Hybrid Cars No Better than 'Intelligent' Cars

eldavojohn writes "There's no doubt been a lot of analysis done recently on energy consumption, especially on the road. Now, a study released today reveals that cars with traffic flow sensors built into them can perform just as efficiently as hybrids. The concept of an 'intelligent' car that communicates with the highway or other cars is an old idea, but the idea of them using sensors to anticipate braking could vastly reduce fossil fuel consumption. From the article, 'Under the US and European cycles, hybrid-matching fuel economy was reached with a look-ahead predictability of less than 60 seconds. If the predictability was boosted to 180 seconds, the newly-intelligent car was 33 percent more fuel-efficient than when it was unconverted.' Now, the real question will be whether or not you can convince consumers that the three minutes of coasting up to a red light or halted traffic is worth the 33 percent less gas and replacing your brake pads/cylinders less often."

Comments

can't you just do this now?

[192939495969798999]

I thought just "not excessively racing the engine" saves gas, i.e. using cruise control, coasting, etc. Can't we just teach people to do this now? If you have to push on the gas to pass someone, does the chip say "nope, too much gas"?

Re:can't you just do this now?

[msimm]

I was woI wonder how much more "intelligently" people drive when they have a display giving gas usage feedback like they do in hybrids (and some other newer cars?). I drive a Yaris, which does pretty differently depending on how I'm driving. Concrete feedback on the dash and I'd probably pay more attention.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[eln]

Can't we just teach people to turn off the water while they shave or brush their teeth to conserve water? Can't we just teach people to set their thermostats a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter to save electricity and gas? Can't we just teach people to take colder showers? Or turn off the lights when they leave a room?

Yes, teaching people better habits is a nice thing to do, but getting them to actually drop their old bad habits is an entirely different story. Our oil problems would be greatly solved if everyone stopped driving their cars and started riding bicycles for any trip less than, say, 5 miles long, but that isn't likely to happen. We must solve these problems through technology because making other people change their lifestyle is just not practical. Most people will resist, and even those who don't are likely to go back to their old ways because people are inherently lazy and will take the path of least resistance whenever possible.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[rolfwind]

From what I understand, "racing the engine" may not be worse than puttering along. Hypermilers use a "pulse and glide" system, and it said that accelerating at an RPM where your engine gives peak torque is more fuel efficient than going the absolute slowest RPM you can. Accelerating then coasting. Then accelerate again.

I'm not a hypermiler (they are willing to go too slow, sacrificing speed for mpg, and putting themselves at risk) but I drive like this and use other techniques to increase mileage and it is more fuel efficient. I also try to anticipate stops, lights and drive accordingly. If I see a light that just turned red 200 meters out, I try to coast there, maybe brake early, so that either I let my existing kinetic energy run out or so that I still have some speed when it turns green.

The people behind me don't like this, which I don't understand, because they want to race to the red light, brake the last 20-50 feet, and then start up from 0mph again. They are only wasting their gas and wearing out their brakes fasters, while not getting their any earlier.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[TodMinuit]

Can't we just teach people to turn off the water while they shave or brush their teeth to conserve water? Can't we just teach people to set their thermostats a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter to save electricity and gas? ...

Okay, I'm with you...

... Can't we just teach people to take colder showers?

NEVER!!!!

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Brickwall]

That's not a new technology; I had a Ford T-Bird back in the 80's (when it was the big boat) that flashed a red "Economy" light on the dash when you floored it. And you are correct - unless I was trying to pass a truck on a two-lane highway, when the light flashed, I would usually lift my foot off the gas.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[bhtooefr]

Try a ScanGauge. I don't have one, because my car's too old, but a Yaris (actually, most 1996 and newer cars) will almost certainly work with it.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[niiler]

From what this article says, they do. Of course, the driver who is the main focus of the article may have suicidal tendencies in how he drafts 18 wheelers and how he deals with stop signs in the name of saving gas. Still, it's an intriguing read.

Personally, I was just wondering why it had to be an either-or? Why can't the ultra-economy conscious have the intelligent sensors built into a hybrid car? One would imagine that this would be far better than either.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Tuoqui]

Hey I turn off the water when shaving/brushing teeth but cold showers are where I draw the line. Ofcourse it seems like there are some people who are overly concerned about water conservation, you can smell them a mile away.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[neoform]

"Our oil problems would be greatly solved if everyone stopped driving their cars and started riding bicycles for any trip less than, say, 5 miles long, but that isn't likely to happen."

I think that would solve a whole lot more than just the oil problems..

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Paulrothrock]

Most people will resist, and even those who don't are likely to go back to their old ways because people are inherently lazy and will take the path of least resistance whenever possible.

Then we simply need to make the path of least resistance also the most efficient. Any system designer will tell you that you need to make the best choice the default one, because people will overwhelmingly choose the default.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Jorgandar]

I have a prius, only had it for 2 months. I used to drive a nissan sentra which was fairly zippy. I find that i'm less aggressive now that i have an MPG display. I start to cringe and ease off the acceleration when it drops below 30. it has a funny psycological effect. It also means i'm a less aggressive driver. I dont tailgate anymore, because extra lead time = more energy regenerated while breaking.

I wonder if we will see a pattern of people who have MPG displays getting into fewer accidents because they drive less aggressively? I want an insurance discount.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a president once who told people to put on a sweater if it was cold. He didn't get re-elected. If only someone had thought of the children then.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[sunking2]

That's the thing, it's not new, it's not expensive, it certainly would help, so why isn't a bill passed requiring all new cars to display mpg statistics? My father's early 90s chrysler had this. You could get current usage, trip usage, and overall life of the car usage. All displayed on a nice little digital readout next to the odometer. I think that at least for some percentage of the population it would ease their driving habits. It almost becomes a game to try to milk that last mpg out. I think this was available for my Jeep, but it came with the special upgrade package that includes the special control panel with the nice sun glass holders in it. Of course it was like $400 to I opted out of it. Just like a catalytic converter, a fuel usage display should be mandated. It's cheap and has potential. Of course the car manufactures don't want it because then people would see how bogus their epa ratings really are.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[JWSmythe]

    I have a '00 TransAm WS/6 with a 6 speed. Stock it was 325hp.

    I cruised the length of I-10 (Jacksonville, FL to Los Angeles, CA) a few times now.

    On one trip, I normally held 80mph, and got 26mpg average across the whole trip.
    On another trip, I normally held 70mph to 75mph, and got 25mpg.

    On shorter trips, taking my time to accelerate up past 85, and then holding that in 6th gear works very well for better gas mileage. I can kill my economy by cruising at 55. :)

    I've discovered over the years that cars have a speed that they "like" to cruise at. They'll run a little easier, and give better gas mileage. I'm guessing it's somewhere up the power curve where it has enough power to push along. That would be high enough to push without needing to give extra gas, and loe enough to keep the RPM's low. i.e., if you get down to 500rpm, you'd have to stand on the gas to get it to hold a speed. If you're at 5000rpm, it's revving to fast. :)

    I put a vacuum gauge in mine too, as well as a digital air/fuel mixture gauge. It's very interesting, and ya, I do pay attention to it. If it runs up in the rich, or my vacuum drops, I'm accelerating too hard.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Brickwall]

Oh, sure. It happens because cruise control is not based on constant RPM, but constant speed. If you're travelling through hilly country (we go through the New Hampshire White Mountains to visit a pal in Maine), the engine will speed up, and often downshift to a lower gear, to keep the speed constant on the uphill slogs. When in the mountains, I turn the cruise off, and let the speed slack off a bit on a steep climb. You get much better mileage this way.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[mobby_6kl]

Because such a bill would be just another piece of ridiculous regulation? Here's what the driver has to do:

• Keep the engine RPM low
  

In any case, I'd be surprised to see any modern car above the absolute lowest class without some kind of device that would keep track of fuel consumption. Our '85 Ford/Merkur Scorpio had it, and my dad's more recent Nissan Primera has an even more advanced version accessible through its central console thingie.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[doktor-hladnjak]

I wonder if we'll see a pattern of them getting into *more* accidents because they're constantly watching the gauge instead of the road. I have one of these on my car, but fortunately the display toggles various fuel consumption stats along with the time. Usually, I just leave it on the clock because I find MPG distracting.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[drsquare]

Yes, overpopulation problems for a start as the death rate soars.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[acherusia]

Don't worry. When global warming hits, cold showers will look much more desireable.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[yog]

Precisely; in aggressive driving cities like Boston and New York, coasting to a stop is just inviting a few horn honks, middle fingers, and possibly a rear ender if not a road rage incident. Plus, those behind you will just speed up and cut around you if they can, filling up all the space in front. Yet, as you point out, such sensible moves as coasting to the red would save everyone a lot of money.

As another poster points out, the common sense move is to let energy prices float up, perhaps through a tax that pays for new road electronics such as guidance systems and accident avoidance systems. $1 or $2 per gallon to save lives, reduce oil consumption, and long term reduce the American incentive to fight wars in the Middle East. Seems like a winning strategy all around.

Oh, and use some of that money to hire a few hundred more traffic cops in each city to nab the aggressive drivers and get them off the road. I know elderly people who are afraid to drive, basically prisoners in their homes. OK a few of them are scary too but not out of malevolence :)

Re:can't you just do this now?

[CosmeticLobotamy]

I do the same thing, but you have to pay attention to the situation behind you. Coasting to a red light means you're blocking the guy behind you, who may either be making a right on red but has to wait for you to get out of his way, or needs to get to the left turn lane to get the protected left before it changes. If there's someone following me and there's no one ahead turning, I just go ahead and waste the gas, for civilization's sake.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Chosen Reject]

You are right in more ways than you know. In the case of driving, you get better gas mileage in maintaining a speed than you do in stop and go traffic (hence hwy mileage is better than city). City planners need to get out and look at their streets and think about what they can do to increase the amount of time someone is driving*, and decrease the amount of time they are waiting at lights or braking unnecessarily.

Where I live there is a stretch of road that the stupid city planners decided should be the major road. In the course of 1.1 miles there are 10 stop lights. In the next 0.7 miles there are an additional 3 and there are another 4 in the mile before that. There is not enough distance between each one to time them so inevitably you're bound to hit 3 or 4 red lights on a good day. I've had days where I hit every one. It gets worse when traffic is bad, because sometimes you'll end up sitting at a light for two cycles or more. Most of the time, no one can even get to half the speed limit before having to brake again. The only other major roads around are the same way, and the other option is to get into residential areas. But if you do that the speed limit is reduced and you have to choose your course wisely or you'll get a stop sign every tenth to two tenths of a mile. In other words, the road planning is such that it keeps you in very slow stop and go traffic, even if there isn't traffic at all.

If they were to change the layout (which I realize that by now would cost a lot of money, and in some cases is not feasible) they could increase speeds while decreasing accidents and moving violations. In addition they would decrease the total driving time, increase fuel economy, decrease total emissions. The changes would also go a long way towards easing every one's drive which reduces the risk of road rage. People are less likely to run red lights or speed up on yellow because they occur less often.

I used to live in Glendale, AZ. At the time, while all the cities around us were putting in cameras to catch red light runners and speeders, Glendale tried to time their lights such that if you went the speed limit, you would get green lights. First of all, they were able to do this because there was enough distance between lights to allow for it. When they did this, and I realized that it worked more often than not, my driving habits changed drastically. No longer was I racing to try to beat the next light, but instead maintained the speed limit. Sure I hit some red lights, especially during heavy traffic, but for the most part, I was hitting more greens, and driving safer. I noticed that I was much calmer when driving and much less willing to run a yellow light. I don't know if they still do it, but I thought it was the greatest idea ever.

Another thing city planners can do is make residential roads not so straight. Yes, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but making roads curved means you can have fewer stop signs (less stop and go), and people tend to drive slower on turns than on straight roads, thus you've built in a speed limiter where little kids and old ladies are walking around.

I'm sure there are lots of other ideas that actually work towards making driving easier, faster, more fuel efficient and safe all at the same time. So you are right, make the default the best choice, and suddenly the world becomes a lot better place.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[tpet]

"Personally, I was just wondering why it had to be an either-or? Why can't the ultra-economy conscious have the intelligent sensors built into a hybrid car? One would imagine that this would be far better than either."

I thought this at first too, but when you think about it the main advantage of a hybrid car is that it stores a lot of the energy that is usually wasted while braking in the battery for later use. If we didn't waste that energy by accelerating more than necessary just to stop again, a huge part of the advantage of a hybrid would be gone. This regenerative braking technology is why hybrids get better gas mileage in stop-and-go city driving than on the highway. If you just coasted to a stop all the time, then no regenerative braking would occur and hybrids would lose their advantage.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Mattintosh]

Traffic cops only issue speeding tickets. They don't bother making the roads safer, since there's no money in that. Of course, parking on the side of the interstate looking for someone "speeding" (going over the legal limit, but probably not going faster than the rest of the traffic) causes people to slow down (= wasted gas) in front of faster traffic (= accident) just to avoid some dumbass hick cop that thinks he can use his gun just because he has it.

Fuck that. I'd rather see those asshat cops/HP-men run over by rampaging drivers as long as they ignore real road-safety problems and instead focus on revenue-generation (read: speeding tickets instead of real moving violations). Yes, I just said I'd prefer dead cops over corrupt government. Am I a criminal or a patriot?

Re:can't you just do this now?

[rthille]

My '86 Jetta GLI had an upshift light that I drove by, when I wasn't trying to live up to the license plate ([#]1SPD FRK). I'd get ~30-35MPG, and on long trips could get more than 500 miles out of the sub-15gal tank.
Now we recently got a prius that gets about 45 (indicated), but cost twice as much (in non-inflation adjusted dollars).
Doesn't seem like great progress to me.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[sunking2]

And that spedometer, what waste. Just drive so the trees don't go buy too fast. The tacometer? when the engine whines, shift! Isn't this slashdot where we deserve access to all information? Including our current mpg rate?

In any case, most cars don't. I've yet to buy a car that does have it standard and while they aren't BMWs they aren't bottom line. I don't believe the Honda Accord has it standard, at least 2-3 years ago it didnt.

And guess what, for every M3 and A4 that is bought 100 average joe's do buy bottom of the line cars. These are the vast majority of cars and are where the effort should be directed.

If you want to talk ridiculous regulation take a look at the current bill being proposed which sets mpg limits for the year 2019 or something stupid like that. This is actually a case where the government can actually do something immediately useful and benign at the same time. That's pretty rare.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[finity]

...go buy too fast. The tacometer... The tacometer:

Mild
Medium
HOT!!!

Extra salsa on mine, please...

Re:can't you just do this now?

[ArsonSmith]

What you're talking about isn't curbing bad habits, but downgrading lifestyle. If I can make a round trip to the grocery store in my car in 10 minutes or save by using my bike in 30 minutes which would I rather do? Typically it will be pay the bit extra on gas and drive faster.

Water, thermostats, showers, lights. They are all part of an upgraded lifestyle brought on by having plenty of each item. If/When these things become less available they will become more expensive and will be pushed up to people willing/and able to pay for them.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Dancindan84]

... Can't we just teach people to take colder showers?

NEVER!!!! I'll compromise. I'll still take hot showers, and I'll have my wife take cold ones. Everybody wins.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Skye16]

Probably because, in some vehicles, it is just downright depressing.

Take my '01 Audi A4 Quattro v6. On average, I get approximately 18 mpg. On the highway, on a straight trip, using cruise control and driving at a relatively sedate 70mph, I get a spectacular 24.3 mpg. Honestly, it's a kick right in the mean bean machine.

It's even worse when you don't turn average on, and you have to go up a steep hill at a low speed. No one wants to see "5.6mpg" flash up on your screen, even if it is only for a few seconds.

Okay, with all that said, I do drive a lot more efficiently than I did when I first got the car, and was averaging about 14mpg on my way to work (which, as I somewhat alluded to earlier, I get 18). But seriously, 18 is as good as it gets? Seriously, in this case, "fuck" is the only word that applies. Or maybe "god fucking dammit", but it's still going with the same general theme.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[radtea]

This regenerative braking technology is why hybrids get better gas mileage in stop-and-go city driving than on the highway.

Half true, or perhaps one third. Hybrids also get better gas mileage because when stopped in stop-and-go city driving they use no fuel. That's a huge gain. Also, energy capture during regenerative braking is imperfect both because it is easy to exceed the maximum charging rate of the batteries, and also because the charge/discharge cycle is not all that efficient (about 70% both ways, if memory serves.)

In any case, things that exist are better than things that do not. Hybrids actually exist. I can't tell from the article if the intelligent technology being talked about is anything other than a simulation. But I am sure I can't go down to my local car dealer and buy a car so equipped, whereas I can certainly buy a hybrid.

Finally, the only reason the story sets up a false and misleading opposition between hybrids and intelligent driving choices (whether human or automated) is that lies of this kind get more eyeballs on the page and sell more advertising, and who wouldn't want to get their knowledge about the future of technology from such a pristine and unsullied source?

Re:can't you just do this now?

[davmoo]

Sorry, but there is more to it than "keep the engine RPM low". There is a "too low" point also.

I drive a Chrysler Sebring, and as one of the OPs talked about on his relative's car, it has a digital display of "at that second" MPG as well as an averaged MPG (and a bunch of other things). And between that and watching my gasoline receipts, I know for a fact that my car gets its best mileage at approximately 2000 RPM. It sucks gas like a big dog above 3000 RPM...but it also starts getting bad as it goes below 1500 RPM, and gets worse the further down it goes.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Paulrothrock]

Roundabouts are far more efficient at traffic control than stop lights. Rather than stopping traffic entirely for one or two cars, traffic keeps moving. When you have a smaller road intersecting with a larger, a roundabout naturally causes the heavier traffic to move more easily through while not preventing people on the less travelled roads from moving at all. It also reduces traffic speeds by presenting approaching cars with a green wall and a sharp turn, forcing them to slow down at the intersection like they're supposed to. They also make it safer for pedestrians by giving them an island of safety in the busy intersection as well as forcing them to look in only one direction to make sure traffic is clear. Finally, you don't have cars crossing each other's paths of travel, so "left hook" accidents are eliminated.

My biggest suggestion, other than more control over zoning to eliminate massive subdivisions that create traffic problems, would be to replace traffic light intersections with roundabouts wherever possible.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Keys1337]

I'm pretty sure it's not... unless you are staring at the cig. Who needs to look at their cigarette? On the otherhand you do need to look at the road.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[erice]

If someone needs to get to the left turn pocket or intends to make a right turn on red, then their turn signal should be on. If it isn't, then any delay caused by me coasting to the light is their own fault.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[iksbob]

"But seriously, 18 is as good as it gets?"
You've got a moderately large normally aspirated V6, moving over 3000 lbs of less-than-spectacular aerodynamics via an AWD drive train. Yes, that's as good as it gets.
I drive a '91 Honda CRX... 1.6l inline 4 (125 hp), about 2200 lbs, decent aero (it's sort of the spiritual predescessor of the Insight), front wheel drive, 4-speed automatic. I get 34-37 mpg mixed city/highway, and 42 mpg on long highway trips, cruising at about 75 mph. The relatively light weight and suspension design allows the car to handle quite well and accelerate respectably. This is not exotic technology. In fact, it's 15+ year old technology.
If you skip ahead a few years and look at the '96-00 generation of Civics, Honda sold a model on the japaneese market with a 1.5l, 126 hp inline 4, claimed to be capable of 70 mpg. The trick? A CVT transmission (something that's becoming almost common-place in the past few years), a little valve train mojo to let the engine computer disable one of the intake valves, and a wide-band oxygen sensor. No hybrid gear, traffic sensors or even special body work.
Where are these designs now? Who knows! Certainly not the US. But then, it's not like Americans would buy a NORMAL fuel efficient car... It's got to have some new flashy gizmo or technology they can brag about to their friends and co-workers.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[644bd346996]

I think he was being a bit too vague. The fatal heart attack rate would soar. Most people in America don't seem to be able to go up more than three flights of stairs with out taking a rest.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[autophile]

I wonder if we'll see a pattern of them getting into *more* accidents because they're constantly watching the gauge instead of the road.

Well, no. The key is to watch the MPG display about as often as you watch the speedometer. Eventually, within a few weeks, you will learn what behaviors drive your MPG up or down, and then you will not have to watch the MPG display very often. At least, that is my own personal experience.

--Rob

Re:can't you just do this now?

[JoeBackward]

I've had a Honda Insight since 1999. s/n 152. Good car. It has a good suite of efficiency readouts. The lifetime mpg is about 55, pretty good. It's got a 5-speed manual transmission, a dinky 1 liter 3-cylinder engine, zero-RPM "idle," and an 18hp electric motor (on the engine side of the clutch and transmission) that serves as the hybrid motor, the regenerator, and the starter for the engine.

The ammeter readout (labeled "Charge -- Discharge") trained me to optimize both acceleration and regenerative braking pretty well. Regenerative braking cuts out at 30mph in fifth gear. This isn't documented anyplace, but it's easy to sort out from the ammeter.

I'll tell you, though, this Insight's design is uncompromising in saving gross weight, and I think a lot of the efficiency comes from the low weight. I have a fat friend. When we ride together places, efficiency goes down to 45 mpg. (And no, I don't hassle him about it, in case you were wondering.)

Re:can't you just do this now?

[duffolonious]

Afaik, all engines - gasoline and electric are turned to have max efficiency at X rpms. With electric engines the max efficiency is near peak rpm's. With gasoline engines it's usually tuned to 2-3000 rpms.

This may be for technical reasons to some extent. But I'm pretty sure most of it deals with how they *expect* you to use the engine - and thus set the peak efficiency accordingly.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[nomadic]

Hahaha, best mod down ever!

Re:can't you just do this now?

[iksbob]

Coasting in neutral to a stop may actually consume more gas than coasting in gear. Modern fuel injected cars cut off the fuel supply to the engine when the throttle is closed, and the engine above idle speed. That means if you coast to a stop in gear (compression braking), you're not using any fuel. If you shift to neutral while coasting, the engine speed will drop and it will start using fuel to maintain idle.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Gospodin]

I just had a mental picture of the auto dashboard of 2050, complete with indicator lights reading "LOOK OUT!", "NOT SO FAST", "POTHOLE!", "SHARP TURN AHEAD", "DON'T FOLLOW SO CLOSE"... in other words, they've digitized my Mom and stuck her in the dash.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[zacronos]

I'd be surprised to see any modern car above the absolute lowest class without some kind of device that would keep track of fuel consumption.

That was GP's point -- you don't get that in modern cars unless you buy some outrageous upgrade. I'm not vouching for the truth of that statement, I'm just pointing out that GP is saying that most modern cars don't have a MPG meter.

Just because older cars don't have the MPG meter doesn't mean it has spread to almost all modern cars. Imagine this scenario: car manufacturers start including MPG meters in their cars. Drivers start to notice that 98% of the time, their car doesn't get the MPG the manufacturer advertised, and in fact sometimes gets a good bit less. Drivers start complaining. Someone has the bright idea that if they don't include these MPG meters as standard features they can eliminate the dissatisfaction. Hence, newer cars don't typically include a MPG meter, and only provide one as part of an expensive upgrade bundle (since that profit from the upgrade will probably help more than the dissatisfaction will hurt). If, in addition, it could be shown that the presence of an easily readable MPG meter on the dashboard would lead to significantly lower gasoline consumption (and thus correspondingly less pollution), would this not be an appropriate situation for regulation? The interests of the car manufacturer are hurt by including a MPG meter, so they won't readily do so in a free market, however the interests of the public are advanced by including it. Thus the government steps in and regulates in the public interest. That's how things are supposed to work, and I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think things might have gone as I described.

I'm not saying that's the best use of our lawmakers' working time, but I am saying it's not as ridiculous an idea as you make out. Have you ever lived in a metropolitan area that has ozone alerts in warmer weather resulting partly from the large amounts of car exhaust? It's not fun.

Re:can't you just do this now?

[Technician]

Also, energy capture during regenerative braking is imperfect both because it is easy to exceed the maximum charging rate of the batteries, and also because the charge/discharge cycle is not all that efficient (about 70% both ways, if memory serves.)

I have a hybrid and you are entirely correct in your assessment. Stop and go driving is hard on gas in both a conventional car and a hybrid. Mine shows the KW regenerated. Best economy is when I have little to no regeneration. Slowing gently instead of rush to a light and slam on the brakes saves gas by shutting down burning gas early. In creep and stop traffic a hybrid gets poor economy, but not near as bad as a conventional car simply becasue it shuts down. To get good MPG you have to travel the miles. Real slow and stopped do not acheive miles very fast. A hybrid makes great sense for stop and go driving such as UPS deliveries, City Buses, and Taxi Cabs.

Remember Katrina and the people running out of gas between 30 and 60 miles from New Orleans? In the same situation, in a hybrid, you may drop from about 50 MPG to 35 MPG, but you are not going to drain the tank of 16 gallons in 60 miles like many cars did. I'll take 25-30 MPG in a hybrid in creep and crawl traffic instead of 2-5 MPG some cars got. Just remember to shut off the AC and roll down the windows. Running the engine to run the AC when not moving burns a lot of gas.

A big advantage of regenerative braking is the majority of braking is regenerative at higher speeds. This greatly reduces wear. At 80 K miles, I bought new tires and had the brakes checked. I have 80% of the pads left. There is no alternator, power steering pump, fan, water pump, and other belt driven high failure items. My only belt is for the AC. On newer models they eliminated that belt and went to sealed electric AC. This change eliminating several other high wear high failure parts. (belts, AC clutch, flaxible hoses, shaft seal) As a benifit, the engine can run much less to provide AC in creep and go driving saving fuel. There is further saving by running the compresser at a speed independant of the enging speed. You get good cooling at a stop sign and you are not wasting fuel on the freeway by running the compressor at higher speed than needed. The savings is greater than the effeciency loss of the electric drive instead of the belt drive. Reliability by removal of high wear item is built in. I wish I had this feature on my car.

A smart car assumes an ocassional traffic slowdown. In a creep and stop situation, a smart car will not perform better than a hybrid which shuts the engine off before reaching a stop.

FYI, my average for last month is 45.6 MPG. It includes typical rush hour traffic with some creep and stop driving and a long trip of 180 miles each way over the mountains. I drive an 02 Prius. How you drive makes big changes in your results.

Hybrid Intelligent Cars?

[ZiakII]

But what aboout Hybrid Itelligent Cars being beter then Intelligent cars?

Re:Hybrid Intelligent Cars?

[RingDev]

The nature of hybrids means they are already recouping a lot of the wasted energy from slowing a car. That would make me expect that hybrids would receive less of an energy conservation boost from intelligent controls, but that they would be able to break later and still retain the same performance that conventional engines with intelligence have. So the net energy consumed would be (roughly) the same over all, but Hybrids could drive faster.

-Rick

Re:Hybrid Intelligent Cars?

[tarlos25]

You're pretty close. One of the biggest advantages hybrids have is that you can drive them just like a typical ICE car and get better mileage. However, if you start adding in prediction of driving conditions, your mileage will go even higher. I drive a Prius, and when I drive it like everyone else drives, I get around 50-55 MPG. When I predict what's ahead of me and plan for it to save gas, I get around 60-63 MPG. If I drove like a true hypermiler, I could get much better. The regenerative braking only recovers a portion of the energy you've already used. It's better to use less in the first place. But even when "coasting", the Prius is still recovering a small amount of energy. The only real way to get it to coast is to actually put the car in neutral or deadband the engine (there is a point at which the engine stops regenerating, but still isn't providing motive force, depending on conditions it can be REALLY difficult to hit). But either way, the intelligent car won't do any good if the driver can override it, because very few people want to drive conservatively.

Re:Hybrid Intelligent Cars?

[penguinstorm]

I want a hybrid intelligent FLYING car.

Where's my flying car? I was promised a flying car.

Until then, I pedal my way home.

why does this read like they are competing?

[jimstapleton]

the two techs could easily be put together in the same car, and make something much more efficient.

Intelligent Drivers

[eviloverlordx]

What we really need are intelligent drivers. You know, the ones that don't drive 20 over the speed limit, don't tailgate, keep their cars in tune and the tires properly filled.

Re:Intelligent Drivers

[eln]

No, what we really need are magical leprechauns who can convert all of our cars to run on rainbows and lollipops.

I think my idea is a lot more likely to happen than yours.

Re:Intelligent Drivers

[pla]

You know, the ones that don't drive 20 over the speed limit

Sorry, but I don't like everyone on the road passing me. That creates a far more dangerous condition than simply exceeding the artificially-low, revenue-maximizing "posted" limits.

If you can't keep up with traffic, get off the road.

Why not both?

[IceCreamGuy]

From the tone of the post, it seems like they're making an argument against hybrid cars by showing that they're no more efficient than regular cars with this new tech... but why not just stop comparing the two and combine them? Shouldn't the title read "Hybrid Car Efficiency Improves Even More with new Technology?"

Re:Why not both?

[Mr. Underbridge]

From the tone of the post, it seems like they're making an argument against hybrid cars by showing that they're no more efficient than regular cars with this new tech... but why not just stop comparing the two and combine them? Shouldn't the title read "Hybrid Car Efficiency Improves Even More with new Technology?"

Yup, they lose the debate through the old "Not mutually exclusive" argument. Not only that, but those "intelligent" driving techniques aren't always practicable, like in bumper to bumper traffic. That sort of thing is where Hybrids really shine - where speeds are averaging less than 20 mph and people spend time sitting. If I'm in a hybrid, my engine cuts off and I run off the battery for the start-n-stop traffic, and it charges back later. A regular car will typically get well under 10 mph in such situations; a hybrid will get around 60.

In other words, hybrids totally kick ass in the city - small, nimble, typically a short turning radius, and great mileage in city driving.

Weeell

[u-bend]

In my opinion, the chief function of hybrids has always been as a stepping stone. They're not great in and of themselves, and anything that merely reduces gasoline consumption rather than replacing it can be seen as something that prolongs oil dependence and all the problems associated with it. However, adoption of hybrids shows the big guys that the public is willing to invest in new and more efficient kinds of vehicles, and will hopefully fuel research into alternate energy sources.

You can do it without sensors, too.

[Kadin2048]

You don't need sophisticated sensors for this; in most situations, your vision alone is enough to give you 60 seconds of forewarning, or close to it, if you choose to drive "intelligently."

However, most people don't. They'll accelerate when they know there's a red light or stopped traffic in front of them, even though it just means they need to brake harder (and probably come to a complete stop, which they might have avoided by slowing down sooner); people follow too closely on highways and have to use their brakes, which really shouldn't be used for anything except emergencies (and the flashing of which screws up traffic behind them, because people think there's a problem); people mash down on the gas when they're just going to have to stop again in another 100 feet ... the capability for "intelligence" is there, but people choose not to do it.

Perhaps when gas costs more, people will choose to drive more efficiently.

Re:You can do it without sensors, too.

[stevedcc]

Perhaps when gas costs more, people will choose to drive more efficiently.

In the UK, "gas" as you call it ("petrol" as we call it") costs £0.95 to £1.00 a litre - which is over $7 a US gallon. Despite this, people still don't drive intelligently

Re:You can do it without sensors, too.

[drinkypoo]

it's safer to do it that way, rather than cause some person behind me to tailgate me.

While I agree with what is safer, you shouldn't take this attitude. You are NOT causing the person behind you to tailgate you. Only they can do that. That's why it's called tailgating and not frontbumpering.

In principle a technological solution, where the cars are sending each other data, could be used to warn all the cars behind, so that they uniformly coast and slow down. That would be a really neat technology, and would probably save alot on gas. The key is that all the cars would have to "play by the rules."

Not all of them, just most of them. Get the mass operating that way, and the prisoner's dilemma will work for us, not against.

Of course, even that would be a monumental achievement...

Re:You can do it without sensors, too.

[drinkypoo]

Gas can be $8.95 a gallon and you will still get the idiot that floors it when the light turns green and then brakes hard at the nest light.

Nest light? We're not talking about incubators here.

Seriously though folks, if gas hits $8.95 a gallon, you're going to see a lot more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road to begin with. DaimlerChrysler would have a hybrid SMART out in the US before you can say "holy fuck that's expensive" (both the gas and the car, I'd bet.)

Most of those cars will be astoundingly gutless...

Everyone agrees that smoking tobacco is bad for you, a pack of cigarettes here in michigan is nearing $6.00 a pack and it does not slow down the smokers or up taking of smoking by new people one tiny bit.

What you've successfully shown is that peer pressure and addiction are more serious motivators than common sense. Congratulations. But I don't think it relates to the topic at hand. During the Energy Crisis, the import cars were able to get a foothold in the market because for the first time consumers were motivated to decrease their energy usage. Today, fuel mileage is a major purchasing criteria for most people.

Of course, people buying SUVs just to haul kids around are dipshits. But there's always idiots out there.

Want economy?

[ackthpt]

• Drive the speed limit
• Avoid fast accelerations from a stop
• No lift kits, remove racks when not in use, reduce drag

food for thought...

[tomstdenis]

I drive a Ford Focus 2007 sedan and in the first couple weeks I had the car I drove fairly sporty [e.g. speed limit all the time no coasting] and got about 13L/100Km in the city. I've spent the last week and a bit driving more carefully, that is, coasting to stops, using cruise control whenever possible, not accelerating as quickly to the next redlight. When I filled up yesterday I purchased 15L of fuel for 154Km of distance. or about 10L/100Km.

In yankee, I'm getting 23.6MPG now instead of 18.2MPG (both in city) for a boost of 29.7% more MPG. I still do the speed limit, I'm just not as heavy on the gas. And when I hit the speed limit I use cruise control where possible. I also don't keep constant speed when there is a red up ahead. Usually I'm doing 20-30 kph under the limit by time I have to brake. If this could be helped via a computer I'm all for it.

Obviously my "study" isn't really comprehensive. But given that i do the same 14Km route every day there aren't a lot of variables in the mix.

Tom

Re:food for thought...

[im_mac]

Driving habits make a huge difference. I went with a couple friends on a road trip to Atlanta (from NY with a stop in Delaware). For the three of us in a Honda Civic, mileage ran from 30-37mpg. The amusing part? The 30 was from the guy who always used cruise control and the 37 was from me who never used it. It was all interstate driving, with similar amounts of traffic.

So intelligent drivers are important.

Hybrids means getting ready for our future

[suv4x4]

The article says they're not better, but don't claim they're worse either. Why does it matter to you, as a car owner, what makes your car more efficient. The bottomline is what counts, and if intelligent and hyrbids are both efficient, then great.

Also don't forget there are more reasons for hybrids to exist. We're not going to run on oil forever, and the effect it has on preparing the market for a chance shouldn't be downplayed. Plus, we have R & D and manifacturing/safety practices in the development of those cars won't go to waste, when "the time comes".

If anything, the real question isn't "why drive a hybrid when you can drive an intelligent car", but "where the heck are the intelligent hybrids?"...

Re:drivers that hurry to the next red light

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Yeah, but every once in a while we get through and leave you slugs behind, making it oh so worth it!

The idiot behind you

[Harmonious Botch]

I drive a lot for business, about 1500 miles / month in L.A and other parts of southern California. I have a conventional IC car, and driving carefully can save a significant amount of money, so I've tried to drive like TFA says...but this whole scheme does not take into account the guy behind you - the one who wants to rush up to that red light. They will honk, swerve in and out of traffic to get around you, and generally cause more trouble for you and surrounding drivers than it is worth.

Re:The idiot behind you

[iangoldby]

They will honk, swerve in and out of traffic to get around you

Then let them. I'd much rather have a dangerous driver in front of me so that I am in control of the gap than have them behind me where there is very little I can do. When I wave someone past to overtake me, it's usually a big vote of 'no confidence' in their driving.

Re:The idiot behind you

[Volante3192]

I'd say 3 miles is a bit extreme, but I have done quarter-mile coasts. Anyway, that's what the happy medium's for.

I go 65-70 on So. Cal freeways. Period. I also manage to keep a healthy 3 second window most of the time. I rarely brake. There are days I could make it from home to work without hitting the brake once (well, if it wasn't for red lights, right turns and parking).

They have room to pass me, and I give them all the room they want. I guess what it all boils down to is I'm comfortable with the size of my penis.

Re:The idiot behind you

[tentimestwenty]

If someone's been tailgaiting me in normal traffic when there is no hope of going faster or making extra lights, I'll usually pull over and let them pass too. When they angrily speed by to the next red light, I'll coast up behind them and if they hesitate even a fraction of second when the light turns, lay on the horn to show my impatience at waiting for them!

Re:The idiot behind you

[iangoldby]

It's not that complicated. As the gap between two cars gets smaller so the risk of the following car running into the back of the leading car increases. If I am driving the car behind, I get to choose how big to make that gap, so I can control the risk of collision. If I make the gap big enough, say 2 or 3 seconds, then I can all but eliminate the risk.

If I am in front then I have no control over the size of the gap. If I have to brake unexpectedly I'm trusting to luck that the nut job behind won't run into me.

Since most collisions on the roads are caused by drivers not leaving a big enough gap, taking control of the size of that gap seems like a pretty smart move to me.

Re:VAR (Vehicular Area Network)?

[Kadin2048]

Since this system has no overall control agent, the cars are like a distributed computing network. Since most traffic is caused by faulty driving I welcome this kind of thing without hesitation.

How do you stop someone from fixing their car to constantly broadcast "DANGER: MOOSE AHEAD" or "EMERGENCY VEHICLE APPROACHING" so they can use it to get through traffic faster?

I think the abuse potential of these technologies need to be carefully studied. If there's a way that any system can be used to create even the most minuscule advantage in traffic, or simply be used to cause mayhem, people will do it in spades.

Why "Hybrid cars no better"?

[DragonWriter]

First, the technologies aren't incompatible, competing technologies.

Second, the negative spin on hybrids is bizarre: that they—a widely available commercial technology—are "no better" than the tests suggest a proof-of-concept, not-yet-commercially-available technology might be if put into practical use is, well, a weird way of looking at things.

I mean, usually, that a presently available technology does just as well, with less specialized infrastructure, than a proof-of-concept isn't, even if they are directly competing, bad news for the existing technology, its bad news for the experimental alternative. "New, unproven technology offers no more than existing, popular technology" would be the usual way of looking at that.

Of course, they aren't competing technologies, there is no reason a hybrid couldn't benefit from being "intelligent" or vice-versa. Now, you might not get the full efficiency gains of each, since there is some overlap in their benefits vs. dumb non-hybrids, but you would expect more efficiency than either alone.

That'll never be legal

[snoyberg]

Sounds to me like a peer-to-peer network. The RIAA will never let that happen.

There is an easy way to increase gas mileage now:

[NeutronCowboy]

Coordinate the damn traffic lights. Yes, maybe I do have a knack for triggering a red light when I drive up to it. But what I don't understand is why on major expressways (essentially freeways through urban areas with traffic lights), red lights are triggered when a single car comes to a stop at a small cross road. The net effect is that in order to get a single car across the road in less than 20 seconds, 10 cars have to come to a stop for 20 seconds.

Seriously, is it that hard to tie the road sensors to timing chips? It doesn't even have to be done on all roads - but anything labeled an expressway, as well as a major roads with known traffic patterns should all have coordinated lights at all times. Expressway cuts through residential areas for 3 miles? Have a green wave run one way in the morning and the other way in the evening. Major road intersects with expressway? All lights on that major road are timed according to the same mechanism, except the one that controls the intersection with the expressway. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. Any improvement over the current idiocy of stopping 10 cars to prevent one car from idling for more than 20 seconds will result in a dramatic improvement in gas mileage.

How do I know? My car computer shows average gas mileage, as well as current. I can improve my gas mileage from 27 mpg to 32 mpg if I manage to coast through major roads at 45 mph, instead of having to stop at every friggin red light. All it takes is to have a timing chip control each light, program it according to traffic patterns and expected (or even desired!) speed of cars, and you're done. Instant improvement in gas mileage, and instant reduction in oil imports.

It boggles my mind how Europe had those things down pat 20 years ago, but here they still don't get the concept of a green wave on major roads.

Need Smarter Hybrids

[superid]

As others have already pointed out, hybrids could benefit from this too.

I have a prius. I have a 20+ mile commute one way. Yesterday I averaged 70.3 MPG for the trip home. I did this using manual "look ahead" and very carefully planning braking and coasting just to see how high I could get it. You can easily blow 10MPG with one bonehead maneuver from lack of attention but this manual concentration on mileage is probably as distracting as talking on a cell phone.

I'd welcome the technology in my prius or in my SUV. Both can benefit.

Re:Need Smarter Hybrids

[clonmult]

On the UKs top gear, they did the same run, in very similar traffic in both a Prius and a VW (I think it was a Lupo Diesel).

The Diesel gave better mileage, and some of the current spate of diesels result in lower emissions than the Prius. And they're often much better on fuel usage as well. The Prius is clever, but not the right way to go.

Me, I'm sticking to my '99 BMW 318iS. I just cannot get it under 30mpg. Did a long run (250 miles is a fair drive in the UK), averaged between 80 and 110mph, and it got 34mpg. Return journey was a little more sedate, between 70 and 80. Averaged about 45mpg. Thats from a relatively sporting car as well ..... haven't had the car for long, but its bloody excellent on fuel.

Reckon it'll be time for a track day son, reckon it should get under 20 to the gallon during that .....

Backwards Headline

[Doc Ruby]

Hybrid cars are better than the typical cars. Now there's a prediction that "intelligent cars" will also be better than typical cars, as much better as are hybrids. So the correct headline is

"'Intelligent Cars' As Good As Hybrid Cars"

Otherwise the headline is about hybrids, which this story is not about. And it implies that hybrids aren't so good, as if not-so-good "intelligent cars" are their benchmark.

Plus, the research is only a single prediction of a complex system yet to be built, let alone tested, so a correct headline would be in the future tense, anyway.

how about intelligent city design?

[nominanuda]

I have a honda insight, and since I've moved to Providence, RI, I've seen my fuel efficiency drop from an average of 70 miles per gallon per tank of gas (in Connecticut driving mostly on back roads at moderate speeds) to 60ish (mostly city driving) in Ann Arbor, to barely 45 mpg here in Rhode Island. I am convinced that it is mostly the fault of poor traffic planning here. I've never seen a city with worse timing for the lights. You will often get a green light only to be forced to stop 30-40 feet away at another light that turned red the very instant your light turned green (Benefit and Waterman/Angell anyone?)

with that said, i always did wonder how much of my great mileage in Connecticut was due to the fact that I could watch and keep track of my mpg. ie. would I see a similar increase in mileage in a non-hybrid car just by being able to monitor my driving efficiency?

Wool Coat No Better than 'Intelligent' Coat

[mypalmike]

Well, except that I can actually buy a wool coat.

Re:VAR (Vehicular Area Network)?

[name_already_taken]

How do you stop someone from fixing their car to constantly broadcast "DANGER: MOOSE AHEAD" or "EMERGENCY VEHICLE APPROACHING" so they can use it to get through traffic faster?

Ummmm... make it illegal to transmit false traffic data? Just like it's illegal in many jurisdictions to use those devices that signal to traffic lights that your car is an emergency vehicle so that the lights give you priority (unless your car is actually an emergency vehicle).

Seems kinda obvious.

Fact versus Fiction

[Egnever]

The paper in the first link is just that - it's a paper. This is something that is THEORETICAL. Not something that is actual. It's like Hydrogen powered cars - until you can actually buy it, it is a bunch of hot air.

As for the second article, the notion of cars talking to eachother and the roads is great. That's not the world we live in yet though. This requires auto-makers to start adding this to their cars, as well as massive expensive modifications to the road system. Convincing every state, county, municipality, etc in the US to install this stuff would be very hard - especially since not everyone is a techie. Even if Congress were to mandate it, it would still take a long time to see it deployed.

These things are clearly future possibilities. They are not present options. There's a huge difference. It's fact versus fiction at this point. I think the way that this is presented makes it seem like you have a choice between these two, and that they are competing. This is not an either/or kind of thing. You could put the intelligent car technology in any vehicle - hybrid or not.

Sorry for being a troll. Seems like someone should point this out.

I'm all for more intelligence being used by regular people.

Killing two birds with one stone

[TheWoozle]

We can end our dependence on fossil fuels and solve the obesity problem in the U.S. in one fell stroke: ban automobiles and give everyone a bicycle.

Not to mention that road fatalities would drop to effectively zero.

I'm not saying...I'm just saying.

Re:Killing two birds with one stone

[DragonWriter]

We can end our dependence on fossil fuels and solve the obesity problem in the U.S. in one fell stroke: ban automobiles and give everyone a bicycle.

Not to mention that road fatalities would drop to effectively zero.

Millions of out-of-shape obese people forced, overnight, into bicycle commutes, often in the tens of miles?

I think "effectively zero" fatalities is rather unrealistic.

Re:Killing two birds with one stone

[TheWoozle]

Yeah, I know. Practicality and all that.

Personally, I think several of our social problems stem from the automobile culture and it's effect on our city planning and lives.

Perhaps if people, oh, I don't know... didn't live 30 miles from where they worked? If our city planners allowed for the necessary commercial establishments (grocery & drug stores, etc.) to be integral parts of a neighborhood instead of having enormous residential zones separated by equally enormous commercial zones? What about all of the land we waste on roads and parking lots? The list goes on and on...

What really gets me is all the people who are outraged about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq, but don't bat an eye at the fact that the total number of lives lost (both Iraqi and occupation forces) over 5 years is less than a single year of fatalities on the roads in the U.S. I mean, in Iraq they're actually *trying* to kill each other, and they can't top the number of *accidental* deaths on our roads?! Why do we put up with this nonsense?

Re:I don't think this is what people want...

[Lord Bitman]

More to my own point: if the car's going to drive itself, why not take mass transit?

Technology is not the answer

[Colin Smith]

We must solve these problems through technology because making other people change their lifestyle is just not practical. Sorry, this is bollocks. The solution is simple. Make energy expensive.

Human beings consume resources up to the limit of what is available unless they have to pay for it. Well we consume huge amounts of energy because it's cheaper than it has been ever before in history. If energy was expensive people would be very careful about how they used it, including buying more energy efficient devices.

Re:Technology is not the answer

[bnenning]

Absolutely. Specifically, tax the negative externalities of energy use, such as pollution and traffic congestion. A fundamental law of economics is that when you tax something, you get less of it. Currently most of our taxes are on good things like labor, investment, and profit. Shifting those taxes to bad things should be a no-brainer.

Re:I always coast up to red lights.

[tomstdenis]

Yeah, how shameful of them for doing the speed limits!!! I love doing that. I hit the limit as close as I can then stick on cruise and watch the faces in the rear view mirror. Seeing people get angry for doing what's expected of yourself is just awesome. Watching them fly passed me only to have to slow down and stop at the same red light is priceless.

Re:There is an easy way to increase gas mileage no

[jo7hs2]

There are a few places that do this, mostly in tourist areas. Ocean City, Maryland has a rolling green light timing that works very well. Here in Birmingham, US 280 is a prime example of a road in need of proper timing. With lights, it can take an hour to get 8 miles, without, it takes 8 minutes. If I drive during rush hour all week, I get 280 miles to a tank. If I drive all week when there is no traffic, 400+ miles to a tank. Just because of the traffic the lights cause to get small feeder road users onto the main road.

Re:hybrid cards are no better than DUMB cars

[Paulrothrock]

125cc Motor Scooter: $2500
Year of insurance for 125cc motor scooter: $98
Tank of premium gas for 125cc motor scooter: $3.84
Getting 80mpg: Priceless.

NO, you can't just do this now.

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Believe me, I've tried.

three minutes of coasting up to a red light or halted traffic

I often find myself in a half-mile back up of cars at a stop sign. I'm in a rural area that's quickly being developed and adequate traffic control devices (IOW, stop lights) haven't been installed everywhere. It's obvious as all hell that a perfectly reasonable way to get to the intersection is to just idle along. A gap will open in front of me then I'll idle through it. Before I get to the car in front of me, it will have again opened a gap and then stopped while I just idle smoothly along.

Sounds reasonable, right? Well, apparently not. I've had drivers behind me go into apoplectic fits, screaming and flipping me off, because I allowed a half-dozen car lengths to open ahead of me. I've had drivers pass me on the shoulder where there is no shoulder (I literally mean a two lane road with big, scary ditches on the sides) because they couldn't stand to see a gap in front of me. I've had drivers pull out of line, swerve in front of me, then watch their mirror as I idled up from behind and slam on the brakes as I approached, attempting to cause an accident that would be my fault. I hate to ascribe motives to people I don't know, but that seems to me to be just an attempt to "get" me for not driving like everybody else.

Hell, I've actually been stopped in a long line at a red light and had this happen. I was taught that you should stop far enough behind the car in front to see their rear tires on the ground. If they stall out, this gives you enough room to go around. Well, given the right combination of hood and bumper heights, this can also leave enough room in front to fit a small car. On three separate occasions over the past couple of years, I've had the car behind me whip out and pull in front of me (never *quite* fitting into the space) because I left too much room in front of me while we were ALL stopped at a light.

Nope, you can't drive steady in the U.S. It's apparently not allowed. You must floor the gas, roar up twenty feet, and slam on the brakes to stop every time someone in line in front of you clears the stop sign.

People are idiots. No wonder researchers tend to look for technological solutions to human problems.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[putaro]

Ummm, no. If, rather than starting/stopping you just maintain the average speed that you *were going to be traveling anyway* it doesn't obstruct anyone, everyone has a much smoother drive and you get there just as quickly/slowly as you would have anyhow.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[KiahZero]

Driving at an average speed rather than peaking and stopping doesn't create traffic jams, it eliminates them. By traveling at an average speed, the people behind you don't have to stop, and you can eliminate the compression wave causing the stop-and-go.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[Keys1337]

Nope, you can't drive steady in the U.S. It's apparently not allowed. You must floor the gas, roar up twenty feet, and slam on the brakes to stop every time someone in line in front of you clears the stop sign.

People are idiots. No wonder researchers tend to look for technological solutions to human problems.

People can be idiots, but from what you are telling me, I think those drivers are acting somewhat rationally. Their behavior is a bit extreme, but their thought process is that they have identified you as a slow driver and they don't want to be behind slow drivers. Granted they are approaching a red light or stop sign, but they are thinking ahead, and assume you will drive too slow after the stop. You may in fact not be a slow driver in general. But the general population of drivers has made a mental association with people who behave the way you did when approaching a stop, with people who drive infuriatingly slow after the stop.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[jafac]

Yes, that's one of my chief indicators of whether I need to get out from behind someone, is if they brake too early coming up to a stop; or if they drive at a safe distance from the car in front. Sad but true. I also judge based on the vehicle type ("sportiness", if it's an older car, if it's in bad shape, pickups, minivans, commercial trucks, etc.) The payoff in passing these people, is that if they ARE slow drivers, you don't get stuck behind them and suffer the consequences of their slow driving habits (stopping at yellow lights, instead of safely driving through, slow acceleration from a stop - and the WORST - letting slower traffic get in front of them; now you're behind TWO slowpokes, and your lag is now doubled).

It's really the same exact kind of reasoning you use at the grocery store checkout lines. Don't get behind the pregnant woman with two small children, and overflowing grocery cart, who will take a half hour unloading, and another half hour paying with a combination of checks and food stamps. Get in line behind the well-dressed businesslady who's only there to buy a bag of coffee beans - holding the cash in her hand.

The whole reason we drive, is for convenience. We're trying to save time in our lives, so we can spend more time doing something we'd rather be doing. We spend an hour in stop-n-go traffic, driving to work, because the train trip, while it only takes 30 minutes, forces you to wait 15 for the train to arrive, and adds 20 minutes walking time from the train station (or additional cab/bus fare, etc.) - People with this mind set will do all kinds of things trying to optimize the task of driving as far is legally and safely possible. That includes not subjecting yourself to the habits of "slower" drivers.

Don't get me wrong, there's a rude and unsafe way to protect your ability to progress through traffic, and there's a safe, and prudent, and polite way. Now; I say that a person who brakes too early - that's a "warning sign" - but in of itself, is not a behavior that costs ME anything, to be behind that person. It just makes me suspect that they're going to be slow off the line when the light does go green. It's a guilt-by-association, that's probably pretty weak. I'll admit that. But man, if you get *stuck* behind a slow driver, it's often really hard to get out from behind them, because you need speed to accelerate into a lane-change - if the fast-lane is moving significantly faster, it can be impossible to get around a slow driver because of that. So yeah, I understand the motivation. But people need to be cool about it.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[asuffield]

I've had drivers pass me on the shoulder where there is no shoulder (I literally mean a two lane road with big, scary ditches on the sides) because they couldn't stand to see a gap in front of me. I've had drivers pull out of line, swerve in front of me, then watch their mirror as I idled up from behind and slam on the brakes as I approached, attempting to cause an accident that would be my fault.

Wow, US drivers must be insane. Here in the UK, if anybody tried things like that that and the police spotted them, or several witnesses reported them, they would be banned from driving for life and probably sent to jail. Deliberate dangerous driving (which both those things are) is a crime on a par with manslaughter (since that's what it usually results in, if those people aren't kept off the roads).

People are idiots. No wonder researchers tend to look for technological solutions to human problems.

The solution is to remember that driving a large dangerous weapon is a privilege, not a right. If they can't or won't stop being idiots, then they can be idiots on bicycles.

Re:NO, you can't just do this now.

[mykdavies]

The longer you take to move up, the more traffic backs up at the back, and the more people who obstructed who are trying to get on/off the road. But at least you save 5 cents on your petrol bill... Come on, think about the engineering here; which is more efficient: turbulent or laminar flow?

The standard reference for this take on the topic is here: http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html

Re:Hmmm.

[AaronW]

Actually, the Prius can run the gasoline motor at a constant RPM in the way it is designed. The actual speed of the output is controlled exclusively by two motors/generators. One motor is optimized for generating electricity and the other is optimized for providing torque to the wheels. By varying the amount of power shunted from the generator to the motor the output speed can be controlled since more power from the generator causes it to draw higher torque from the engine which in turn causes the power sent to the wheels from the engine to decrease, but increases the speed. A diagram is shown here.

In practice, the engine runs at a variety of speeds, but it seems to prefer running the engine at the most efficient speed and torque when it can.

Stick-shift Economy Lamp

[Latent Heat]

The professional drivers who run the EPA test cycles on the rollers upshift pretty aggressively to save gas on the test. The EPA said, "No way anyone drives that way" so I think that applied yet another deduction to the test numbers of EPA mileage for stick-shift cars to account for the opposite extreme of the lamer who allow the engine to fully rev before each shift. I didn't think they told the test drivers what the shift points should be but instead applied a deduction to account for non-geek drivers who don't know about engine maps.

The loophole around that deduction was if you had an E-light (economy) or U-light (for upshift), you could get a waiver from the mandatory deduction and hence report higher gas mileage for your model of car.

If you drive the E-light, it does feel like you are lugging the engine and putting more stress on the bearings, but the object of the gas mileage test was to shift in such a way as to optimize gas mileage, not engine life. I have driven with an E-light, and it is annoying because even if you know what you are doing, it keeps nagging you with flashes, but keep in mind that it has to do with government regs and is not a serious driving aid, although it can tell you how much upshifting the engineers had in mind.

Re:Hmmm.

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps they are talking [out of their ass] about cars that don't use the motor to drive the wheels, but instead use it to drive a generator?

There is no absolutely accepted terminology to separate that type of hybrid from the kind of hybrid where the engine is coupled to the transmission and helps to drive the vehicle directly.

It does make good sense however, because a motor or a generator can be over 90% efficient. Even with those losses added together it's comparable to the loss of a traditional drivetrain, and it has the potential to eliminate substantial weight by eliminating drivelines and the like, although this benefit would be most marked in an all wheel drive vehicle, and is probably least in front wheel drive systems.

And as we all know, gasoline engines are most efficient at a given RPM and load, and they operate at some fraction of that efficiency at all other times. Using a generator-charging system is the way to get the absolute most efficiency out of them.

I'd like to see that option explored with very small direct-injection two strokes, which should be a great way to further decrease weight and improve efficiency.

Hybrids, Shmybrids. Intelligence, Inshmelligence.

[Ambiguous Coward]

Hybrids? Bah! Intelligent cars? Bah! Drive a motorcycle. I have an early 90's model Yamaha that easily gets 70mpg. On some of the newer bikes, you can get 80 or 90. Some may have broken 100. Plus, you still get to race to the next light, stop, idle, and take off again like you do in your car! Now, imagine the mileage of an intelligent hybrid motorcycle.

Alternate solution: don't ever leave the house. Perfect mileage! Let the pizza delivery guy worry about mileage. :P

-G

Score -1, Retarded

[Platypii]

We have "personal rapid transit" and its called "cars."

Are you suggesting is installing train tracks to every house and business in america? And then people need to wait for a vehicle to pick them up? Or will they own their own? (like a car). Also, how will this system deal with passing, and avoiding obstacles, such as children running out on the tracks (which would now be everywhere, in your trasnportation "utopia").

If your main point was that it should be electric instead of fossil-fuel based, then I agree with you... but in regular cars and using our existing road system.

Re:Score -1, Retarded

[drinkypoo]

Are you suggesting is installing train tracks to every house and business in america?

No, I'm suggesting we run train tracks near to every house and business in America. Everyone else can use a golf cart or similar to get themselves and their cargo to/from the PRT.

Also, how will this system deal with passing

The system will be smart enough to schedule vehicles to detour them around other vehicles. Busy areas will have sidings, just like we've been doing for trains for decades.

and avoiding obstacles, such as children running out on the tracks (which would now be everywhere, in your trasnportation "utopia").

The tracks are elevated in most areas, to get them out of the way. The streets can be reclaimed for bicycles, pedestrians, and local utility traffic. The vehicles can trivially detect obstacles through a combination of RADAR and LIDAR, especially given the uniform quality of their chosen path.

If your main point was that it should be electric instead of fossil-fuel based, then I agree with you... but in regular cars and using our existing road system.

Look, I enjoy the personal freedom of driving a car, too. I love driving! There are few things I enjoy more, and nothing makes me feel more alive, than screaming through a canyon at the limits of the tires, pushing around corners, the works. But I accept the fact that my ability to do this (or even just to drive like a sane person - which is what I do when I'm around other drivers, including slowing down when I spot them even if they're not in my lane because if one of us does something stupid or has an equipment failure we can end up attempting to occupy the same space) is not beneficial to society as a whole, or to the environment, or to a lot of other things.

But the highway system is not the answer. California, which has tons of people spread out everywhere, and tons of square mileage to cover, meaning tons of roads, can't afford the current maintenance costs - and they aren't enough to maintain the roads! As the population grows this is only going to become more of a problem. Sure, California has earthquakes, and they definitely take their tool on roads simply by causing settling. But the rest of the country has various natural events which also destroy roads, so it's not like we have a monopoly on that problem. We hardly do any road scraping or salting, for example.

The nation's rail network was dismantled due to lobbying by the auto industry that wanted that money spent on highways. Well, they got it. Now you can only take trains along a select few corridors. The cost in pollution and simple overall energy expenditure for cars to move all these people as opposed to trains is immense! With trains you have a limited number of vehicles that are used by everyone, running on a highly durable surface. With cars you have a huge number of vehicles, more likely to crash (since they have free movement, at least on one plane) and harder to control from an emissions standpoint, driving on road surfaces which not only take up far more space than rail, but are also dramatically more expensive to maintain because of their very nature.

The PRT concept is a way of protecting most of the things that people like most about cars, while maintaining the benefits of trains. Its only flaw - and it is definitely a big one - is convincing people to buy into it. That alone is probably going to remain a show-stopper longer than I will be alive. But it makes far more sense than the current situation of masses of cars on expensive surfaces.

Re:VAR (Vehicular Area Network)?

[profplump]

The same way you stop people from using lights and sirens so they can get through traffic faster -- you make it a crime and enforce that rule against people that are obviously breaking it. If they are influencing traffic in any significant way you could see that effect and it wouldn't be terribly difficult to record the broadcasts in the area and correlate them with the vehicle weaving through traffic.

Convincing people

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Now, the real question will be whether or not you can convince consumers that the three minutes of coasting up to a red light or halted traffic is worth the 33 percent less gas and replacing your brake pads/cylinders less often.

All you have to do is make it so people who have this feature get an extra vote on Dancing With The Stars or American Idol. BOOYAH! Instant success.

Whats better than hybrids? Better hybrids.

[GreyFlcn]

Whats better than a hybrid?
Building a better hybrid.

In particular a plugin hybrid electric vehicle.
Or in this case a prius with a bigger battery.
(Although a fully electric car, with the bare minimum for a gasoline generator is more ideal)

This study found that in regions where electricity comes primarily from natural gas, a plugin hybrid puts up 3x less CO2 emmisions.
And in the least green region of the United States powered almost entirely by coal.
They found that the CO2 emmisions per mile were practically idential to a normal hybrid.
http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t061.htm

Whats more, we could replace 84% of the US fleet of cars with electric, and not need to build even 1 new power plant by leveraging downtime grid usage. (More fuel use, but no new infrastructure needed)
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2006/12/plu gin_nation_g.html

Whats more, by having the distributed battery network stabalize the grid capacity.
We could actually make the grid far more reliable than it is today.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17930/
http://news.com.com/2100-11392_3-6174672.html

And there's some pretty sexy electric cars on the way.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png

_

Cool part about all this?
You can get electricity from the grid at a cost similar to 50 cents a gallon.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins

And it's the perfect, "flexible fuel", since electricity can come from practically anything.
Unlike Ethanol for instance, which might be even worse than gasoline in pollution.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
And biodiesel, which could potentially make Indonesia/Malaysia put up more CO2 than China.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/biofuel

Best part about this from an environmental perspective, is that combines two big problems into one.
So all you have to do is green the grid, to green everything.

And that can readily be provided by printable solar panels
http://www.greyfalcon.net/pv

And geothermal using inexpensive super powered electric drilling motors
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=1206
http://www.rasertech.com/media/movies/html/well_to _wheels.html
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/1088

Re:That makes no sense

[pestie]

1. Oh, like the speed limit is anything other than a suggestion.
2. I'd still rather have a reckless driver crash behind me than in front of me.
3. Then let him pass, and back off enough to let him get way ahead of you.

Prius owner chiming in, braking not the big winner

[Weaselmancer]

I own a 2007 Prius. IMHO, you're correct about the regenerative braking not being the big money maker in the vehicle. It's the hybrid train switching off the engine when you're on the freeway on slight declines.

It's got a screen that shows your energy consumption, including the net gains from the regenerative braking, and I watch it fairly closely as I drive. If you're on a slight decline, the car gets around 75mpg with the gas engine providing minimal torque. The scale maxes at 100 when the engine shuts off, and that'll happen on the freeway sometimes too. Occasionally I can drive the thing on a non-flat road under 35mph it'll switch to all electric as well. On slight incline, it's about 20-25mpg, depending on if I'm trying to accelerate. A round trip averages out to around 50mpg, and that's what I'm seeing. My average is 52mpg.

As for the regenerative braking, the display will show you how much energy you net in a five minute period by a collection of little green "leaves". For every 50 watt-hours, you get a green leaf. Usually I net a half of one in a five minute period. That's not much at all. Best I've done is 4 I think, and I was coasting downhill a lot on that 5 minute segment.

So a really good five minute drive will net you three leaves, or about 150w/h. If we do the math on that, here's how that breaks down. (no pun intended)

A gasoline engine is about 20% efficient. A gallon of gas holds 115,000 BTUs, which is 33.69Kwh. A car will make use of about 20% of that, so a gallon of gasoline will provide you with 6.738Kwh, or 6378wh. Those three leaves add up to 2.35% of a gallon of gas. With gas at $3/gallon, those three leaves save you $3 * 2.35% = 7 cents.

Nope, not much money there. The big savings is when the thing coasts or nearly coasts on the freeway. That's why the smart-car idea that makes you coast a lot produces similar savings. No surprises there.

As AC pointed out in the sibling thread...

[sean.peters]

Cheap gas is why MPG hasn't gone up. And gas is being kept at an artificially low price by the "defense subsidy": we're using general tax revenue to pay for an enormous defense force, a main function of which is to maintain stability in the middle east. If motorists had to pay a gas tax to fund the portion of the defense budget devoted to USCENTCOM (plus other oil producing areas such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Venezuela, etc... but CENTCOM is by far the biggest), you'd see prices that reflected the actual costs of providing gasoline, and MPGs would go up in a big hurry.

Why not combine the technologies?

[timpaton]

We see these stories all the time.

"Hybrid cars are no better than intelligent cars".

Excellent work with the automation system. Now let's put this intelligent autopilot in a hybrid car and see what we can get.

"Hybrids are no better than a modern turbodiesel"

Excellent work with the diesel engine development. Now let's build a turbodiesel hybrid. With intelligent autopilot.

The technologies aren't mutually exclusive. They don't have to be compared against each other. They can be combined for even better results.

Of course, the law of diminishing returns applies. An intelligent turbodiesel hybrid may only be a couple of percent more efficient than an intelligent spark ignition hybrid. But as a research tool and technology demonstration, why don't we hear of anybody building such a thing?

Re:Why not combine the technologies?

[bhtooefr]

Here's the latest:

http://www.channel4.com/4car/feature/feature.jsp?i d=740

And, VW's been doing this for ages - I've found evidence of their "single-shaft" diesel-electric hybrid prototype dating back to 1987. I don't know about the function of the Golf ECO.Power, which is VW's latest version, but they claimed an AVERAGE of 3.8 L/100km with that one. (That's 62 US MPG.) Not too shabby.

Re:Never understood vacuum gauge as economy aid

[lnjasdpppun]

The downside to braking hard is more what your not doing instead. If I don't brake hard I'm letting the car slow itself purely with 'engine braking', which in a modern (ie EFI/computerised fuel system - this might not be the case with Automatics, but it sure is with Manual 'stick' gearboxes) car uses 0 fuel instead of trying to hold the car at a steady speed until I slam the brakes on which uses >0 fuel. Also coasting (as in no acceleration or braking just letting the car slow naturally) up to a bunch of stopped traffic or a red light gives a much bigger window of time where the traffic can move or the light go green so I don't have to stop, I just slow down a bit and any speed I keep is a bit of speed I don't have to waste fuel getting back.

Re:Misinformation about manifold vacuum

[cecil_turtle]

Your post is well titled, as it does in fact contain misinformation about manifold vacuum :) . I also never stated that watching vacuum was a good way of maximizing fuel efficiency, I was merely explaining the theory to my parent. Later in my post I explained what actually determines maximum MPG efficiency.

you want the engine to be in an efficient power band, which is actually at low manifold vacuum and lower engine revs.

Efficiency <> low manifold vacuum <> lower engine revs (necessarily). Greater vacuum is caused by the difference between the current throttle position and current engine speed / power output. Once the engine has "caught up" to the throttle position the vacuum diminishes. For an exaggerated example look at how turbo cars build boost - floor it from idle = maximum vacuum, then it approaches atmospheric pressure as the engine speeds up, then the turbo spools up and you build toward positive pressure and maximum boost - somewhere in the positive pressure side is where you achieve maximum fuel efficiency (vs. engine power). Also, your statement that I quoted above seems to be at odds with your later statement:

there is an island of maximum fuel efficiency in the mid RPM range somewhat below but not much below wide open throttle.

So are you saying fuel efficiency is achieved at "low manifold vacuum and lower engine revs" or "not much below wide open throttle"?

Let me clarify something: fuel efficiency <> MPG efficiency. They can be related, but fuel efficiency is with regard to fuel consumption vs. engine power, MPG is fuel consumption vs. distance traveled. Achieving MPG efficiency involves many more variables external to the engine, most of which grossly outweigh operating the engine at its peak efficiency. There should definitely be a correlation in vehicles that are designed for good MPG, but again see my original post for more explanation of the dynamics involved.

so that a little bit of manifold vacuum is required to prevent spark knock, and at wide open throttle, you retard the spark and operate a little bit less efficiently

I'm not really sure what you're driving at here. I assume the "knock" you're speaking of is pre-ignition and not detonation. At WFO you retard the spark not to operate less efficiently, but to be timed with the down stroke and not pound the top of the piston prematurely. If the compression were too high for the fuel, pre-ignition would occur on compression and delaying the spark would have no effect. As such, delaying the spark is to increase efficiency.

accelerate so slowly that the gauge never comes out of the "green." That kind of driving is just plain sillyness.

Agreed. Driving at +15psi boost is much more fun.