Gas mileage king?

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Well? We're waiting!! :jerry:

As for playing the automotive mpg game, I'm sure it will wear thin after a few more months, as most video games do. I mean once you kill all the monsters and rescue the princess it just isn't fun anymore. ;)

 
if anyone is the least bit interested, is around 45 mpgs and my 12 gallon fuel tank range ends uprds of 550 miles.
Heck a Golf TDI will do better than that and the dust-to-dust cost has less cost to the environment.

update: rats! already noted before (except for the hidden, high environmental costs of hybrids.

 
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You havent lived untill you are stuck behind some pencil neck geek in a prius doing the slow accel while watching the mpg meter.

 
Maybe so, but my Camry hybrid will make 60 in a little over 8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough for me. Prius isn't the only hybrid out there. Not bad for an econo-cage.

Oh, and Chuck35, you said: "Stay tuned for insightful and witty retorts..."

We waited all this time for... THAT? Yer losing yer edge, bud.

Gary

darksider #44

 
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I mean once you kill all the monsters and rescue the princess it just isn't fun anymore. ;)
Fred you have once again shown me the error of my ways. If only I could have talked to you first. I got dumped by the princess, I married the monster and I have not had any fun at all. I never do anything right.

Oh, and as long as I am paying over $3.50 a gallon for diesel, I will continue to play the mileage game.

 
Maybe so, but my Camry hybrid will make 60 in a little over 8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough for me. Prius isn't the only hybrid out there.

Gary

darksider #44
only 60? in 8 serconds? that's an eternity. how about 0-100-0 in that time? that would seem to be a minimun any bar should be set to.

 
if anyone is the least bit interested, is around 45 mpgs and my 12 gallon fuel tank range ends uprds of 550 miles.
Heck a Golf TDI will do better than that and the dust-to-dust cost has less cost to the environment.

update: rats! already noted before (except for the hidden, high environmental costs of hybrids.
The Energi will also do way better than that, if it's driven the way it was intended. I obviously don't do that. That 45mpg was running 100 mile round trips, so the EV contribution is small. IOW that 45 mpg is what you get running in "hybrid mode".

The Golf TDi is mpg rated as 30/41 city/hwy. The Energi (and many other hybrids) are rated nearly equally as high in city driving as on highway when running in the (default) hybrid mode. When they are running in EV mode the gas mileage is infinite, so depending on your driving patterns it would be pretty easy to exceed 100mpg.

Maybe so, but my Camry hybrid will make 60 in a little over 8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough for me. Prius isn't the only hybrid out there.

Gary

darksider #44
only 60? in 8 serconds? that's an eternity. how about 0-100-0 in that time? that would seem to be a minimun any bar should be set to.

The Golf TDi you spoke of earlier also has a 0-60 of ~8 seconds. (7.9 to be exact). It only makes 140 horsepower, so even though it is feather light it still takes time to get to speed. Which just goes to show, there is no free lunch.

 
if anyone is the least bit interested, is around 45 mpgs and my 12 gallon fuel tank range ends uprds of 550 miles.
Heck a Golf TDI will do better than that and the dust-to-dust cost has less cost to the environment.

update: rats! already noted before (except for the hidden, high environmental costs of hybrids.
The Energi will also do way better than that, if it's driven the way it was intended. I obviously don't do that. That 45mpg was running 100 mile round trips, so the EV contribution is small. IOW that 45 mpg is what you get running in "hybrid mode".

The Golf TDi is mpg rated as 30/41 city/hwy. The Energi (and many other hybrids) are rated nearly equally as high in city driving as on highway when running in the (default) hybrid mode. When they are running in EV mode the gas mileage is infinite, so depending on your driving patterns it would be pretty easy to exceed 100mpg.

Maybe so, but my Camry hybrid will make 60 in a little over 8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough for me. Prius isn't the only hybrid out there.

Gary

darksider #44
only 60? in 8 serconds? that's an eternity. how about 0-100-0 in that time? that would seem to be a minimun any bar should be set to.

The Golf TDi you spoke of earlier also has a 0-60 of ~8 seconds. (7.9 to be exact). It only makes 140 horsepower, so even though it is feather light it still takes time to get to speed. Which just goes to show, there is no free lunch.
shucks, i wasn't even talking about MPG any more when i started talking about minimum acceptable performance. there are reasons i don't (and won't) have a hybrid. dust-to-dust of battery tech is only one of those reasons.

 
shucks, i wasn't even talking about MPG any more when i started talking about minimum acceptable performance. there are reasons i don't (and won't) have a hybrid. dust-to-dust of battery tech is only one of those reasons.

I know what you mean about the batteries, but even that is in a state of flux. All of the current breed of hybrids, plugable hybrids and EVs are now using lithium ion batteries. And nobody really knows what their lifespan or recycle-ability will be. Unlike lead-acid, the materials used in LI batteries may be too inexpensive for recycling to make any sense, at least initially.

Which brings this all the way back around to what I said at the outset: I don't think that this technology is ready for the American public, or vice versa. This is kind of like the discussion we had recently about the Dutch riding bicycles to work. With the average American having a 45 minute commute to work each way, cars with an EV range of less than 100 miles will not work.

 
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...Curiously, a cross wind has almost as much effect on these gauges and my mpg as a headwind.
When I saw this thread title it had 'Train Wreck' written all over it. I tried to resist reading it, I felt like a bird being hypnotized by a snake. My resolve finally crumbled and I read it from page 1 to the end. I hate it when that happens
laugh.png


It takes power to punch a hole in the air and takes good aerodynamics to close the hole afterwards. If the hole isn't closed the resulting vacuum will try to pull the vehicle back. Take a look at the back end of highly aerodynamic vehicles and airplanes, they all come to a tapering point to prevent as much vacuum as possible. Stand beside the road when an 18 wheeler goes by and notice the trailing wind that blows in the direction of the receding truck. That is the air rushing in to fill the hole that the truck punched in the air. In essence the truck is dragging along a huge volume of air.

The reason the cross wind effects the economy is because the cross wind will change how the 'hole' in the air behind the vehicle gets filled in. Ideal but not practical, our FJR would have a tapering cone behind it ~12'-18' long to prevent the vacuum from forming. You notice this vacuum on a smaller scale by the vacuum created by the windshield pulling you forward and causing rain splashes on your helmet to actually be pulled forward onto the back of the windshield. If the smallish windshield can pull you forward, think how much force is being applied to the motorcycle because of its substantially greater area.

In many of the Green vehicles you will see some form of teardrop shape to the back end of the vehicle. Teardrop shape is for air flow control, a carefully designed spoiler is for down force; down force is not gas mileage friendly but teardrop is.

 
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Yessir, ionbeam as usual you are correct. Because my GMC 2500 HD is not aerodynamically efficient in the front or the rear, crosswinds have a greater effect on it than they would on a more slippery shaped vehicle. The crosswinds really wreak havoc when I am pulling an enclosed trailer or Dad's 5th wheel camper.

I should have worded that differently, it is not curious, rather it is amusing. My Redneck logic tells me that a headwind would be much more detrimental to the economy than a crosswind. The facts show that they are almost identical in their effect.

I installed those two gauges in part to assist me in monitoring my fuel economy. Even though some find it amusing to have their diesel pickup billow black smoke on acceleration, I try to keep mine clean and efficient.

Of course, sometimes I do wish I could make it blow a big black cloud out while I am passing the odd Prius or Volt... :)

 
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I for one, am glad I bought an FJR. I enjoy the decent mileage it gets. It does better in real world driving than my hybrid does: its 44mpg sits real well with me. Granted for some of you boys with all that money hanging out cher pockets, such things don't matter. But it does to me. As a matter of fact, since we're hijacking my thread all over town, I've saved around 400 bucks in tire expenses now with 19k on my Michilin Pilot Exalto. And I've only used about 1/2 it's usable tread. To quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I got to say about that..." And I saved another 10,000 dollars or so by NOT buying a new 2013. I've actually got money in the bank... on a @#v$x.?/## teacher's salary. Imagine that.

Sorry bout that. Jist had to get a couple things off my chest, and didn't know where to post em...

Gary

darksider #44

 
Maybe so, but my Camry hybrid will make 60 in a little over 8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough for me. Prius isn't the only hybrid out there.

Gary

darksider #44
only 60? in 8 serconds? that's an eternity. how about 0-100-0 in that time? that would seem to be a minimun any bar should be set to.
Hey Bounce.

Yeah, that's the actual numbers, but it'll do quite a bit faster if I get out and push. Wanna see how I do it? Just watch the Flintstones. I'm so old I tuaght Fred everything he knows.

Gary

darksider #44

 
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