62 MPG by the Year 2025

Currently the CAFE standards have been defined and administered as a

5% annual increase in vehicle fuel mileage resulting in 35.5 MPG by the year 2016.

Now it's being said that if the fuel mileage requirements are increased 6% annually beginning in 2017 that the CAFE fuel mileage will be 62 MPG by the year 2025. Or a 5% increase in annual CAFE standard beginning in 2017 would produce 47 MPG by the year 2025.

But this is the wrong way of doing things and actually proved by the history of the late 1970's and early 1980's when vehicle drive-ability become poor due to emission limits. The problem is that incremental increases in requirements encourge immediate and short term bandaid solutions and then bandaid solutions on top of previous bandaid solutions.

The correct way to implement the CAFE standards would be to simply require CAFE fuel mileage of 35.5 MPG at the year 2016. And then require 47 MPG at the year 2025. This strategy would allow long term design projects to fully develop a roll-out of a comprehensive technology and avoid the side effects of implementing and abandoning lessor technologies.

Is 47 MPG in the year 2025 possible ? Certainly, mid-size cars weighing 2400 pounds and using 1.6 engines would do their part in meeting the average. (Engine power has increased with direct fuel injection instead of port fuel injection and so a 1.6 engine can be equal to a 1.8 engine.) It's just hard for the average person to visual a mid-size car that is not smaller but that weighs 1000 pounds less. But plastic bodywork and floorpans are both bodywork and insulation. Then the frames could be hydroformed aluminum like in the Z06 Corvette. Finally, a car that loses 500 pounds in weight can use a smaller engine and transmission and then lose another 150 pounds in weight. Oops, I only reduced the 3400 pound mid-size car to 2750 pounds.

Reply to
PolicySpy
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Reply to
PolicySpy

IMO the technology is all ready out there, but they want to take their sweet time getting there so they don't run out of things to improve on.

Reply to
m6onz5a

correction: "run out of things that keep the oilco's fat and happy".

there you go.

Reply to
jim beam

And there will be twice as people driving. Oh well, who cares?

Reply to
f. barnes

Maybe we'll be using hydrogen or natural gas by then. Probably not..

Reply to
m6onz5a

There ARE laws of physics, however, that legislation will not be able to repeal. Just like the state legislature that one time tried to legislate the value of pi to an even (iteger value) 3, these laws will not be altered by politicians.

The biggest improvement to efficiency would be achieved by considerably increasing operating temperature, to an uncooled engine. However, the biggest obstacle to that seems to be lubricants. Oils tend to coke when the surfaces they are exposed to get hot enough.

I do believe milage in the low to mid forties is possible with reasonably practical cars. The only way I see getting into the sixties for fleet milage is if we all drive micro-cars.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

kinda sorta along the right lines. but it's not cooling that's the issue, it's thermodynamic efficiency first, then materials.

efficiency is a function of the difference between highest temperature of combustion, the most energetic, and the lowest, when the combustion products have done their work. since the low temp side of the equation is hard to manage, and will never be zero given that we're living way above absolute zero, the best thing to address is the peak temperature. if that's raised, efficiency rises accordingly.

but, as combustion temperature rises, so does NO? production. this means, conveniently for the oilcos who you will notice are strangely silent on this subject, that you will never see any serious push for significant increases in thermodynamic efficiency, even though the emissions problem could be addressed by bigger catalysts.

similarly, you won't see any serious push from the car companies because they'd have to move from their current range of materials they use for engine production up to other materials that can withstand higher temperatures. when i was a materials undergrad, there was a lot of research going into ceramics for diesel engines. the ceramic prototypes then being tested could operate at significantly higher temperatures, were thus considerably more thermodynamically efficient, and performed excellently. they also had the added benefit of being significantly more wear resistant than metals. but they were freakin' expensive to produce, even more expensive to machine, and highly intolerant of abuse. none of these are insurmountable problems of course, but they are a hurdle no one has, in the light of the emissions issue, had the willingness to jump.

it's not a problem with jet engines - they have much more heat problems than cars. basically, lower grade conventional lubricants have that problem, but there are many used in high temperature applications that are much more stable. the bigger issue is the materials they're lubricating.

have you ever been to europe? they simply tax gas so it's uneconomic to drive gas guzzlers. so most people drive things we'd consider sub-compact. and they seem to manage just fine. i can never understand seeing contractors driving about in honking great trucks with virtually nothing in the back. in europe, they use small vans, carry the same amount of gear, and seem to do just fine. maybe they don't have, ah, "compensation" issues?

Reply to
jim beam

Will anybody care what kind of mileage you can get from a piston engine in 15 years? Are we still gonna be using Windows?? on desktops in 2025? Are we still going to be in Afghanistan???

Reply to
dsi1

We will be at War with whichever Country, or Countries forever, I predict. The last time Congress Declared War was on December 8,1941.I was one month and three days old on that date. World War One Officially ends this Sunday, or was it last Sunday?

But 62 MPG by 2025? not unless everybody are driving pregnant roller skates everywhere.I predict that too, but I doubt I will live long enough to see that. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

Unless someone invents Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future, yes we will care about piston engine mileage in 15 years.

Windows has already been around for 27 years and I doubt Microsoft is going to make any radical changes.

We have been in Korea for over 60 years; what do you think?

Reply to
jimp

All the new technology seems to be nothing more than a poison shuffle that adds more poisons, that are way worse for the environment, into the mix. And it usually does the job worse. (Incandescent light bulb vs compact fluorescent light bulb that contains 5 milligrams of mercury and doesn't do as good a job)

Reply to
Anonymous Infidel - the anti-political talking head

Rulers have a way of using compex systems, lies, ridicule and violence to achieve the illusion that things are the way they say they are or want them to be.

For decades the governments of the states and the federal government cooked the books to make it look like the 55mph NMSL was being obeyed. That is just one simple example where government declared the obvious of what anyone could see with their own two eyes.

Reply to
Brent

Back in 1981, I bought a Nissan Bluebird for my exwife.. IIRC, that one got

60 mp(E)g. It seated four easily, and five with a little intimacy.

Now, that is not 62 mp(A)g, but that was 30 years ago.

Most of us can drive a car such as this without puking. For those who cant, there will be gasoline for a long long time, if you are willing to pay what it may cost.

How old are you, by the way?

Reply to
hls

Yes, the ceramic work is what I was referring to about coking the lubricant. The ceramics stood up to the job, but the oil would not. We need oil with a much higher temperature capability. Or should I just say lubricant- doesn't have to be oil.

On 10/2/2010 11:20 AM, jim beam wrote: . when i was a materials undergrad, there was a lot of

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Reply to
Don Stauffer

jet engines typically use ester-based lubricants. should be more than sufficient for initial applications.

that's assuming we even use ceramics. there are many more heat resistant metal alloy classes we haven't used in vehicle production that are much easier to work with before we go down the ceramics road. the point being that there's some kind of fear of using larger catalysts to cope with the greater NO? production that higher combustion temperatures produce. let's deal with that before we get into the ceramics thing.

Reply to
jim beam

I once read somewhere about Fiat's new 85 horsepower two cylinder Twin Air engine for the Fiat 500 cars.I don't know what MPG it gets though. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

In the year 2025 Americans will be peddling their bikes. China will make that reality TreBert

Reply to
bert

damn, i'd love to contradict you on that, if only on time frame, but i'm not sure i can. the way we're selling out all our key technology to them, it's all too possible.

Reply to
jim beam

Maybe 100mpg according to reports:

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p.s. Thanks for the tips on devilfinder.com. I ? it.

Reply to
AMuzi

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