I'm Waiting for My 60mpg Car

Europe and Asia is beating us (U.S.) to the punch. They are far ahead of
us in small cars, particularly diesel powered cars and light trucks.

The only way the working man is going to maintain 12,000 miles per year
average in the next 20 years is to cut back fuel consumption by a factor of
THREE. The average mpg in this country is about 20mpg actual. Never mind
the EPA estimates and the run at the mouth salesmen's boasts. Gas pumps
are over and oddometers are over so the errors add to give you that
satisfying, but false measure of your mileage. On top of those errors,
most cars are driven around light, with the driver or one passenger. If
these cars were loaded to their limits, mileage would be a lot worse.

Scott Crossfield had an unfortunate accident this week, but it did bring
attention to an interesting fact about his airplane. He flew a 45 year old
Cessna 210, with a market value of about $45,000 plus or minus. That model
craft does more than 200 mph at 13 gallons per hour, fully loaded. It has
room for 6 passengers plus baggage. Hauling all that load, it has the
capability to make 15 mpg, which is no worse than your Daimler-Chrysler SUV
putting along at 65 mph! You can say all you want about how airplane
engines are antiques compared to our e.f.i. car engines but their
efficiency cannot be ignore when they scoot along at 4 times your car's
speed and get the same mileage.

Cars have to do better. Their task is so much easier. They don't have to
fight many times the wind resistance a 200 mph plane does. They don't have
to climb two miles high when on a daily commute in Dallas, yet cars' fuel
economy are abysmal.

The solution may very well lie with a three cylinder turbo diesel car with
a low wind drag all-aluminum frame and body. A five speed manual
transmission. Manual steering and brakes will do very nicely on an under
2000 pound 4 passenger sedan. Airconditioning should be an option for
those in warm climates. A radio with CD player is a nice luxury touch.
Add nothing to the car that isn't functional. All options must be
individually selectable; no expensive packages where you have to buy the
leather interior to get racing stripes. D-C should start listening to the
suggestions we on the newsgroups post; these suggestions are years ahead of
the sales curve. If D-C waits until next year, when gasoline is scarce and
expensive, and sales dwindle, it will be too late to build the 60 mpg car
the public will be eager to purchase at full list price.

The following is a message directed at D-C specifically:
Do not take shortcuts on this car to save money. It will backfire. Buyers
have wised up to bad head gaskets that leak, timing belts that jump their
cogwheels, crammed engine compartments that drive mechanics insane___all
the things that either ruin an engine, make for obscenely expensive
maintenance and repair and give models bad reputations, ruining resale
value. DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME!

 

No.

Traffic managment has to do better.

Traffic must keep moving. Traffic lights must be able to coordinate
the flow between them to maximize flow and minimize the number of
vehicles that must slow down or stop.

Each light must be it's own neural net, getting data from surrounding
lights about traffic heading it's way, and figure out the best way to
manage that traffic to keep it moving.

 

The aircraft engine has a much easier job from a systems management
view. It has to produce thrust and may do so over a small range of RPM,
especially when equipped with a variable pitch prop as all Cessna 210s
are.

If the Continental in that 210 were replaced by a liquid cooled
autoderivative engine it could cruise at 10% to 15% lower fuel burn.
But if a light aircraft were designed around a much more modern
turbocharged power package that could produce power at high altitude
with little or no pilot management and with an airframe optimized for
high altitude cruise efficiency could be higher yet.

Light aircraft can cruise over long distances at fuel economies far
better than automobiles can drive. That was proven in the 1970s with
high efficiency aircraft such as the Quickie with its 18 hp flathead
Onan twin.

 

An all aluminum chassis and body? Sure, did you ever check out how
expensive that would be?


Aluminum is not necessarily lighter than a comparable steel chassis car,
that's because to replace high strength steel with adequate crash resistanc
in aluminum, it gets heavy.

Not to mention accident repairs. The new BMW 5 series is proof of that, a
small front end collision usually requires the car to be written off, due to
its high tech aluminum front clip construction (and the firewall).

We already have that choice.. buy a Prius.

Diesels aren't the answer either. They produce a lot of pollutants that
contribute to smog, in comparison to a gasoline engine of the same size.

Don't forget, we're not in a race for fuel economy, we are in a race for
MORE POWER from smaller engines, which wipes out the fuel savings. Look at
the HEMI, it makes big power from 5.7L and on the highway returns
10.7L/100km, THAT IS AMAZING!!! A Pontiac G6 uses about 10L/100 or so on
the highway.


Yes, I'd like a more fuel efficient car, that doesn't pollute either. Hmmm,
a used Prius or Honda insight just might do the trick

 

Well, geez.... I learned to drive in a big ol' 1967 Plymouth Fury with a
383cid big-block V8 - it got a pretty easy 20mpg, cushy ride, and plenty of
power (could go through huge snowbanks, too, but that's another story). But
then again, back then cars were much lighter for their size since they
didn't have to deal with extra-heavy bumpers, etc. That huge car only
weighed 3700lb.

All-aluminum would be expensive, for sure. Maybe some of these new
super-strong microfibers they are coming out with will be the answer. I'd
prefer a diesel-electric hybrid, so it'd be a little quicker to merge into
traffic, etc., but no extra bank of batteries please.

Dunno about the A/C. Cars nowadays get worse mileage with the window down
then if you had the window up and A/C on. It would not be an issue if
they'd design ventilation systems that were worth a damn (like they used to
do... did I mention that the '67 Plymouth would shoot a nice strong breeze
on you when you opened the vents?).

A coupla years ago there was a big push to put 42-volt electrical systems in
all production cars. That way, P/S, A/C, and other accessories could be run
off of the electrical system rather than the mechanical system, thereby
improving economies. Whatever happened to that push??

No, there will always be a huge number of people that won't care, or will
think the automakers got it right this time around, or don't have time to
deal with the issues, are just plain idiots, etc., etc.

Meantime, I'll be waiting for Honda to bring its diesel CR-V stateside...

 

Funny, I had a 1970 and it got at best 19 MPG cruising down the
interstate. Throw in some city driving and it dropped to 14-15 in a
heartbeat.


Matt

 

Absolutely no way, anything even hinting of that will be shot down by
the environmentalists, and many other folks like myself.

First of all those plastics are made from oil and we need that for fuel.

More importantly, right now we do NOT have a vehicle disposal
problem in the US simply because with the price of steel being so
high, it makes it cost effective for the small garage operators to
go out and fetch cars. You have an old car that doesen't run anymore
that you want to get rid of? There's tons of charities and small operators
who will scramble to come get it if you have a title available. If
your a city that has to deal with abandonded cars, then you have a
ready group of towing companies who will be more than happy to
pull these cars off your street and put them in their impound lots,
and slap a bunch of made-up fees on them so that in a month they
can get the paperwork to auction them off to the wreckers.

Back about 5 years ago when steel prices were in the toilet I remember
reading Philadelphia had estimated they had about 10,000 abandonded
vehicles on the street and it was going to cost them millions to get
rid of them all.

Think for a minute about the lifecycle of a typical car. Most people
sell them before they absolutely go kaput. And most cars end up
in the hands of the illegal immigrants, or other dirt poor people who
basically buy them for $300 then are happy if they can get 4 months of
use out of them before they crap out. And when they do crap out
these folks just walk away from them and buy another one and do the
same thing to it.

If you go making the vehicles out of plastic then when the vehicle
dies, it is going to cost money to dispose of. The wrecking yards
will all charge money to take them so nobody will be picking up cars
for free and selling them to the yards. Instead the local governments
are going to end up footing the bill to dispose of these. Russia went
through this and we would be stupid not to learn from that example.
I have no interest in seeing my tax dollars spent on disposing cars.

It is an asininely stupid idea. The fear was all the new electronics would
suck tons of power. The reality is that there's enormous demand from
laptop vendors for low-power chips, so much so that companies have
spent the R&D to make the newer chips lower power. This means the
vehicle electronics can be lower power too, and thus it's becoming a
moot issue.

The reason they were looking at 48 volt is that higher wattage devices
at 12 volts draw a lot more current than at 48 volts, thus your wires
have to be a lot thicker. Would you want to make up wiring harnesses
out of cables the thickness of battery cables? But the electronics industry
has found it easier to just design stuff to have lower power requirements.

Ted

 

Wait, who said anything about plastics?? Maybe I should've said carbon
nanotubes instead of microfibers... e.g. -
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030614/fob3.asp

 

Yes and no. It *is* a arguably a moot issue in the area of information
(data, number crunching), *but* where true *physical* power (in the
sense of a force thru a distance) is needed (as one example, electric
steering; another example: vehicle acceleration), you can't get around
the wattage = volts times amps thing which translates into size and
weight of wires being dependent on voltage.

For information/data - yes - not for mechanical force x distance.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

But in more common urban driving for most people it's on 8 cyl and just
eats gas. Yahoo shows US 17 mpg city but Consumer Reports reported 10
mpg.

The 10.7 figure isn't that great,
the Globe auto site reports "Fuel Econ (hwy, l/km) : 8.8". What fiction!

See the great figures for the Toyota Avalon 3.5L V6.
Almost as fast and great mileage. It doesn't even look ugly, just a bit
bland though.
..

Where did you get that figure. It uses less than 8L/100 as does the
Impalla with the the same V6 engine.

 

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

Actually it isn't because the computational power is not what consumes
the power. It's the actuation involved in electric braking, steering,
valve actuation, common rail diesel injector actuation, and the other
new technologies envisioned. Active electric suspension as engineered
by Bose will be another huge power sink.

All the electronics in a modern car use power derived from a DC-DC
switchmode supply in the assembly itself as opposed to "raw" vehicle
bus power. In earlier days you needed plus and minus symmetrical
supplies for analog and +5 for digital , now one board may need five
power supplies.

Also, almost every chip in any vehicle electronic module is
specifically sourced as automotive parts, and will not be found in a
laptop, a stereo, or anything else. A few things of course will find
application across categories but today almost every chip in a computer
is absolutely purpose designed for PC use: automotive "computers' are
actually microcontrollers and those have a whole separate line of
chips. Small volume stuff will "raid the other guy's parts bins" but
the higher the volume the more specialized.

Personally, I would prefer 24V electrics in cars. 24V is standard in
aircraft and military vehicles, and years ago you saw a lot of 24V in
marine, bus, truck and tractor applications. But the lure of volume
automotive enticed the big vehicle and small boat guys back. Sad.

 

I have a co-worker with one, and he has been tracking the mileage, mostly
highway. I don't think that car will do 8L/100, as the Matrix is just a bit
better than that ... If you're non stop on the highway (long trip) I
think you'll do ok.

I drive a 300C a lot, and it's quite decent (not excellent) considering the
massive bulk it has to carry. I've been doing better than 22 mpg (US)
overall with it.

But, a small car is what I need........ Yaris hatchback ..