Re: EA and WYK: Diesels over electrics?

That one threw me, and it's probably a mistake. HOWEVER -- and this is where things get subtle -- a lean mixture first gets a little hot as you start to lean it out, and then it gets COLD as you lean it out further. Less fuel burning in a given volume of gas puts less heat into the burning mixture. With spark ignition, you quickly reach a point where it won't even ignite -- except with stratified-charge, direct injection, designed to burn very lean mixtures. There are such engines in the labs.

What I think is that they meant more *air*, not more oxygen. But I don't know. I'd need to see an engineering report on it because I can visualize a lean mixture that's burning too cold to get complete combustion of some of the higher-flash-point components of the fuel.

I'm not about to assume anything. _The Economist_ is pretty good at fact-checking.

And before you dismiss reporters/writers/editors, I'll remind you that I'm a reporter/writer/editor, and I check things like that out carefully before publishing anything. d8-)

The question is whether hybridizing these diesels would produce enough benefit to bother with the electrics at all. The Europeans seem to think the answer is no. Remember, the gain for diesel hybrids is less than half that of spark-ignition hybrids, as we discussed before.

I'd like to see some results from those Bosch/Citroen experiments with diesel hybrids, but not enough to spend time looking for them.

But you have a traditional education.

Read Yahoo News or Motley Fool to see what bird-brained articles the young'uns write. They serve only as early warning canaries.

jsw

I don't think it's the education as much as a traditional background in journalism. I started as an editor for the only trade magazine in history that won the National Magazine Award outright (American Machinist, 1969). We took accuracy *very* seriously. At least three editors read everything before it was published, and the first two were responsible for checking facts.

And then I spent 6 years as a medical editor, where one mistake could get an editor fired.

The crap on the Internet is not written by journalists. They may be educated, but they have never absorbed the ethics and discipline of the business. They all want to be pundits, where anything goes.

I was just checking to see if you were awake.... lol

By "benefit", I'm assuming part of that is ROI. As some of the banter here has shown, very little added cost over a base ice

Heh, when GM drops the price for the Gen2 Volt by $10K, dumbfuckKidding won't be able to give his volt away.... and I'm sure he had all kinds of resale value built in to his bullshit ultra-low cost to own.... LOL

Heh, but I got a great idea: Kidding can keep his Volt as a quiet backup generator for his barn.... which oughtta be quiet, for $40K.... iffin he can figger out how to drop 350 V to center-tapped 220.... lol

And lazyassed pundits..... mostly what goes is paraphrased press releases..... and mebbe not even paraphrased....

No, I mean strictly in terms of fuel economy.

Of course, it depends on fuel prices. In Amsterdam right now, a US gallon of gas costs $9.09.

And it depends somewhat on whether you value driving in something other than a shitbox. I drove my Focus out to Chicago last Fall. I can tell the difference between that and my Sonata, which I usually drive out there. I could put a value on it, if I had to.

If you're really serious about ROI, consider a moped. d8-)

That was part of your OJT education. The chemistry profs told us that college only prepared us to understand the lessons we would hear on the job.

Watching big-name reporters interview politicians clearly reveals which were popularly chosen as leaders. There isn't a single network newsperson I'd vote onto the town's budget committee.

We see them here during the NH Primary debates. So far I've managed to stay off camera by prompting the reporters to share their own opinions and pretending to care what they think.

This last election the photographers seem to have switched from Banana Republic beige to North Face black for their distinctive uniform. Or maybe I don't see them often enough to keep up. All black or black + jeans was the tribal costume for backstage personnel when I was in theatre. jsw