
The line that starts: "One other point worth noting is actually a re-labeled Toyota Corrola" should actually read: "One other point worth noting is that the Chevy Prizm is actually a re-labeled Toyota Corrola" Sorry for the confusion.
www.wavefront-av.com
I can't speak to driving smoothly, but I CAN speak to the speed of driving.
The engine consumes some constant gas whenever it is running. Go 0mph and you will have infinitely bad gas mileage. (Hybrids don't count; they shut off the engine) This is amount is proportional to how big the engine is * the rpms it has idling. The engine has some torque that is being just wasted here.
On the other hand, the faster you go the more wind resistance your engine has to work against. This is less important the more aerodynamic your car is and the more oversided your engine is (because you're already spending that gas at idle)
Possibly most important is that if you're actually in gear, the speed of the engine is coupled to the speed of the car by a ratio that varies depending upon the gear you are in. The best gas mileage is almost always in the highest gear. You're going fairly fast (regarding wind) at that point, so unless you have a fairly oversided engine the best gas mileage is usually pretty close to the lowest speed that keeps you soundly in the highest gear.
On a particular 1.6L 1986 Nissan Sentra in 2000 (square car, small engine), that speed was about 38 mph. On a particular 1996 4.6L Ford Mustang GT in 1997 (very aerodynamic, oversided engine) that speed was about 65-80mph.
[ For purposes of this discussion, "oversided" relates only to the idle gas consumption of the engine and the ratio of power against wind it produces automatically at low rpms in high gear. A turbo Porshe engine that can be driven at 8000 rpms potentially might not be "oversided" at all if the highest gear is set very high.
Also, this is clearly not as important as WHAT car/engine you have. And how you keep it in tune. Etc. Having a lower displacement engine is probably more important than how you drive it.]
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Hybrid drivers, eh? Half man, half soccer mom?
"Derp de derp."
The problem is, that although your mini is awesome and adequate for your needs, American soccer mom from suburbia hell drives a 4 tonne SUV with bumpers 4 feet off the ground... so when she runs the red light because little johnny is late for practice and hits your car, you won't survive.
In today's world, no matter how small the car you want to make, you have to take into account the huge vehicles you share the road with.
And as a side note, I'm a cyclist (as in bicycle), and there is nothing that makes you feel safer than a 5 foot person driving a near transport truck size SUV down the road past you when you're on a bike... Some of these damned trucks/SUVs should require a special class of license to drive... What is it with America's love afair with huge gas guzzling cars/trucks?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Driving my 97 Saturn between Dallas (where I go to school) and San Antonio (my hometown) often yeilded 39mpg averaging about 75mph. However, I drive pretty rough and have dipped below 20mpg on tanks in insane Dallas traffic (and my rather heavy right foot). And that is where these Hybrids really shine. A Road and Track article I read about the Civic H shows that in city driving, while driving like a bat out of hell they regularly saw 43mpg. I can't verify with this site as it is currently /.'ed
Anyway, RIP Saturn, it died after been rearended by a drunk going 45 at a stop sign. And I came out relatively unscathed. It was a great economical and safe car.
because your saturn is friggin' ugly?
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
I posted above about the SPEED sweet spot usually being just into the highest gear for most cars.
On a hybrid, though, that matters substantially less because excess torque of the engine is potentially always being consumed to recharge the batteries, and the engine is off when unnecessary.
So the single biggest factor to fuel economy on a hybrid IS to drive smoothly - so you're always regeneratively braking and you're never using the excess power to accelerate.
Essentially a hybrid is a car that always takes advantage of any inherent "smoothness" that happens to be in your driving.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Mass carnage was predicted when the double nickle speed limit was dropped. In fact the accident rate WENT DOWN.
There were several reasons for this. N.B., all of these were predicted by the proponents for the change, but dismissed by the safety "experts."
First, anyone with a clue knows that the biggest threat on the highway is traffic traveling at different speeds, not the absolute speed. People tend to stay in their own lanes - and can even comfortably stay in the right hand lane - if everyone is travelling at about the same speed. But if there's a 20 mph range (which was common in the interurban areas of the square states) there will be a lot of lane changes even when traffic is relatively light. At those speeds just tapping a car may be enough to cause the driver to lose control.
Second, a realistic speed limit actually lowered the speed of the fastest drivers. A driver going 20 mph over the posted speed limit doesn't have much motivation to avoid going 30 mph over the posted speed limit. But the same driver at the same original speed, if it's the speed limit, will often stay at that speed.
Finally, these roads were designed for traffic going at ~70 mph. At those speeds the road has just enough variability to keep the driver's attention. At the slower speeds the roads are mindnumbingly boring and the driver's attention tends to wander. You wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference, but I've driven between Denver and Seattle at both 55 and 75 and there is absolutely no comparison. (I-80 thru Wyoming and the Columbia River Gorge still suck because they were long, straight flat segments.)
That's why the death rate went down when the speed limits were raised. The annual death rate is climbing again, but that reflects more passenger-miles.
P.S., the Colorado Dept of Transportation will actually adjust the speed limit to match the drivers, not the other way around. They feel, reasonably, that thousands of drivers will make an informed decision about the best speed for a segment of road. Sometimes their hands are tied because of regulations, but I've seen them change the speed limit on other segments.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I don't know about accelleration, but I try hard to avoid braking If I'm going 30 and see the crosswalk going red, I pay the petrol to crank up to 35 and make the green light. The alternative is to get snagged by the light, transfer all that kinetic energy into wearing down brake pads, and then having to pay to get back to 30mph.
I wonder what % efficient the hybrids are with their inductance brakes. They'd have to be better than 75% efficient to tip the balance in the above scenario, which I'd guess they're not.
My 1996 Civic gets 35-38 MPG when I shift my drivetime to non-rush, so basically I'm at highway speeds for my commute. The latest Civic hybrid gets about this mileage. I think many could improve fuel efficiency by shifting their commute time one hour earlier, with the added benefit of driving less. Yeah I've got to wake up and leave at the crack of dawn, but I'm getting better mileage, less driving time, and fewer cars on the road to run into. Plus I'm at work by the time the accidents start driving the main routes into gridlock.
Take, for instance, one type of hybrid vehicle that must plugin to a local grid: that power must be produced at a power plant, which also pollutes the environment.
For cars that run off of battery packs, if those batteries are disposed, do they pollute the environment, also?
Basically, does anyone have any information on how much pollution is given off as a byproduct of the electricity required to run a hybrid vehicle? Is it more or less than a combustion engine only? Or is this energy produced in a way that is friendly with the environment? Where might I search for this information>
Thanks!
Kris Kerwin
kkerwin@insi__REMOVE_ME__ghtbb.com
Kris Kerwin kkerwin@insi__REMOVE_ME__ghtbb.com
Hmm... doesn't diesel have 20% more energy in it per gallon than gas? Sure, you can claim that you burn fewer gallons of fuel than gas, but you're consuming just as much energy as a gas engine, and spewing more pollutants while you do it. If you care about energy conservation and pollution, getting a diesel doesn't really help matters. Or do you just get a kick out of lower numbers?
The real reason most people buy hybrids in major cities is the fact that most states allow hybrids in HOV lanes without a passenger. Not true for diesel. I'm sure this loophole will be closed soon as more hybrids hit the road.
The old minis were TERRIBLE in crashes. Not just "not a canyonero" terrible, but terrible against solid objects using only their own inertia.
On the other hand, I've had more modern small cars, none costing more than $2k. All have gotten around 30 mph city and seated 4. The current is a '91 Mazda 323.
Getting more than that with modern crash-safety is apparently somewhat of a challenge. Give us higher gas taxes, and I'm sure we'll find solutions (like using more public transit)
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
I agree with your premise -- just creating the parts for a modern car takes a lot energy.
But, what if you could retrofit your existing car (or SUV) to operate like a hybrid, by adding a capacitor array to your existing engine as mentioned in this previous story?
Unfortunately, the related article reads a lot like an ad (and has a somewhat suspicious floating banner) and may be vaporware for all I know... but, if it works at all it sounds like a better solution than for everyone to go out and buy hybrids.
From TFA "A link from slashdot.org has overloaded the server. Please bookmark this site and return at another time if you are unable to get through. I am working to get the site back up. My apologies. -- Jason Siegel"
San Francisco Photographers
With my Prius
I get between 35 and 49 MPG.
The milage is better if I stay off the freeway.
The milige is better durning the day with AC off.
The more you draw on the battery, the more you need the motor to recharge.
The faster you drive the lower your milage.
My Girl friend Spends like 20 dollars a month, and we paid sticker price minus the trade in.
Then money we save per month compared to our old Mini-Van pays for the car payment.
So I am very happy.
I just wish it burned H1 or had a fuel cell.
Tetalon
Well, at the risk of sounding like a Toyota ad, the Prius is built using 90% recyclable materials. For the soundproofing, they literally use shredded material from old cars. They use a tenth of the lead and a tenth of the PVC they were using in their cars in 1996. They even use plant-derived bioplastic for the floor mats.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/03/0901a.html
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I kept reading the other products at the site for the link that I gave and it sounds too good to be true. One of their other products is a magnet that goes over the fuel line that they claim improves fuel economy. Hiss... Never mind.
I think you have a point about reliability for the Ford... but given Toyota's reliability reputation, and the Consumer Reports rating which put Prius #1 in customer satisfaction, I think the Prius is a pretty safe bet.
Toyota gives the batteries a 10 year warranty. The gas engine is the same as the engine in a Corolla, just adjusted to run on a different combustion cycle. There's no gearbox, so that leaves the transaxle and computer to worry about... Personally, I'll take that bet.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I get 40 mpg in a Toyota Echo, anywhere from $6-9k less than a Prius. Of course on the windswept freeways you get pushed around a bit. So I'm glad its got airbags. Plus I'd hate to crash it.
The probability of survival is probably lower than most cars.
I drive an '88 Honda Civic LX, 261,000+ miles on the original engine and manual transmission (body's starting to look like hell, though), and I get 35-40mpg on average per tank every week (800-1000 miles a week, mostly highway around Chicago).
I get the same mileage as you out of a 17 year old car, with no electric assist.
I was looking at a Honda Civic Hybrid, but it doesn't look like there is any advantage to switching to a hybrid version of my 17 year old car.
As I own one, and live in California.
Cali DMV:
" Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, hybrids, motorcycles, trailers, or vehicles 1975 and older. "
I bought my vehicle out of state and took it in to Cali, so I don't know about any of the new purchase requirements... but it's been registered in CA for a few years with no problems.
Mike
Because "environmentally friendly" is not the same as "economical".
The Prius sacrifices some efficiency in order to get lower emissions. Specifically, emissions less than a tenth of what's allowed by California's standards.
It's also 90% recyclable, recycled materials are used in its construction.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I've got a 2004 Prius (second one) and I've found the way to getting best fuel economy in the Prius is to accelerate quickly off the line and up to the speed limit and then holding it there. This minimizes the time the gas engine is driving the wheels and maximizes the time the electric motor is active.
I find that I can improve my fuel economy from 6.0L/100km to 5.3L/100km (according to the car's display) in city driving using this driving style over a more traditional slow accelleration.
Highway (100km/hr) gets best economy with the cruise control on and is 5.0L/100km.
Of course, YMMV,
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
website overloaded. Slashdot is taking their resources.
It's all very well reducing the amount of petrol that you burn, but when you take into consideration the amount of coal that gets burned in the power station that charges your batteries, and the amount of energy that is lost in trasmission between the station and where you charge your car, I don't think you're seeing any reasonable savings. You are shifting pollution around - pushing it out to whereever the power stations are ... or worse still increasing your reliance on nuclear power.
Then again it's an interesting technology. I'd prefer to see car manufacturers working harder at hydrogen fuel cell technology, along with clean, renewable sources for charging them, such as solar panels that you can put on your house / garage to extract hydrogen from water.
Burning coal to charge lead-acid batteries and then boasting about your low petrol consumption isn't that intelligent.
with AC, small trunk (half of Corolla trunk), and costing about US$ 7k. Some new models runs with gas and sugar cane alcohol (some say both the driver and the car...). They are too small for the american consumer, but nice to comute.
It's not, and that's the problem I have with everyone hyping hybrids. They're just not ready for the "fuel saving" scene, with the exception of the Honda Insight.
VW's TDI powered cars put all 4-passenger hybrids to shame.
I used to own an '84 Chevrolet K-5 Blazer 4x4 powered by a 6.2L diesel engine, and it would get 30mpg on the highway cruising at 75-80mph. That's easily twice the vehicle (in every respect) of the Ford Escape, it still got better fuel economy, and was over 20 years older.
I currently drive an '88 Honda Civic LX that gets up to 40mpg average, depending on driving conditions. I never get below 35mpg average per tank.
At low speeds, air friction does not contribute significantly because of this effect.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So you're interested in saving the environment. So what you do is not spend $25k on a hybrid thinking you'll save tons of gas. What you don't realize is that it requires an awful lot of energy and petroleum to create that hybrid. While it requires no manufacturing to create a used car.
Why not just spend $10-15k on a used high MPG car (civic, tercel, corolla etc..). It may only get 30mpg, but we're talking $10-15k in savings, and that my friend translates into ALOT of gas.
In the BayArea (Calif) gas is about $2.50/gal. So if you saved $10k with the used car that comes to about 4000 gallons which at 30miles/gal is a 120,000 miles
Plus your insurance will be lower.
A hybrid cars MPG varies a lot depending on the driving being done. You see, hybrid vehicles have two engines: one electric and one gas powered. The car tries to use the electric as much as possible to reduce the amount of gasoline used. Stop and go driving in the city is ideal as it allows the car to use the electric engine almost entirely. However, driving on the highway at high speeds requires more output from the gas engine and thus reduces gas mileage. The EPA tests for hybrid cars are very unrealistic. The tests are done with all of the accessories turned off. Many of the accessories (heater, AC) require the gas engine to be running at all times and will really cause your mileage to go down the shitter.
You're not taking into account the fact that Toyota and Honda are both losing money on their hybrid cars.
The cars serve them two purposes:
1. They get a lot of rather cheap press because everyone thinks they are the greenest and friendliest companies.
2. They create momentum for their particular hybrid technology which they will try to sell to other car manufacturers to make more $$$.
Interestingly (and sadly), those 5 miles downhill you enjoy do very little to offset the 5 miles uphill you strain at to go home.
.5 gallon (5mi / 10mpg). Downhill, let's give you the benefit of the doubt, say you cut the engine entirely and consume 0 gal fuel. So total trip distance = 10mi, total trip fuel = .5 gal.
5 miles uphill at 10mpg averaged with 5 miles downhill at 70mpg comes out to (10+70)/2 = 40mpg at the pump right?
Wrong. Uphill, say you eat
Overall efficiency? 20mpg. Probably you get even worse than 10mpg uphill, so this is a very conservative estimate. Sucks eh? I love driving downhill as much as you, but going home (uphill) every day makes my wallet cringe in fear.
--
My dad always said, "The best used car's your own."
I've got a '97 Eagle Vision that's paid for. Right now it doesn't owe me anything, since it's got 170,000 miles on it. I'll run it until it quits in a heap of molten slag somewhere on I-57.
In the mean time, I'm saving my money for the next one.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Fortunately, the Prius has had a CVT since it was released in 2001, so you don't have those peaks.
Speeding up and slowing down slowly is not only good for your gas mileage (it has been proven) but it is also good for the wear and tear on your car. Stopping rapidly causes a lot more friction on the brakes and puts a lot of stress on the suspension. Speeding up rapidly puts a lot of unneeded pressure on the engine components, the transmission, the differential, etc.
Hybrid cars are no different. But on top of said points hybrid cars use power from the electric engine to help stop the car. Stopping rapidly uses a lot more energy from the electric engine requiring the gasoline engine to kick on to recharge it more frequently.
All in all: Speeding up and slowing down rapidly will not only hurt the size of your wallet but also your car.
That was really quite funny.
Heh heh. Heh.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
What could possibly motivate a guy to actually purchase a V6 mustang?
The problem with hybrid cars is that while they may seem to provide a way out of oil reliance, its just on a superficial level.
While there are many alternative energy sources, none of them can provide anywhere near our current or future energy needs, like oil has until recently. What is usually forgotten when suggesting their use is the energy equation for the given energy source, that is how much energy do I need to put into it (extraction, transport etc) compared to what I get out of it. With oil (and natural gas and other fossil fuels) the equation is hugely in favour of energy output. For a tiny fraction of input we get 100's of times more output. This is because the dinosaurs already put in the input millions of year ago and slowly got crushed by the earth's natural forces, along with all that other plant matter, and turned into oil.
Now if we look at all the alternative energies being touted they just don't hold up. The current process for creating hydrogen actually consumes way more energy than the hydrogen gives back; it's just ridiculous to posit hydrogen as an energy source.
Vegetable and plant oils have a roughly one-to-one energy ratio which makes them almost useless as well, especially when you consider we'd have to turn the whole planet into a giant vegetable oil farm, with little or no room for food crops, just to satisfy our CURRENT energy needs which are increasing every day.
Solar energy is another good myth, as with current technology it takes more energy to create a solar panel than the thing will return in its useful working lifetime, although this could be improved over time (if we have the time).
Wind power does however have a chance and can provide significant output, but only for static uses. The problem with wind (and an improved solar power) is that they are no good for transport, as they would require massive capacitors in each vehicle, the cost of which pushes the energy equation into the negative.
So the fact is that oil and other fossil fuels were the greatest free ride we've ever had and there is currently nothing on the technological horizon that can match it. So the liberal environmentalists and the new conservative geo-greens need to wake up from their dreams of hydrogen cars and vegetable oil generators and try to grasp the reality that we will not be rescued by some fantastical new energy source that we haven't even conceived of yet.
Hybrid cars are a useless distraction from the real problem, we need plan to new ways of transport and living now, not waste our time with ineffective ways to extend the lifetime a transport system thats just downright unsustainable.
but a gallon of gas has less energy than a gallon of diesel by something like 20% so quoting mpg (or km/l) doesn't mean much unless you take that in to account
how did these cyborgs get a license to drive?
with GBW in power there will be another oil shock - that's why I bought a Prius (and I had no waiting and paid under MSRP too) - he has his eyes on Iran, I have mine on my pocket book
My observation of people close to me here. They "need" their SUV, or bigger car to haul junk around, like having a child or two, means carrying the equivilent amount of luggage that a normal person would require for a 3 week trip to another country, or even more than that. When pointing out that humans did quite well raising and trasporting kids in our history, the retort of course is that not every child growing up now thinks they are a princess.
...
I think a lot of marketing and consumer programming for the last 100 years and possibly longer has done its damage to the human psyche, but to the great profit of a relatively small # at the top. Now I keep reading that peak oil is BS. The western theory that oil comes from biological sources vs a geological process is wrong. So it seems that scarcity and more fear get heaped on in order to raise prices and increase profit.
The truth is I don't really know anything, except that I'm not rich, and I don't feel very free to do much of anything since I can't afford to go out and spend spend spend. and I think someone is going to make a lot of money from us before we die
Actually, your most obvious culprits in the war on gas mileage are weight and secondary power uses. Yank out the AC system, the stereo and speakers, air bag systems, plush seats (replace with lighter, race-inspired models, of course), power windows, automatic transmission, sound-deadening materials, spare tire, etc. and you'll probably approach a doubling of gas mileage in a compact car while decreasing 0-60 times to boot. Of course, you won't end up on "Rides", but you get to keep the ash tray.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
No wait! Mod him "Funny".
One of the things I learned when dealing with wind turbines is that double the wind-speed roughly equals eight times the power. Order n cubed. This doesn't work at very high or very low wind speeds because of turbulence and cavitation and similar effects, and goes completely wonky again near the speed of sound in the medium, but for highway-type speeds it's bang on. It may also be different for (mostly) non-rotating cars, but it is indeed worse than n squared once you get above about 50km/h.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually, Toyota isn't. They've released several statments showing they're not losing money on hybrids. Though, they aren't making a large profit either.
My Subaru Impreza Outback Sport is not a hybrid vehicle. However, I think I get some pretty good gas mileage when compared to my other choices, the BMW 325ix, and Jetta with AWD. Important for me was AWD, manual transmission, and power windows (go figure). I lucked-out with the aftermarket detachable sunroof.
It's a '97. I take long trips between Boston and Pittsburgh, which takes about 10 hours.
I have driven this first leg at over 100MPH through a full tank of gas, I get 24MPG. I think I get about 26MPG with normal driving, and no tune-up (and no oil sometimes). It's rated for 29MPG highway.
Here's some other facts:
[] I understand the WRX 2 liter does 28mpg highway, one less than my 2.2 narually aspirated engine.
[] I beat on this thing like the worst of shitboxes, and it is still solid.
[] I always put the best gas in it that I can. I do actually go farther with less gas than I do if I use shit gas. Even if it is too expensive, and I only put $2.34 in.
[] I've had this for 5 years, and I've only replaced brakes and two tires.
[] This is my 5th Subaru. Usually the bodies fall off the car, but I understand they upgraded their steel quality, and use 50 lbs of paint, instead of like 14.
So, I'm psyched. Not only do I not have to buy a new car, but my old one gets pretty good gas mileage. AWD is a must in eastern climates, with snow, rain, and assholes.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
My stock 86 Mustang GT Conv. got 25-27 mpg over three tanks, including some travel at 115 mph. Must be something about that little car body that gets such good mileage. Stock 5 speed transmission, stock tires.
BTW, if you're travelling on a trip, add four ounces of Acetone to the tank for every 10 gal of fuel. Helps with vaporization of the fuel.
Best regards.
What about this engine ?
Since aluminum manufacturing consumes a notoriously large amount of energy, let's assume cars are made of 100% aluminum.
The energy required to produce aluminum is about 15 KWh/Kg.
Assuming the average car weighs 2 tons, that's 1814 Kg of aluminum.
1814 Kg * 15 KWh/Kg comes out to 27,210 KWh. At 5 cents per KWh (industrial prices), that's $1500 worth of energy to smelt our aluminum. As far as materials costs go, that sounds about right.
Fine, now a gallon of gasoline contains 125,000 Btu of energy. That's about 37 KWh.
If your car's getting 40 mpg, and if you're driving it 10,000 miles per year, you're using 250 gallons of gasoline a year. 250 * 37 KWh is 9,250 KWh per year.
Drive your car for three years and you've used more energy than it took to build. If we wanted to compare the "theoretical maximum" amount of energy that can be extracted (at 50% efficiency) from gasoline, you're only looking at a year and a half. Any car built in the last ten years should last five to ten times that long.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I drive a 72 Camaro. It gets 11 MPG... freeway. Notice how it was warmer today? Yeah, that was me.
Today, car companies make cars that people want to buy, period.
Considering that the new Mini has been selling like hotcakes it begs the question- was Detroit making what we wanted or what they wanted to make? After all- profits on SUVs are huge so they would rather make and sell them than smaller cars (where the competition is stiffer). It would appear that they have been able to convince a lot of people (such as yourself) that they wanted SUV's. What about a station wagon? Plenty of room, very safe but lighter and more economical than an SUV- The Dodge Magnum, Saab, and lots of other manufacturers are reintroducing station wagons because people are getting sick of huge gas guzzling SUVs. Just my two cents.
-sirket
Has anyone considered or measured the difference between petrol-electric and petrol-compressed air? I.e. where the engine drives a compressor, rather than a dynamo. I would think air tanks -- even very thick-walled air tanks -- would weigh less than a battery of - well, batteries. Besides, you would have a lot more flexibility in packaging, I'd think. Have an air turbine motor at each wheel, less unsprung weight than an electric motor. Regenerative braking would be easy too.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Just for control, make sure to fill up at the same gas station, at the same pump. Go to the 2nd or 3rd click rather than the first (allow the gas to stop sloshing around).
Might sound anal, but a few MPGs is probably the most difference you'd see, and even a few tenths of a gallon off in fill-up measurements can render the results meaningless.
Yes, *that* Bob Vila.
Incidentally, when I slow down earlier, and roll up to the red light at 20mph, still at speed when it turns, vs hitting it at 45 a few seconds sooner and needing to stop all the way, I find by a block past the light I've passed virtually everyone who was stopped at it, and so in addition to being energy efficient I've increased my average speed too.
Finally, I hear of someone else that actually follows this same red light theory. I think I drive people insane by following it, but I don't really mind. Just to add to this, this line of thinking will also save wear on your brake pads as well. The only exception I make is if someone behind me wants to get up into the left turn lane to trip the sensor in time.
Yes, *that* Bob Vila.
Here's how to build a cheap, 50mpg+ car.
Hybrid benefits are overrated because of the weight of the vehicles. This decreases much of the benefit.
Take a 1992 honda civic chassis. Look for one of the efficient models (Vx, others). You want a 5spd. They are very easy to work on, and very common. Engine reliabilty is great.
These cars were commonly available with no power steering, and no AC. Power locks and windows? Ha!
Strip the car bare. Gut it. Install some lightweight racing seats. You just saved a lot of weight. And gained a lot of cargo room!
Have the engine reworked. Lots of manuals for this; it can be done in a weekend, with a weekend of preparation. You'll need to clean all the fuel filters, injectors, and install all new ignition components.
Install a wideband o2 sensor with a car monitor. Consider an EGT meter as well. This will let you track your mixture inside the car to see if you're running rich and/or overheating your exhaust valves.
Install a VAFC, a small computer that tweaks the fuel settings. Most of the time these are used for power, but you're going to use it to dial out as much gas as you can without running too lean.
Voila. Plus it's cheap to insure.
..don't panic
http://a104.g.akamai.net/7/104/1751/0001/www.lance armstrong.com/LanceESPN.mpg
sig goes here!
Ra = (rho/2) Cd Aj V^2
Ra = aerodynamic resistance,
rho = air density slug/ft^3,
Cd = coeff of drag,
Aj = vehicle's projected frontal area ft^2,
V = velocity relative to wind ft/sec
(OK world, if any one laughs at us for still using slugs, we'll sic Rummy and Wolfie on you. So there!)
I used to have one of those. I put 130,000 miles on it in 4 years and the only problem I had with it was a failed fuel pump.
;)
Otherwise, the thing ran great, and I beat the hell out of cars.
Over 100,000 miles of driving, in a 30 mpg car (Saturn ION), you'll use 3333 gallons of gas, at $2 a gallon, that's $6666. In a Prius you'll get 55 mpg, so 1818 gallons of gas, at $2 a gallon, that's $3636. (the cars are pretty comparable in size and weight, but the Saturn has twice the HP)
So you saved $3,000 in gas over several years of driving. Too bad you could have bought the Saturn and saved up to $10,000 up front, and actually been able to pass a semi on the interstate.
What?
My 2000 celica gets 34 MPG pretty consistently (I mostly do highway driving.) Does the extra 10-20MPG you can get from your average hybrid justify the various overheads of the battery packs most of those cars carry? Factor in manufacturing and replacement cost and weigh the environmental impact of disposing of battery packs versus the extra exhaust I'm spewing into the air and how close to even am I? Is it better for me to keep driving a fairly efficent 4-banger or should I consider a hybrid for my next car?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The writing is on the wall & the greedy unethical sons a bitches are suing to stop incentives to economical automobiles.
To all the sane people out there, spit on an auto exec' & keep fighting the good fight.
So by halving your MPG going up a hill but doubling the time, you've saved how much?
While it is true that there were fewer deaths due to car accidents in California after the speed limit was increased, it wasn't because the speed limit was increased on highways. The two have nothing to do with each other. Most traffic fatalities are on lower speed roads.
My grandparents' old caddilac had this feature. That thing had to be a 1980 something.
It's miles per gallon, not hours per gallon, the time has no affect on economy, except for the fact that time is money...
the site http://mixedpower.com/ has a gas savings calculator for Hybrid vehicles. Plans are to convert it into Euro as well. http://mixedpower.com/ uses a slashdot type interface to offer much more than just hybrid gas mileage.
I'm not entirely sure here, but I'd assume that the older Mini would not have been as safe as the cars of today.
Adding all sorts of crumple zones and reinforcements around the cabin adds weight. Add to that all of the multiple airbags, and all of the ammenities that people expect in cars these days ( power windows, power door locks, heated seats, etc. etc. ) and the weight really grows even with lighter materials.
That's why the modern Mini Cooper is heavier than the older one.
This number here has been known to have the best mpg available on the road. I hear it has about the same horsepower as the Prius.
What?
Some states like California are considering charging a milage tax on hybrids.. So you save money on gas, just to pay it later in taxes.. nice huh ? .. just one story (google for others) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/14/eveningn ews/main674120.shtml
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
The Prius battery pack weighs 100 pounds. Because it has a VERY simple transmission in comparison to your average automatic tranny, it balances out to probably a net zero.
Toyota has a PDF (Sorry, I can't find the link, email me if you want a copy, I've got it on my HD somewhere,) that says that the Prius does, indeed, create more pollutants to create, but because it's built to be 100% recyclable (including the batteries,) and it has so significantly lower operating emissions, it balances out. (Ah, found my local copy, thanks 10.4 Spotlight!) So the PDF says it breaks even at 20,000 km, and after only 100,000 km, you have generated 7.5 tons less CO2 than a 'similar size' conventional car. (Their environmental comparisons are based on the car being recycled/thrown away after 100,000 km, there are many reports of Prii lasting well over 100,000 miles.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
From http://john1701a.com/ (lots of Prius info!):
SMOG, which consists of NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) and HC (Hydrocarbons) plus a little bit of CO (Carbon Monoxide), is the type of vehicle emission that is harder to quantify, since MPG makes no difference. This pollution contributes to that nasty orange haze floating above most all of the major metro areas throughout the United States, which leads to breathing complications for young children and the elderly.
The "SULEV" emission rating was created to identify vehicles that were specially designed to reduce SMOG related emissions. The classic Prius achieves that criteria. The 2004 Prius actually exceeds it (having earned the "AT-PZEV" rating). Some traditional vehicles actually are SULEV too, believe it or not; but unfortunately they are only available in California and their MPG is very disappointing (even lower than their polluting counterpart). Lastly, not to put down the other hybrids, but... not every type offers SULEV cleanness; some are only ULEV, which is 72% dirtier with respect to SMOG related emissions. So don't just assume the highest efficiency equates to the lowest emissions.
The Prius is designed to run the engine at a point where it produces the least pollution, which is not always the best mileage. Sometimes, the engine will produce more power than is needed with the excess charging the batteries.
WALK
My '85 520i BMW has this. I'm pretty sure all the ones since then have them as well, not sure about before it though.
I think it's a great feature, but it freaks me out when I drive my father's '88 535i, because it hovers on 50% more usage than I'm used to
If the slower you go, the better gas mileage you get, you might think you get infinite gas mileage at a standstill. Of course, you don't.
BMWs have an extra needle that shows you your instantaneous gas milage. When I sold my trusty old '89 yuppie-mobile I got a newer 2003 version of the same car. The gauges act differently at low speed -- the old one would correctly show 0 mpg. The new car will, for some reason, go to infinite mpg below a certain speed. I guess it was a marketing decision so it wouldn't scare people, but the extra movement is a little distracting. I've heard that new cars sold in canada will show the 0mpg, so it's something special just for Americans.
The new car has 33% more hp and it gets 5 mpg better milage (both by EPA estimates and real world experience -- the engine of the old car was in great shape) There were a lot of engine improvements in the last 14 years that made this possible! (variable valve timing, knock sensors, new low-friction oils)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
And watch me run over those little Hybrids. =)
My grandmother used to ask me if i was in a hurry to stop. This was around 20 years ago when i first learned how to drive. She said much the same thing here about not having to speed up as much and racing in between stoplight actualy just made you hit your breaks faster. Then i found that most trafic lights are timed so that if you go a certain speed, you tend to hit them all green while going in one direction. A few streets over it would be the oposite direction. Once you hit the timming, it is rare to ever have to stop because of a street light. I can go completley from one side of the town to the other at 28 or so mph and hit ever light green once i get on certain roads.
even told my gf
Pretty sure that's a sign of madness, talking to your hand.
Or if Federal Law allowed it, we could all buy our car directly from the manufacterer and cut out the "stealership" like Japan does. You simply walk into a boutique shop on the street, check out some car, pick your options, and thats it. It would certainly reduce the middleman costs. They do this all over the world except the US: http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/2003/12/10.html
Mileage aside, I still think that driving aggressively can save you gas: you use a lot more when accelerating, but then you're using less to maintain your speed. As opposed to accelerating over a longer period of time.
:-) If you downshift when you speed up, the difference will be greater.
Hmmm...Just thinking.... Math and physics.....
The energy you spend accellerating (assuming you don't downshift) should be roughly equal to the amount of energy you need to continue at your current speed (loss due to friction plus inefficiency of the engine) plus the amount of energy needed to increase your speed (again, plus the energy lost in the engine). Downshifting makes the engine more powerful but more inefficient so that always creates a net loss.
Now, lets say you drive agressively but shift gears at the same RPMs as you would if you were accellerating slowly. The issue is not the amount of gas used during accelleration but rather the amount of gas used to go a certain distance.
Here is the problem you run into: Air resistance drastically increases with (iirc) the cube of the speed. So if you go twice as fast, your air-based friction is now 8 times what it would have been. So it pays off to go slower for as far as you can. Accellerating more slowly has you driving slower for a greater distance and therefore is almost certain to increase your mileage even in the absence of downshifting
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Who Is Pamela Jones?
By Maureen O'Gara
Friday May 6, 2005 - A few weeks ago I went looking for the elusive harridan who supposedly writes the Groklaw blog about the SCO v IBM suit.
The now-famous opinion-shaping open source leader Pamela Jones, aka PJ, doesn't give conventional face-to-face interviews. Never has, near as anyone knows. All communication is virtual. Only one person in the world has ever claimed to have met her - in the pressroom at LinuxWorld in Boston complete with a Pamela Jones badge - and described her as a fortyish reddish-blonde who giggled a lot.
Oh yeah? Wonder what cold crème she uses.
Pamela Jones is a 61-year-old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a shabby genteel garden apartment in desperate need of an interior decorator on a heavily trafficked commercial road at 304 North Central Avenue in Hartsdale, New York. Hartsdale is in Westchester and Westchester is IBM territory.
See, even though Groklaw treats cell phones like they were Kleenex and changes its unpublished numbers regularly, one number it left with a journalist led to this flat and - wouldn't you know it but - some calls from there had been placed to the courts in Utah and to the Canopy Group so obviously this just isn't any Pamela Jones.
Pamela has lived in apartment 1A for 10 years at least, according to the super, who says he's watched people move in, have children, and the children marry and move away.
Now, this isn't your usual anonymous New York apartment. It's practically a self-contained village where the super goes for the old ladies' groceries when there's snow on the ground and people know each other's business.
But the super didn't know much about Pamela except that she had a computer, worked at home (maybe sometimes) for a lawyer, was "paranoid" - his word - and "sensitive to smells."
He remembered how he was cleaning paintbrushes one day and she came running down the stairs screaming "Fire."
She was also missing and had been for weeks.
Nobody there knew where she was.
She had up and disappeared one day, and the super was worried about her. He said her son had dropped by and he didn't know where she was, and that some strange man that "nobody knew," as the super described him, had tried to get into her apartment while she was gone - the Medeco lock she had had installed on her door - something nobody else in the complex seemed to feel a need for - was more expensive than the door. But, as it happened, the super said, she had just sent in her rent in an envelope postmarked Connecticut.
Like an episode out of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego," the trail led to 10 Bittersweet Trail in Norwalk, Connecticut, 24 miles away. Sure enough, parked in the driveway was Pamela's car, just as the super had described it, a dark gray '90s Japanese number with a bunch of Jehovah Witness pamphlets tossed on the backseat.
The woman at the house, Barbara Sharnik, told a disjointed story. She didn't know Pamela, Pamela hated her, Pamela wasn't there, Pamela left her car there because it got bumped, Pamela left her car there because she left town, and so on.
Afterwards Barbara called the cops, and then the cops called the number we left with her and the cops said that she was Pamela's mother and that Pamela was on the run and had shacked up with her mother because she had gotten "threatening mail" weeks before and that she had just gotten spooked again because "people were getting hurt around [my] stories" and had lighted out for Canada.
Odd, the subject of my stories - or any stories - never came up during our brief interview. I was just looking for Pamela.
That left Pamela's son, Nicolas Richards, who, as it happens, had been in the software business in Manhattan until - why, my goodness - things seem to have come a cropper right around the time Groklaw came into existence.
Nick and his ma were apparently involved together in Medabiliti Inc, an ISV, because one Pamela Jones with a Westche
iirc it's actually drag increasing as square of the speed.
It's also a matter of equivalence. More energy you spend when accelerating smoothly goes to compensate for friction created by that increase than if the increase is brutal.
Think about it: your car doesn't have any momentum yet, but you're still compensating for a higher amount of drag. So accelerating smoothly actually makes you lose energy in that scenario, compared to accelerating aggressively where you reach your cruising speed faster and thus supply only the amount of energy necessary to compensate the drag. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it makes more sense when you try and graph it out.
I haven't tried doing graphs in ascii art yet though.
I know my mom drives smoothly to avoid wear and save fuel, but I drive aggressively, the same car. And I get a better mileage than she does, on the same routes, with equivalent travel times.
How else could it be explained?
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Say a volkswagen that gets 40 mpg and has twice the horsepower.
I found this interesting. Not a Hybrid Look at the mileage on some of those :)
Specifically, I'm rather proud of some of the VW TDI numbers, proving that reliable proven technology can do almost as good as this new fangled hybrid tech ;)
Proud owner of a 2004 VW TDI Beetle
Your driving style makes tons of difference, especially if you have bigger engine (6 cyl+) that is capable of delivering some power. I did a lot of measuring with my 6-cylinder 230hp car (it has on-board computer that runs average since last reset and instantaneous mpg meter on dash) and I run 17mpg when I speed and drive like a maniac and 21mpg when I just cruise control under speed limit and avoid using breaks. From these tests I know for the fact that my car gets best mileage around 50-60 mph, anything higher takes a lot more gas.
"VW's TDI powered cars put all 4-passenger hybrids to shame."
How so? Even though diesel has more than 30% more energy per gallon than gasoline, the TDI still can't beat the Prius in MPG. And it doesn't even come close in particulate and NOx emissions.
It's all a bit of cheat, of course, because diesel fuel contains more energy than gasoline even before you've considered the higher compression ratio and lack of a throttle valve.
Still, I think biodiesel and particulate filters are a more economic and sustainable solution than hybrids - or making hydrogen from dino oil, FFS, which is what GWB wants.
Ford's Hybrid SUV
Say what? Defeats the purpose, right? Contradictio in terminis? Looks like it, when you compare it's mpg to the others'.
I drive a Toyota Avensis 1.8l VVT-i (stop sniggering!) and I have found the most effecient way to drive her (note: I do primarily mortorway/dual carrageway) is to put the pedal to the metal (okay, carpet) and get to 90MPH(sorry I ment 70MPH Officer) ASAP and then cruise.
VVT-i engines work by altering the valve times to allow extra fuel/air in; when cruising the engine is in lean burn and is very ecconomic (40MPG on the motorway, if I flaw it the engine switches to a more aggressive setting for hi-performance/low MPG.
The other thing that helps is leaving a big gap infront of you as that way you dont have to apply the breaks if when the car infront slows, you can reduce the throttle and re-gain the energy.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
42 volts is fine, but lots of other things can save gas. Like, walking. And weight reduction. 42 volts will eliminate a good bit of weight. Luxury sorts of cars can have an astonishing amount of weight in fripperies. Once had almost all the trim off a Grand Marquis for a paint job, and was surprised how much all that metal trim weighed. Must've been about 20 pounds worth. The vinyl top was another such. Extra weight and extra maintenance to keep it from rotting, and for what? Someone else's opinion on what makes a car look sharp, that's what.
The best thing for improving efficiency is for gas prices to go way up. Would make all sorts of alternatives economical. I like the "high" prices of $2 a gallon, and laugh whenever the media waxes dramatic about the toll on the economy, the huge pile of discounted SUVs at dealerships, etc. $2 for a gallon is still way cheap. Wish gas prices were even higher, then people would be more sensitive to the amount of driving they do. Far more effective solution to congestion than singling out a group, such as illegal immigrants, and forcing them off the roads.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Here is an explanation. An engine running with a closed throttle is inefficient. Sure it's using less fuel and making less power, but the proportion of fuel/power increases.
I've heard that in fuel economy "races", the best technique is high throttle and low revs. But not too low revs as the specific fuel consumption (fuel usage rate/power) increases again.
There are things that fudge things up like open loop efficiency (at full throttle engines usually go into a fuel rich mode that has no feedback from the exhaust gas oxygen sensor) and lean burning engines.
Without knowing the characteristics of your particular engines, the most that can be said is use half to 3/4 throttle or so (quite agressive by most peoples' standards) and keep the revs below half of the redline.
That covers acceleration.
Power (not force) to overcome air drag increases with the cube of speed but travel time decreases proportionately so fuel usage due to air drag for a given trip length goes up with the speed squared.
My 2001 Honda Civic (1.6 litre VTEC petrol engine) does about 38mpg overall (the 40 litre tank takes me about 350 miles on average)
The same 2001 Honda Civic would do about 33.119mpg would it be in the USA.
Reason: Nothing to do with US driving conditions, it's just that the US gallon is defined differently than anywhere else. Not that anywhere outside of the US really use gallons any more.
(in metric units, the car gets just over 7l/100km)
this is not the same as SI units, but SI units are based on metric units - SI units would be in metres and litres.
Hi All:
;-) With the tips, tricks, and techniques learned, you too can improve your own FE no matter what you currently drive as well.
___Xcel from Greenhybrid here. I am seeing replies from almost right on to the absolutely ridiculous. If you want to learn about hybrid technology in general, how to achieve the highest FE from a hybrid or non-hybrid alike, emissions from a variety of hybrid and non-hybrid automobiles available today, what amenities are included with today hybrid's, and/or learn about upcoming future hybrids, Greenhybrid is quite possibly the best site on the net.
___Some of the hypermiling members over at Greenhybrid have proven themselves to be the best in the world in terms of achieving the highest FE. I am not speaking of just matching or mildly beating the middling EPA city/highway estimates in the automobiles we drive but absolutely crushing them and never looking back
___Feel free to join us over at Greenhybrid for educated discussions on the above. What you learn could be money in the bank instead of spent at the pumps and this is just one of a thousand reasons to give the GH forums a few minutes of your time.
___Good Luck to you all.
___Wayne R. Gerdes
with GBW in power there will be another oil shock - that's why I bought a Prius (and I had no waiting and paid under MSRP too) - he has his eyes on Iran, I have mine on my pocket book
;) It is rated at 41MPG vs. the Prius' alleged 51, and costs about 7 grand less (base). You can buy a lot of gas for $7,000.
;) Oh, and used is a lot easier on the pocketbook too. :)
Should have gone with the Toyota Echo then.
At 15,000 miles/year the Echo will cost approximately 365 gallons in fuel per year. The Prius will require 294gal/year (assuming both live up to their EPA claims). So call it 71 gallons/year savings.
At $2.50/gal that comes out to a savings of (71*2.5) 177.5.
In other words, it'd take you 39.4 years to recover the cost, not accounting for interest on the $7,000 you are likely to pay. If you keep the car for 10 years you paid over $7,000 (probably closer to 9-10K after interest) to "save" $1,775. Assuming a five year loan at zero interest, 7000 comes out to 116 bucks/month. So in that scenario you would be 117.5 - 1400 = negative $1,282.5 per year.
How about 5 bucks per gallon?
71*5 = $357.50 per year fuel cost savings. Ok, so you are down to 19.6 years to recover the cost, and still paying more per year than the Echo would have cost you.
If the Echo is to "base" for you, you could have saved about 4K and gone with the Corolla - it's rated at 40MPG, so it's not much different in fuel costs vs. the Echo.
You can have many reasons to buy a Prius. But to say it is because it saves you money due to it's alleged fuel economy (even if face value was real world!) is naive and incorrect. You may want to consider taking your eyes of your pocketbook once in a while to look at the numbers.
There are many ways to save money. But spending over 7 grand over 5 years to "save" less than 200/year isn't one of them.
Cheers
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
One of the great traffic safety myths is stopping distance. Who cares if your stopping distance is 200 feet or 300 feet?
Personally, I think putting so much emphasis on stopping distance is a mistake. We spend a lot of time teaching drivers that they need to be able to stop before they hit something, and that's not true. You need to be able to STEER to AVOID the accident. I've witnessed on more than one occasion a driver get into an accident that could have been avoided by NOT braking and turning (doing both increases the chances you lose control of the car) because all the driver knows how to do is slam on the brakes.
Now, more speed is obviously more dangerous than less speed, but only linearly so for anything that matters. Damage caused on impact with a stationary object increases linearly with speed (well, at least, damage to you). Time to avoid an accident decreases linearly - going twice as fast, you'll have half as much time to avoid an accident.
Anyway, if roads with turns and blind corners are safe to drive at 30 miles per hour, roads with 2 miles of visibility are safe to drive at 100. Anything that's not moving that you need to avoid you're going to see at least 12 seconds in advance, which is the only things you'll need to stop for. Anything else, if the speed limit is set correctly, will be travelling at roughly the same speed as you, so hitting it isn't a big deal. You can be 60 feet away from the car in front of you going 100 miles an hour and still stop in time.
The VAST, VAST, VAST majority of expressway accidents/injuries/deaths occur in conditions of incliment weather.
Lower base speed limits are not the answer for road safety. What we need is two speed limits: 85 or 90 when it's dry, and 45 when it's raining.
paintball
What I've read for efficient driving says instead of accelerating smoothly, you accelerate semi-aggressively, but not flooring it, to get it up to speed, and then immediately let up and cruise.
The idea is to accelerate with the ICE at its most efficent range, the powerband, and then avoid accellerating/braking as much as you can. Because it's all about F=MA.
From my friends' experiences, cruise the freeway at lower speeds (60s mpg) will give you higher MPG too.
This is what the hybrid websites like Priuschat.com advise also.
But, you should be able to see some MPG differences, but 5-10mpg is a bit more than I would expect from a non-hybrid car.
No, it's cubed. Drag force is squared with velocity, but power is force×velocity again. Since it's power that relates to kilometrage, the cubed figure is correct. I guess it depends on how you define "resistance".
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Heh. Slashdot strikes again.
"There is a limit as to how fast you can safely travel which is mainly governed by how quickly you can stop. Sport Compact Car magazine recently reviewed a race-ready Mitsubishi Evolution 8 with upgraded everything including a beefed up braking system."
But I have to share the road with big trucks, sports cars, SUVs, School Busses, hybrids, etc. The road has a mix of brand new cars to cars that are 30 or 40 years old along with busses and trucks. Drivers vary from people who are about to die of old age who are missing spots in their vision to people who just got their permit, to 25 year old frat party animals to soccer moms, professional drivers (of all types), etc.
How fast I can stop is a factor including my reflexes, vehicle, tires, road conditions, weight in tow, etc. Put 10 cars behind each other, and one or two guys with too much testosterone weaving through, and although it might be safe for the guys with the muscle car, the fast reflexes, and the adrenaline, it's the guy who slams on the brakes and gets hit by the Mac truck behind him that's going to be paralyzed from the waist down.
There are so many factors to take into account, but it's not rocket science. Crashes happen because people make bad choices without understanding or caring about the consequences. They know those choices are wrong. Rarely are the choices that cause crashes and death are the ones made by the road engineers or car engineers. Equipment failure shouldn't always be the cause of death... These things are designed with room to spare on safety, but people gobble up those design constraints through bad choices.
I don't measure mileage because I use my bike to get just about everywhere. I usually run about 2.5 miles per 100 (nutritional - for you pedants) calories (@20 MPH). I do have a big gas-guzzling SUV, but I don't whine about spending $50 to fill it up because I only buy gas about once every two months.
Bicycling in the US is seeing a huge explosion in the number of riders, which is a great thing because as more people turn to cycling as an alternative to burning gas, we are solving not only the gas "crisis" but also helping with our obesity problem and consequently part of the public healthcare problem.
I bet you stared at your speedometer when you first started driving, too...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Wow, 40% heavier and still gets the same mileage! Any other person would say this was a major improvement.
AND, the Prius is a 5 passenger car with AT-PZEV emissions. One lawn mower session puts out more emissions than a Prius after driving 500 miles. Think about the summation of health costs saved with cleaner air, besides just oil.
And take a look at this picture of your 31.4 cu.ft space Metro. I don't see a huge cargo space behind the back seats, so it must come from folding down the seats.
If you get to do that, you get to do that with the Prius too, which means > 16.1 cu ft of space. Probably closer to 54, if you added 16.1 + rear legroom plus some hand waving.
Your specs say the Metro is a 151 x 62.7 x 53.5 = roughly ~506521.95 cu.in compared to the Prius's 175 x 67.9 x 58.1 = roughly ~690373 cu.in.
Although I see your point about 15 years of innovation and we not CLOSER to 100MPG!
Anyways, so dunno what you're talking about how the Metro is better. QED.
My '85 520i BMW has this. I'm pretty sure all the ones since then have them as well, not sure about before it though.
Ditto my '85 Vette. Was able to squeeze 25mpg out of it, if I was taking it easy on the highway (~65mph). But during the six month I had it in Germany, my mpg was pretty bad...Autobahn driving, so I couldn't resist hitting 155mph.
Just another day in Paradise
What's the air-drag when you drive at 80mph while drafting behind a tractor-trailer or one of them convenient SUVs that are all over the place? :)
1. Electric engines and direct coupling are good and fine, but the problem nowadays is that, basically, batteries suck. They don't come anywhere _near_ the energy density of gasoline or diesel.
Which doesn't just limit your range in an all-electric car, but also makes the whole car heavier. It means you actually need more energy to move at the same speed and over the same distance.
Hybrids acknowledge that reality. The electricity in a hybrid ultimately comes from gasoline too, and is only used so often.
I.e., expect to see hybrids instead of all-electric cars for a long time.
2. The whole "waah, but oil is going to end" premise is bogus anyway.
Yes, fossil reserves will eventually end. But here's the fun part: we already know how to produce synthetic oil. We've known it for a long time. And not just theoretically: Germany's WW2 tank warfare was _based_ on synthetised fuel. It wasn't cheap, but it did keep the panzers rolling nevertheless.
That's really the only thing that keeps us using fossil fuels right now: it's cheaper than making synthetic fuel. If fossil reserves start running low, whoppee, we'll just start making synthetic fuel. And all those gasoline or diesel cars will keep running just the same.
In fact, doing that is probably a more economical and viable way to store energy than a ton of batteries in a car.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I believe you'll use less fuel if you walk, bicycle or take public transportation. Besides,this will mean fewer cars on the road for the rest of us.
what about the other cars? I am extremely happy that we have a choice now a days (compared to not too far back in the past) of driving SUV's, but the other cars are just as bad, if not worse. For example, Ford makes a 15 passenger van (I vanpool in Atlanta) and the engine is a V8 with 13 miles per gallon, and Ford is now thinking of discontinuing this model and making a V10 for 9 MPH. Talk about irony.
I'm not familiar with those medieval terms when applied to modern technology. Could anyone explain these in plain english, like in kilometres per litre?
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Or any of the other posters who said the effect on milage is the cube of velocity. I learned this from a car designer many years ago.
"A worthy cause has never been harmed by the truth" - Gandhi
Terrain definitely counts. My parents bought the honda civic hybrid a couple years back in SE Pennsylvania. The area is a little bit hilly and they routinely got around 46 mpg. Now they're using it around Tampa (100% flat) and are routinely getting 54 mpg.
Another major factor is driving style. Slow accelerations, gliding long distances to a stop, and not driving over 65 greatly improve mileage. Oh, and keeping the windows up + ac on definitely helps. It's easy to tell in a hybrid because it has a little meter showing you your current gas mileage for the current trip. It's pretty accurate.
I really miss that car.
-- ac at work
I have to point out that AT WORST my mileage on a '98 Jetta TDI (read: diesel) has been 46 mpg.
/. noted that the VW TDI's were getting >= miles per gallon than the hybrids. So, this post is just me giving back.
The average is a steady 48 mpg.
I was an avid follower of hybrids until an article on
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
I don't pretend to be all that green, but I have considered looking closely at the hybrids if for nothing more than the "cool-gadget" factor... And yes, the milage looks appealing at first... but what about getting the things fixed?
From what I've seen, the ~only~ place to get them repaired is at the dealer. Most of your local mechanics won't touch 'em. I think most people are aware of the cost difference there... Arguably, the car will require a lot less maintenance than my '92 6-banger out in the driveway, but newness wears off and trips to the mechanic will come.
I can currently change the brakes on all four wheels for less than US$40 on a Saturday afternoon at home... If the wheels are part of the charging system, as I believe they are in most of these hybrids, is that still an option?
Barring the environmental concerns for the moment, these just don't appear to have the cash-appeal that most middle-income and lower families have to take into consideration. The addition, then the requirement, of the catalytic converter, when first instated, brought car costs up higher than your lower income family could afford.
--- no sig to see here... move along.
I agree, though I need to vent...
Firstly, public transportation was ruined by the automotive industry. Our goverment let them buy out the public transportation, and shut them down, thus forcing everyone to buy cars. Then, the goverment promoted the urban sprawl problem by developing highways going into employment locations, all while encouraging housing developments far distances away from the employment areas (mostly right after WWII). So, the American dream could then be obtained, but required a lot of driving/commuting. Now it has sadly become the American way of life.
Secondly, walking and bicycle riding would require exercise. How would us Americans choke ourselves on our hotdogs and twinkies if we were too busy walking to work? Besides, our shortened life expectancy should help reduce fuel consumption, except that cars now need to haul around bigger and bigger asses.
Thirdly, I am just upset because our local politicians refuse to encourage the bicycling tourism that is HUGE in my area. Instead they insist on spending the money on adding parking spaces where bike lanes once existed.
Fourthly, those of you that consider this to be troll are probably part of the problem. Have another ding dong as you sit in rush hour traffic in your SUV complaining about gas prices. I wonder what kind of "mileage" bicycles recieve if you look at just plain Energy as the fuel measure.
Totally agree! My BMW has instant and average MPG readouts and I find myself trying to max out my economy. I have managed to get about 31 MPG on a highway trip and rarely go under 28. Not bad for a 6 cylinder 175 HP car :)
> ...is the visual display which tells you the target mileage given your current acceleration.
I drove a Corvette (C5) with that a while back. It was funny watching the mileage indicator drop to 0 MPG when you floored it.
This site is a great resource, and it looks like the numbers are right to me, based on my Prius II experience.
... but it's like 45MPH on a dynamometer for the highway test, right? Who drives like that? Does it take into account aerodynamics at all?
However, what I'd really like to see is similarly gathered data for traditional cars. Especially for ones in the same size/weight categories. I don't trust the EPA numbers for those either. Well, I trust they measure _something_
I guess it would be tougher because very few traditional cars give accurate mileage readouts...
What happens if a Hybrid encounters Street Flooding? Will the electric Motors burn up or will you get electrocuted by the 288 Volt DC,it operates with?
:D You're right, up to a point. But I think there's a constant involved that decreases the efficiency as the velocity drops (the car consumes fuel whilst standing still idling). I don't think you'd be going significantly slow enough in this case though.
The northstar system (all FWD Cadillacs 1993-now) have the MPG display and it is very accurate. The display gets it's information from the fuel injector pulse timing and fuel pressure off the PCM, so unless you car has a leak in the fuel line it is accurate.
BTW: I have a 1997 Cadillac Deville with 110,000 miles on it and get anywhere from 520-570 miles on a full tank (20 gals) doing 70-90 mph. That's just about as good as an Accord v6 but MUCH more comfortable !
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
I just never understand why do you use this awful system of calculating fuel consumption. Join the world with liters/100 km! It's much easier to calculate. Or - if you insist - use gallon / 100 miles :)
The EPA under Bush sucks shit.
get on a bike and pedal, you fatasses.
This is basic Newtonian mechanics. I am not going to take the time--a basic physics primer should suffice. But according to Newton's Second Law, the faster you want to accelerate a mass, the more force is required to achieve the acceleration. As for slowing down, it doesn't matter with cars which do not use regenerative braking. That is, if your car stores energy output from slowing down, then it makes sense to brake slowly. This is due to limitations in technology. To be brief, faster braking means more energy gets turned into heat as more load is placed on the brakes rather than your electric motor (which doubles as a generator when being turned by external forces) or what have you.
Join Tor today!
I have gotten 37MPG average at 90MPH when my engine is at 3700 RPM due to it being the engines peak torque to the engine has to work less harder at that speed. I put the car on the dyno last week at my theory was correct when I saw the dyno charts Dyno Chart: http://www.thepassat.com/images/passatdyno.jpg The car is a 1.8T 5spd VW passat.
...see subject...
Most people never realize their driving habits affect fuel economy because it only hits them every two weeks at the pump.
:p
You don't live in the US, do you?
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
I guess my beetle is pretty damn good on gas. I traded in my Silverado that was getting 14mpg, and I looked at the high total cost of ownership of hybrids (maintainance looks expensive) and the TCO of a vw beetle, granted consumer reports does not love the NB but a test drive sold me. Great on gas and damn fast! 0-80mph in 8 seconds. I commute 68 miles each way and average 70mph, and get 31mpg.
I think that's damn good, and you gotta love the Monsoon Stereo and the acceleration you get from the Turbo. I have a 2k1 model with 24k miles.
I doubt vw will touch the maintainance on this car, I like to do that myself. So... forget the
high priced japaneese hybrids, eat rice and drive
a vw! It's the best MPG/performance car I drove so far. And an Insight isn't going to accelerate
to 90mph in 90 seconds, nevermind 8 seconds.
After converting data to (nearly) metric equivalents (1 mil/gal = 2.82 Km/l) I wondered about all that excitement. I expected hybrid cars to have much better efficiency than old fation cars. But my disel engine (a big car on european standars, 1.3 metric tons) go happily around 17 Km/l, 48 miles per gallon near the median of Toyota Prius which averages just 48!
filler text
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
The question is, why would anyone want to buy, what is in effect, The Ford Gelding?
I'm curious; which plane was that? Wikipedia has a pretty good article about the Zero, with stats and all; I'd be interested in comparing it to the Americans' response.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This is a common misunderstanding. Ford developed their own hybrid drivetrain, and discovered after it was done that parts of it were mighty close to infringing on some of Toyota's hybrid-car patents (particularly related to system controls). They paid the license fee (and traded some patent licensing of their own) to avoid the inevitable lawsuits, but they are still using their own design. I can't find the original article, but this press release indicates as much.
.
That said, I'm still more likely to buy a Toyota. Ford could win me back, but it takes a LONG time to prove your cars are consistently reliable again
Even with hybrids, worst mileage is undoubtedly stop-and go traffic jams.
When will the corresponding authorities get a simple cost equation? (I guess it already exists, but it needs to get its way into the decisionmaking process). Maybe that will help prevent some of the traditional short-sightedness (lower budgets, at the expense of everyone spending more):
The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid delivers 30 miles per gallon while Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV averages 28.
My 1997 Saturn L-series 4 door sedan gets 30+ miles to the gallon. So what's so great about these hybrids? Granted my saturn isnt a SUV. But I would have expected a greater return for the trouble.
One factor you failed to take into account in your experiment is that modern vehicles have a computer, commonly called a PCM for Powertrain Control Module, that, amongst hundreds of other things, adjusts the long- and short-term fuel trim to achieve the correct stoichiometric air/fuel ratio (AFR) of 14.7:1. Basically, the PCM controls the pulse width of the fuel injectors to control the amount of fuel injected into each cylinder. It then measures the amount of oxygen in the exhaust, and based on these two figures, calculates the AFR. If the AFR is not ideal, the PCM changes the short-term fuel trim (STFT) to correct it. The STFT responds to short-duration extremes, such as sudden increases in driver demand (e.g., flooring it). The long-term fuel trim (LTFT) monitors the average values of the STFT; if STFT is at an average of, say, -3% for some predetermined amount of time, the PCM will adjust in the negative direction in hopes that the average STFT will then hover about 0%.
In a way, the LTFT describes how you drive; if you've constantly got your foot to the floor, it's likely that your STFT might be often correcting for lean conditions at wide-open throttle, and driving your LTFT towards an overall rich condition. (Or vice versa; some vehicles tend toward rich conditions at WOT.) If you're a very smooth driver, your LTFT should hover around 0%, since rapid changes in driver demand aren't knocking the STFT about (barring any other idiosyncrasies of your fuel system). The important point here, though, is that your PCM needs to "relearn" your driving style; a more correct way to perform this experiment would be to:
1) drive like you normally do for one tank and calculate;
2) fill up, drive home, and pull off the positive battery cable for 15 minutes or so to let the PCM "forget" your previous LTFT;
3) drive with a different driving style for one tank just to let the PCM relearn;
4) drive the same way as in 3) for another tank and calculate;
5) repeat 2)-4) as necessary.
Not to mention it will take 20 years to make up $3,000, when compairing 30mpg to 40mpg if you drive 10,000 miles a year with current gas prices. To make up 3,000 in 10 years the car would have to get 55mpg to make up 3,000.
The actual compression ratio is the single most influencial factor in determining the efficiency of an internal combustion engine. If you "ease out" at a stoplight you are running against a manifold vacuum ---- so your actual compression ratio is low and your efficiency is low. If you "step on it" your manifold pressure is higher, more fuel-air enters the chamber, and the compression ratio increases --- along with your efficiency. Apparently in your case the increased efficiency associated with "stepping on it" pretty much balances the increased energy requirement of a fast acceleration.
Oh, and the reason a hybrid car is so efficient is that the engine is effectively running at a high compression ratio most of the time, either for acceleration or for battery charging. Why they don't use diesel engines I don't know. Diesel, with its much higher compression ratio, is MUCH more efficient than a gasoline engine. Some years ago (the last time I saw data) it was roughly the difference between 17% (gasoline) and 35% (diesel).
Diesel contains 15-25% more carbon and more energy per gallon than gasoline. A 48 MPG Jetta TDI is no more efficient than a 40 MPG Civic in terms of energy used or CO2 emitted per mile.
0 1 - just my two bits
My 3/4 ton big block, HD chevy gets a pleasant 5mpg. 34 gallon tank kicks ass.
Congratulations, the juice to run the damned display and computer eat up whatever hybrid fuel savings you've accumulated.
Somehow I think a large-scale coal plant will be more energy-efficient (optimized for steady production) than an ICE (optimized for quick power) which starts and stops combustion thousands of times per minute.
I don't actually know, though, and I'd be curious how a coal plant compares to a gas engine in terms of kg of carbon emissions per kWh of energy produced. (Is that kind of comparison even useful?)
Not only are emissions from large, dedicated powerplants easier to manage, it's easier to change a few large coal plants to nuclear (or whatever) than to change over a massive installed base of cars.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Look at it this way: that's 71 gallons/year less responsibility for the war in Iraq.
Actually you can own a diesel in California but you can't buy a new one. The issues relate to particulates and a reblending of diesel fuels to the standards being used in Europe. When that happens, I suppose, you'll be able to buy one of the new diesel cars again in California. Of course in this neck of the woods diesel is about the price of mid-grade.
As an aside to this article, I can say that the economy on my 2004 Prius has actually been increasing as I break it in. I have recently returned from a 2000mi road trip and the car now stands ~12400mi on the odometer. Since this trip, and an oil change, I have noticed a raise from the low 40s in mpg, to an average of 48-51 mpg in my mixed driving locally.
I expected a bit better. The Prius only gets about 6mpg more than my Corolla, which cost about $5000 less.
My wife and I looked at buying a Prius a year ago, but foud out thaat there was a year or more waiting list at pretty mcuh every dealer within driving distance. A few places offered us used ('91 or '92) Priuses for at or near their original sticker prices, which we thought was just insane...
We couldn't afford to wait, so we bought the Corolla instead. We've put 16,000 miles on it in the year we've had it, and between the gas that we could have saved by buying the Prius and the rapidly vanishing tax deduction for buying an alternative fuel vehicle, I still don't think we will make back the money any time soon that we saved by going with a car that was $5000 cheaper for similar options.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Admittedly, my engine is only slightly larger than your average coke bottle, but when the vehicle is only 600 pounds *including me*, I dont mind this.
a _fz6/
That coke bottle gives me 0-60 in under 4 seconds.
And does it on not quite 100 horsepower.
I get a little more than 200 miles per tank of gas...even though my tank is only 5 gallons. (Translation: I almost never pay more than $7 for a fill-up, and only do that twice a week, even though it's my primary vehicle.)
I am small enough that I park on sidewalks, legally.
At $6500 brand new, and an insurance rate of $220 a YEAR, I'm thinking the euro's figured it out.
The crashing has even been pretty forgiving...after slamming head-on into a dodge caravan, I wasn't hurt, the dodge wasn't hurt, and it only cost me $800 in repairs to get back on the road. It's the ultimate economic vehicle.
Buy a motorcycle. This one is mine, but there are as many bikes as there are personalities.
http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/2004/146_04_yamah
{...reality is wrong, Dreams are for real...}
Your standard Volkswagen Jetta TDI gets over 52+ MPG. Thats better milage than the Prius, costs less than the prius, doesn't need batteries that need to be replaced in 5-10 yrs and meets even rigorous California emission standards.
Whats all this hype about Hybrids?
What is the point of owning a hybrid if it doesn't give you at least close to 50 (or above) mpg? To simply feel good? To simply feel "hip"? What BS...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
In a manner of speaking, diesels are also a waste in that they require 20% more crude to make a gallon of diesel vs. gasoline (energy content of diesel is higher). So even though the MPG is higher for diesel, they don't help the conservation goal as much as one might think. Diesel is good, but it's not magnitudes of good. I'd like to see an actual comparison of MPG adjusted for true oil consumption.
Really, it's a fascinating book, if nothing else for his views on the "cyclist inferiority complex" and how it's been perpetuated in our society. I'll admit it certainly made me look closer at how bike training programs in my area worked. For those unfamiliar with the term, he believes that almost all bike laws and safety programs were manufactured not to provide for greater bicycle safety, but to keep bicyclists off the roads. You can tell it's a bit of a holy war for him, but once you get past the rants, there's a lot of solid information on technique with statistics to back it up.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
All very well and good, but the Germans produced this synthetic fuel from coal, so this is hardly getting away from fossil reserves.
Bio-diesel - fuel from vegetable oil - is more promising, but is there enough arable land to produce anywhere near the amount required to replace fossil fuels?
Today's diesel engines run a lot cleaner than before, but a serious issue is the emission of carcinogens.
I just drove 115 miles yesterday, from West Palm Beach to Miami and back, and I averaged 29.5 MPG in my 2000 VW Passat Wagon 1.8t 5spd. The car is performance tuned and currently has ~30% more horsepower than stock. I drove ~80 MPH with bursts of 85-95 MPH, made a couple of grocery stops and a dropoff at the airport with the engine running. I think this is excellent gas mileage. And I would much rather drive my Passat than a Ford anything, especially an Escape.
This is just a testament to how bad these vehicles really are, when 28 MPG is considered a lot for them. My gasoline-exclusive engine gets better mileage than one of these cars which employ radically-new technology. I equate this to being a waste - put this technology on a car like mine and give me diesel-like 45 MPG. But since the masses will always flock to the big, heavy trucks, I guess it's a step in the right direction. Just don't think it's anything special to get 28 MPG - it's actually low, and you're out of tricks because you have a hybrid and only muster 28 MPG.
Must-not-watch TV!
"what makes 55mph the best limit? Why not 40, or 25, or 10?"
I don't know the exact values for the best limit, but here's what I think people should consider:
1) Humans have limited lifespans.
2) Most keep a 24 hour cycle, with approx 16 hours awake. And spend maybe 1.5-2 hours of that on other self-maintenance (and other overheads) - grooming, cleaning, eating etc.
Now if you set a speed limit too low, you'd end up with humans spending lots of time travelling from A to B, and typically back from B to A.
If a commute is 1 hour from A to B and 1 hour back, that's two hours. And that's about 12% of your waking life gone. If by setting a stupid speed limit you increase the commute to 4 hours, that's 12.5% _more_ of your waking life gone.
That's like reducing the average life expectancy of everyone by about 10 years more.
Remember you are doing this for practically ALL the drivers - if just one driver slows down significantly, almost all drivers have to slow down.
That is a LOT of man-years gone
While driving fast kills the unlucky and the careless/ignorant/stupid, driving way too slow kills the unlucky, the careless/ignorant/stupid (by effectively creating a road obstruction/obstacle) AND also reduces the effective lifespan of almost everyone else on the same road.
I'm not saying we should all drive fast (set it too fast and some crash and everyone ends up moving really slowly). But I'm saying there really is such a thing as too slow. Most people have other things they want to do with their lives than spending it on the same road everyday.
Feel free to disagree - maybe most people would/do enjoy driving at a very slow pace to and fro work every working day.
True there are many times you could steer out of an accident. However there are many more times when you cannot.
A habit of hitting the breaks hard may sometimes result in an accident that is avoidable. However it will never result in an accident much worse than the one you were trying to avoid.
When you steer you have to prevent a rollover. You also have to have a clear place to go. Searing into oncoming traffic changes a 'simple' read end to a head on. Steering into a ditch may often mean hitting something hidden but immobile in the ditch. (Not to mention rollover). In heavy traffic there may not no safe way to get into the other lane.
I know three mechanics, and they all drive Cavs.
If they're really as bad as you say, you'd think that the people who fix them wouldn't buy them.
Strip the car bare. Gut it. Install some lightweight racing seats. You just saved a lot of weight. And gained a lot of cargo room!
But isn't the weight saved by replacing the seats negated by the gigantic spoiler and huge subwoofers?
rm -rf
I have seen some of my grandpa's old popular sciences from the mid 1960s (~40 years ago), and they often had articles about how to increase milage. Mostly the same advice you get today. When it wasn't that it was tests of devices or additives that would increase milage. (Popular science in those days was worth reading)
Every issue also had several ads for some gadget that would increase milage. Magnets for the gas lines, pressue regulators, chemicals. Even the infamous 200MPG carb the oil company didn't want you to know about. (Guess which one of the above worked in a new car. Then tell me why you wouldn't want to in your car even though it worked)
Motors will never be intigrated in wheels. Anything in the wheel is unsprung weight. The biggest enemy of smooth rides and tire life. Hard on the suspension system.
The motors might be connected to a short axle so they are just inside the car, but they won't be connected to the wheels.
"a good extra 25L if you take it *very* *very* slow near the end."
so my 45L tank just became 70L and i didnt even know it because "the man" was sticking it to me?
thats sweet man im gonna try putting that extra 25L in it next time i fill up!
Damn straight, computers suck up so much power it's ridiculous. Oops, now if you'll excuse me I have to pour another gallon of gas into my cell phone...
Unfortunately, the drop-off in popularity of SUVs makes it likely that it will be the efficient cars that get recycled there.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Kilometerage = (energy/gallon) * (distance/energy)
= (energy/gallon) * (distance/power*time)
= (energy/gallon) * (velocity/power)
= constant * v/O(v^3)
= constant / O(v^2)
And since energy = power * time and distance = velocity * time, that means fuel consumption = power per velocity. In other words, if power goes up as V^3, fuel consumption goes up as V^2.
...
You're right that real mileage is much more complicated; I was just making a quick joke reply to someone who didn't seem to remember the exact definition of a drag coefficient. I wasn't expecting a half dozen replies making the same physics error
You can run your diesel on 100% solar power with using 100% biodiesel.
Chances are that the fertilizers used to grow the oil seed plants are made with - you guessed it - petroleum.
One thing that I don't understand is why the car manufacturers are using the internal combustion engine.
If they are developing a new technology, especially one that is intended to be more efficient, why not pick the most efficient technologies?
The sterling engine, which has been around since last century is reliable enough for our nuclear plants, why not in a car.
A sterling engine is way more efficient at extracting energy from it's fuel source. 50%+ vs. 30% or so for internal combustion )
The biggest challenge with the sterling engine was the time require for it to reach optimal operating temperatures. ( ~ 5 min )
With a hybrid car this is a non issue because you can use electric power while the engine is warming up.
http://www.hybrid-car-reviews.com/
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
You can't compare [diesel and petrol] using "gallons".
If dollars per gallon are the same (and they are in most areas of the United States as of May 2005), then yes you can. Ultimately, what a driver is interested in is miles per dollar.
Better yet, what about a CVT? You would get even better gas mileage with no weight increase over a standard transmission.
But don't new technologies such as continuously variable transmission take 20 years to become common because their inventors like to overcharge for patent licenses?
Honestly- how many people in NYC need a Ford Excursion?
Collision safety is an arms race. SUV meets compact car, SUV wins. People demand bigger SUVs (up to and including HUMMER(tm) vehicles) because they don't want to get torn up by semi-drunk drivers who have their own SUVs.
The first CVT patents date to roughly 1886, based on concepts developed by Leonardo Da Vinci. CVTs in automobiles date back to at least the 1950's. See these pages for more info:
m
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/cvt.htm
http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs_01-00/03.ht
Jesus Chr*st! Waaay back in 1989 I was getting 30 plus mpg with my Volkswagen Fox! 350 miles on an 11 gallon tank. So now that a Ford Hybrid gets 28 mpg it deserves praise!!?? The EPA and the automakers want you to believe some real progress has been made in with respect to fuel economy. At what cost? A Toyota Prius is going to cost you many thousands more in up front costs that you will never see a return on during the life of the car. Never spend money to save money. None of the government mandates have been met to date and from this, it don't look like they will be anytime soon. Keep believing what they want you to believe.
Of course, the pretty graph at that site doesn't factor the incidentals from the OTHER half of the hybrid equation... like the toxic batteries that have to be replaced and recycled every few years, etc. Great, so it gets 62MPG in *petroleum* cost, but what of the costs they're not talking about? The eco-deceit of all-electric cars is even worse: they want you to buy the car and feel all warm and fuzzy, like you're helping the environment or the global energy economy; in truth you're doing nothing but continuing to line a few executives' pockets and stock portfolios, because at the end of the day you have to plug your car into an electricity grid that is powered by... PETROLEUM. All you're doing is shifting the petroleum consumption farther "upstream". So go make yourselves feel good and buy an electric car and renew your Sierra Club membership... NEITHER of those things help combat the respective primary problems: petroleum dependency and overpopulation.
Hmmm...1999 Megane 1.4 (new model from that year) - almost 7l (well, practically you have to count as 7). Perhaps it's because of mostly city driving... Oh, and I'd say those are SI, it's simply 0,00007 l/m given in more practical form, utilising short way of writing "1000"; if it used some units derived from SI units than one could eventually argue that it isn't SI - but OTOH such unit could be as well written as mathematical relationships between basic SI units so one could argue that it's the same...overall: uninteresting issue, it's accepted here that units derived from basic SI units simply are SI...
One that hath name thou can not otter
that stopping distance is a lie? Let me guess, it came from the land where wearing seatbelts is optional? I know you probably got flamed in the extreme already, but I have to say, that is the stupidest thing I've heard. Ever.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
The US grid uses more coal than oil, and we don't have to enter a bidding war with the entire world to buy coal from religious psychotics. And can't the toxic elements in batteries (lead, cadmium, lithium) be reused?
The way it works it:
c e* Distance
E=IdlePower*Time+Inefficiencies+AcellerationFor
This means driving fast minimizes the time, while driving "aggressively" just trades the force for the distance. So to minimize fuel usage, you want to continuously drive at the velocity with inefficiencies (air resistance, etc.) match the idle power. So next time, instead of stopping to pick people up, just grab them on the flyby - you will be saving gas!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Since the US government has proven repeatedly in the last 50 years that it cares nothing for the suffering of people in other nations
WTF are you talking about! We're constantly butting in to stop suffering. It pisses me off. Let them suffer, WTF Do I care. Give me my stupid tax dollars back so I can fuel my SUV!
In all seriousness, we get just as much crap about caring too much and intervening when it's not appropriate as we do about not doing enough so apparently we have the balance just about right.
He had oil, but wasn't able to sell any real amount of it
Define real? How much US cash did they find he had gathered? I believe it was around 900 million dollars in cash hidden in various walls and palaces. That's just what he had converted into US cash and hidden! Granted.. he didn't have as much as he could have had without sanctions, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a madman with a lot of money and a lot of power and the willingness to use both to do horrible things.
a logical way to make oil less valuable is to make vehicles that use 4 to 6 times less
Logically.. using 4 to 6 times less would reduce oil's value slightly, however, the US only uses 1/4 of the worlds oil supply and only half of that goes to cars. Even if all US cars stopped using oil instantly, 7/8ths of the world's oil demand would remain.
Also, using 4 to 6 times less fuel just isn't practical.
Commercial vehicle fuel use (tractor trailers for transport, electricians, plumbers, cable, phone, dump trucks, etc) accounts for a significant part of the US's fuel consumption. I couldn't find any statistics but I'd guess from the numbers I did see (and I looked at a lot) that it accounts for about 1/3rd of our consumption. (Please let me know if you can find hard stats.. I goggled for this for a long time.) You'll be hard pressed to find a lot of waste there. Companies save money wherever they can and gas costs money.
Even if we replaced every personal vehicle you could with a mini that got 55mpg you wouldn't cut fuel use anywhere near as much as you think. I drive a nice big SUV and it gets around 20 miles per gallon (19.6). Sure, there are behemoths that get 8 or 10 mpg but they are much more rare than you'd think. Used ones are selling real cheep now because nobody wants them unless they really need them, in which case a 55mpg tiny car simply isn't going to work. In fact, there's no way I personally could drive a mini, even if it was just for commuting. The headroom is about 1.5 inches lower than the lowest I fit in. It doesn't take a very big person to not fit in those stupid minis and they have horrible ground clearance. This low roofline and low ground clearance is a great way to make good fuel economy but it makes for an uncomfortable car that isn't very versatile (or safe for that matter.) In fact, there's barely a car made after 1990 that I fit in. Tightening fuel efficiency laws forced car's rooflines down to the point where I just can't use them.
Pretty much all the minivans would have to stay. People drive them because the need the room. Those usually get between 15 and 20 mpg. There aren't any 55mpg minivans. Once you look carefully at it, there is a very small percentage of people who are driving cars that are too big for them and they usually have too much money and would throw it into something stupid like a boat if they didn't get their Hummer. You think SUV's suck gas... take a look at motor boats!
If you really want to curb gas consumption, raise the gas tax $0.20/gallon. Use the money raised to build new roads that eliminate traffic jams and provide more efficient routes to where people need to go. That would work. Trying to guilt trip people into buying miniature cars isn't going to change a thing.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
After all that, it would be far more inefficient to *not* eat that juicy, cooked burger :)
hawk
But you're assuming I live in the US, have the same range of vehicles available to me, gas isn't a 100% imported product and I don't care about other stuff like the amount of crap my car spews in the air.
There's a one-way street I take home everyday. 30mph speed limit and with lights every 1/5th mile or so. It is CLEARLY posted between EACH light that the lights are set to the speed limit.
EVERY morning it works like this:
+ I sit on my motorcycle in the righthand lane going 30
+ Morons in the two left lanes go 40mph and reach the next light 4 seconds before me. Light turns green and while they're busy accelerating from 0-40 I pass right by on the right going 30mph.
+ Rinse, wash, repeat and watch them do it for 6 miles.