I think the issue is that you were not aware of the principle of the conservation of energy, which is taught in any elementary physics course (high school level).
Some people have little patience when confronted with ignorance combined with arrogance.
Voltage regulators work by varying the voltage to the alternator field. Full-fielding means bypassing the voltage sensing and regulation systems entirely and feeding full alternator output voltage to the alternator field. Be advised that this should be done only briefly and WITHOUT raising the engine speed above idle, for the voltage output of a full-fielded alternator will rise recursively and can do extensive damage to vehicle electronics.
400,000,000 gallons of wasted fuel per year is peanuts? How many people could drive using 400,000,000 gallons of gas per year? Using you own calculations of
587 gallons used per vehicle on average...DRL's equate to having an additional
683,760 more cars on the road.
But, this and you point is irrelivant. The total is what can be saved and
400,000,000 of gasoline is significant (n addition to the related reduction of emissions).
When they don't work you have to fight the pump mechanisms in addition to the actual force required to steer/brake the car.
Power brakes aren't all that big a deal, but a 7.5-turn steering wheel is not really a substitute for power steering, although it works fine if you aren't in a hurry.
Only according to Larry and Rick's "Yeah, but if you divide that by the total number of mosquitos in the whole US, it's only one-tenth of one picoliter per mosquito. See? It's a tiny amount!" BS illogic.
How many fewer transactions with psychotic middle eastern countries could we have by not having DRLs? Well, let's work out the order of magnitude:
There are 44 US gallons in a US barrel of crude. Including postrefining processes (hydrocracking, thermal cracking, catalytic reforming, alkylation, etc.), and estimating on the high side,roughly 50% by volume of crude can be made into gasoline. So, 22 gallons of gasoline per barrel.
Those who distrust such devious and convoluted tactics as "division" will want to skip this next part -- Larry, Rick, please cover your eyes and go "LA LA LA LA I'M NOT READING LA LA LA LA" for a minute or two:
400,000,000 divided by 22 gives 18,181,818. That's over 18 million barrels of oil we *wouldn't* have to buy and transport, which means (at $39.97/barrel, per Bloomberg this afternoon) $726,727,273 (almost seven hundred and twenty-seven million dollars) NOT given to those who have a nasty tendency to use it to train terrorists and set them upon us.
Here's another way of looking at it: Each gallon of gasoline burned releases 19 pounds of CO2. For those keeping track (and not skeptical of such iffy concepts as "multiplication"), that's Seven billion, six hundred million pounds, or three million eight hundred thousand tons of CO2. If you care about that sort of thing.
Depends on how you want to assign the cause. I don't consider the manual transmission to be the proximate cause of the problem, but rather the misfire detection system. It isn't "inherently" due to the manual transmission. It is a little like having your house blown down by a strong wind when your neighbors house stands firm. The difference is that your neighbors house was built to code and your house was built cheaply lacking hurrican straps, etc. Is the reason for the collapse of your house the wind or the shoddy construction? One can make an argument either way, but I wouldn't blame the wind.
One thing about manual steering ... it taught people to get the wheels moving before trying to steer. I still cringe when I see people crank the wheels lock to lock when the car is sitting still. What a waste of tire rubber.
Not just lab, but industrial controls as well. I cut my teeth on a PDP-11/34 and used almost every variant up to the 11/70. I then used VAXen starting with the 11/750 and on up. Excellent machines both hardware-wise and software-wise. VMS is still a better OS that what is available today from U*X vendors and M$. I'd kill for the VMS file system versioning feature in Windoze.
No. That's true of neither the brakes nor the steering.
The difference is that non-power cars use leverage instead of power assist. In the case of the steering you have to turn the steering wheel farther to get the same steering movement (and the steering wheel may be bigger besides); with brakes, you have to push the brake pedal farther.
Then what DOES make the difference in difficulty? Turning a big car with power steering/brakes and a dead engine is WAY more difficult than turning a similar-size car designed for manual steering/braking.
Over the years the designs for cars with power steering likely became more and more dependent upon the power assist. Manual systems on the other hand would have mechanical advantage to keep the resistance within normal limits.
Granted. My point was the inconsistencies that many people have when they get obsessed on a particular cause when they are blind to similar things that have a much greater impact and yet are ignored. Indicates that we are spoiled (i.e., don't have enough to do when, in other cultures, power consumed by DRL's, or computers for that matter are number 3617 on their list of priorities (or plain n/a) well after how to find the next meal or how to keep someone from killing their innocent children, or any host of other issues).
Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")
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