Thread: The Oil Magnates Have Engineered Consumption in to the Consumer Equation

Now THIS is innovation! It's not an engine that suffers from the serious inefficiencies of running at 20% throttle. It's an engine that runs at it's most efficient setting to do one thing: Recharge that battery.

What we need now are on/off engines built into the car and right-sized to be mostly on to recharge the battery during extended driving, but which run at their most efficient fuel COST to kW-hr ratio.

The 45 mpg Prius got it fairly right, but the 100 mpg (gas only) 300 mpg (electric only equivalent) Aptera NAILED it. Too bad consumers balked. Armed with one of those puppies, I could drive and see my son in California several times a year, for less than $200, and that includes one hotel stop on the way, and another on the way back!

Thing is, my 1979 VW Rabbit Diesel got 49 mpg on the highway, all day long. It's 10 gal tank would take me further than I'd want to drive! Just fill 'er up at the start of a long, cross-country trip, and about 8 hours later, do it again. I'd be done long before the second fillup came close to running empty.

So... How is it possible to achieve better efficiency from a 1979 vehicle that sat four people than we can achieve with a 2000+ era vehicle that's supposed to be cutting edge?

Why did the Aptera drop offline? No, really - what was really behind its demise?

Why was VW able to achieve a 214 mpg vehicle back in the mid-1970s on their European test track, yet such a vehicle has never seen the light of day?

More:

How is it possible my uncle, who was a smart man, but not a builder, could build a 2,300 sq ft home in Michigan with heating and cooling bills less than 1/5th that of his neighbors? (I helped him build his house, so I know how he did it). Why aren't builders doing this, today, even though his slight modifications would add less than 10% to the cost of a new home?

Why are my friends in Peyton, CO, able to enjoy a cool earth berm home in summer, warm in the winter, despite being totally off the grid? No public utilities at all! Yet they're living in high style! Their 1,500 ft sq ft home cost them $17,800. Yep! Just ten years ago, too.

Hmm...

The Oil Magnates have been buying every issue of Mother Earth News, and dumping them in the Cuyahoga river. They *think* a half million people are reading it, but there's only two: the editor, and an Oil Magnate in a mansion in Cleveland.

TODAY you can buy a automobile in the USA that will (in perfect conditions) achieve 60mpg.. The Volkswagon Jetta TDI is a great little car, affordable, great mileage. AND it uses COMMON technology. Europe has been promoting diesel as a high milage power plant for years.. No one seems to consider how expensive the battery pack on the new cars will be when they need to be replaced. This lack of efficiency is not figured anywhere when you look at the hybrid cars..

Originally Posted by gonzo 1066

TODAY you can buy a automobile in the USA that will (in perfect conditions) achieve 60mpg.. The Volkswagon Jetta TDI is a great little car...

Yes it is, but it gets 34 mpg, not 60.

Europe has been promoting diesel as a high milage power plant for years.

Europe doesn't tax the hell out of diesel like we do here in America. If we taxed diesel at the same rate we tax gasoline (like we used to), diesel would be cheaper, not more expensive, and we'd have a lot more diesel vehicles on the road. If I'm not mistaken, our government increased the taxes on diesels for two reason: Curb particulate pollution and target the truckers who's wear and tear on the roads per gallon-mile of gas is significantly greater than that of your average motor vehicle.

No one seems to consider how expensive the battery pack on the new cars will be when they need to be replaced. This lack of efficiency is not figured anywhere when you look at the hybrid cars..

You're right!

Originally Posted by gonzo 1066

No one seems to consider how expensive the battery pack on the new cars will be when they need to be replaced. This lack of efficiency is not figured anywhere when you look at the hybrid cars..

I haven't shopped hybrid cars in a longtime but I'd dispute that "no one"--it was one of the first questions I asked when we purchased a 2004 Honda Civic hybrid. Of course, the price points had been set so that it was pretty much a wash at the time, so we bought it.

I never saw so little documentation about a car feature. There was none. I had to go to the Honda shop manuals to even find out what type of batteries were behind the back seat (Civic hybrid backseat doesn't fold down): 120 NiMH D cells linked in a series!

At the time, the quoted replacement cost was daunting, but ended up being almost nothing. Economies of the future, I guess.