[avahifi]

Well, I pretty much solved the issue of needing a commuter car myself, I don't drive to work, I walk to work.  Mileage, smilage. 

For long distance stuff I still appreciate my 350 HP Audi S6 Avant.  It is over three times heavier than my 1956 VW and ten times as powerful and uses only 1 2/3 gallons more gas per hundred miles on long distance driving (20 mpg vs: 30).  Safety and comfort, no comparison.  I will be packing it up in a couple weeks with a huge load of audio equipment and be off from St. Paul to Denver and the RMAF (1000 miles) and make the trip with Dean Barnell in an easy one day drive averaging near 70 mph (and I am 72 years old).

There is no hybrid or electric car out there yet that would allow me to do that (and darn few conventional cars either).  Maybe in the future, but not yet.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[HAL]

Well maybe not as far, but drove my Honda Hybrid with a friend an large load of audio equipment to a NC GTG about 400 miles.  Very comfortable and got 45mpg for the trip (one fillup each way ).  Even took my friends kettle bells, so he could work out at the bed and breakfast where we had rooms.   I usually drive 70-80 on trips like that. 

[avahifi]

By the way, thinking about fuel economy in miles per gallon is very very misleading.

Miles per gallon is an exponential function.  A much more realistic way is to consider economy in "gallons per hundred miles".  This will give you vastly more intuitive way of thinking about fuel economy.

For example, how important is it to increase your mileage by 10 miles per gallon?

If you look at miles per gallon, you will be seduced to thinking that going from 30 miles per gallon to 40 miles per gallon is a big deal.  It is not.  You are going from 3.33 gallons per hundred miles to 2.5 gallons per hundred miles, a savings of just over 1 gallon per hundred miles.  Should you spend a bundle up front to do this?  Not hardly.

Now at the other end, if you have a bottom feeder RV monster getting 5 miles per gallon, what if you could increase its mileage 10 miles per gallon, to 15 miles per gallon?  You would be going from 20 gallons per hundred miles to about 6.66. A savings of over 13 gallons per hundred miles, big numbers and dollars saved here!

I really don't understand the mentality of many over the road truckers who still blast by me at 80 mph on the open freeways in the mid-west getting 5 miles per gallon.  If they slowed down to 50 mph they would save a ton of fuel money, and maybe even be within the limits where there could safely make a panic stop.  We tested that at the Minnesota Highway Department years ago and found that at 60 mph, almost all truck brakes would melt in a true maximum braking effort (braking as hard as possible without locking wheels fromn 60 to zero).  There is not enough iron mass in the brakes to deal with the heat load from the mass of the truck.  Do the math, not a single trucker would volunteer to do the actual road tests for us. Oh well that's another story.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[coke]

Well, I pretty much solved the issue of needing a commuter car myself, I don't drive to work, I walk to work.  Mileage, smilage. 

For long distance stuff I still appreciate my 350 HP Audi S6 Avant.  It is over three times heavier than my 1956 VW and ten times as powerful and uses only 1 2/3 gallons more gas per hundred miles on long distance driving (20 mpg vs: 30).  Safety and comfort, no comparison.  I will be packing it up in a couple weeks with a huge load of audio equipment and be off from St. Paul to Denver and the RMAF (1000 miles) and make the trip with Dean Barnell in an easy one day drive averaging near 70 mph (and I am 72 years old).

There is no hybrid or electric car out there yet that would allow me to do that (and darn few conventional cars either).  Maybe in the future, but not yet.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

My mom and step dad are Audi fans also. Step dad has an RS4, but for some reason his gas mileage isn't as good as yours 

[poseidonsvoice]

Drive a BMW M5, Mercedes E63 AMG...your S6 Avant will packed in a heart beat 

My vote is on the M5, 10 cylinders, over 500 horses and 0-60 right at 4 seconds. You can buy them used for much, much cheaper than list.

Anand.

[avahifi]

Uhh, this is not a debate over "my super car is better than your super car".  Yah there are lots of cars faster than my Audi, no big deal.  Limit it to load carrying station wagons and the choice is a lot less.  Limit it to ones that actually are comfortable to drive for long distances and the list gets much smaller.

There are probably some Volvo and Mercedes and BMW wagons that would work just as well as my Audi, but mine is paid for. 

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

P.S.  The problem with the RS4 is that its another hundred horsepower or more bigger and it just screams "floor me".  Its mileage probably could better be expressed in gallons per mile rather than miles per gallon. 

[poseidonsvoice]

Uhh, this is not a debate over "my super car is better than your super car". 

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

I know. Just playing with you, that was the reason for the smile moniker in my post. Besides...this thread's original goal was to discuss fuel efficient cars, which the Chevy Volt really isn't (compared to the competition, i.e. Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, etc...) and none of the cars that I am after...except for maybe a souped up Jetta TDI.

Hybrid cars still give up way too much in performance, it's like they are dragging all the time. And they have that wierd electric car squeal like what Jeff Dunham talks about in his stand up comedy routines.

Anand.

[turkey]

Danny, I've been saying this for years. I worked for Honda in the early/mid 90's.
They had 45+mpg vehicles all through the 90's. The 93 Civic VX got 48mpg if I

They tried to boost fuel economy after the fuel shortages in the '70s, but at the same time they were applying emission controls, so the results were mixed. Still, there were a number of cars over the years that got very good mileage. (Honda has had a continuing push in this direction.)

But then sometime roughly around 1990 the quality of engine controls went up and they were able to fairly easily meet the emissions goals. CAFE got gutted, so there wasn't any incentive to increase economy. Instead, vehicles started becoming more powerful, and in many cases larger too.

Now we have lots of vehicles that will perform much better than the roads and amount of traffic will allow. We also have huge numbers of land yachts.

[turkey]

if I want to such as Soy Methyl Ester (not saying this is a solution).  Plus in case of the apocolypse I can run it on kerosene or used moter oil.  13gallon tank that I fill every 615 miles.   

Speaking of burning other fuels, I was in Victoria, BC, Canada recently and there were quite a few vehicles running on biodiesel. The streets smell like french fries.

I asked around, but nobody seemed to know why it was happening, although they all had examples of who was using it.

I was wondering if it's because Victoria isn't near a refinery, so it's cheaper to use biodiesel, rather than shipping regular diesel up from Seattle? Or is this a general push in Canada?

Canada has a lot of rapeseed being grown (and thus canola oil), so are they pushing the use of it for vehicles rather than importing oil?

[turkey]

Miles per gallon is an exponential function.

# of miles / 1 gallon of fuel.

That looks like a linear function to me.

[HAL]

Ok, in gallons per hundred miles on a 1000 mile trip, my old Ford Probe V6 would be 4.5 gallons per hundred ( about 22mpg on 93 octane), where my Honda Hybrid would be 2.22 gallons per hundred on 87 octane.  So that would be 45 gallons vs 22.2 gallons, under half.  Or a savings of at least $63 for the trip at $2.75/gallon.  I'll take it!

[TomS]

By the way, thinking about fuel economy in miles per gallon is very very misleading.

Miles per gallon is an exponential function.  A much more realistic way is to consider economy in "gallons per hundred miles".  This will give you vastly more intuitive way of thinking about fuel economy.

For example, how important is it to increase your mileage by 10 miles per gallon?

If you look at miles per gallon, you will be seduced to thinking that going from 30 miles per gallon to 40 miles per gallon is a big deal.  It is not.  You are going from 3.33 gallons per hundred miles to 2.5 gallons per hundred miles, a savings of just over 1 gallon per hundred miles.  Should you spend a bundle up front to do this?  Not hardly.

Now at the other end, if you have a bottom feeder RV monster getting 5 miles per gallon, what if you could increase its mileage 10 miles per gallon, to 15 miles per gallon?  You would be going from 20 gallons per hundred miles to about 6.66. A savings of over 13 gallons per hundred miles, big numbers and dollars saved here!

I really don't understand the mentality of many over the road truckers who still blast by me at 80 mph on the open freeways in the mid-west getting 5 miles per gallon.  If they slowed down to 50 mph they would save a ton of fuel money, and maybe even be within the limits where there could safely make a panic stop.  We tested that at the Minnesota Highway Department years ago and found that at 60 mph, almost all truck brakes would melt in a true maximum braking effort (braking as hard as possible without locking wheels fromn 60 to zero).  There is not enough iron mass in the brakes to deal with the heat load from the mass of the truck.  Do the math, not a single trucker would volunteer to do the actual road tests for us. Oh well that's another story.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

I agree with the gallons per 100 miles thinking.  I have a tournament ski boat with a 340hp V8 small block in it, only 21' long, 45mph max top speed, but when people ask about gas I always express it gallons/hr for an afternoon of fun.   A couple hours of solid skiing and tubing is easily about 20-25 gallons.  Floored 4300 rpm joy rides suck down something like 35-40 gph.    I find it's much easier for non-boat owning guests to comprehend it that way.

My '10 Jetta TDI Sportwagen is getting low-mid 40's so I'm pretty happy with the balance of cargo hauling, great real world torque, handling, comfort, etc. as well as about 650 mile range on a tank.  Unfortunately, the emissions/DPF hardware to run ULSD gives up efficiency to earlier TDI generations which can get closer to 50+, but that's our government at work.

[turkey]

For example, how important is it to increase your mileage by 10 miles per gallon?

This is a very valid question. We should encourage people to ask it.

It is here that stating gallons per hundred or thousand miles is useful. It gets us looking at it a different way. (A way that makes it easier to see what it's actually costing us.) It might even be good to look at fuel cost per 100 miles.

I agree that miles per gallon isn't that useful, and is in some ways deceptive.

If you look at miles per gallon, you will be seduced to thinking that going from 30 miles per gallon to 40 miles per gallon is a big deal.  It is not.  You are going from 3.33 gallons per hundred miles to 2.5 gallons per hundred miles, a savings of just over 1 gallon per hundred miles.  Should you spend a bundle up front to do this?  Not hardly.

It does depend on how much fuel costs. If fuel is $10/gallon, it might well be worthwhile to spend the money on increasing your fuel economy by 1/3. If fuel is $0.10/gallon, even going from 5MPG to 50MPG may not make much sense.


A side note:


I've visited Venezuela, where the state runs the petroleum industry, sets prices, and even does a lot of the distribution - down to the retail level. Gasoline prices are fixed, and when I was there last were about 50 cents a gallon.

The middle class tends to buy very small cars. Not because they get good gas mileage (kilometerage?), but because a big car costs more than a small car. The poor people drive whatever they can, and there are some real arks on the roads. Old US brands going back to the '40s and '50s, with '60s models being fairly common.

They're often oil burners too, so maybe they should be rated in miles/quart. (Motor oil is cheap too, and is sold at roadside stands everywhere.)

There just isn't any real incentive to buy a car that is economical on gas in Venezuela. There also isn't any incentive to buy one that pollutes less.

As much as we would hate higher gas prices here in the US, maybe we would be better off if gas was $5/gal or more? Maybe people would get the message finally and demand efficient vehicles? If we all drive cars that got 30+ MPG, we'd reduce our dependence on foreign oil (on domestic oil too, so less chances of spills), and we'd pollute less too.

Sometimes it seems like people don't learn unless it's painful.

[drab]

For example, how important is it to increase your mileage by 10 miles per gallon?

If you look at miles per gallon, you will be seduced to thinking that going from 30 miles per gallon to 40 miles per gallon is a big deal.  It is not.  You are going from 3.33 gallons per hundred miles to 2.5 gallons per hundred miles, a savings of just over 1 gallon per hundred miles.  Should you spend a bundle up front to do this?  Not hardly.

It's a big deal to me. To me it's not just a matter of money. It's a matter of conservation and dependence on foreign oil. If everyone in the U.S. improved their mileage by 10 mpg, we could completely eliminate the need for oil imported from the Persian Gulf. Now granted I would prefer all electric but improving mileage is a good start.

[Scottdazzle]

It's a big deal to me. To me it's not just a matter of money. It's a matter of conservation and dependence on foreign oil. If everyone in the U.S. improved their mileage by 10 mpg, we could completely eliminate the need for oil imported from the Persian Gulf. Now granted I would prefer all electric but improving mileage is a good start.

+1.  And, your car would put out less pollution.  I replaced a PT Cruiser with a Prius for a net gain of 30mpg. 

[Bob in St. Louis]

I wonder what the fuel economy numbers are in my wife's car.
She's got a 2007 Chevrolet Trailblazer SS with the detuned 6.0 liter Corvette engine with full time all wheel drive.
Sure is fun to drive too.

Bob

[HAL]

Danny,

A website that talks about electric battery trailers:

http://evmaine.org/html/ev_trailers.html

It looks like the link to the battery trailer is gone.

The more interesting one is the solar panel trailer that is there.  Add some more batteries to the trailer and you are getting extra range and recharging during the day!

[thunderbrick]

I strongly disagree with the idea that auto companies are in bed with the oil companies.  If that were true there wouldn't be such rapid changes in buyers' interest (and the resulting scramble to build more fuel-efficient cars ) every time we have an oil crisis.  The American market is easily influenced, and manufacturers thrive by gauging that interest, whether it is Play Stations, Steal-Your-Bucks coffee, Blows Audio, or Hummers.

The Big Three (or is it 2 1/2 now?) have often put out smaller, more efficient cars that don't necessarily sell well, and people still flock to SUVs when gas is cheap.  Oil companies don't make fuel cheap so that people will drive big cars,  people drive big cars when fuel is cheap.  That doesn't mean that GM and Exxon colluded, but GM is happy to build high-profit SUVs when gas is cheap, but they take it in the shorts when fuel goes up and demand dies.  That's hardly being in bed with Big Oil.

To say nothing of the fact that Americans are getting fatter (me included), and many of them want that Lazy-Boy comfort (big vehicles) on long trips.  I stand guilty since I drive a 96 RoadMonster station wagon that I LOVE (it'll pull my boat and handle 4x8 plywood), as well as a BMW 525i.  Different tools for different needs.

End of rant.   

Update:

Talk about our toys!  Look at all  the old geezers buying tricked-out Harleys these days.  They are going to do it no matter what the cost.  I suppose it beats dying in a nursing home, but don't even get me started about straight pipes and 22" spinning rims.   

High-end audio systems, however, are a perfectly reasonable expenditure of excess wealth, and think of how much fuel you save by staying at home.   

[genjamon]

I suspect what Frank was getting at is that mpg increases are important in proportion to what mpg you're starting with.  10 mpg increase from 20 mpg to 30 mpg is a 50% efficiency boost which will mean your fuel for a particular distance will cost 2/3 what it used to.  10 mpg increase from 40-50mpg is a 25% efficiency increase, and fuel will then cost 4/5 what it used to for a particular distance.  This can be misleading if you're not thinking proportionately already. 

~Ben

[pjchappy]

This is the only hybrid I would consider buying at this point.


Paul