I believe you. Cars do get better mileage in Europe because the so-called emission control mandated equipment standards are different and in most cases not as rigid and outmoded as here in the U.S.
Also, it was asked if an all-electric will be included in the 55 mpg CAFE standard. Yes it will, I am sure. That's why the "fuel" usage in an electric has been calculated to arrive at a gasoline "equivalent" figure, so it can be included in the averaging. And that's why we'll likely soon be seeing a spate of all-electric models from these makers. They may buy them from companies already making them and putting on their own badge, but they'll do so in order to make as few changes as possible in their existing models.
If we can meet the goal of getting to the moon in 10 years - which we knew nothing about at the beginning and was not in our back yard , so to speak- why is the date so far in the future. Come on 2025 !!! This is on earth and literally not rocket science!!!!!
No debate on the fact that it is nearly pointless - if people checked there tires more then twice a year and drove like it mattered it might have a little meaning. But the moisture in the air is the big problem for pressure changes. If you used dry air it would likely be fairly comparable to nitrogen.
It is not a thin benifit for racing - a 1 pound pressure difference on a slick will change the traction a noticable amount, tire temps can get much higher and vary from conditions (bright sun on the track vs overcast). Water vapor pressure at 175 degrees (6.8) to 212 degrees (14.5) is about a doubling of pressure (in psi)Fill your tires when the humidity is low:-)
I've read all the posts looking for someone who knows what the regulation will actually say and require. Most people think the average talked about is the city/highway average of an individual car. It is not. It is an across the model line average. This is what the "C" stands for in the acronym CAFE: Corporate -- the makers entire fleet of car models. Yet it does not apply to all the cars that a manufacturer makes and never has. What it will be, as always, is a standard AVERAGE for all the models in a maker's lineup. Some models will even be exempt. Example: When the standard was around 27 mpg a maker could get away with selling a car that got, say, 18 mpg IF that maker had just one other car that got 37 mpg. Thus, the across the model line overall average was just over 27 mpg. If the maker also had an SUV, no prob. SUVs were classified as trucks (for a while at least if they were built on a truck chassis) and as such were in a different classification. Should the maker have had a number of models, as long as the average mpg taking ALL of them into consideration fell within the standard, then the maker was in compliance. This is why the auto makers fall into line with this standard so easily and quickly. They already have an out if they have one ultra high-mileage model on the road. Most of them do in the form of a hybrid or have one on the drawing board. If they've also brought their poorer-performing models up just a bit or intend to then et voila! The standard is already met. And it doesn't matter to the regulatory agency(s) if their high-miler is stylish or sells, the important thing is that its available. [My out: This is my understanding of the whole mess. If I'm wrong, then I apologize, but I think I got it right.]
Yes, sadly I am being 110% honest. Numerous people tried to bring the design into production, but were stopped by threats or bought out. It is very real, and extreme measures have been taken to keep it under the radar. It isn't magic my friend, it is science.
I hope you are not really serious. There is no such thing as a "magic" carburator. If there was, the auto manufacturer's would have introduced it decades ago instead of spending millins to slowly increase fuel mileage.
We've had the technology for achieving 54.5mpg for well over half a century. I once owned a 1955 GM PDP4104, 36 foot long highway coach that I converted into a mobile home. It came with its logbook for the 685,000 miles it had logged. The coach had a GVW of 27,000 pounds. The log book never showed a mileage of less than 10mpg. That works out to 135mpg/ton! Yes over 100mph per ton. I attribute this mainly to 3 things. 1. It had a diesel engine - a 6-71 Detroit , 426 cu. in., two cycle, supercharged - these were the most popular bus and coach engines of the day. 2. The engine had less than 200 hp. For some reason our cars these days are grossly overpowered. You don't need 200, 300 or 400 hp for a car. The European vehicles have much less hp and have no trouble bombing down their autobahns and up their mountain roads. Today's highway coaches don't have any problem keeping up with traffic and they get better mileage/ton than my old 1955 coach. 3. While a highway coach seems as aerodynamic as a brick, it always has a full belly pan from bumper to bumper. Maximum drag is between your vehicle's turbulent undercarriage and the road. This is where maximum shear is. Above the road there's lots of room for the air to get out of the way. Underneath there isn't. How many wind tunnels have you seen that have a rolling conveyor belt? You cannot design a truly aerodynamic car without one. I think the main driving force for America's poor mileage is the cash flow desires of the oil industry. Why else would they build cars that the average American simply cannot fit into, design their back seats for midgets and force us into SUVs and trucks where everyone can fit comfortably?
On my 2009 Prius, mileage depends most upon ambient temperatures (i.e., the weather), and highway speed.
65MPH on the freeways within town has little detrimental effect, but 70MPH for hours does take a toll on it. It goes down to about 42MPG or so. That's only for a short time though, so it doesn't drag down the average much. In those cases, the clever energy management of the hybrid system can't do much good. It comes down to nothing more than converting gasoline into forward motion as losslessly as possible, which mostly means minimizing aerodynamic drag. The 2010 Prius' drag coefficient is 0.25, which, among production cars, I think is second only to the EV1's, which I vaguely recall to have been 0.22.
Seasonally, I get best mileage in Spring and Autumn, since I can often get away with minimal AC and no heat. Plus it isn't running the engine much just to keep it warm, as it does in the Winter. Right now, when it's still 95-100 degrees at 9PM (really; zero exaggeration), the AC brings it down to 46MPG.
Of course, an even bigger factor is keeping up with tire pressure. Over the first 10 months or so after I bought my Prius, I watched the mileage gradually go down. I was mystified as to why, until I got a low-tire-pressure warning. "Oh, like, DUUUH!!" I can't believe I totally forgot about that! Needless to say, I've been hawkeyeing tire pressure since then.
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