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Mazda Claims 70 mpg For New Engine, No Hybrid Needed
thecarchik writes "There's no word on when the new version of the Mazda2 will finally reach the US but when it does we can reveal that it will return a fuel economy of 70 mpg — without the aid of any electric motors. This is because the car will feature Mazda's next-generation of drivetrain, body and chassis technologies, dubbed SKYACTIV. The new Mazda 2 will come powered by a SKYACTIV-G engine, Mazda's next-generation direct injection gasoline mill that achieves significantly improved fuel efficiency thanks to a high compression ratio of 14.0:1 (the world's highest for a production gasoline engine)." I wonder if a real-life-real-drivers 70 mpg car is what will actually arrive, or if such promises will dissolve like Chevy's promises about the Volt did.
Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG. With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.
Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make. They are typically quieter when cruising as the RPM is often about 1000RPM lower than a petrol engine.
Normally high compression engines require high octane fuel, which costs more to produce. In the past they used to add a lead compound to (cheaply) improve the octane rating. Won't be allowed to do that these days...
It might get more MPG, but if the fuel costs more than teice as much per gallon you aren't going to save $$$
Stopping and starting an engine also wastes energy.
Burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing.
Yeah, right. Try starting and stopping the engine at every stop light when it's forty below zero outside... even aside from the lack of heat inside we quite often see cars that have stalled in those temperatures and simply won't start again.
Older cars were so economical because they were so light. Newer cars are far more robust in an accident.
Safety or economy, choose one.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Stopping and starting an engine also wastes energy.
It's certainly true if you repeatedly start and stop a car made in 1960's.
But it won't be true if the ICE is designed for that. For example, Prius has no 1900-era DC brush starter, and the ICE can be started with electrical energy or the mechanical energy produced by the inertia of the car. The energy "wasted" to compress the air in the cylinder before first ignition is returned thousandfold in a millisecond.
More importantly, how much is it in furlongs per fluid ounce?
Code fix. If external_temp -20F, don't shutdown. Wow, that was *extremely* difficult.
Which part of 'burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing' are you having a hard time understanding?
I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.
But how often do you do that? If (like me) you only leave town twice a year, it makes more sense to rent on those occasions.
Called "auto start stop".
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficient_dynamics/phase_2/technologies/auto_start_stop.html
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Yeah, right. Try starting and stopping the engine at every stop light when it's forty below zero outside
It's a trivial engineering task. Prius, for example, has auxiliary electric heaters, and it maintains the engine temperature (and battery charge) automatically. If it's -40C outside the ICE will run a bit more, and that's all. This shouldn't be of any concern to the driver unless he lives in Alaska; then he'd be getting worse MPG than people in California do.
And on the subject of starting a cold ICE in cold weather. Hybrids start the ICE at higher RPM, and they have 100x power of a standard starter. So if the ICE in a hybrid doesn't start it's because something is broken, not because your battery is frozen solid and the starter barely spins the crankshaft.
Just because there's a tradition of high speed heavy vehicles doesn't mean it makes sense or is the optimum form of transportation.
However, high speed vehicles overtook horses as a method of transport mainly because of convenience, speed and range. You can travel 300km on a horse, but that would take you more than a day (because your horse will need to rest), but in a car, you can get there in less than 3 hours.
My favorite one being the poster's uncle's-brother's-cousin's-father somehow "stacking" carbs back in the '70s to improve fuel atomization, yet somehow the oil industry always buried the patents. Except that fuel injectors do a better job of atomization than any silly arrangement of carbs.
The origin of this apparently started around 1930. The patent would now be public domain. It was never used, not because the oil companies buried it, but because it does not, in fact, work:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp
Not a typewriter
No, it's because for the last 25 years automakers have catered to people's very marketable desire to go faster over their only recently discovered desire to go "green". Fuel was more expensive in Europe, and money less plentiful in the rest of the world, so they focused more on efficiency. Over here in the states we had plenty of money, and plenty of cheap gas, so we designed our cars for that environment. All engines have gotten more efficient over the years, but where a Euro might use that extra efficiency to save gas, we used it to go faster. What's worse is that American drivers now think that if their basic commuter car can't outrun a sports car from 25 years ago, they're getting cheated somehow.
1984 Porsche 944 - 150hp, 2900lbs
2011 Honda Accord EX - 190hp, 3300lbs
There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds, or a top speed of 120mph+, yet that's become a totally normal performance envelope. You have to push boundaries that would have been muscle car territory not that long ago to officially be considered "sporty".
70mpg is misleading for this automobile, as is the article. These numbers are based on the Japanese test cycle, which also states the Toyota Prius achieves 89 mpg).
src : http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/mazda-next-generation-mazda-2-will-get-70-m-p-g/
-- cut --
The Mazda release said the car would achieve 70 miles per gallon, but that number was based on the Japanese test cycle, meaning American mileage would be lower. A 15 percent increase from the existing Mazda 2 would result in a combined 37 m.p.g. (For comparison, the Toyota Prius, which gets a combined 50 m.p.g. from the Environmental Protection Agency, achieves 89 m.p.g. in the Japanese test.)
-- cut --
I'm not knocking progress but...
This merely represents an improvement in dead-end technology (burning things to go places).
--Richard
Code fix. If external_temp -20F, don't shutdown. Wow, that was *extremely* difficult.
Which part of 'burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing' are you having a hard time understanding?
Probably the part where that statement is always true in all situations. Absolutes are rarely correct.
At extremely low temperatures, you need the waste heat from the engine to provide passenger compartment heat for defrosting the windows. If your heater doesn't work correctly around here in the coldest part of winter, it's very possible to have frost form on the inside of the windows as well as the outside.
Battery performance is also lower in extreme cold weather, so you really need the alternator producing power to keep the battery charged. Winter driving here often means your lights are on during the daytime, the heater blower is running at one of the higher speeds and the rear-window is being electrically heated. Without power from the alternator, you wouldn't get very far.
In those cases, turning fuel into electricity is a really good idea.
Because of the short (3 mile) drive to work and back, I had problems the last three winters with the battery not being quite fully charged and I had to put it on charge at home. I'd notice it the next time I'd start the car that the starter would turn the engine a little slower each time. I had the alternator and battery tested and they both were working at their rated capacities (they have some fantastic lead-acid battery analyzers now). This year I changed to an AGM battery that will accept the charge faster (draws more Amperes of current from the alternator), upgraded to a high-output alternator (250A) and changed the wiring between the alternator and battery to heavier gauge wires.
Had the engine shut down at each stop, I'd have either developed hypothermia or just not made it to work.
Putting moderation advice in your
When talking about fuel economy, team Edison2 have proven, light weight and low drag beat hybrids with heavy batteries.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
70mpg sounds good. But is it a huge leap forward? I have a 4-year-old Toyota Corolla Verso 2.2-litre turbo diesel and I get 66mpg cruising.
***Crash head-on with another vehicle in a 1989 Honda CRX and you are DEAD.***
No, I'm 98% sure that the CRX was unibody construction with crumple zones just like modern cars. Not as safe probably although it actually did pretty well in NHTSA safety testing. Cars have improved some. But not as much as you seem to think.
***but you are putting out hundreds of times more CO2 and other pollutants for every litre you burn than modern cars.***
I doubt it. CO2 in particular should be almost directly proportional to Miles per Gallon. The CRX almost certainly emitted less than your modern car, not more. Other pollutants, probably a bit worse than today's cars. Modern cars have some improvements like On Board Vapor Recovery, but the CRX would surely have had the biggies -- PCV, catalytic converter, EGR.
See -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CR-X
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Isn't the amount of CO2 a direct consequence of the amount of fuel (and the type of fuel) you burn? I doubt a 1980 car would emit more CO2 at 60 MPG than a 2010 car. The other pollutants, you're probably right about that.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction.
That was my first reaction too, but I looked it up. The VW Golf debuted at under 1900 lbs, and stayed under 2200 through the mid 80s. The current Golf weights over 2900 lbs. Older economy cars were definitely lighter than the current ones, which is what he was talking about.
They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons
I don't buy that. The emissions add-ons were the worst in the 70's right after they were first required, and have gotten better since then. My parents got 50% better gas millage by removing the air-to-exhaust-injection system and catalytic converter on their Jeep J-10 pickup. Loosing the catalytic converter on a current Toyota Tacoma had negligible affect on fuel efficiency.
Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.
In other words they are safer in every way, but they sacrifice durability to obtain it.
BS. This is always the next argument - "I can't get on the freeway without a billion horsepower!" or "An underpowered car is too unsafe. I once had to outrun an avalanche while driving a carload of orphans down a mountain pass, and my bi-turbo V8 saved our lives!". Speed is not a safety feature, and if slow acceleration was all it took to keep vehicles off the highway, interstate trucking and Greyhound would have collapsed a long time ago. It's not that fast cars aren't fun - they're incredible fun. But we've let ourselves be sold the idea that they're a necessity instead of a luxury, and it's costing us dearly.
The fact that modern vehicles often are in much worst shape after minor accidents is a trade off for the driver in them being in much better shape after major accidents. Many people with new vehicles will have full coverage and would rather their car be totaled in a fender bender than themselves be killed in a major accident.
1959 Chevrolet Bel Air and 2009 Chevrolet Malibu in 40 mph frontal offset crash test
Video
1959 Bel Air after crash
2009 Malibu after same crash
I realize that is a greater difference in years, and safety features, than you were specifically talking about, but the principle still stands.
"Indirectly"? There's nothing indirect about a car crash.
As for my views regarding self-preservation, we would live in a far better world if they were shared. Let me make it clear -- I have no problem with killing in legitimate self-defense, or killing in the course of a just war... but choosing a heavier vehicle and increasing risk to the lives of innocent third parties just to decrease risk to yourself leads to a snowball effect where everyone is less safe.
Sure, fast cars are fun. I've owned my share, and they have their place. There's no replacement for displacement, as they say.
But it's like volume: if the only thing that makes your music listenable is to turn it up louder, you're probably listening to bad music. If the only thing that makes your car enjoyable is adding horsepower, you're probably driving a crap car.
It's the first, foremost and primary reason my first motor vehicle was a motorcycle rather than a car -- I honestly was scared that I'd kill someone else -- and one among the many reasons I do most of my commuting by bicycle today. I'm happy to be judged by my actions rather than my words.
(Funny about "collectivist"; when I was younger, I considered elevating the well-being of others above myself part of being a good Christian, and modern western Christians certainly don't tend to consider themselves friends of political "collectivists").
Only the first-gens really had this problem, and even then it was only particularly bad in the first couple/few years. Second-gen RX-7s and beyond have had very reliable Wankel powertrains (albeit with a need to do a fairly expensive overhaul at around 100k miles to renew the apex seals). Mazda's problems on the later ones had much more to do with electrical and accessories than with the Wankel.
Are you serious? Have you actually seen an accident before? How about a vehicle made in the 90s or 80s?
Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction. They were much, much safer than most modern unibody designs, if only due to mass. They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons.
Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.
Have you actually been in an accident? Those older vehicles (80s and earlier) wouldn't crunch up, while they look better after an accident, the occupants would be worse off. They were quite simply, death traps. Even wearing seatbelts people died in accidents that are highly survivable today. All other things being equal the road death tolls have come down a long way due to car design. So I know what I'd pick over repair ability any day.
Mass? Yeah that helps kill the other people and not you. Then If you hit something hard, or hit something of equal mass you're just as screwed. Modern cars are designed to transfer as little momentum as possible to the occupants through crumple zones, intrusion beams, other crash-deforming structures. Older cars were simply did not have any of this you'd be killed by colliding with the inside of a car.
Newer cars ARE safer, there's plenty of hard facts and living people to attest to that. Newer drivers are the problem. Higher attainable speeds and making use of them really un does advances in safety.
I've yet to see a modern passenger vehicle in a collision that didn't total the modern vehicle. A friend's 91 suburban was hit by a modern Honda Odyssey (late model): the Honda hit his rear passenger side quarter section. After replacing two sheered bolts and redoing the rear body panel, his Suburban was as good as new.
Not really the best example? How about comparing two vehicles of equivalent mass? You're forgetting how cheap it is to replace the whole Honda :)
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
On the other hand, if your compressed-air car is running low and you're desperate, almost any US gas station that does car repairs has a compressed-air pump and you might be able to pay them for some air. There are also pumps for inflating tires, but those are usually reduced pressure so they don't explode your tires.
I rate it as somewhere between highly unlikely and fucking impossible that the local gas station will have more than about 150 psi on tap, and that's only for those which do repairs, the typical tire fill being maybe 100 psi tops as some heavier light trucks will use up to 80 or so PSI (only about a max of 65 PSI for me, and I have what may be the heaviest light pickup truck ever made... hmm no, the four door version is probably heavier, I have a super cab.) The MDI air car technology runs on over 3,000 PSI. You're not refilling your air car from shop air.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"