For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:09 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
vision-master wrote:
The USA version only gets about 35 mpg city. Not very good considering how small it is.
In the old days a subcompact was cramped and had very little creature comforts. Today, all the new subcompacts are nothing more than full size cars with the front and back chopped off. They have most of the same interior room as a regular compact, but with a tiny engine (hence little hood overhang) and no trunk space. In the case of the Smart they take out the back seat. But they have all the accessories and safety features that adds a lot more weight to the mix than, let's say, an old Ford Fiesta.
One of the drawbacks of building a car shaped like this is it's more dificult to get good aerodynamics as the car becomes more cube-shaped. The drag on the Smart Car I've seen published is 0.34 which is mediocre. On the freeway, the higher drag will take away a lot of the advantages of the weight savings.
The Toyota Yaris has a published Cd of 0.29 which is much better.
So I really think reducing the size of cars quickly reaches a point of diminishing returns and for many, the Smart Car is over that threshold.
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:57 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
I heard of someone who designed and built a compressed-air car that gets about 800-1000 miles on a 10 gallon gas tank. If only the big automakers put all their focus into that technology, we might see some hope for the personal vehicle. _________________ "If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Falconoffury wrote:
I heard of someone who designed and built a compressed-air car that gets about 800-1000 miles on a 10 gallon gas tank. If only the big automakers put all their focus into that technology, we might see some hope for the personal vehicle.
Disadvantages:
* Limited range due to available tank technology.
* Using energy to compress air is less efficient than charging a battery with that same energy.
* Less efficient than electric motors.
* Overall efficiency is approximately one third of a comparable electric car
To me the only big advantage of air cars is avoiding the expense of batteries.
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:33 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
The Air car pops up now and then, scams investors off their money and dissapears for again. Rinse and repeat with the next batch of gullible investors.
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
The main advantage is that they are cheaper to build than electric or internal combustion engine cars, and efficiency is somewhere in between. I wouldn't mind driving around with 80-100 miles per gallon. _________________ "If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:28 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
AirlinePilot wrote:
Why would anyone buy the crippled fuel mileage of the US based Smart car when you can have a Toyota Yaris, a Honda Civic, or similar regular sized car for just a bit more money and get THE SAME FUEL MILEAGE?
The Yaris is actually cheaper than the Smartcar if you get a base model (and compare it to the lowend smartcar, there are 3 smartcar models)
Also, bear in mind you have to put PREMIUM gasoline into the smartcar. With the mpg figures I've seen for the smartcar (41/33 vs the yaris 40/30 (manual trans)) it really makes no sense to buy one.
Joined: Sep 16, 2004 Posts: 4275 Location: Southwest WI
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
The Yaris is the "in" car it seems. I've noticed so many on the road around here. That car would get 10mpg more then my current ride, just not sure about parting with the cash. _________________ "Oil is going up because we use too much oil, and the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling"
-President Bush 11/07/07
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1243 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:13 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Gandalf_the_White wrote:
I'm expecting anytime soon another news blurb where Iacocca flames out the industry execs after the yearly strip club outing.
On May 17, 2007, Simon & Schuster published Iacocca's new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Lee writes:
Quote:
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Zoorope
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:46 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Don't trust official declared mileage.
Here in the EU car magazines made a huge research into it and there was a scandal: official mileage are almost always 20-30% overestimated.
Before buying a car, check for yourself with a friend already owning it, don't trust what automakers declare.
I have a WV Polo 1400 turbodiesel, with a declared mileage of 67 per gallon, but all I get is 50 maximum... which is OK, but much lower than they say. _________________ **no english mothertongue**
--------
Objects in the rear view mirror
are closer than they appear.
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:54 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Falconoffury wrote:
The main advantage is that they are cheaper to build than electric or internal combustion engine cars, and efficiency is somewhere in between. I wouldn't mind driving around with 80-100 miles per gallon.
Sure, but what kind of cheap energy will you use to fill that tank with suffiently amounts of compressed air? What kind of losses do you have when compressing air into air tanks? What kind of losses do you have when using that compressed air to propel the car forward? They ain't small, I tell you. The air car isn't even as efficient as a conventional diesel car, say nothing of the air cars miniscule range. Show me the calculations and I'll stand corrected, but until then I'll call it a hoax. _________________ "We cut the earth until it bleeds, rain ashes from the sky
Just to make a light that no one can see"
-- VNV Nation - Carbon
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:21 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Falconoffury wrote:
The main advantage is that they are cheaper to build than electric or internal combustion engine cars, and efficiency is somewhere in between. I wouldn't mind driving around with 80-100 miles per gallon.
Not really the advantage.
The advantage of the aircar over electric is rapid refueling. Obviously the recharging station needs to consume a lot of energy to compress air (coal or nuke probably, but the idea of using a large air tank at a station to even out wind/solar intermittancy is clever). The biggest problem with electrics right now is the "oh crap, I'm out of power and it will take 2-5 hours to recharge". Advanced batteries or supercaps might take that last advantage away from the aircar.
I would *so* drive a car with a 15 mile range, if there were a rapid recharger at/near a in-range train station (for longer trips) and at/near work. _________________ At 1% annual growth, human bodies will incorporate every gram in the observable universe in approximately 10,170 years.
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:46 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
The auto companies and the government are not serious about increasing fuel efficiency. Auto mileage can easily be increased by 25% or more by raising compreshion ratios. I once had a '71 Vovlo P1800 with a compresion ratio of 12.5:1 that got 43 mpg at 90 mph (my typical driving speed in those days).
Increasing mileage by increasing the compression ratio, increases NO2 output, but not as much as the decrease in fuel consumption would reduce it.
We have again been sold a load of BS by government agencies that are primarily employeed at finding ways to justify their own exisistance, and we are too lazy, and too stupid to bring them to task.
To do that would mean we would have to learn some science and some mathematcs! Lord help us!! Instead we would much rather take the word of some stuffed shirt bureaucrat who doesn't know any sciece or math either.
So much for democracy in a technological society, when the society does not even understand the technology that keeps them alive!
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: Re: US new auto sales hit 15-year low
Ditto for my daughter's old VW Golf. Has an onboard computer that tracks mileage, now at 39+, lifetime average, and it has 140,000 miles on it. Summer mileage is 40+, winter a bit less.
Has high compression and wants premium gas. But, old as it is, it will still burn the tires in 3 gears, and run off from a lot of cars that get lesser mileage.
Yup. We got sold a bill of goods on the NO2 thing. I was there, at GM when they were fighting that battle. I drew the first throttle body fuel injection unit they made, while at Delco Electronics, back before 1970.
It gets really disgusting to listen to some of the myths about what has gone on in the US auto industry. I see a lot of misinformation even here on that topic. But I'm tired of it, and refuse to try to bring people up to speed any more. Let 'em live with their bullshit dreams.
I should change my sig line to, "You can't tell people anything they aren't ready to hear." _________________ Local fix-it guy..
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