tagged w/ Fuel Efficiency
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Among Consumer Reports' vehicle test criteria are measurements of fuel economy. Our fuel economy numbers come from our measurements using a precision flow meter and are rounded to the nearest mile per gallon (mpg).
CR's overall mileage is calculated from equal portions of city and expressway driving and on a 150-mile trip.Among Consumer Reports' vehicle test criteria are measurements of fuel economy.... more
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This November, Ford is expanding their slate of vehicles to include the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic, a sporty five-seater that gets a whopping 65 miles per gallon. This is great news for those of us that want to combat higher gas prices when the time comes to replace our current vehicles. It is very reasonably priced, and it will be available for purchase in the last quarter of this year.This November, Ford is expanding their slate of vehicles to include the Ford Fiesta... more
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Good article on the variants of the industry, politcs, economy and international affairs all surrounding the power of the two wheels. Pedal Power indeed, go India!
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Progress is happens one step at a time.
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(image) Pedal power: A file photo of activists at a BJP rally. Political parties have begun to distribute bicycles for free to pull in votes.
Commuting concerns
A significant proportion of the working population even in cities—postmen, newspaper deliverers, snack sellers, construction workers and so on— cycle to work every day.
Their cause hasn’t been helped by roads that have no clearly marked lanes for bicycles, making their daily commute a hazardous affair.
In recent terrorist attacks in Bangalore and Jaipur, bombs were found planted in bicycles. That could crimp demand if more cities and states ask buyers of new bicycles for proof of identity as New Delhi already does.
“This will create a problem because a majority of the people who need a cycle, say in a village, do not have any such proof,” says Ishwar Chugh, director, Atlas Cycles, which produced 250,000 cycles last year.
Still, those who have to, and those who want to, use bicycles, even in cities.
Postman Brahmanand Maji in New Delhi prefers to commute on a cycle. “It’s easier to distribute mail on a cycle.”
The children’s bicycles segment of the market is growing by around 18% a year. Several foreign companies such as Sri Lanka’s Lumala and the US’ Firefox Bikes Pvt. Ltd and Trek Bicycle Corp. are present in this market. At around Rs1.9 lakh, Trek’s high-end bicycle costs as much as the least expensive car currently available in the market, the Maruti 800.
“We are saved by the children, and now the government programme,” says Omkar Pahwa, managing director of the Rs325 crore Avon Cycles Ltd, which produces 1.5 million bicycles a month. The company saw its export m argins drop by 3% last year, but domestic sales grew three times “because of government buying”.
Still, India doesn’t have a cycling culture, says Ludhiana-based Avtar Bhogal, who exports axle hubs to Europe. “In Europe, you can expect a chief executive of a company to ride to office. In India, a politician rides for publicity for one day and the media is all over about it. Then, everyone forgets.”
In June, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party pledged to ride a cycle to work once a week to protest a hike in fuel prices announced by the Union government.
He stopped his pedal-pushing protest last week.
Good article on the variants of the industry, politcs, economy and international... more
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You've heard of hybrids, electric cars and vehicles that can run on vegetable oil. But of all the contenders in the quest to produce the ultimate fuel-efficient car, this could be the first one to let you say, "Fill it up with air." That's the idea behind the compressed air car, a vehicle its backers say could achieve a fuel economy of 106 miles per gallon.
New York-based Zero Pollution Motors is the first firm to obtain a license from MDI to produce the cars in the United States, pledging to deliver the first models in 2010 at a price tag of less than $18,000.
The six-seater planned for the U.S. market would be able to reach speeds of more than 90 mph and have a range of more than 800 miles thanks to a dual energy engine, Vencat said.The design calls for one or more tanks of compressed air under the car's floor, as well as a separate tank holding at least 8 gallons of fuel. Whether the engine uses just air or both air and fuel would depend on how fast the car is going. It would run purely on compressed air when driven at speeds less than 35 mph, Vencat said.
Since the car could only go a short distance when using just air, fuel is needed to get the full range, he explained.
"Heating the air increases its volume, and by increasing its volume it increases [the car's] range. That's why with one gallon of gasoline or its equivalent we are able to make over 100 mpg."
Vencat said an on-board compressor would refill the air tank while the car is running, or owners could refill it by plugging it into a power outlet for four hours. Experts aren't sure Americans will be zipping around in air cars and getting 106 mpg, or more than twice the fuel economy of hybrid-electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius.
It is possible to power a car with compressed air, but the mileage claim is "at the edge of possibility," said John Callister, director of the Harvey Kinzelberg
• The cars would be manufactured by privately owned plants that could produce at least 4,000 vehicles a year
• The cost of a license to build the car in an "exclusive geographical area" in the United States is about $460,000
• Geographical areas are defined by 110,000 new vehicle registrations. For example, Georgia could have four plants at most, but there could be 15 in California
• The cost of a plant is $20 million
• The first plant is scheduled to be built in New York in 2010
"No one's really proven a six-seater passenger car [can get] any better than 75 miles to the gallon. So this would represent a big step forward," Callister said. "They would have to prove that before they can throw rocks at the Prius."
Another expert expressed concern about the amount of energy it would take to generate the required air pressure: 4,500 pounds per square inch, or more than 120 times the pressure inside the tires of a typical four-door sedan.
"That takes quite a compressor to do. ... It takes horsepower to compress the air up to that pressure."
If you count that energy, it's hard to believe the car would be that much more efficient than an electric vehicle, Callister said. The compressed air car will get a chance to prove itself next year when it competes for the Automotive X Prize. The multimillion-dollar award will go to the team that "can win a stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 mpg equivalent fuel economy," according to the X Prize Foundation.
The air-car concept has also drawn the interest of Tata Motors, India's largest automaker. The company announced an agreement with MDI last year to further develop and refine the technology.
However, the cars have yet to hit the streets in India or anywhere else in the world. Only prototypes exist at this point, Vencat said.
The body of the car planned for the United States would be built with fiberglass and injected foam. The chassis, composed of aluminum rods, would be glued together, not welded. The design allows the car to be as light as possible, Vencat said.You've heard of hybrids, electric cars and vehicles that can run on vegetable... more
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The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right. The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil... more
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With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 mpg.
Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle - so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers - stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.
But VW's decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.
According to Britain's Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They'll probably be built in the company's prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That's not a lot, but it's enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve.
VW unveiled the slick two-seater concept six years ago at a stockholder's meeting in Hamburg. To prove it was a real car, Chairman Ferdinand Piech personally drove it from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. At the time, he said the car could see production when the cost of its carbon monocoque dropped from 35,000 Euros (about $55,000) to 5,000 Euros (about $8,000) - something he figured would happen in 2012. With carbon fiber being used in everything from airliners to laptops these days, VW's apparently decided the cost is competitive enough to build at least a few hundred One-Liters.
VW's engineers - who spent three years developing the car - made extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum to bring it in at less than one-third the weight of a Toyota Echo. According to Canadian Driver, the front suspension assembly weighs just 18 pounds. The six-speed transmission features a magnesium case, titanium bolts and hollow gears; it weighs a tad more than 50 pounds. The 16-inch wheels are carbon fiber. The magnesium steering wheel weighs a little more than a pound. How much of the concept car's exotic hardware makes it to the production model remains to be seen.
Low weight only gets you so far in the quest for ultimate fuel economy; aerodynamics plays a big role. The One-Liter is long and low, coming in at 11.4 feet long, 4.1 feet wide and 3.3 feet tall. It features an aircraft-like canopy, flat wheel covers and a belly pan to smooth the airflow under the car. The engine cooling vents open only when needed, and video cameras take the place of mirrors. The passenger sits behind the driver to keep the car narrow. The car has a coefficient of drag of 0.16; the average car comes in around 0.30 and the Honda Insight had a Cd of 0.25.
As for the engine, the concept had a one-cylinder diesel engine producing 8.5 horsepower and 13.5 foot-pounds of torque. Car says the production model will use a two-cylinder turbodiesel for a little more oomph. Doubling the number of cylinders is sure to cut fuel economy, so VW may install a diesel-hybrid drivetrain.
What's it gonna cost? Car quotes "one well-placed insider" who says the One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 Euros (about $31,750 to $47,622). That's a lot of money. But then, the One-Liter, despite its diminutive size, is a lot of car.
---more photos of the car at the link---With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more... more
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"The reality that few people appreciate is that improving fuel efficiency from 10 to 20mpg is actually a more significant saving than improving from 25mpg to 50mpg for the same distance of driving...""The reality that few people appreciate is that improving fuel efficiency from 10... more
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bshipp
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added this
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3 years ago
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Each month since November, when gas prices hit a milestone ($3.01 a gallon) that looks comparatively modest by today's standard ($3.93, on average across the U.S.) Americans have been driving less.
We're not only driving less – which means presumably that we're taking more public transportation, biking and walking more, and combining errands when we do drive – but the cars we're buying are more fuel-efficient than the gas guzzlers that we drove off the lots just a few months ago.
All this would seem like bad news (very high gas prices) with a very shiny silver lining (a very real move toward fuel-efficient transportation). After all, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation (one-third of the overall U.S. contribution to global warming) dropped 9 million metric tons in the first quarter of 2008.
You might see it that way. But not if you are a bureaucrat at the Federal Highway Administration, which released its latest "Traffic Volume Trends" report to much fanfare this week. They showed that March traffic was down 11 billion miles – 4.3% – from a year earlier, the first drop seen in the month of March since 1979
click on the link on top for more informationEach month since November, when gas prices hit a milestone ($3.01 a gallon) that looks... more
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Alipio
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added this
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3 years ago
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Toyota, Honda, and Mini are proving pretty valuable
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Follow these simple tips published by the Daily Green to help save money on your vehicles increasingly expensive fuel. Follow these simple tips published by the Daily Green to help save money on... more
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This is a kit you can buy to convert your car to a water/gasoline hybrid.
Let me know if it works.
-stThis is a kit you can buy to convert your car to a water/gasoline hybrid.
Let me... more
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Thousands of successful water-conversions around the world are proof that this technology works and will soon catch on! From being used by this guy's torch, HHO gas can prove to be a means to fuel automobiles. The prospect of using HHO to fuel cars successfully almost seems like a dream come true.Thousands of successful water-conversions around the world are proof that this... more
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The 1908 Ford Model T went at 25 miles per gallon. As of 2004, the average fuel economy of cars and trucks was 24.6 miles per gallon. Despite the fact that modern cars can go faster, the Model T topped at 45 miles per hour. Is speed really worth it when work could be done to make for more fuel efficiency?
http://www.dailyfueleconomytip.com/miscellaneous/100-years-of-improvement/
The 1908 Ford Model T went at 25 miles per gallon. As of 2004, the average fuel... more
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Too bad US car makers are missing out....
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Frobot
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added this
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4 years ago
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When Steve Fambro got bored building robots at a San Diego genetics company, he figured he could help keep his brain busy by building a kit airplane in his spare time. But his wife deemed the hobby too dangerous, so Fambro decided to build a car instead...
When Steve Fambro got bored building robots at a San Diego genetics company, he... more
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So this bill will get us up to China's current standards in 12 years.
I'm unimpressed. So this bill will get us up to China's current standards in 12 years.
I'm... more
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 A moment that has been a generation in the making arrives here this week, with Congress poised to act on the first bill to increase vehicle fuel efficiency significantly since 1975 and on the first economy wide bill to address global warming since scientists raised the alarm in the late 1980s.
Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is the senior member of the House and a longtime advocate for the auto industry, concluded this year that some form of fuel economy bill was coming. He warned top auto executives that he would do his best to protect the industry from unworkable measures but that they should begin to retool for a new, fuel-constrained era.
Mr. Dingell waged a valiant fight with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on behalf of the auto industry last week and won important concessions. But the 35-m.p.g.-by-2020 standard stayed in the bill and is expected to become law.
Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, is a sponsor of the global warming bill. Mr. Warner opposed weaker legislation when it was proposed two years ago, but said recently that he had changed his mind because of two factors: science and my grandchildren.WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 A moment that has been a generation in the making arrives here... more
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Just before I bought my Scion I actually looked into getting one of those big ass Mercedes from the late 80s that you can now convert into some sort of oil/natural fuels. In the end I like having the built in ipod adapter to my 30 mpgs. :-/Just before I bought my Scion I actually looked into getting one of those big ass... more
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bierse
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added this
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4 years ago
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