Smart Car

[benevolance]

almost half of all new cars in Europe are Diesel because of the low cost to run and the increased fuel economy...

In america today on Ebay a 25+ year old Diesel Rabbit or Jetta will bring more interest and sell for more money than a 8 year old Cavalier Neon or Escort

So please do not tell me that there is no public interest in more fuel efficient cars...

the newer cleaner low sulphur diesel fuel burns clean and despite this...Diesel engines in america are sold only in trucks...

A diesel car like the Matiz would easily give 60+ miles to the gallon and it would last 400,000 miles too...

In America people like Value for their money...They like to feel like they are saving money too.... And with high gas prices if given a choice between the honda Civic or another Honda that was a little smaller or had less power but gave 50 miles to the gallon many people would take the 50 miles to the gallon honda economy car...

Thing is if you compromise slightly in terms of power and size..You can have the great mileage without the extra 50% price increase for the high tech complicated Hybrid system.....

And that would allow people to buy a car for the same money or less than the regular civic and get the 50 miles to the gallon.... It would still be a honda with Honda safety dependability warranty...etc... So consumers would get the good feeling of owning their favorite name brand....and the luxury and option of saving money when they buy it...and saving massive amounts of money at the gas pumps...

Hell yes we would buy them.... we have never been given a choice like this to do so...

[builderboy]

Meanwhile, back to the smart car. They've been available in Canada for about 2.5 years. Haven't sold like hot cakes, but there are some around. I'm not sure where the 40 mpg on the US web site comes from, the Canadian site claims 4.2 L /100 km combined city/highway which is more like 55 miles per US gallon. I guess ya'll must have different diesel down there. I know a guy with one who claims 3.3 L/100km or about 70 mp USgallon highway. Anyway, anyone who believes large SUV's are safe won't buy one. Personally if I get T=boned by a Hummer I don't care if I'm in a Smart or another Hummer. Either way I'm dead meat.

[MountainDon]

The second generation of the Smart Car would be more to my liking, more chance I might go for something like that for a city car.

How about a Chinese electric copy...  http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=117145

As far as surviving a crash... yes, it's partly a matter of how lucky/unlucky you are with whatever is colliding with you. That's one reason I will not jump into the first noticeably smaller, more fuel efficient car that comes along, and why I have the '06 Civic as my daily driver. (Been in a headon with airbags [only 40 mph or so but still an over the hilltop headon with a drunk] and a T-bone [lucky, passenger side and alone, and again with a drunk])

[benevolance]

Don

Here again we agree completely...I am all for econo and smart cars being totally safe....There should be tough federal mandated safety laws...Meaning if the car does not have a 4 star crash test rating it is not allowed to be sold in the USA....Period!

which is why in one of my other threads I talked about how great it would be if Honda or Toyota would offer a model like the Tercel or Civic....And offer them with smaller engines...Less power and greater fuel economy....They could have the same anti lock brakes  impact beams and air bags that the larger cars have....so you could at least have a chance at surviving a wreck

50 miles to the gallon should not mean you have to drive a death trap!

If it meant you had to sacrifice a little power... or a little cargo room...I am all for that.

I bought a 98 saturn over the week-end and I have been talking with a feul economy guru in Pennsylvania...I might send the head off the car to him....For $1000 he tells me he can improve the fuel/air mixture efficiency that will allow the car to run with a much higher compression ratio...And we all know the higher the ratio the more efficient the engine...Meaning more overall power...But you will need to mash the gas much less...

talked with the guy and he tells me that the 98 saturn that gives close to 40 on the highway will easily give me 55 mpg on the highway.... Just by ceramic coating the valves and grinding relief cuts into them....along with creating velocity grooves for air in the cylinder to direct the air in the cylinder walls to the spark plug.....

I am seriously thinking of letting him have the head off the car..... I have to convince the wife of it...she loves the car and does not want me to touch the engine...

I am not much for miracle gadgets.....what has me convinced that this is no hoax is that there is no gadget going into the car...Just improving the air fuel mixture in the head....And improving the efficiency of the valves...

all which proves the point that you do not have to re-invent the wheel....Come up with new tech a miracle cure to get the mileage we need to remove dependency on Middle eastern oil....We just need to allow the great ideas out there to go into production....And we just need to make small sacrifices in terms of 150+ HP 4 cylinder engines and 300+ hp half ton pick ups and SUV's

And then you could have a standard run of the mill civic or Neon or Focus or Cobalt that had slightly less power but gave 50+ miles to the gallon on the highway....and our pick up trucks could give 30 on the highway...Ditto for our minivans and Suv's

And ultra expensive hybrid systems would not be needed to get half decent mileage for these vehicles...

Not very popular but some states have speed limits of 70 miles per hour...lowering the maximum speed limit nationwide to 60 miles per hour would save a lot of fuel also.... People would hate it...But it would reduce consumption emissions and dependency on foreign oil....

[benevolance]

Another thing I want to add...

to get the mileage we need to eliminate smog and reduce dependency on foreign oil....We just need to force the auto companies to use the simplistic  technologies that are proven in the racing world for years to increase efficiency and power...

The auto industry tries to sell us on high tech gadgets like Hybrid and variable valve timing...which are very expensive...Driving the price of the car through the roof...

Instead of our car simply coming with ceramic coated valves and intakes....Instead of producing a higher quality intake that was free of large defects that greatly hinder flow and fuel economy...

Give a backyard mechanic a simple engine out of a Tempo or a cavalier and with a few hours tinkering inside the head or intake he can increase the horsepower by 10% Ditto the fuel economy...with nothing more than a good measuring tool and a die grinder

I do not want to hear that it is not possible to mass produce better quality intakes....Back in the late 60's early 70's Oldsmobile 445 engines in the W30 package came ported and polished from the factory

It is possible to create better quality intake and exhaust manifolds for the cars...And to do simple things like use ceramic coated valves and increase compression in the engines...And instead of using larger engines use smaller engines....Simply make the smaller engine more efficient.

A few improvements like this would be a heck of a lot cheaper than coming up with Hybrid drive technology...More reliable...Cheaper...

I know for years it has been simple for companies like Holley to make Fuel injected plenums and throttle bodies...that gave increased power mileage and efficiency for your Camaro or Mustang....There are dozens of aftermarket bolt on intakes for the Hondas as well....They are cheap to buy and the power/ Mileage gains are credible.... If it is so damned easy for these other companies to make these parts that are more efficient....

you have to ask why the original makers of the automobiles are not creating cars with these simplistic improvements on them?

The more you look at it the easier it is to see that there is not a genuine interest in getting rid of our thirst for foreign oil....No genuine desire to clean up our air( if it is meant to be cleaned through less consumption of fuel)....No desire for people to be driving cars on a massive scale that average 50+ miles to the gallon

we have never been given the choice to drive such a car Don....How can you say it is not what we want...

Though the Prius is severly over priced...They sell like hot cakes and there are waiting lists to buy them....

If simplistic things were used on a standard civic and it gave 50 miles to the gallon and was 30% cheaper than the Prius do you not think that people would not be jumping all over the damned thing? It would be the best selling car in the world....

[glenn-k]

You can't have it both ways Peter.  If you want body armor it's going to cost you mileage.  You may have to get squishy. :-/

Much more intimate that way.

So much Bible quoting around here lately it brings to mind the scripture in the Bible where it talked about the bad accident in the small car.

"...and the two shall become one." :-/   Possibly I mis-applied that -- but then again maybe not if you really think about it. :-?

[benevolance]

Glenn

I agree that a small car like a civic has less compaction room than a diesel dually in an accident...

My point is that small cars like the Civic, focus, neon, cobalt are being mass produced and have been for years....they are safe...They have airbags and impact beams...anti lock brakes etc...

So why not just  use smaller engines in these cars that are more efficient...and have higher compression rates...Something along the lines of 13:1....Changing the gearing in the transaxle and altering the powerplant you can gain impressive mileage without sacrificing any of the room or safety features you currently enjoy in the run of the mill economy car

50 miles to the gallon is very possible in the existing lineup of cars that are offered for sale and you do not have to go without safety features or buy some new type of car nobody has heard of ....

I am not talking about hybrids either to get the mileage we need to clean up the air and reduce fuel consumption....I am talking about simply making the mileage the most important thing and just designing smaller engines with higher compression ratios...

Simple fact that diesels are efficient....Mostly because direct injection allows a higher compression ratio without detonation or spark knocking....And the higher the compression ratio in the chamber of the head the more efficient fuel is burned...

Speaking of the bible good buddy...Isn't greed still one of the 7 deadly sins?

[fourx]

...and let's not forget ""..the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.."", Glenn.  
  Blessed are the panel shops...

[glenn-k]

I can only remember a few of the highlights, Peter.    My bad.

Fourx - Pete, I may have to study up a bit more - seems I missed the mechanical section. :-/

[Amanda_931]

Doesn't higher compression mean more NO_x?

[benevolance]

Well I think anytime you reduce one type of tailpipe emission you increase another.... as long as you are burning a fossil fuel there has to be some sort of carbon release

the nitrous oxides were a big deal when you were using dirty high sulphur diesel...But the cleaner fuels burn much cleaner and they have new catalytic convertors that trap the NoX.. just like the rest of the emissions.... So that part is easily captured.