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I'm not an engineer, but as an amateur I do like playing with the numbers of how car makers might bring it about.
For instance, on one of the threads, probably this one, I was trying to come up with a Honda Odyssey that could meet the cafe of 30 mpg combined by 2025 and still carry 7 people and luggage. It would be a somewhat smaller vehicles (I came up with some pretend measurements cutting a few inches off all around), but would be powered by a turbo 4 cylinder. And like Honda's current Odyssey it would have variable cylinder management--shutting off half the engine at highway speeds. So right now the Odyssey gets 28 mpg on the highway (19 city) and weighs 4500 lbs. That already seems like a miracle to me. But if you cut the weight down to 3800, which is still obviously pretty heavy, you might be able to power it on the hwy with half of a turbo 4 cylinder. Sounds bizarre, but with VCM when you floor it it immediately activates the rest of the engine. Has a bit of a bump when that happens, but apparently it works.
What's also amazing is what those engineers at Ford and elsewhere have done with these Ecoboost engines. Have you seen the videos on that "hero" engine in the F-150? It's a 3.5 turbo 6--and yet it's a lot more powerful than V-8 engines that are over 5 liters. Seems to have impressive durability from the tear down that they did of it.
http://www.autoobserver.com/2011/07/raising-cafe-reasonably.html
"...56.2 miles per gallon -- sounds like a big jump from where we are today. It is, in fact, not as big as it seems. CAFE mpg, a very complex calculation, is not the same as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) measured mpg we see on new vehicles’ window stickers. There's an explanation here for the reason the numbers don’t match. A CAFE standard of 56.2 mpg actually roughly translates to an EPA rating of 41 mpg...."
Just to make things confusing, the gov't uses two sets of numbers. The 51/48 that you see on the window sticker of a Prius isn't what they use for CAFE ratings. The CAFE rating is a laboratory test and is totally unrealistic in most real-world situations. FWIW, up through 1984, the raw rating was what they published on window stickers. That's why you saw so many economy cars back then rated 40 on the highway and above.
For 1985, the window sticker numbers got revised, in an attempt to more accurately reflect real-world driving conditions. On average, I believe the ratings dropped by about 10%. In 2007, the ratings were again revised downwards.
As for that Prius that's rated 51/48 with a combined rating of 50? Well, it's raw laboratory numbers are 71.9537 city/69.6404 highway, and 70.894 combined.
The 70.894 is the number that's factored in for EPA purposes.
That 54.5 mpg CAFE rating would probably equate to around 39 mpg combined on the window sticker.
Right now, the only cars that break 54.5 mpg combined are the Honda Insight, Civic Hybrid, and Toyota Prius. The hybrid Fusion comes close, at 54.1846. The Smart comes in around 49.5.
Which, I think, kind of proves the point Shifty is making .. there just isn't much of a difference between Dems and Reps anymore.
When I moved to Colorado in the 90's, it was a solidly Red state. Republicans held the governor's seat, both US Senate seats, a majority of the US House seats, and both chambers of the state house were Republican dominated.
Now, that has almost been completely flipped. The governor is a Democrat in name only. Both US Senators are Dems. The House contingent is pretty much the same as before - a slight Rep majority. State house is mostly Dem controlled.
But, nothing has really changed in terms of how the state is run.
The standard for cars is, in fact, pretty tough. It's about 44 combined by the current EPA numbers. Or c. 60 when it comes to CAFE.
But if you get a car that's the size of a Ford Fiesta/Mazda 2, put a 2 cylinder turbo in it (100 hp), plus a smaller hybrid system a la Toyota synergy, it might be possible to get something like 65 mpg by the current ratings.
For CAFE what would that translate into? 85?
If Castro or Chevazs wants to pay my $4 a gallon gas bill, I'll send him my address.
You realize that Venezuela supplies 8 to 15% of our energy needs, right? You want to really send us into a depression because you don't like his politics? Do you intend to cut off Iranian and Saudi and Nigerian oil too? I know the Canadians are digging up Alberta as fast as they can, but I don't think there's enough shale up there to keep us in gasoline. Not enough water to process it at least.
Those files are also where I often go to to get those interior volume ratings that I post from time to time.
As a rough rule of thumb, if you take the published window sticker figure and multiply by 1.3, that'll give you the raw CAFE number they use for those fleet averages. I did a few samples, and sometimes it was 1.35X over, sometimes 1.28X over, but around 1.3X or 1.31X seemed to be more common.
So yeah, 65 mpg on a window sticker would come out to around 85 for CAFE purposes.
Also, I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard that auto makers also get some kind of credit for cars with air conditioning. So, considering that just about every car and truck made today has a/c, there might be some extra "float" to boost those numbers even higher, that we the public don't see.
There's also some kind of funny way that they figure in flex fuel vehicles. For instance, a Crown Victoria FFV is rated at 19 mpg combined, but the raw CAFE number is 24.1841. However, I think they actually add in a few more mpg above that, which the datafiles don't show, that actually gives it a better rating for CAFE purposes.
So, even though they publish those raw CAFE numbers, there's still probably something the government's not telling us!
So do u think the current president is presidential material? And I mean president of the USA, not the world or the universe. And before u reply, please think a bit about what it really means to be President of the USA.
Try the Forget Bushisms, Biden Gaffes, We have Obama blunders discussion.
And screaming that the sky is falling is what, exactly?"
You cannot make an omelet ...
The economy DEPENDS on oil. Until that changes, Step 1 in an energy policy is OBTAIN OIL. Step 1 currently is "IGNORE THE OIL PROBLEM AND PRETEND WE HAVE OTHER VIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
Which of these is grounded in reality???
I am not an automotive engineer, but some things are universal.
Weight, friction, air resistance, potential and kinetic energy. These are the basics. Minimize the first three, maximize the last.
Burning less gas of course is the main goal. Smaller, lighter cars are one basic option. Alternative energy is another. The ONLY viable alternative energy at this point in time is batteries. That MAY change in 13 years, but the clock is ticking.
The Prius and the Fusion are the main players. Looking at the 'new' gov't numbers posted above, a corporate fleet of Priuses just might be the ticket for CAFE. Now, is it possible to build a gazillion Priuses and Fusions? Where gazillion is the number of cars sold in the US per year plus some number of cars bought by the rest of the world who WANT to buy a Prius, rather than be FORCED to buy one like us here in the former "land of the free". Is it possible? I dont think so. Not long ago, Fusion hybrid production was stopped because Toyota has first dibs on the batteries and there weren't enough to go round for the puny number of hybrids being built at the time. So in 13 years, can we build a gazillion hybrids a year? Highly doubtful. So teeny tiny ICE-powered Segway type vehicles may be a large portion of the Corporate fleet. Of course the gazillionaires will still have their Bentleys and Ferraris, eh?
Meantime, research plows ahead into Hydrogen (yikes! sounds dangerous to me) Fuel Cells (ditto) Solar (useless for mobile applications, IMHO) Wind (ditto) Mr Fusion (dont laugh, people are actually working on this and it probably presents as much potential as the others I've mentioned.) the 100 mpg carburetor (we built that in the 50s but GM destroyed the plans, right ?
That's one engineer's opinion. I can't pretend to design a 40mpg Odyssey or Navigator. Not enough data or knowledge. I just rail against the nanny state and being told what I must do and buy - especially by people who know just enough to be dangerous themselves. see earlier post mentioning the CARB and MTBE.
HA - or maybe this guy will come up with something if the gov't will only leave him alone!
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWEDEN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TE- MPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-03-11-33-45
My apologies to Peabody on Rocky and Bullwinkle.
You can argue about whether anyone wants the cars or not or whether you think it is a good idea. But, not so much unobtanium is required. We already can make the cars.
Back to cars and $4 a gallon gas and CAFE.
Like your summary here:
"Weight, friction, air resistance, potential and kinetic energy. These are the basics. Minimize the first three, maximize the last.
Burning less gas of course is the main goal. Smaller, lighter cars are one basic option. Alternative energy is another..."
Excellent summary.
Weight is obviously one of the big things. And here steel, ironically, is going to be one of our friends. Very high grade steel is more expensive, but it's also much stronger. And so obviously you can get a more robust structure and still use less of the high grade steel and save on weight. This is already happening to a significant degree.
When I bought my 2008 Accord, I looked up some of the technical details on it that Honda released in very lengthy press releases. And some of these text, although pr, were quite technical and clearly were written in part by their engineers. Anyway, the amount of high grade steel was up quite dramatically for 2008 compared to the previous generation. But it looked like there was still some room to move there. Of course it will cost $$, which is a problem. But they were able to do this and make an Accord that was still competitive with other cars in its class when it came to price. And no doubt those other cars are using more high grade steel too.
More plastics and aluminum will be used, but I still think steel is going to continue to be the bedrock for the car bodies of the future for most cars.
Plus, that 54.5 mpg is an average. So if you sell one car that gets 71 mpg combined, you can sell one that gets 38 mpg combined, and still have your 54.5 mpg average. Actually, I think it's a weighted average, so that 38 mpg would drag it down. Probably have to be more like 40 mpg.
Now, 40 mpg combined raw is still mainly small cars and hybrids. Stuff like the Yaris, Fit, Accent, Versa, Corolla, Camry and Altima hybrid, etc.
But, if you sell two cars that get 71 mpg, then you can sell one that gets 21 mpg (probably more like 24 mpg since it's a weighted average, and I forget how to do the math on a weighted average, so I'm just guessing here). Anyway, 24 mpg represents cars like the Hemi Dodge Charger, most minivans, midsized SUVs, etc. Even most full-sized pickups with big V-8 engines come in around 20-22 mpg combined.
Maybe they'll start running specials such as "Buy a Toyota Tundra for MSRP, get two Priuses for FREE!" :P
It seems likely that car makers world wide are going to need more engineers for their many challenges....
CAFE is actually even much more complicated than we've represented it.
Apparently the EPA has new goals so that each size of vehicle--based on its width and length "footprint"--is supposed to improve within its class. What mathematical formulae they have for this I don't know. Probably it's out there somewhere, because I believe they began with this new method starting for the 2011 model year.
Anyway, although to some degree a GM Volt can "buy" you a Cadillac for CAFE purposes, it's not quite that easy. They have some incentives and rules so that even Cadillacs get a bit more efficient. Cadillacs will still be large and powerful, but even they are supposed to improve in the new rules.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, iirc, Ford met the CAFE requirements of the day to a significant degree with the Escort. It was part of their corporate plan to sell the Escort pretty much at cost. Some years I think they made a bit of profit on the Escort, while other years they lost a bit, but overall profit was not the top goal with the Escort--meeting CAFE was even more important. Overall profit for the company was still hugely important, and an Escort allowed them to sell lots of high profit and mostly lower mpg vehicles.
Why I mention this is that I think the new "footprint" rules have been put in so that a car maker today can't just sell 400,000 Escort equivalent cars and then not worry about the rest of the fleet and sell mostly gas guzzlers. Each car within its class is supposed to become more efficient.
But the car companies successfully worked to make this rule flexible, and they may have succeeded in watering it down so much that it has little practical impact. Nonetheless, impact or not, cars are going to be measured based on this footprint.
And my guess is that most car makers at some point (5 years from now) will have an incentive to build lots of high mileage ICE vehicles and sell them at a reasonable price. Probably like Ford with the Escort way back when, most of them won't make profit their first consideration as CAFE goes up. In other words, a result of this is someday (maybe by c.2020?) something like Andre is suggesting in jest.
When gas is $4 a gallon a car maker could actually charge a premium (as most makers are now) for decent small cars that get good mpg.
But if gas prices ever decline--and they might in perhaps 5 years (in part because of CAFE)--then car makers may be selling well made affordable high mpg cars.
If you say that's messing with market forces, well that's certainly true. But the giant subsidies we give to oil companies already have done that for decades now. And market forces don't always work, as we saw with the Great Depression or with the crisis of 08....
Anyway, all of this is why the auto makers got that review put in for 2018. If gas prices have stabilized or even declined by then, they might be worried that it could be a challenge in 2025 to sell really high mileage cars, what with the trade offs involved. I don't think they'll have any trouble in selling cars to meet the 2018 standards. Those standards aren't that tough. And even if gas prices decline a bit, people are still going to want to get good mpg.
Total gas tax in CA for May was 68.9 cents per gallon. How many gallons do you think Californians use in a day, week, month Year?
http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/May2011%20gasoline%20and%20diesel- - %20summary%20pages.pdf
California is 35x Less Populous than China
Truly an amazing statistic, via Wired. According to the California Energy Commission, the state with its 37 million people uses more gasoline and diesel than any other country on Earth except the US as a whole. That's more than India with its 1.1 billion people. More than China with its 1.3 billion (California is 2.8% of China's pop.). So while demand has been increasing in China and everybody's talking about that, they forget to look at absolute numbers: 20 billion gallon of gasoline and diesel are used each year in California, 6.7 billion gallons more than in 1988.
That is about $14 billion in fuel tax per year. My guess not everyone in the government is drooling over 55 MPG vehicles.
"According to the California Energy Commission, the state with its 37 million people uses more gasoline and diesel than any other country on Earth except the US as a whole. That's more than India with its 1.1 billion people. More than China with its 1.3 billion (California is 2.8% of China's pop.). So while demand has been increasing in China and everybody's talking about that, they forget to look at absolute numbers: 20 billion gallon of gasoline and diesel are used each year in California, 6.7 billion gallons more than in 1988."
On the roads I think eventually we do need an increase in the gas tax. I think a moderate one would help a lot. Roads don't build themselves. We need money for them.
But I don't want gas to be as expensive as Europe, I don't think. Hard to say. Probably Shifty will get me for what I just said.
But perhaps, by 2020, say, we should probably increase the gas tax by at least 25 cents a gallon. Otherwise, as you say, these new CAFE rules will start to starve our roads.
They are already starving, really. Don't we have something like a $2 Trillion dollars nationwide backlog of infrastructure projects....
I am not sure which technology you are referring to. I am sure we have spent as much on Solar and Wind technology research as any country. Only to have the companies like GE we financed R&D with move the manufacturing to China. Then sell US our designs back. I am sure you know the many reasons this happens. GM developed the the NiMH battery used in all hybrids. How many of those batteries were built here with US labor? And why weren't they. Look no further than the Eco nuts and their strict mining and manufacturing laws.
That is why I would NOT allow anything to be sold in the USA that cannot be manufactured here under our regulations. Send all those Prius, iPhones and iPads back to China folks.
The other thing I see is when people get a new high mileage vehicle they use it more. I have cut my trips to Costco since moving further away. It costs about $8 in gas round trip. I have to buy a lot and save a lot to shop there. We mostly combine our trips. This morning it was dentist, smog test the LS400, Costco gas, Home Depot, Post office, Office Depot, Smart and Final, Baghdad Market and Greek chicken for lunch. One big 30 mile loop. Cost of fuel in Lexus@ $3.81 per gallon, $6.72.
Whether all this effort can overcome the possibility of China being overwhelmed by carbon emissions due to her incredibly heavy, and vastly increasing, use of coal remains a big question. Chinese climatologists, unlike those in some countries we know, are taking the potential horrors of climate change very seriously. There is no debate about climate change in China to speak of.
The international community has to change the economics of carbon--this seems the only way to bend China even further toward the green.
If the US stands still on this, China will just burn more coal because it wants to grow. If this sets an energy race going based strictly on fossil fuels, it's up the creek for all of us I suspect.
I think that solution has its own terrible risks and problems, as Japan showed us with its recent tragedy. And as we all know the waste lasts hundreds of thousands of years.
But coal burning in China will probably decline significantly as a result of this ambitious nuclear program.
(Updated July 2011)
Mainland China has 14 nuclear power reactors in operation, more than 25 under construction, and more about to start construction soon.
Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give more than a ten-fold increase in nuclear capacity to at least 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030....
@.90 a gallon, they raise $1M in taxes for every 79k cars that have an average fill of 14 gallons. How many cars a day do you think fill up with around 14 gallons, and this doesn't count pickups and semis that use diesel whose average fill is anywhere from 25 to 100 gallons, at an even higher tax rate. So lets just say that 79k cars in the state of IL fill up with 14 gallons, that comes out to $30M a month, just in gas taxes alone. So where does that money go?
Fuel taxes in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States federal excise tax on gasoline, as of February 2011, is 18.4¢/gal and 24.4¢/gal for diesel fuel. In January 2011, motor gasoline taxes averaged 48.1¢/gal and diesel fuel taxes averaged 53.1¢/gal,[1] which accounted for 14% of the price of gasoline and 15% of the price of diesel.[2]
taxes in England are obviously a lot higher:
United Kingdom
Main article: Hydrocarbon oil duty
From 4th January 2011 the UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5895 per litre (£2.65 per imperial gallon or £2.20 per U.S. gallon).[5] Value Added Tax at 20% is also charged on the price of the fuel and on the duty.
Using the UK average untaxed pump price for unleaded petrol of £0.4572 per litre (from the December 2010 average taxed price of £1.221 per litre,[6] the duty rate of £0.5819 per litre[5] and the then VAT rate of 17.5%) this would give a January 2011 taxed price of £1.256 per litre (£5.71 per imperial gallon or £4.75 per U.S. gallon) - that is equivalent to a tax rate of 175%.
Faster net access would probably do more to get commuters off the road than mass transit. South Korea's average is 16.63 mb a second; US average is 4.6. And ours costs more.
http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/May2011%20gasoline%20and%20diesel- %20summary%20pages.pdf
Makes me wonder if we can remove him for breaking the immigration laws.
18.4 cents FEDERAL TAX
19 cents STATE TAX
1.1 cents State Environment tax
6 cents Cook County tax
5 cents Chicago City tax
10% State sales tax. (Therefore, 40 cents on a $4/gallon.) (Illinois is only one of 7 states that charges sales tax and charges the highest in the nation at 10%)
That's about 90 cents of tax on a $4.00 gallon of gas in Chicago. OUCH!
The issue is can it be done? I don't think it is really feesable. There is only so much energy in a gallon of gas and I don't think you are going to get that kind of mileage with a conventional ICE. At least not unless you dump a lot of the gas robbing safety and pollution systems on cars and/or making cars really small.
Look at current EPA ratings out there, very few cars get an EPA combined 35 or more and most are more expensive hybrids. I don't think its going to happen unless the consumer is willing to pay $25K for hybrid Smart cars.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
While I like the idea of HS rail, I wonder about the feasibility from a cost perspective.
My mom took my oldest daughter on Amtrak from Chicago to Kansas City last week. The round trip fair fare cost over $400 for two people.
I drove the Taurus basically the same distance to southern Missouri and it was a tank of fuel each way or basically $120. Now some cost has to be added for miles on the car, but in no way was it anywhere near $400.
HS rail might be able to cut the trip from 7 1/2 hours to 2-3 hours which is worth some money, but IMO HS rail will be more of an alternative to flying rather than driving. Unless there is a cost incentive to take the train vs. a car.
Let's try to imagine how you might meet this if you were Honda, starting with the Accord. The current Accord has been criticized by many as "too big," and so say the Accord of 2025 is slimmed down a little. And that just seems too far in the future. A year from now we'll get an all new 2013 Accord, which surely will be a little smaller and more fuel efficient than what we have now. By 2018 the next all new Accord will arrive. Let's try to imagine that one just 6+ years from now helping Honda meet the standard
2011 Accord imagined 2018 Accord
Width: 72.7 in. 71
Height: 58.1 in. 57
Length: 194.1 in. 188
Curb weight: 3312 lbs. 3000 lbs
Interior room could probably be almost the same. Right now the Accord's hood is big enough to hold even a large 6 cylinder engine. Like Hyundai has already done for the Sonata, look for the Accord to move to all 4 cylinder engines by 2018 if not before. And so the front of the car could probably lose about 6 inches and still keep the passenger compartment roughly the same size. A 1.6 liter direct injected turbo might be able to get 190 hp, about the same as the current 2.4 in the EX. Give it a 6 speed instead of 5 speed transmission. The smaller engine pushing less weight should get slightly better 0-60 times plus better mpg.
The 2011 Accord is rated 27 combined. The imagined 2018 Accord might be able to get something like 32 combined.
Do the same thing to the Civic, which now does get 32 combined with a 5 speed and a 1.8. By 2020 move it to a 1 liter turbo direct injected engine, give it a 6 speed, and put it on a diet to lose 15% of its weight. By 2020 the Civic should be getting something like 40 combined.
Then you go down to a sub Civic "Honda City." This would be the size of a Mazda2 or Ford Fiesta, have maybe a 2 cylinder turbo and full hybrid. This one might get 60 combined. If the Prius can get 50, this significantly smaller car should be able to get 10 more.
300k Accords @ 32 mpg + 300k Civics @ 40 mpg + 300k "Honda City" @ 60 mpg equals roughly a CAFE for Honda of 44, which meets the standard for 2025 with current technology. 33% of the cars are hybrids. 66% are regular ICEs. I'm sure there are many, many other ways to slice this cake. This is just one possible imagined way.
I know, I just made a lot of stuff up. But it's a somewhat plausible projection of one possible way based on the mpg ratings of current Honda cars as well as the power and mpg ratings of smaller direct injected turbo engines.
A 6 speed manual is available. This one will beat Civic 5 speed LX manual in most ways, I'm thinking...
The new 2012 "Skyactiv" Mazda3, rated 28 city and 40 hwy
vs
2011 Mazda3 at 24/33
What a big improvement! Plus at the same time a little more power and torque. This represents the fruits of a massive 5 year R & D and development project by Mazda that cost hundreds of millions of dollars:
http://www.mazdausamedia.com/content/2012-mazda3-skyactiv-makes-us-debut-boasts-- - - - 40-mpg-highway
"Mazda3, SKYACTIV Reach New Heights
In addition to the Mazda3's current MZR 2.0-liter dual-overhead-cam 16-valve four-cylinder engine is the all-new high-efficiency direct-injection SKYACTIV-G 2.0-liter gasoline engine. Mated to a standard SKYACTIV-MT six-speed manual transmission or optional SKYACTIV-Drive six-speed automatic transmission, SKYACTIV will be available in either the sedan or hatchback models. The MZR 2.0-liter engine will continue to be available with the current five-speed manual as standard equipment. MZR 2.0-liter-equipped models also will be available with the current five-speed automatic as an option.
Approximately 4.4 pounds lighter than the current MZR 2.0-liter engine, the SKYACTIV 2.0-liter adopts multi-hole injectors to enhance fuel spray characteristics, along with specially developed piston cavity shapes that ensure a shorter combustion time and suppresses the impact on power and torque from engine knocking. Pumping loss is also decreased by employing dual sequential valve timing (S-VT).
The 2012 Mazda3 achieves a high compression ratio of 12.0:1 and delivers 155 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 148 lb-ft of torque at 4,100 rpm. (The PZEV version of this engine sold in California and other states produces 154 hp at 6,000 rpm and 148 lb-ft of torque at 4,100 rpm).
Compared to the current Mazda3 MZR 2.0-liter engine, the maximum power of the SKYACTIV-equipped 2012 Mazda3 is increased by approximately five percent (from 148 horsepower at 6,500 rpm) and torque is increased by approximately 10 percent (from 135 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm). With improved torque, coupled with a drive control system that utilizes coordinated controls of the engine and transmission, Mazda3s with SKYACTIV technology excel in dynamic response, further maintaining the Zoom-Zoom idea of oneness between the car and driver.
Fuel economy also gets a boost from the combination of a SKYACTIV engine and transmissions. When equipped with the SKYACTIV-G gasoline engine and optional SKYACTIV-Drive six-speed automatic transmission, the 2012 Mazda3 sedan will achieve an EPA rating of 40 mpg on the highway, an approximately 21-percent improvement over the current MZR 2.0-liter engine equipped with the optional five-speed automatic transmission. With a fuel tank capacity of 14.5 gallons, the 2012 Mazda3 sedan with SKYACTIV has the potential of a 540-mile range, with still a gallon of fuel remaining. City mpg for the sedan version also improves by 17 percent to 28 mpg. When equipped with the SKYACTIV-MT six-speed manual transmission, the sedan is rated with an estimated fuel economy of 27 city/39 highway....
The higher fuel economy of the 2012 Mazda3 equipped with SKYACTIV is a direct result of combining all the best features of the technology in today's transmissions. For SKYACTIV-Drive, the key advantages of a conventional automatic transmission, Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) and Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) were integrated. In addition, a torque converter with a lock-up clutch was developed to ensure minimal decrease in fuel economy and an increase in direct drive feel.
For SKYACTIV-MT, the goal was to achieve a shift feel that is sporty, brisk and responds to the driver. To accomplish this, not only was the shift-lever stroke shortened by about 10 percent compared to the current six-speed manual (available only in models equipped with the MZR 2.5-liter engine or MZR 2.3-liter Direct-Injection Spark Ignition turbo engine) but other technologies were applied as well: a down type system, lock ball type synchronizer, shift load canceller, slide ball bearing and locating 2nd and 3rd gears on a common shaft. By reconfiguring the current six-speed manual transmission, its weight was reduced by approximately 4.4 pounds due to the need for fewer components, while creating a quicker and crisper shift feel. Call it a little "MX-5 Miata-ness" in the Mazda3.
I looked into taking Amtrak to visit my daughter. Closest I could get to her place in So Indiana was about a 2 hour drive. The cost was over double what we paid to fly right into the little airport in Evansville. I don't see HS rail for most of the country being feasible. When they crash as the one in China just did it is spectacular. And that was one of the designs CA is considering.
Last I read the Chinese are going to exploit the rare earths in Afghanistan. While we lost the lives trying to establish Democracy in an Islamic country. Just how dumb is that?
The placement of the HS rail routes was forced by land use obstacles. It was planned for certain areas first because that's the only feasible route right now. But it's part of a much larger system.
But you're right, it has to take people from SF to LA and SD in order to make sense.
RARE EARTHS -- I found out that they aren't "rare" on earth at all--it's just rare to find very much of it in one place.
We are supposed to open up a rare earths mine in CA. Will it come to fruition? Without Rare Earths most modern technological devices are impossible to manufacture. China holds the bulk of current production. Very smartly they do not want to sell raw material. Only finished product. Too bad we are not as smart as the Chinese.
http://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/mazda/mazda-skyactiv-prototype-review-vide- - o-1587.html
I think price is variable. My mom took the train to KC from Chicago because the cheapest flight was double the plane tickets at the time. She did say the train was full.
One of my friends used to take Amtrak from the DC area to his home town near Detroit. The quickest way to do it was to take the train to Toledo, and then take a bus the rest of the way. Or have family or friends go to Toledo to pick him up. If you wanted to take the train all the way into Detroit, you had to go through Chicago first!
Needless to say, nowadays when he goes back there, he flies.
FWIW, I just checked the Amtrak schedule. If I wanted to go to Detroit tomorrow (Friday the 5th), there's only one train that leaves from Union Station in DC. The Capitol Limited pulls out at 4:05 in the afternoon, and arrives at Toledo at 5:08 AM the next morning, Saturday. Then, there's a bus that leaves Toledo at 6:30 AM, and gets in Detroit at 7:35 AM.
Or, if you want to take the train all the way, you still hop the Capitol Limited in DC at 4:05, but just stay on at Toledo. After leaving Toledo, it goes on to Chicago, and arrives there at 8:45 AM on Saturday morning. I'm actually impressed that after it pulls into Toledo, it makes it to Chicago in another 3 hours and 37 minutes. I guess there must not be very many stops in between, at that point?
But then, you have to hang around Chicago for about 3 1/2 hours, and then catch the Wolverine out of there at 12:16 pm, and it finally makes it into Detroit at 6:46 PM. TWENTY SIX hours and 41 minutes after you departed!
And then, you still have to factor in the time spent getting to Union Station in DC, and then getting from the station in Detroit to wherever your final destination is.
FWIW, I could probably drive from my house to Detroit in about 10 hours. It's about 540 miles. Years ago, I made it from Jackson MI back here in 9 hours, which is about 550 miles. But in retrospect, it's probably a miracle that I didn't get a speeding ticket!
I think it takes about an hour and a half to fly to Detroit. So, figure a half hour to get to the local airport, an hour to check in, and maybe an hour once you land, it takes my buddy about four hours, doorstep to doorstep, to make that trip by airplane.
I guess the one advantage that a train has is that it's a lot easier to get on and off. About 3 years ago, I took a friend to Union Station to catch a train. I don't know how early you're supposed to get there to catch a train, versus going to the airport, but we got there early just to be safe. Seemed like no big deal. They put his suitcase on a luggage cart that got loaded in a compartment under the passenger car, show the conductor the ticket, and hop on.
Airfare was just under $900 with luggage charges. Driving would take about the same time as the train. However I would get a nice bed each night in a nice hotel. With gas averaging $4 my roundtrip gas charges in the Sequoia would be about $850. Add 4 nights in hotels another $400. Car rental flying or train would be about $400 for two weeks. So getting from CA to Indiana looks like this.
Driving 3 days each way with hotels = $1250
Flying with 2 weeks rental car = $1300
Train with berth 2.5 days each way and rental car = $2160
Train would be kind of fun & relaxing I am sure.
Flying is very stressful for my wife with all the TSA BS.
Driving offers the most freedom to do as we please. And that is what America is all about.
Yes the train is easy getting on and off. My wife takes it up to LA to visit the grandkids. I would expect Napalitano to end that soon. You will probably have to get xrayed every time you get on a bus, trolley, subway or train by the time she gets her empire built.
My folks do the same thing, only in reverse. They live in Ventura County and take the train to SD (OK, Oceanside) to see my sister and her family. I think it's a 4-5 hour ride with all the stops, but they completely avoid the LA / OC traffic.