People who claim 'they could build a 400mpg Hybrid' amuse me.

Joe has plenty of time regardless.
--

 

They are ticketed/fined.

 

Same here. Many have lost their licenses because of drunk driving. We're not
allowed to shoot them (yet).

 

Silly. That took me about 11 seconds.

 

What does YOUR boss think of you wasting paid hours on the internet, you
crack hound?

 

I am retired.
--

 

I don't believe you.

 

You should go clear your driveway then.
--

 

Oh, I know that is bad english, Cathy.
--

 

I have to challenge composite = less safe. F1 car chasses are
virtually 100% composite and protect drivers against unimaginable
impacts. I remember a car losing tire pressure as it entered a high
speed corner during a practice session. The rear end came around and
it ended up slamming broadside into a concrete barrier at 160 mph. It
bounced to the other side of the track rolling violently and throwing
peripheral parts in every direction. It wasn't that surprising to see
the driver shimmying out of the upside down cockpit a few seconds
after the car came to a stop. It was amusing that he took a few steps
around to inspect the other side of the car before the corner worker
ushered him off the track. The truly amazing part was that the
mechanics worked all night so that he could drive that car in the race
the next day.

400 mpg in a road car powered by gas alone is impossible. Period.
However, plug in hybrids could run considerable distance on
electricity alone and could conceivably get infinite mpg. This is not
an altogether invalid point since electricity could be generated in a
number of ways that do not require burning of fossil fuel.

 

That won't happen.

Automakers really don't want to sell cars to people that are extreme
economy cars - because the sales message is 'save money same money save
money"
and the car buyer then starts asking the automaker uncomfortable questions
like "why don't you drop the price of the car some more so I can save money"

Even the Prius, look at the advertising. Do they tout how much money the
Prius saves? hell no! Instead they tout it's "green" effect.

Hyundai and a few others tried the "advertise cheap car" route back in the
80's and the excessive price cutting drove them to produce pure crap, and
so they lost their auto business as a result of it.

People that really want to save money in city driving go and buy
scooters/mopeds.

car makers all sell cars based on how sexy they are supposed to make you.
And rubbing the face off every nickle never made anyone look sexy.

Ted

 

Who's they anyway?

 

excellent point.

 

Lethal injection works for me, it's a quieter means of disposing of the
trash.

 

You're posting this here because? And no, that last sentence is
insufficent.

======================================================================
ISLAM: Winning the hearts and minds of the world, one bomb at a time.

 

But not all automakers do that, and not all automakers exist yet. The market
does exist for more efficient automobiles - a lesson Detroit learned the
hard way in 1973. Design for extreme economy pretty much reached its zenith
until hybrid technology started to appear. After all, the VW Lupo 3L barely
competed with the first generation Prius around town and was not something
people would want to drive in town (http://tinyurl.com/3hev7)... and the
price!

Hybridization brings a whole new set of rules. There is no big trick to
designing for fuel economy - most of it happens as a result of basic design.
The powerplant shrinks to the size needed for maximum continuous output
needed while the electrics handle acceleration. That means smaller engine
blocks for less fuel used to warm up engines and more efficient operation
when they are producing power. Toyota's and Honda's systems can't do all
that yet - it will take roughly doubling the power handling of the
controllers and motors to make the cars serial hybrids. Once the threshold
is passed, it's all a matter of production capacity.

30 years ago fuel injection was limited to performance cars and a few
European cars. Now it is virtually universal - although the benefits are
only a fraction of the benefits of hybridization. My dad told me that
electric starters were considered impractical luxuries when they were
introduced (although he had suffered a "Ford arm" when he was young, from
forgetting to retard the spark before cranking). Time will level out this
bump also.

 

Safer on the side of the road, too, in busy neighborhoods.

 

The word hybrid sorta means joining two (or more) different things to
make a new one. 400 mpg can be a hybrid of a solar panel, hydrogen
engine, gas engine and the electric motor, who knows maybe nuclear.
One thing I know is that 400 mpg car wouldn't be an SUV

It's a conspiracy.. engines can ran on water but the oil companies and
car manufacturers are all part of the conspiracy. ... grin

 

I think your numbers are a little bit high.
It's probably only about 75%.

George Carlin put it best:

There's only two kinds of drivers in the world: Idiots and Maniacs.

Anyone who is going slower than you is "an IDIOT !"
Anyone who is going faster than you is " a MANIAC !".

-TBR

 

LOL!