The Myth of Ever Increasing Fuel Economy

American Thinker ^ | May 23, 2009 | R.H. Higgs

[upcountryhorseman]

I don't care what the Chicago bunch forces the automakers
to do, I'm sticking with my F-250 diesel pickup. It is
safer in an accident, I have higher visibility than the
little “Fiat” type cars, and I need to haul stuff.

[Elsie]

I saw a heavy Cadillac hit a small Japanese car in the rear and the lighter car burst into flames.

Was it a RONSON?

That ran on BUTANE?

[Elsie]

You see some vehicles that look like they’ve been smashed by the hand of God.

And some that look better than the one I drove TO the junkyard!

[count-your-change]

I don’t know but it wasn’t a match and I don’t want to fuel speculation.

[Elsie]

I don't want to cause any more friction; so I think I'll just flick my BIC®.

[count-your-change]

Oh, you haven't inflamed the discussion with fiery statements or anything that might spark heated argument.

By the bye, have you looked into Flickers Anonymous? They're a very warm crowd.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Don’t be fooled by the miles per gallon stats game.

Sure going from 10 to 20 saves a LOT of money on fuel.

Going from 20 to 30 a bit more.

But beyond that, the cost / savings ratio is really bad.

Maybe I missed the math class that taught that 50% was more than 100%...

I understand your gist, but when gasoline gets back to $4+, and you MUST drive, a little can be a lot!

The logic is simple: if you use 1000 gallons of gasoline per year, say, and then you switch from an SUV which gets 18 mpg to a sedan which gets 36 mpg, you will reduce your fuel consumption by 500 gallons/year, all else equal. But from there, no matter how much mpg you get in an even smaller, lighter vehicle, as long as you use any gasoline at all you cannot save another 500 gallons per year.

It's similar to the logic I used in creating a car pool - I suggested it to a friend, and he resisted at first on the basis that we probably couldn't get anyone else to join the pool but the two of us. But when I pointed out that if the two of us carpooled each of us would save half of the gas that we used traveling seperately, and that no matter how many more people you added to the carpool you couldn't save that much again, he agreed. And we shared rides for years after that.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem.

The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015711/posts

Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed
ethanol producer Magazine | May 16, 2008 | By Kris Bevill
Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017389/posts

[OneWingedShark]

Homogeneous charge compression ignition

Basically, you inject fuel at high PSI and use compression to ignite it, like diesel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCCI