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The EPA website only goes back to 1985, but I'm guessing that the '84 models would be the same, although I think the EPA used a different rating system in 1978-84, which is why so many cars from that era easily got estimates into the 40's.
Now lets compare a Prius with the 63 beetle. $28,000 will get you a Prius at Cherry Hill Toyota NJ. 28,000 - $800 = $27,200 divided by gas @$3 a gallon equals 9070 gallons of gas times 38 mpg equals 344,660 miles of driving. You havnt driven your Prius one foot yet.
I believe your typical Beetle gets 38 mpg about as much as I believe a FeatherDuster/Dart Lite really got 36! :P
I believe the 1500 came out in about 1966. I had a 1967 that I bought in 1969. I rebuilt it with 88mm barrels and pistons and a Weber carb. It was not the best on gas, but it was fast for the time. Still the best two wheel drive vehicles off-road and in snow that I have ever driven. Back then it was not the car as much as it was the leaded gas that was destroying our lungs.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Unless you were drafting a semi. That was very common in the early days. Many accidents with a Bug smashed into the back of a semi trailer.
I wore felt boots in the winter, with my down ski jacket, and leather mittens with wool liners. (which I also wore snowmobiling at -20F) Long underware. I put all the heat onto the windshield the first 5 miles. And held my breath because if you breathed it froze to the windshield. 30 miles later when I got to work it would be sort of warm in there. In the fall I made good and sure the heater hoses were all hooked up with no leaks. Probably wired open the heater boxes too when the car got older. Also, make sure the muffler is good. Come to think of it fall was new muffler time.
Hwy miles? 28mpg.
Very Good Deal.
How? DOD: Displacement On Demand.
V8, in certain situations, shuts down some of the cylinders, and the engine gets MPG of some V6's.
Why aren't others following this example?
Imagine a V6, that becomes a 4, in certain instances. instead of midsized cars getting 30-32MPG, the might get mid-30's(or more?).
Would it be possible to take a 4 cylinder, and make it a 3 cylinder, at times, thus increasing smaller car(and some midsized cars) mpg?
(the old Geo Metro ran on 3 cylinders, but that was all of the time... this could say kick in on hwy, cruise?).
Imagine a hybrid with DOD, or Diesels with DOD.
Heard VW has a diesel that gets 49 MPG hwy. Add DOD, and you would get well into the 50's MPG.
I know DOD has been brought up before, on various other topics, but figured maybe let's get this in one thread.
Take Care/Not Offense.
Sounds like this can be applied to V8's and V6's.
In repsonse to my first question on making a 4 a 3 cylinder? Sounds like that happens to the V6, if one of the cylinder banks shuts down already with this system( as mentioned in the article/link).
Can't happen to an I-4(unless they have some odd deal, like this V4, and then , i do not think it is a real" V" engine, in Ford's case, according to the article)
I was thinking of a conversation about V4(and got it mixed up with this DOD..sorry).....
anyhow, here's a link to the "V" 4's, some by Ford, some by Lancia(which this link says also created the first V6?).
http://www.answers.com/topic/v4-engine
Anyhow.... other makers should try to get something akin to this system up and running on their vehicles, don't ya think?
This link said DOD is a trademarked name, by GM< but not patented system, so maybe others could do the same thing, but not call it DOD, or "Active Fuel Management"(the new name).?
Now I don't think the '94-96 SS was quite as fast. IIRC, 0-60 was around 7 seconds, whereas the new one has clocked in as fast as 5.9. However, at typical highway speeds you're only using a fraction of your available power anyway. The '94-96 SS was also heavier. Although the '06 is pretty heavy itself, around 3800 lb. I think the RWD one was around 4200?
I just have a gut feeling that cylinder deactivation doesn't save a whole lot in most real world driving. It might save a couple mpg if you got out on a long, flat stretch of highway and kept a constant speed. On long trips it probably would be helpful. But in most driving I doubt if it really helps that much. GM also tends to gear their cars really tall, so at highway speeds their engines are already near stall-out speed anyway. On a V-8 engine, you could probably stand to lose the extra cylinders and still have enough power. But I'd imagine that on a V-6 or 4-cyl engine, once you cut that extra power, the remaining cylinders wouldn't be strong enough to maintain speed, so you'd either start to slow down or the computer would force the stopped pistons to re-engage. I could imagine a scenario something like the "hunting" that early overdrive automatics tended to do in hilly terrain, or right around the 45 mph mark.
BTW, how much cost does the cylinder deactivation technology add to the price of a typical car?
The V6 gets 31MPG, and the V8 with DOD gets 28 MPG hwy, according to this brochure.
I remember when V8's got 13-16MPG, if you were lucky, hwy. Our 77 camaro, that we had gotten used in the mid-80's, got mixed 12-13, and once, 16MPG, all hwy.
Anyhow....
I think that AutoWeek had a test drive of some "fuel sipper" cars, and the Corvette with this technology got 26.7MPG, if I recall correctly.
But... Jetta diesel got 49.
Beat the Prius by a few miles, even.
Accord hybrid got "only" 33mpg.
(these are numbers I am "recalling", may be off 1 mpg here or there... friend of mine had the magazine, and I checked it out...think it came out in late March or early April, may even have the story on AW website?).
You may be right.... even if you gain 10% increase on a 30MPG vehicle, that is only 3 extra MPG(that may be something, though, if ya drive like my relatives: one drive's 120 miles a day round trip to work, the other is closer to 160 a day).
I am wondering if they messed with this technology somehow, if they could hit maybe 15% increase in MPG. a 4-5 MPG increase on a midsized sedan, 30 MPG, to nearly 35. That might be a little better of a deal.
I guess you are correct, though. it does sound good, DOD, but when you posted the old numbers, there's what, a 2MPG increase? And unless you drive 40K+ miles per year, it probably would not really make any difference?
First, it was back in the days of the 55 mph speed limit, and Granddad usually did about 55-60. Second, it was in the desert in the springtime. Nice, flat ground, Granddad just loafing along, and no a/c use. That car also had a tall 2.73:1 axle, and an overdrive gear of 0.67:1, which gave it an effective overall ratio of around 1.82:1 in overdrive. Chances are, Granddad got that thing out on the highway after filling up, and once it went into overdrive it never came out, and they just stayed at a constant 55-60 until the next time they needed gas. Or someone had to pee. :P
That car also wasn't very powerful. It only had 140 hp and 255 ft-lb of torque. And while it had a 4-bbl carb, I suspect it was a small-ish 4-bbl that was a bit restrictive, as a Chevy 305 back then would've put out 165 hp in a similar Caprice or Parisienne.
I had that car for a few years, and the best I could ever get out of it was maybe 22 mpg. I never took it on a really long trip though. I'd also drive a bit faster than 55-60.
The only way to keep it from shifting out of overdrive was to get up above 85 mph (that's where the speedo would peg) and at that point it seemed like the revs were high enough that it was back up to its peak power in the overdrive gear, so it had no need to downshift.
So I'd suspect the cylinder deactivation would be somewhat similar. My Granddad would've been able to get great mpg out of it. My Grandma tended to have a "heavy foot" though!
I tried looking up some figures for the Dodge Ram and Durango, which didn't have DOD in earlier versions of the Hemi, but now they do. Looks like the DOD knocked the Ram 2wd up from 14/19 to 15/19. And the Durango 2wd went from 15/19 to 15/20. Not a huge bump, but in vehicles that get low mpg to begin with, the actual dollar savings on fuel would be greater.
Accord Hybrid has a DOD. Honda calls it VCM (Variable Cylinder Management). VCM is also used in upper trims of Odyssey.
Civic Hybrid has used a form of DOD since it arrived, but instead of deactivation during cruising, three of four cylinders were "idle" during deceleration.
DCX has used its own version of DOD as well.
maybe it is a technology that can be improved on, though.
lots of stuff goes through gen 1, gen 2, etc...
Take the 2006 Impala SS: 235/50-R18 tires, 0.70 overdrive, and 3.29 final gear gives you 1846 rpm at 65 mph. The LS4 in the Impy is doing about 100hp at that speed, and guess what happens when you turn off half the cylinders. 50hp is just barely enough to keep a big, heavy car like that steady at 65 mph on the flat. Ask for even a smidge of extra horsepower, and DOD goes bye-bye.
DOD is probably only useful for highway cruising. I think that a driver that makes an effort to keep the car in DOD mode will probably get much better fuel economy. Other types of drivers may see very little benefits.
Another solution is a roundabout. I used to live in an area with a horrible 4 way stop, at peak times traffic would back up well over half a mile, which has to waste tons of gas. The city decided to install a roundabout, much to the horror of locals. But guess what...it worked pretty wonderfully. I never saw more than 5-10 cars lined up from there on.
Today I was out and the lights were sequenced different from yesterday. No 5 minute waits with no cross traffic. No lights randomly turning red with no cross traffic. Maybe the software here fails every few days. I work early, heading out before 6am, and every now and then I'll see a light turn red with no cross traffic.
I think another idea would be to make it legal to go against red with no cross traffic (stopping first of course)...maybe even restrict it to weekends.
The problem with seeing that simple solution implemented everywhere is of course that the city fathers are local monopolies. They are under no pressure to improve their modus operandi.
I agree about the city fathers...when you operate in a vacuum of accountability, you have no reason to improve. All they care about here is planting trees in medians, and micromanaging billboard heights. I love seeing traffic back up for 5 or 6 blocks due to the long light a block from my place.
I agree about poor light timing, though. If the oil shortage -- real or imagined, current or impending -- is bad enough to have legislators seriously suggesting a return to a 55 mph limit, then any and all methods of conservation have to be examined. A lot of gas is wasted at red lights.
I'd love to see there be enough outcry and negative publicity to force cities (kicking and screaming no doubt) to improve their traffic management. I guess someone will need to get off their butt to get those wheels in motion.
"": A 5500 lbs escalade compared to a 3500 lbs BMW 3 or camry."
The comparison isn't between the Escalade and the Camry.
The proper comparison is between the Escalade and the Infiniti QX56 or the Lexus LX 470 .
Note the fuel economy of these two: 13/18 and 13/17, respectively.
Here's the link to the comparison page on Edmunds.
http://www.edmunds.com/apps/nvc/edmunds/VehicleComparison;jsessionid=G1FGVXLJqzD- PSL8YV2JZGCmJB0LkyTTz3FlM5LLgQdlhJFcxlTgp!-785511582?basestyleid=100672735&style- id=100623768&styleid=100530957&styleid=100535498&styleid=100530860&maxvehicles=5- &refid=&op=3&tab=specs
I believe that the new 2007 Escalade beats them both (by virtue of having mpg of 13/19).
Goto:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/22989.shtml
to see
If you are going to trash the US company for building these things, please point out the fuel guzzling machines that the peace/environment loving Japanese are building as well.
Regarding:
"reduce the demand by increasing efficiency and killing SUV terror, and gradually rolling back dependence on oil and materials by heavily taxing them.
"
The best way to reduce consumption of fuel is to tax it. That will naturally result in the death of the SUV segment. Of course, not only GM is standing in the way of this. Toyota lobbies equally hard against fuel taxes and CAFE standards. Please see the facts at:
http://www.bluewaternetwork.org/telltoyota/
"Friedman actually owns two cars. A mercedes S-class and a Lexus LX. I have seen him driving the LX. "
Thanks God Friedman is no hypocrite :P
Let's see.
Mercedes S-Class gets 16 mpg / 24 mpg
and Lexus LX gets 13 mpg / 17 mpg.
And he wants GM to die so that evil GM will stop building SUVs. Oh, wait a minute, he owns a fuel guzzling Toyota.
What a Hypocrite..... :P
So at best we were using 85 gal/mile. The ship cruises at 25mph, between NYC and the Caribbean, or Bermuda. It basically runs 24/7 for months; as it uses considerable diesel in ports to produce on-board electricity and HVAC.
My personal auto fuel usage was aggravated by having to wait 1 hour on a Sun. morning (what must it be like on a work-day?) inching towards the Holland Tunnel. Congestion is a major factor in auto gasoline usage in many areas. If higher prices reduce congestion - great!
Instead of giving people tax credits to buy hybrids, instead give these tax credits to people who are considering changing their old gas guzzler to a new fuel efficient new car ? It does not even have to be one of the little beast. Even a domestic small / medium sized car achieving 30+ mpg will help a lot.
As I have shown previously, changing from a 15-20 mpg car to a 30+ mpg car saves much more oil PER CAR than from a 40+ mpg hybrid or small car to a 100 mpg super hybrid.
And I am worried that when that 100 mpg super hybrid goes on sale, is the US government going to give $5k or more tax incentives to get people to buy these super hybrids, which will have EVEN less effect on the environment and oil, considering their price tag will be even more expensive than current Priuses ?
I think people who designed the tax incentives for hybrids forgot to do their Maths and they also forgot the huge number of old cars !
The economics are more likely to make this work. Say an average old car has a value of $3k-$10k depending on age and model.
Now, U give hybrid buyers say $3k tax incentive, how many of them are willing to pay extra $10k at least and more to change to a hybrid ?
Now, if they ALSO get say just $0.5k - $1k tax incentive to buy a fuel efficient non-hybrid priced at $10k-$15k, how many of them and how likely are they to change their old car to a say $10k new fuel efficient car instead of a $20k or more hybrid ?
How abt also giving $0.5k-$1k incentive for people to change to a USED fuel efficient car ? I think there are more powerful and FASTER ways to use tax incentives than giving hybrid incentives.
That $10k new fuel efficient model may not save as much gas and emission as a hybrid on a one to one basis, BUT, if the ratio of oldies converting to the $10k is say 50 or more is to 1 vs hybrids, then the tax credits for the $10k non-hybrids will have a MUCH bigger impact than the minority who change to a hybrid !
Seems sensible to me. Even a small amount of tax credit, say $0.5k-$1k for a 30+mpg conventional, compared to $3k+ for a hybrid, will do WONDERS for oil and the environment !
Current tax incentives for hybrids is to me like focusing money and research on a minor disease, while ignoring other much more common diseases like cancer, heart attack, diabetes which kills and hurts more people every year !
The exact rating depends on model (2wd/4wd) and engine displacement (4.0/4.7). There are ratings for city, highway and combined:
Cars Mileage Browser
Job Losses
"It's really upsetting to think that you have put that much time in, and then you have to start over," says Angela of High Shoals, N.C. "I could lose everything I have worked for 25 years."
The layoffs are not unexpected. Angela began taking accounting classes in the fall, and Doug has been taking welding courses. They have also been saving money.
1) It points out as many of us have time and again, that oil is used in many, many ways to meet our lifestyle. Simply improving mpg is not going to make a big difference in the 66+% of oil we import.
2) I think Angela and her family should be thankful for that company for having provided jobs to them for so long. I would assume that since they stayed at those jobs, that that was the best or best paying job for them. They had a good-ride. The world constantly changes, and hopefully they have improved their skills over the years, and can find even better jobs. IMO people should be collecting "their worth" each week in their paycheck, and not somehow imagine that they are accruing some sort of good-will, seniority-pay because they have been there so long.
Rocky
If we plan on sticking with a pay for use scheme when it comes to roadways the gas tax will have to be replaced. Possibly a system where paying your registration fees involves an odometer check and that mileage is taxed. In addition there should probably be something added to a person's property tax if he lives in a remote, rural area. Obviously these less travelled roads are not generating enough income to pay for their maintenance. Maybe in the future we will come up with a convenient way to make all roads toll roads. The toll for a section of road should be the cost of maintenance divided by the number of cars that use it.
The idea of targeting small, fuel efficient cars for a separate tax will not fly. The people driving these cars will ask why they are being singled out for trying to do their part for the environment? I will be wondering why we give a tax break for buying this type of vehicle and turn around and take it away?
Politics at it's best. You and I are both interested in all electric cars for most of our day to day transportation needs. The tax by the mile was tossed around in Sacramento when it looked like they would be part of our fleet. Then it was brought up again when the legislators realized that the high mileage hybrids were not paying their fair share. I have not heard anymore on it for about a year. I know Oregon was testing those GPS devices to charge by the mile. We are going to have to do something or our roads will all revert back to gravel and we will have to have SUVs and 4X4 PU trucks to get anywhere. I have seen roads in both Alaska and Hawaii go from paved to potholes to gravel in just a few years of no maintenance.
I think the above taxing idea is backwards and not in consonance with the board topic of reducing oil dependence.
Motoring public needs to be nudged/pushed toward vehicles with better fuel efficiency. Extra taxation should be assessed against larger and heavier vehicles and those that have poor gas mileage. That extra tax, however it is assessed, would be channeled back to road maintenance. The tax could be a yearly license/tag fee. As an example, a 5000 lb suv with a highway epa of 18 would pay $500/year while a compact weighing 2700 getting highway epa of 40 would pay $100/year. I know that gas is already taxed (fed and local) at the pump, but this tax is insufficient to fund highway/road maintenance.
This would be a fair system and in line with taxing in general - the more that you have or make, the more that you pay.
That's some pretty good bang for the buck I'd say.
My current Harley (a V-rod) only gets 40-43mpg. But it does it at a much higher velocity
me: Are you sure of that? I believe for many years that extra moneys collected from the gas tax have been used to subsidize mass transit and Amtrak. Besides Income and property taxes, my 3rd highest category of taxes paid is for my auto. Between sales, annual excise, annual registration, and gas taxes people pay quite a bit in tax each year.
And then just think of how much other tax is collected from the companies, businesses, and employees of those that sell, repair, and insure our hundreds of millions of autos. Plus all the companies and employees that maintain the roads also contribute many billions in taxes. Looking at the whole picture, you can see that the entire automobile transportation system contributes gretaly to the tax base in this country; much more than what is spent on the roads.
Taxing by mile makes sense to me "IF" technology of vehicles made odos relatively tamper-proof. If tamper proof, I would support tax by mile plus tax by vehicle weight/epa mileage. But, what would be done about older vehicles that had odos that could readily be turned back?
Folks with big SUVs that drive 8k/year or less still need to be encouraged to buy smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles else pay through the nose in added taxes.
If one can afford a big gas guzzling SUV, one should pay extra taxes beyond at the pump. Paying more taxes for something bigger is similar to real estate taxes. The bigger your house (in same community), the more you pay.
Also, if you live in your northern house 6 months per year (other 6 months in Florida or AZ), you still pay same real estate taxes. The tax assessor will not cut your yearly bill by 50 percent just because you winter in Florida or AZ. Similarly, if you own a big SUV, still would have to pay high taxes whether you use 5k or 10k per year.
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A national finance magazine is looking to interview consumers who are looking to purchase a hybrid vehicle and are looking at it from a financial standpoint, hoping to save money from the high cost of fuel. Please send an e-mail to ctalati@edmunds.com no later than Saturday, June 10, 2006 by 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET containing your daytime contact information and the hybrid vehicle you are considering.
Thanks,
Chintan Talati
Corporate Communications
Edmunds.com
The heater was a joke, and a bad joke at that. It would make you smell funny when you got out, too. You could always smell an bug owner coming.
I always drove at night with the high beams on, because no one could tell they were on high, and low beam would bring back memories of carriage lamps to an older generation.
If you drove at night, you'd better hope it didn't rain. With the puny electrcal system, you could have lights, or you could have wipers, but you could not have both.
0-60 in 30 seconds...probably. Made the 1200 Civic that replaced it seem like a road rocket.
And handling? HA!!! The swingaxles would vault you from under to eversteer in (literally) the blink of an eye. The Corvair was a cream puff compared to this baby. I knew a few guys who put 'vair motors in their bugs. They didn't keep those cars on the street very long. They would swap ends if you sneezed.
Oh...and it did get 30mpg almost all the time. low was 28, high was 35, but it didn't really matter when I was paying 50 cents a gallon.
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A national finance magazine is looking to interview consumers who have traded-in their larger SUV for a smaller vehicle, because of the high cost of gas. Please send an e-mail to ctalati@edmunds.com no later than Saturday, June 10, 2006 by 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET containing your daytime contact information and car you traded-in and the current car you own.
Thanks,
Chintan Talati
Corporate Communications
Edmunds.com
Thanks God Friedman is no hypocrite :P
Actually, he rides a bike and has never even been in a car.
Ok, that's BS, so so is that stuff about him driving gas guzzlers. If he did, there would be references all over the internet: I did several searches and found absolutely zip. I find this assertion doubtful, to say the least.
And he wants GM to die...
He doesn't want GM to die any more than I do. He wants them to stop pursuing promotion policies that are diametrically opposed to what a sane energy policy for the US would pursue. Be nice if we had one.
Well, of course, it depends on how much we improve it. If we got the average close to 50, we could cut our use by vehicles in half and cut the import % down under 50%. That would certainly bring prices way down.
I think Angela and her family should be thankful for that company for having provided jobs to them for so long.
If they were "collecting 'their worth' each week in their paycheck", then they have nothing more to be "thankful" for than their employer had to have them working. If it's a "free exchange of services" as you imply. Of course, sometimes, it's not.
Well, this is interesting logic. Perhaps we could encourage them to keep their engines idling overnight to get revenues up further
Of course, the gas tax is not a single issue tax...there are conflicting goals and side effects. It should be as fair as possible, but it is also intended to change behavior, i.e., improve efficiency.
These hybrids getting 50 MPG are not paying their share of the road maintenance.
No one is. Besides the fact that heavier vehicles put more wear on the road, there is the simple pragmatic perspective that fuel use is the most direct and implementable means available to tax by use. Not perfect, of course.
Better yet triple gas taxes on small cars.
Sure, let's lower the effective cost of gas for gas guzzlers...Osama, Iran and the rest will love it!
The fact that you get more miles for your fuel dollar should drive the market to more efficient vehicles.
But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't, at least not at the low gas prices we've had so long. We're seeing some movement from LTVs back to cars now, but not that much. Of course, if gas goes to $4 or $5, then maybe you'll be right and we'll no longer need to give incentives. What a shame, though, that the incremental $ will then go to countries that will cause us trouble instead of going for road maintenance.