They built them, and no one came...

[sciphi]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Most of the things that improved efficiency, also improved HP.

Although I admit, you have a valid point. The HP wars surely detract from the overall possible efficiency.

Would you suggest HP or engine size limits based on class of vehicle, much like they have in Japan?


I thought that was what CAFE was for. A roundabout, "market-friendly" way to "encourage" manufacturers to develop fuel-saving technology. From what I've gathered in this thread, CAFE is a boondoggle. We just may need engine size limits similar to Japan to make a significant jump in fleetwide fuel economy. Well, for engine size limits, look at F1 and how much tech/cost those engines have!

 

[LS2JSTS]

1. Your inference is faulty. The point is that forcing the tech by legislative pen will not make it ready for prime time any quicker. Cash and time, yes, and lots of it. Spending on tech is nothing new around here, they've been playing with alternatives since there was no alternative.

2. China, I'll just let alone...but agree to disagree.

3. All I ask is what tech, where and how. You talk about all of these technologies like they are ready and they aren't. You describe something that anybody would be a fool to say is a bad thing. We all want energy independence. Instead of telling me how I should conserve to get us there. Could you take a little time to explain this tech that is going to get us there?

Like I said, you all are just puttin the cart ahead of the horse. I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in these things, just that technology has a way of either slowly developing or simply falling in your lap. None of us knows whats right around the corner...twenty years from now we could all be laughing at the thought of worrying about oil drying up...but that day isn't here yet....and NO current tech will get us there either. If you disagree, then please point out the current tech that you would utilize to do so.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
From what I've gathered in this thread, CAFE is a boondoggle.

Read up on it yourself before you make a call. Lots of opinion but not a huge amount of good info (including from me).


Originally Posted By: sciphi
We just may need engine size limits similar to Japan to make a significant jump in fleetwide fuel economy.

Engine size doesn't always correlate with fuel efficiency. Look up EPA fuel economy numbers for a base Corvette (6L) and a BMW M5 (5L) and you'll see what I mean.

Size limits might reduce administrative costs since they are so much easier to work with than something that actually has to be tested, but they wouldn't necessarily improve fuel economy.

 

[LS2JSTS]

It isn't about what the absolute efficiency is between two 1.5l engines, it's about what the country would average if every car were limited in such a way.

Japan has gained huge overall efficiency by limiting engine size. Of course that just means that only the rich can afford the larger cars.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
The point is that forcing the tech by legislative pen will not make it ready for prime time any quicker.

I think history shows otherwise. But I'm not advocating forcing the tech by legislative pen, am I?


Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
3. All I ask is what tech, where and how.

Not really. You spent quite a lot of time trying to undermine the very idea of trying to achieve sustainability. But we can move on.


Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
You talk about all of these technologies like they are ready and they aren't. You describe something that anybody would be a fool to say is a bad thing. We all want energy independence. Instead of telling me how I should conserve to get us there. Could you take a little time to explain this tech that is going to get us there?

Not tech. Habits. Like buying smaller cars. Not simply more fuel efficient cars; smaller ones. Ones that demand fewer resources to build and maintain, and put less stress on our roads, in addition to inherently consuming fuel at manageable rates.

This whole line of debate started with me joining a few others in this thread to complain about some choices people make that lead in the opposite direction from what we'd like to see. That's what it comes down to. I'm not willing to speak about the issue on a bigger scale than that here, but I'd be happy to talk with you about it by PM.



Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in these things, just that technology has a way of either slowly developing or simply falling in your lap.

This is a forgivable comment, but only if I assume you have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what is actually involved in scientific research. It's like saying wars have a way of just being won, or that criminals have a way of just getting caught.

Technologies, like war victories and safe streets, fall into YOUR lap because thousands of the most brilliant and hardworking people in society devote their whole lives to developing them. Ideas come up in a flash, but making them real consists of teams of highly qualified people impaling themselves on a problem year after year, just to push the boundaries one tiny bit at a time until there eventually is a breakthrough. To say it somehow just happens on its own is... shall we say, more than a bit facile.

 

[LS2JSTS]

Listen Dood....3. was in response to your comment, and didnt refer at all to my previous comments in this thread. Thats why it was clearly written that way.

Otherwise, assume away. It's all you've done in this thread is one assumption after the other. The habits you describe dont get anyone to the point of independence you alluded to earlier.

I'm still waiting for the real technology that is currently available and how you plan to implement it to reach the goals YOU set out.

As for your continued condescending tripe in regard to my scientific knowledge...History is full of discoveries that were either accidents or pure luck, where did I ever claim that all invention is derived that way? Do you know what the future holds? I'm merely saying that new tech, that isn't on the drawing boards could be right around the corner. But to you, speculation like that means I have no scientific insight...whatever...

Just as you did with the smaller engine in Japan point. You completely ignore the big point to make some non sensical, useless jibberish point about efficiency. What did it matter whether some 6.0 ltr engine is less or more efficient than a 5.0 ltr engine? You would rather argue that a smaller engine doesn't necessarilyy mean more efficiency. Of course it doesn't, and nobody ever said it did. So what was the purpose of posting that? Was it pure obfuscation or do you honestly not understand what fleetwide limits would result in? The historical data is there for all to see in Japan, UK, and other countries.

 

[Brons2]

I agree with doodfdood. While buying smaller cars may not get us all the way to energy independence, buying large ones is getting us farther away. You (disingenuously...) keep asking for what tech, well small cars are decidedly low tech on their surface...they have a lower weight and need less horsepower to propel.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt anyone is going to change their habits until gas gets seriously expensive, then people will start swearing about OPEC. In reality, at least part of the solution is in the mirror.

I'm 6'7", and I bought about the smallest vehicle that I could reasonably live with. Maybe next time even smaller, the telescoping steering wheel seems to be catching on.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
History is full of discoveries that were either accidents or pure luck, where did I ever claim that all invention is derived that way?

It doesn't matter if you meant all invention, or most, or some, or even a small fraction. There is no meaningful interpretation of that expression that can be considered to be true.

Only ideas can be discovered "by accident." Implementations still take real work. Also, if you dig a little deeper, all of those "accidents" depended largely (if not entirely) on a substantial history of prior work. Either way, for practical purposes, there is no such thing as discovery that just "has a way of either slowly developing or just falling in your lap."


Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
I'm merely saying that new tech, that isn't on the drawing boards could be right around the corner.

True. The question is, are you willing to bet on that?



Regarding the rest of what you posted... On several points, we seem unable to advance beyond "no, YOU don't understand!" Other points seem to have devolved into personal attacks, which I'm sorry to see. If I wanted to have that kind of argument, I'd pick a fight with my wife. I'm going to let it lay.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Brons2
While buying smaller cars may not get us all the way to energy independence, buying large ones is getting us farther away. You (disingenuously...) keep asking for what tech, well small cars are decidedly low tech on their surface...they have a lower weight and need less horsepower to propel.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt anyone is going to change their habits until gas gets seriously expensive, then people will start swearing about OPEC. In reality, at least part of the solution is in the mirror.

 

[whip]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
I'm posing this question because I'm curious. I readily admit I do have a bias, and will try to be impartial:

Why didn't we put more R&D into increasing fuel economy for cheap instead of monster horsepower numbers?

Examples: a light-duty pickup that gets 30 mpg highway while still being able to tow 10k lbs on the weekends? Or a 35 mpg combined non-diesel/hybrid midsize sedan?

Or is that a silly and naive question?

The US government doesn't want us to have diesels. Corporate Average Fuel Economy could be raised much easier if the government was friendlier to diesels.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Brons2
Nevertheless, I seriously doubt anyone is going to change their habits until gas gets seriously expensive, then people will start swearing about OPEC. In reality, at least part of the solution is in the mirror.


You said this well. At the beginning of this thread, the first thing that struck me is these sales numbers represent last year's sales, right? For most of 2009 and 2010, most folks in the United States enjoyed relatively low gasoline prices. In the neighborhood of $2-2.50/gallon. Coming off a gasoline price spike from 2008 of $4/gallon for many, this gas price lax appeared to be enough to convince many that $4 gasoline isn't really here to stay, that it's just a normal part of up and down, and the purchase of that Tahoe or Sequoia or F-150 isn't an expensive decision afterall. Humans love to rationalize a purchase they're unsure of making, and $2 gas is a great way to do it.

I suspect we'll see the pendulum begin to swing back in the other direction this time next year, as most are seeing the reality of sustained $3.50-4.00 gasoline, with fears of $5/gallon looming on the horizon.

I do agree with one of the initial premises of this thread: you can't drive demand with legislation.

 

[kelpie]

Originally Posted By: whip
Originally Posted By: sciphi
I'm posing this question because I'm curious. I readily admit I do have a bias, and will try to be impartial:

Why didn't we put more R&D into increasing fuel economy for cheap instead of monster horsepower numbers?

Examples: a light-duty pickup that gets 30 mpg highway while still being able to tow 10k lbs on the weekends? Or a 35 mpg combined non-diesel/hybrid midsize sedan?

Or is that a silly and naive question?

The US government doesn't want us to have diesels. Corporate Average Fuel Economy could be raised much easier if the government was friendlier to diesels.



Diesels would probably have more problems than they're worth. Big trucks have to have regeneration filters and EGRs that are nothing but trouble. Don't know how VWs setup is, but I'm sure it has its expenses to servicing end if it. I sat in the new Cruze ECO, and it is very roomy in the front seats (more room than the Malibu). It gets 42 MPG on the highway. That's close to diesel mpgs. Also consider a gal of diesel has more energy than a gal of gas and is more expensive.

 

[eljefino]

CAFE is pretty American. It says, "we don't care if you make a 10 MPG guzzler so long as you make a couple geo metros to go with." Then it's hands off.

Meddling with engine size leads to manipulations that decrease economy or otherwise game the system. Look at the British engines that are oversquare (or overbore?) to lessen their "Taxable HP" while actually retaining usable pep. Throw a bunch of valves, wild cam, and if allowed, a turbo on a small engine and you have a small strung out motor that guzzles fuel.

If someone lives a mile from their work and wants to drive an Escalade, good on them. If they doubled the gas tax but refunded the first 7 gallons' worth per week, it would compliment CAFE. Do it through credit card companies and there wouldn't be a nightmare of scrip/ paperwork. Let bike riding hippies barter their credits.

Part of Japan's regulations relate to car size, with mirrors folded in, so they can park on narrow streets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

As was said a couple pages back, the US car insurance system needs an overhaul, but they own the gov't as badly as the bankers do, so it won't be bloody likely.

 

[grampi]

How many people are still buying gas hogs, and the gas necessary to propel them with borrowed money (which means they really can't afford them)?

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
I'm posing this question because I'm curious. I readily admit I do have a bias, and will try to be impartial:

Why didn't we put more R&D into increasing fuel economy for cheap instead of monster horsepower numbers?

Examples: a light-duty pickup that gets 30 mpg highway while still being able to tow 10k lbs on the weekends? Or a 35 mpg combined non-diesel/hybrid midsize sedan?

Or is that a silly and naive question?


Research and development on light-duty diesels for 1/2-ton pickup trucks has been ongoing for at least 15 years (that I know of) at various NA engine and vehicle manufacturers. 30mpg trucks and SUV's have been built and shown to be practical. The thing that is keeping them off the market is EPA emissions regulations. The alpahbet soup of aftertreatment components necessary to meet the EPA's ridiculous NOx regs is driving up the cost of the engines and harming their fuel economy to the point where they will not be cost-effective to buy.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
If they doubled the gas tax but refunded the first 7 gallons' worth per week, it would compliment CAFE. Do it through credit card companies and there wouldn't be a nightmare of scrip/ paperwork. Let bike riding hippies barter their credits.

Wow. Now there's an idea.

 

[demarpaint]

I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that this country allows people the freedom to buy whatever it is they like/want. My business brings me to homes worth millions of dollars, taking up big chunks of land, some of them are occupied by only two people. Many have pools and tennis courts they never get used. It costs them a fortune to heat and light, let alone tens of thousands of dollars a year in taxes. It's their money, and they knew what they were getting into when they bought the house. I would think someone buying a land yacht knows how much it will cost to fuel it, and if they don't shame on them. If they didn't realize that gas could spike, shame on them again! How about a $100,000 car? It still has 4 wheels and gets from point A to point B? Just another way of looking at it that's all!

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: Brons2
While buying smaller cars may not get us all the way to energy independence, buying large ones is getting us farther away. You (disingenuously...) keep asking for what tech, well small cars are decidedly low tech on their surface...they have a lower weight and need less horsepower to propel.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt anyone is going to change their habits until gas gets seriously expensive, then people will start swearing about OPEC. In reality, at least part of the solution is in the mirror.

Well I'm confused. What exactly is the point of CAFE?

If it is to make us energy independent, independence comes from reliable sources of domestic energy production. I see nothing but opposition to domestic energy production so I conclude that CAFE has nothing to do with energy independence.

If it is to minimize the retail cost of motor fuels, then I believe it will be completely ineffective in that regard. The existing retail cost of motor fuels has little to nothing to do with Suzy homemaker picking up her kids from soccer practice in a Suburban; it has far more to do with the economic policies promulgated by people who can't run a Turbo Tax program or that think community organizing is a viable job skill, and have enacted budgets that run trillion dollar defecits well into the foreseeable future. I don't believe CAFE is intended to have any effect on retail fuel prices and will not have any effect on them.

I do believe CAFE is intended to take advantage of government incompetence and leverage that incompetence to remove freedom from ordianary people.

In the absence of technological breakthrough like Mr. Fusion or something, the only near term way to comply with CAFE will be smaller and lighter vehicles. Smaller cars cost as much to manufacture as larger cars, so no cost savings will be realized there. Has aluminum got any less expensive? When I bought the '04 Jaguar for my wife back in '04, it cost upwards of 70 large, and I don't think aluminum has become less expensive since then. Most car companies have no clue how to build a car out of aluminum, or carbon fiber, or (insert high priced lightweight material of choice here). Carbon fiber is probably not even ready for prime time. It didn't work out well for Beechcraft, so expensive aluminum will probably be the material of choice.

Want to pay 50 large for your econobox just to save 50 cents in gas? That may be the intended or unintended consequence of CAFE. Or you can just drive a car with the structural integrity of a beer can.

Let people buy what they want. It's their money. The government is clueless when it comes to managing money. It has no business whatsoever telling anyone else what to do.

 

[KrisZ]

VW made a car that could get 70mpg+ any guesses as to what happened to it?

I bet most people, even on this board, never heard of this car, because even in Germany that car was a total and utter failure, not because it did not achieve the gas mileage claims, quite the contrary, but because of all the compromises that had to be made in order to achieve that goal and these compromises made a horrific car.


So, before anybody here starts praising CAFE and its usefulness, brace yourself for the future because you may get what you wished for. And if driving thin cans that rattle on every bump and are loud and uncomfortable with the driving dynamics of a Prius is your kind of future, then count me out.

We are dependant on oil, but we are dependant on a lot of things that are finite. Our food supply, even though we have plenty of it, is getting poorer and poorer in nutritional value, we have some nasty chemicals added to our food just to preserve it and to make it cheaper to produce, our education is on constant decline and we have so many other problems that affect us now. We don't need any studies or theories to prove them, yet we try to solve a problem that doesn't seem to exist with any agreeable proof.

I don't see oil companies scrambling for their future, yet the amount of money and effort we are spending on "conserving" oil is tremendous, where is the logic, aside from total control of society?

We are being scared into climate change, finite resources (name ones that are infinite) and a lot of people are willing to give their rights away just so that the “problem” goes away. Well, who’s to say that the “problems” will go away?

http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mareview/mauto497.htm


I bet most people, even on this board, never heard of this car

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
the very idea of trying to achieve sustainability

Please define "sustainability". I have no idea what you mean by that.