VW Passat 78.5 MPG (Imperial gallon) 65.2 MPG US gallon in the Uk

[SoloCamo]

Gosh. I'm glad that's not me.

If that was in reference to fast cars and v8's, then man you must be boring as hell to hang out with. Having a bit of funny in a v8 isn't going to stop mother nature from unleashing a tornado on your house my friend, enjoy life a bit because a big floating rock in space does not care about you

Yes. People still do on a daily basis. On the highways. And they manage to merge just fine.

Yes, they do, and they are also the ones cutting people off and causing major accidents at times. With my last schedule I was commuting over 500 miles a week just for work, now I commute about 400 a week strictly for work. Trust me, I've seen it enough.

Both my vehicles are at or barely under the 10 second mark to 60 and I do fine to merge, yea I'd like more power and have very much needed it at times but this is fine for my daily driver/commuter/gas saver.

One thing all of you, including myself have yet to mention about that is this; We are assuming one average size adult passenger is the only "object" in the vehicle.

Every look at an Average american family these days? Loading up the car with a family of fatties is a sure way to bring that 10 second to 60 to a standstill, and god help the family driving a much slower vehicle.

How do we compensate for that? Diesel Turbos, as my opinion has always been.

We need torque, not horsepower. Happily climbing hills, powering through snow, instant acceleration, that "seat in the pants" feeling are all a product of torque, and your average naturally aspirated 4 banger is gutless.

Again, my 10-11 second corolla is ok with me BY MYSELF, to merge. I've driven with a few friends who are not overweight, and the extra 500lbs between the three of them (not exactly midgets mind you, so the weight is appropriate) made my corolla feel completely anemic.

You are turning a 100hp 1.8L weighing 2400lbs into a 100hp into one almost weighing 3000lbs.

Throw in anything you may be carrying in the trunk and you get the picture.

Why do you think mini vans have decent power? No because dad wants some HP under his "hot rod" but because the carrying capacity and extra load. The extra power compensates it.

Same can be said for a family sedan. A popular example here, take the Camry. Throw in four adults and luggage, and you are easily adding two seconds to it's time to 60, if not more.

And one last thing, I only have the corolla because my sister sold it to me. She lives in the higher elevations of Utah and has a family, the car was simply WAY too under powered to climb the hills.

NA aspirated cars suck in higher elevation. Yet again, this is why I still fail to see why the diesel turbo isn't more adopted / pushed.

[Bizkitkid2001]

Diesel Turbos havn't been adopted that much in the US because in the past they haven't been clean enough to pass our emission standards.

Diesels are getting cleaner and big car companies like Ford, Toyota, and even Chevy are dumping loads of money into diesel technology to make it clean enough to bring to the states. Trucks don't have to pass the same emission tests so that is why they can have the "dirty" diesels.

Ford plans on putting a diesel in the Focus, Chevy in the Cruze *Or whatever the new name will be of the car that replaces it), and Toyota in the Corolla and Camry as well as Lexus models.

The TDI is pretty much the only diesel engine clean enough to be allowed in the US. That is why all diesel cars sold here are based off of Audi's TDI technology (Even the BMW diesel). This is the engine that Ford, Chevy, and Toyota are trying to match when it comes to burning cleanly. These three car companies already have diesel engines that are used around the world, they just aren't clean enough for the US.

Ford, Chevy, and Toyota could purchase the rights to use TDI technology from Audi, but it would be cheaper in the long run to just make their own versions. I have the highest hopes for Ford. They have already done something similar with the 6.7L Powerstroke.

[Gomer]

I was including the addition of high strength steel to the safety features required in vehicles. In the doors of cars you will find a steel support beam running from one side to the other in modern cars that you won't find in older cars. You also have thicker firewalls to protect the occupents from the engine because the front ends crumple now. They didn't use to do that in older cars. Also, some cars are now starting to come out with engine ejectors that will catapult the engine from the car in the event of a high speed accident. Car makers started adding strengtheners like that when the IIHS started crashing SUVs into small cars and finding out that the outcome was not very good. That extra steel needed to strengthen a car to with stand an impact from an SUV alone could easily add another 100 pounds to the curb weight just by itself. Steel is heavy.

Add up all of the electronics needed (Wires, sensors, redundant systems, ect...) to run all of the TPMS, TC, DSM, A-TRACT, ect... and those systems alone could add another couple hundred pounds to the weight of the car. Even on a not so modern car, when a friend of mine stripped out an old crown vic for demolition derby, the electronics and wireing alone added up to almost 150lbs. Cars today probably have more than double the amount of sensors, computers, and wires as cars from the 80s. My car has more electronics in it devoted to safety than it does entertainment. (Only has radio and CD player, no navigation or DVD or anything fancy like that)

Soon, the IIHS will make reverse sensors and blind spot sensors mandatory just like they did with ABS, TC, TPMS and a half dozen other systems. Eventually backup cameras will become standard on all cars.

Yes, and all of those sensors and associated wires are way smaller then they were back in the 80's.

I am still comfortable saying that the improvements in materials and engineering have offset the increased weight of the safety components. And that the weight of all of the components required to channel of of that HP safely to ground and LAUNCH a car off the line far exceed that which was required to make the car safe.

The strengthening is done to also improve safety. Look at the Smart Car as a good example. The car has around 100hp yet has one of the strongest chassis of any car sold today. The majority of small cars today are made to be stronger than most bigger cars because of the fact that they don't have the mass to compete it an accident. Its definitely not because they need it to handle those 100hp engines they are putting in them.

70 HP and a curb weight of 1,600 lbs. Your estimate of 100 HP is almost 50% more than what it actually is.

It factors into both, but you need to understand that improved efficiency comes improved performance. Also, the "race car" as you call it (lol, a race car ) is a lot safer than your 2,400lb Civic.

Is it? Can you share with me the NHTSA crash test results?

You can't improve a cars efficiency without improving its performance. Its the same way that computers work. Intel creates smaller and smaller chips to improve efficiency, but because of that the chips get faster the smaller they are made.

What I am saying is that you can increase horsepower and increase mileage. When you make an engine more efficient, the power goes up. It is unavoidable. You can't tune an engine to be more efficient and also lower the power. That is why i4s are producing the power of V6s from yesterday, and v6s today are making the same power produced by V8s from yesterday. That same i4 and V6 making more power than previous V6s and V8s are also getting better mileage than those previous V6s and V8s that they replaced. Who ever thought that a 300+hp Mustang would get over 30mpg? Even the old 4banger Mustangs didn't do that good.

If a modern car today could be made with the same horsepower, but had its weight reduced to the levels it was say in the 1980s, it would get better mileage than what it did in the 80s with its lower powered engine. Its the weight that is really killing the mileage, not the horsepower.

My Camry V6 gets better mileage than my brothers 2003 Focus. The Camry V6 comes within 2mpg of matching the real world mileage of the Camry i4s. Why? That is because even though it is a much more powerful drivetrain, it is also a much more efficient drivetrain.

Now, I agree that cutting weight will help with mileage, but cutting horsepower is not such a simple thing. There are several examples of cars with more power getting better mileage than cars with less horsepower. It has to do with how the power is implemented. Just because a car makes more horsepower doesn't mean it will get worse mileage.

Do you know what would be an even better way of increasing the mileage of the Camry V6? Lowering the weight but making the gears longer. Keep the same engine and horsepower. The engine produces a lot of low and mid torque that would benefit from longer gears when it came to fuel economy. If you gear the V6 Camry to accelerate at the same speed as the i4 Camry, but kept the same power, I bet it would easily beat the i4 Camry in mileage especially since it they are already very close in their real world mileage. Its the same reason why a 300hp V6 that accelerates to 60 in 5 seconds gets better mileage than a 300hp V8 that also accelerates to 60 in 5 seconds, because it is more efficient.

But there is a sort of medium that must be found. An engine that isn't too small that you have to ring it out all the time, but an engine that isn't so big that you always have unused power. Yes I agree the 6 second 0-60 time of the Camry V6 is more than what is needed, but I believe that even greater fuel economy could be met with an engine that produces power between the i4 and the V6 Camry. (Kind of like what the Hybrid does. It sits between the i4 and V6 power wise) The new 2.5l i4 in the Camry is a big improvement over the older 2.4l. Even though the 2.5l is bigger and makes more power, it increased fuel economy by 4mpg in the city and 4mpg on the highway. Increased efficiency means more power and better fuel economy. I think that the best mileage may be achieved with a small V6 that produces low end torque and makes around 210hp or so in the current.

Maybe you haven't taken physics, but this is pretty basic.

F=ma
Force = mass x acceleration
Double the mass and it doubles the force required to accelerate it.
Double the rate of acceleration and it doubles the force required to accelerate it.

Cruising down the highway takes very little force relative to accelerating from a stop.

For all of that 0-60 speed you are designing a power train with an emphasis on providing all of that force for acceleration, not efficient operation while cruising.

This is very basic stuff. As the most general rule of thumb... and I'm not sure why you want to argue this... more HP = more speed and acceleration and lower fuel economy. That is true from a both a practical and theoretical standpoint.

If you design for efficiency, you sacrifice power that raw F=ma that shoots you off the line. That is why econoboxes are dogs.

[Gomer]

The trend also shows a big jump in fuel economy after 2005 even though 0-60 keeps on decreasing and horsepower keeps on increasing. That was 7 years ago and cars today are getting more and more fuel efficient.

And the weight also shows to be dropping between 2009-2010. It would be interesting to see what the charts look like at the end of the decade.

The annual EPA report speaks to this and reiterates what I have been stating:

Vehicle weight and performance are two of the most important engineering parameters that help determine a vehicle's CO2 emissions and fuel economy. All other factors being equal, higher vehicle weight (which supports new options and features) and faster acceleration performance (e.g., lower 0-to-60 mile-per-hour acceleration time), both increase a vehicle's CO2 emissions and decrease fuel economy. Automotive engineers are constantly developing more advanced and efficient vehicle technologies. From MY1987 through MY2004, on a fleetwide basis, this technology innovation was utilized exclusively to support market-driven attributes other than CO2 emissions and fuel economy, such as vehicle weight, performance, and utility. Beginning in MY2005, technology has been used to increase both fuel economy (which has reduced CO2 emissions) and performance, while keeping vehicle weight relatively constant.

[Gomer]

Out here, raw speed isn't the big thing. Power is!

Try a 6% uphill grade for 7 miles in a I4 or even a V6 . . . then add in traffic and find out how slow things get when someone in an anemic I4 is holding up 4 miles of cars and there's no way to pull over or pass.


Harder

They must have had some sort of car escalator to get those things up the hill in the 80's before HP skyrocketed and 0-60 plummeted.

[Gomer]

If that was in reference to fast cars and v8's, then man you must be boring as hell to hang out with. Having a bit of funny in a v8 isn't going to stop mother nature from unleashing a tornado on your house my friend, enjoy life a bit because a big floating rock in space does not care about you

If boring as hell means that I recognize that we fight wars of convenience as part of our comprehensive energy policy instead of mandating efficiency, then I'm guilty as charged.

Yes, they do, and they are also the ones cutting people off and causing major accidents at times. With my last schedule I was commuting over 500 miles a week just for work, now I commute about 400 a week strictly for work. Trust me, I've seen it enough.

Both my vehicles are at or barely under the 10 second mark to 60 and I do fine to merge, yea I'd like more power and have very much needed it at times but this is fine for my daily driver/commuter/gas saver.

I've commuted 500 miles a week for work and driven on highways with big trucks and driven in major metropolises. You don't need 0-60 in 10 seconds to survive.

In the 90s the average was 12! How did those average people survive? How did those below average people survive?

You don't think that aggressive drivers slicing and dicing from lane to lane in their steroid laden grocery getters are causing more accidents then people trying to merge?

One thing all of you, including myself have yet to mention about that is this; We are assuming one average size adult passenger is the only "object" in the vehicle.

Every look at an Average american family these days? Loading up the car with a family of fatties is a sure way to bring that 10 second to 60 to a standstill, and god help the family driving a much slower vehicle.

How do we compensate for that? Diesel Turbos, as my opinion has always been.

How do we compensate that? For fatass Americans??? That's a whole other set of problems.

Again, my 10-11 second corolla is ok with me BY MYSELF, to merge. I've driven with a few friends who are not overweight, and the extra 500lbs between the three of them (not exactly midgets mind you, so the weight is appropriate) made my corolla feel completely anemic.

You are turning a 100hp 1.8L weighing 2400lbs into a 100hp into one almost weighing 3000lbs.

Throw in anything you may be carrying in the trunk and you get the picture.

Again... in the 90s the average was 12. The AVERAGE! How ever did people manage to get to work every day?

[sharder8]

They must have had some sort of car escalator to get those things up the hill in the 80's before HP skyrocketed and 0-60 plummeted.

How about . . . far less cars on the road and people were in less of a hurry. Back then, we also had more passenger trains going east/west, as well as bus service. Bus service is now gone and train service is minimal, but still here. (I rode the train from Salem to Klamath Falls several years ago.) However, the closest stop today for a train ride to get to Bend, is 60 miles from Bend.


Harder

[Bizkitkid2001]

Yes, and all of those sensors and associated wires are way smaller then they were back in the 80's.

I am still comfortable saying that the improvements in materials and engineering have offset the increased weight of the safety components. And that the weight of all of the components required to channel of of that HP safely to ground and LAUNCH a car off the line far exceed that which was required to make the car safe.

They still play a major part in increasing the weight of a vehicle. How many air bags did a car come with normally in the 80s? 2, maybe 3?

I've counted 8 in my car. There are a lot more safety features and even though some of them have gotten smaller, the amount total still outweighs what was previously in vehicles. Look at how thicker doors are on modern cars today. My Aunt's 1999 Tacoma has paper thin doors compared to my Camry. That added thickness is there to improve safety. It is like that all around the cabin area. Crumple zones add more space between passengers and the outside, which means more materials needed to fill in that space.

Look at transmission sizes as well. In the persuit of increased efficiency, transmissions have more gears today. 6 speed automatics are becoming the norm. More gears equals better fuel efficiency, but that also means bigger and heavier transmissions.

70 HP and a curb weight of 1,600 lbs. Your estimate of 100 HP is almost 50% more than what it actually is.

70hp for the Fortwo and 109hp for the ForFour There is more than one Smart car. Also, 30% is not almost 50%

Is it? Can you share with me the NHTSA crash test results?

Even if they both scored the same in the crash tests (BTW, the FR-S/BRZ is tested under newer more stringent tests than your Civic was) the BRZ/FR-S comes standard with ABS, stability control, traction control, and a tpms that makes the car safer.

Since you say your Civic is 2400lbs, I'm guessing its either a sixth or seventh generation civic? Sixth and Seventh generation Civics didn't even come standard with ABS, that was either an option or something you got when you moved up to the LX or EX package.

Maybe you haven't taken physics, but this is pretty basic.

F=ma
Force = mass x acceleration
Double the mass and it doubles the force required to accelerate it.
Double the rate of acceleration and it doubles the force required to accelerate it.

Cruising down the highway takes very little force relative to accelerating from a stop.

For all of that 0-60 speed you are designing a power train with an emphasis on providing all of that force for acceleration, not efficient operation while cruising.

This is very basic stuff. As the most general rule of thumb... and I'm not sure why you want to argue this... more HP = more speed and acceleration and lower fuel economy. That is true from a both a practical and theoretical standpoint.

If you design for efficiency, you sacrifice power that raw F=ma that shoots you off the line. That is why econoboxes are dogs.

I guess you completely missed my post above about gearing transmissions for efficiency not acceleration

I'm not disagreeing with you that faster acceleration lowers mileage, what I am disagreeing with you is that lowering the horsepower increases gas mileage. There are some cases where more horsepower means worse fuel economy, but then other cases where more horsepower means better fuel economy. It has to do with how the transmission is geared, the weight of the vehicle, and the vehicles coefficient of drag.

[The Real Bingo]

I guess you completely missed my post above about gearing transmissions for efficiency not acceleration

I'm not disagreeing with you that faster acceleration lowers mileage, what I am disagreeing with you is that lowering the horsepower increases gas mileage. There are some cases where more horsepower means worse fuel economy, but then other cases where more horsepower means better fuel economy. It has to do with how the transmission is geared, the weight of the vehicle, and the vehicles coefficient of drag.

It's where the power is made. It's why diesels are so efficient - they rarely have to rev past 2500 RPM to make peak power.

[Epidemic]

I'm not disagreeing with you that faster acceleration lowers mileage, what I am disagreeing with you is that lowering the horsepower increases gas mileage. There are some cases where more horsepower means worse fuel economy, but then other cases where more horsepower means better fuel economy. It has to do with how the transmission is geared, the weight of the vehicle, and the vehicles coefficient of drag.

I can agree with this. If you increase the efficiency of a given engine / displacement typically that means you increase horse power per volume of gasoline. However you can take that same horse power increase technology per volume of gasoline and reduce displacement and engine weight and gain further.

if you say permanently fix your performance target lets say 0-60 in 10 seconds, target efficent cruising speed and then make engine efficiency your primary focus then mileage will skyrocket.

[Gomer]

Also, 30% is not almost 50%

You ought not to to roll your eyes if you can't even do basic math.
I said, " Your estimate of 100 HP is almost 50% more than what it actually is."

100 is 43% more than 70. To go from 70 HP to 100 HP is a 43% increase. Capisce?

I said almost 50 because it was an quick estimate. 105 HP would have been exactly 50% more than the actual HP of 70. That was the basis for my statement.

I'm not disagreeing with you that faster acceleration lowers mileage, what I am disagreeing with you is that lowering the horsepower increases gas mileage. There are some cases where more horsepower means worse fuel economy, but then other cases where more horsepower means better fuel economy. It has to do with how the transmission is geared, the weight of the vehicle, and the vehicles coefficient of drag.

But the charts show that that HP has been put into greater acceleration and hot rod family sedans.

That is the whole point of all this.

[Bizkitkid2001]

You ought not to to roll your eyes if you can't even do basic math.
I said, " Your estimate of 100 HP is almost 50% more than what it actually is."

100 is 43% more than 70. To go from 70 HP to 100 HP is a 43% increase. Capisce?

I said almost 50 because it was an quick estimate. 105 HP would have been exactly 50% more than the actual HP of 70. That was the basis for my statement.

My math is good, I was just looking at it as a difference instead. The difference between 70% and 100% is 30%.

But that doesn't matter, the point was that there are cars with extremely strong chassis that weren't made strong to be able to handle tons of power but instead were made strong so that they can withstand a crash with a giant truck or SUV. The chassis strengthening improvements were made for safety, and that adds weight. Don't make the chassis as safe and the weight of the car would be a lot less. A lot of compact and micro-minis have very little power but are strong enough to keep the passenger compartment from collapsing if the car ever crashes into a Land Rover.

But the charts show that that HP has been put into greater acceleration and hot rod family sedans.

That is the whole point of all this.

Yes they do, but it is your "fix" to this problem that I disagree with. It isn't just a simple cut power and weight. Its a lot more complicated than that, and is why car manufacturer's are having such a hard time making the most fuel efficient car.

The company who can make the first 100mpg mass produced vehicle is going to be the one to make all the money, so don't you think the car companies are already trying everything they can to reduce as much weight as possible?


The 100mpg,200mpg,300mpg, ect.. prototypes you see are not cars that I would like to drive for more than a few minutes. By the time they can make the car safe enough and comfortable enough and cheap enough for the average Joe to be able to drive on a daily basis to work, the car has gained a lot of weight and the mileage has dropped a ton.

[Gomer]

My math is good, I was just looking at it as a difference instead. The difference between 70% and 100% is 30%.

LOL, whatever. Don't tell me I'm wrong because you were "looking at it different."

Yes they do, but it is your "fix" to this problem that I disagree with. It isn't just a simple cut power and weight. Its a lot more complicated than that, and is why car manufacturer's are having such a hard time making the most fuel efficient car.

No. It IS that simple.

Weight has gone up, power has gone up, and 0-60 times have gone down. Hold any one of those things where they were 20-30 years ago and efficiency would noticeably increase. Hold two of those things where they were (e.g. allow weight to go up, but hold HP where it was which would keep 0-60 where it was [remember f=ma]) and the fleet average mileage would have gone way up.

The company who can make the first 100mpg mass produced vehicle is going to be the one to make all the money, so don't you think the car companies are already trying everything they can to reduce as much weight as possible?

Not yet... but they will. The government mandated it. A fleet average of 60 MPG for passenger cars in the next ten years. You will see HP going down, and 0-60 going up. The weight savings will come from lighter drivetrains that don't have to manage all that HP.

The 100mpg,200mpg,300mpg, ect.. prototypes you see are not cars that I would like to drive for more than a few minutes. By the time they can make the car safe enough and comfortable enough and cheap enough for the average Joe to be able to drive on a daily basis to work, the car has gained a lot of weight and the mileage has dropped a ton.

I'm not even considering anything that drastic. Going from 30-60 mpg will halve the amount of fuel those vehicles consume over their entire 10+ year lifespan.

I've got another image for you.

What do you bet we'll find if we look at the vehicles in those countries?

Lower HP
Lower weight
and higher 0-60 times.

[Bizkitkid2001]

Don't tell me I was wrong because you were ignorant about there being more than one Smartcar

You are still missing the point.

Car A weighing 3,000lbs with 3.0L V6 200hp and a 0-60 of 9 seconds will get worse average mileage than Car B weigh 3,000lbs with 3.0L V6 300hp and a 0-60 of 9 seconds because of the fact that the smaller horsepower car will have to work much harder and have to rev much higher to be able to move the car at the same speed with the same load.

A 4 cylinder having to use 3rd gear at 5,000rpm to climb a mountain is going to use a lot more gas than a 6 cylinder using 5th gear at 2,500rpms to climb that same mountain.


The more efficient you make an engine, the more power it produces. A 2.0L engine making 150hp is less efficient than a 2.0L engine making 200hp. You stick both of those engines in the same car, and gear both of them for the same 0-60, and the 2.0L 200hp engine will use less fuel as it won't have to work as hard as the 150hp engine.

That is why the V6 F150s got worse mileage than the V8 F150s. You constantly had to stay on the gas just to keep it at highway seed since that V6 had to push a brick wall down the road at 70mph, often shifting out of over drive on slight inclines. Going by your simple cutting power rule, lower the horsepower of the V6 F150 would increase mileage when in reality it would have made it even worse.

By your logic a car with a 1hp engine should get better mileage than the same car with a 100hp engine. It ain't gonna happen. You have to balance all properties of a car that effect mileage.

The data shows that lighter cars with less horsepower get better mileage, but that is mainly to do with the lighter weight and how efficient the rest of the power train is setup, not just weight and power alone.

I could go take a Prius and stick a really crappy transmission with really tall gears in it and make that Prius hit the single digits in mileage without even chaning the weight or the horsepower.

[Epidemic]

The more efficient you make an engine, the more power it produces. A 2.0L engine making 150hp is less efficient than a 2.0L engine making 200hp. You stick both of those engines in the same car, and gear both of them for the same 0-60, and the 2.0L 200hp engine will use less fuel as it won't have to work as hard as the 150hp engine.

2.5 liter formula 1 engine 1000 bhp 4 mpg. They develop HP by raming more fuel and air into the cylinders.

2.5 liter jeep engine 150 120 hp 20 mpg.

now you might rightly call me out on the fact that the formula 1 is 20% more efficent than a street car per hp.

But what do you think if they downsized that engine in physical displacement and HP but used the same technology?

how big would an engine have to be when it produces 416 HP per liter if it only needed to produce say 120 hp. If all the tech could be downsized it would be a .29 liter engine and probably would weigh in at roughly 25 pounds saving 184 pounds. The tiny pistons, tiny crank and small valves and springs would take alot less energy to sling around 88% less mass.

[The Real Bingo]

2.5 liter formula 1 engine 1000 bhp 4 mpg. They develop HP by raming more fuel and air into the cylinders.

2.5 liter jeep engine 150 120 hp 20 mpg.

now you might rightly call me out on the fact that the formula 1 is 20% more efficent than a street car per hp.

But what do you think if they downsized that engine in physical displacement and HP but used the same technology?

how big would an engine have to be when it produces 416 HP per liter if it only needed to produce say 120 hp. If all the tech could be downsized it would be a .29 liter engine and probably would weigh in at roughly 25 pounds saving 184 pounds. The tiny pistons, tiny crank and small valves and springs would take alot less energy to sling around 88% less mass.

The F1 engine also revs to 16,000 RPM as opposed to just 6,000. And uses high-octane fuel. And has superlight components. Apples to oranges. Unfortunately HP/displacement is not linear.

[Epidemic]

I know it is not linear but you could downsize using formula one tech by some fraction and using that same tech.

The point is that efficiency based soley hp to displacement is not linear either.

But if you made the most efficient 100 HP engine you could make and put it in a car you needed to 0 - 60 in 12 seconds. It would produce more MPG than a 200 HP engine in a car designed to 0-60 in 6.5 seconds.

[thephilosophizer]

I find it interesting that the argument here has come back around to actually reflecting what's happening in the market. For years American manufacturers exploited the lack of mileage requirements, and cheap oil to make highly inefficient cars at high margins (SUVs and trucks). But as oil prices rose, the market demand for more efficient vehicles spiked, and drove customers away from domestic autos. This of course happened at the same time that the stock market tanked, and the combination left GM and Chrysler in a lurch.
Ford seemed to have seen this coming somewhat earlier on and had already began a transition away from relying on big vehicles for profit. The trouble is that smaller vehicles using better technology and higher quality components initially equates to lower margins. Technology becomes cheaper over time, but has high up front cost. It took years for the Prius to become profitable, but once it did, there was no turning back, and know it's a cornerstone of Toyota's lineup. Just the same, the Ford Focus was once wholly unremarkable, but is now not only a leader in the compact segment, but also has one of the most attractive electric cars available (short of the Model S, but hey).
And engines are becoming smaller. Ford has abandoned the V8 crown vic, for a turbo v6 Taurus as it's new standard offering for police. A smaller, more efficient motor. Consumer vehicle technology necessarily lags behind race technology, but, through consumer demand, and constructive regulation, that implementation becomes more cost effective over time.

[Epidemic]

mr philosophizer,

chicken and egg question really. You imply that the manufacturers drive the consumers. That GM, Chrysler and Ford, made consumers buy gas guzzlers?

In a vacuum this might be true. But since econoboxes have been around all along these companies carved their niche out of the market that was gas guzzlers. Auto manufacturers are not a monopoly with no competition able to determine what the consumer will buy by not producing alternatives.

Ford, responded quicker to the market and decided sales in big gas guzzlers were not the niche they wanted to bank on.

My point is if ford had banked on econoboxes in the 80's and 90's then Chevy would have picked up the slack with booming sales and ford would have had a glut of econoboxes they were trying to unload while Chevy cashed in on demand.

You make it sound like auto manufacturers drive demand they do not they respond to it (sometimes poorly and lacking foresight). If you are going to demonize someone for gas guzzler proliferation, then it is the consumer not the big oil/big three nexus controlling the masses.

[SoloCamo]

So since I think we have beaten this horse to death here, where do we go next?

Let's say we do take away hp, and lets say we some how manage to get each car down a 1,000lbs lighter each.

Clearly, due to weight alone more than the HP loss, the efficiency will go up. But we've now hit a wall.

Taking away weight and horsepower is a band aid. You cannot just keep removing the weight until it's a shell of a car with a motorcycle engine in it. We do not have super strong material that will save tons of weight. And before carbon fiber is mentioned, I'd like to point out that though it's very effective and I look forward to it's implementation, it is not the hero of the day here, it will not get us the results some are looking for.

So when we do hit that wall, what next? Because if it's mandated that wall could easily be hit in 10 years. (though obviously current regulations aren't that high, who is to say it won't change, especially if further issues occur in the middle east?)

__

What I will say is this. Smaller displacement turbos, or diesel turbos will be of the greatest help right now. The hybrid ball is already rolling and that will obviously continue.

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Now I will let my car lover side talk;

It's a shame, here we are at the peak of efficiency in regards to HP numbers (650hp mustangs rolling off the line, stock, 1100hp supercars, 300hp family sedans, 200hp econoboxs) and it's only going to get taken away. Reminds me of the 60's muscle car era, only to be sweeped away and ruined by 1975.

Prepare yourselves for boring vehicles, so hold on to your 400hp family sedans now!