| Author | Message | ||
     Just_ziptab |
98 S-10,202,000 miles. Replaced 1 water pump,1 fuel pump,2 u-joints,4 shocks,front brakes and tires (at 110,000),3 drive belts.1 window motor,1 intake gasket,spark plugs(once), 2 oil cooler lines,one dash vent,a couple of blinker bulbs,one headlight and one battery. That a little over one repair event a year,sans oil changes. That's a payment I can live with........  (I'm good at making stuff last with careful ownership) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I never buy new cars and usually buy cars with 20-36,000 miles (former program cars). I maintain them well and drive them until they are at least 200,000 miles on the clock. Because of my job, I need a car that is not only still running but still looks presentable. As such, they are usually butt worn well before they are ready to be mechanically retired. They could easily go another 50-100,000 miles. Now I don't recommend this for the majority of you. I need nice, fairly new, low mileage, heavily depreciated used cars to choose from.  I'm seriously looking at a nice GTI 4-door, although I'd really love to get a 2012 Passat made in TN. | ||
| 86129squids |
 I'll drive my '92 hardbody Nissan into the ground. | ||
| Fast1075 |
My current cage is a 1999 Ford Ranger..2.5 4 banger....I bought it used for $2,800.00. I have put 60K on it with nothing more than normal maintenance items and a set of tires. It gets 21 mpg around town and 26 or so on the highway. The only way I will replace it (unless it suffers a MAJOR casualty) is if I find that ever elusive Geo Metro coupe in showroom low mileage condition. (I have a neighbor that has one....he gets nearly 50mpg from it, driving it normally)...it doesn't have A/C, but on days that need A/C one of my bikes would be a better choice anyway . Blake sort of mentioned compressed air vehicles...if you used a diesel powered compressor, and assuming typical efficiency of an I.C. engine, the only other loss would be the heat of compression..and an ingenious person could come up with a way to use the "waste" heat (like use it to run a peltier device to produce electricity)...the engine would only "consume" energy while it is "running". A control system that shuts the engine down allowing the vehicle to coast would further increase the efficiency...The "exhaust" could be used to air condition the vehicle or cool an on board cooler... There is a French company that builds such a vehicle....and my company is looking at using them if/when they become available here for our "local/intown service vehicles"... | ||
| Bwbhighspl |
Citation needed. | ||
| Fast1075 |
Vid I found about it. (Message edited by fast1075 on February 11, 2011) | ||
| Blake |
Given, multiple times. Try to pay attention. Wikipedia is ludicrous in it's standards for citation. They'll allow a quote from some obscure "scholar", as long as it promotes their Progressive ideology but refuse simple science and math. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Blake, I agree with your stance on many levels, but not all. I think you're choosing to ignore some data points. If you're going to use the powerplant and lines for MPGe, then it is only fair to use refineries and transportation costs for MPG. After all, this is about a unit of energy, not gasoline or electricity. Turning crude into gas is really no different than turning coal into electricity. Sending electricity down a powerline is really no different than sending gas down the highway in a tanker. In my opinion, if you're going to go to the source and the get the "whole picture", you've got to get the WHOLE picture - drilling for oil and mining for coal. Otherwise, you're just picking an arbitrary point in the process to start your calculations. That all I said, I do agree with the principle of what you're getting at, and that's that an electric vehicle isn't as good for the environment as Al Gore would lead you believe. I do think that for 99% of the people out there, MPGs are about saving money, not the planet, and that figure should be used as economic factor, not environmental one. That said, I don't really take issue with the EPAs method. I would like to see totally new ratings, though. MPG is great for pure-gasoline powered vehicles, but to really level the playing the field, we need true end-to-end impacts listed. From the time the nautrual resource leaves the ground to the time the wheel starts turning, both economically (how much it will cost the operator to drive it) and environmentally (how much it will cost the Earth to operate it). But you have to go from the very start, not some arbitrary point in the process. Electric vehicles may make sense someday, but not yet. I don't fault people to have signed onto them (or hybrids) yet, as they allow the tech to mature and develop - so long as they understand the full process and how electric is far from meaning zero emissions. | ||
| Sifo |
I think you're choosing to ignore some data points. If you're going to use the powerplant and lines for MPGe, then it is only fair to use refineries and transportation costs for MPG. After all, this is about a unit of energy, not gasoline or electricity. Turning crude into gas is really no different than turning coal into electricity. Sending electricity down a powerline is really no different than sending gas down the highway in a tanker. In my opinion, if you're going to go to the source and the get the "whole picture", you've got to get the WHOLE picture - drilling for oil and mining for coal. Otherwise, you're just picking an arbitrary point in the process to start your calculations. The easiest comparisons would be to compare gas engines to electric motors that run from petroleum powered power plants. In your scenario the gas engine takes a big hit because of the inefficiencies of turning petroleum into useful energy. The electric motor gets a pass on this very same inefficiency. You need to find a place to start from where you do the best you can with a fair comparison. MPG is a type of data that people understand with cars and has been used for longer than my lifespan. What Blake suggests (which is the same as the DOE) is to simply get as close as possible to an equivalence of MPG. Basically where the fuel is mined, processed and ready to be turned into energy. | ||
| Xl1200r |
You're only reinforcing my point. I can't really add any more than that. What Blake suggests (which is the same as the DOE) is to simply get as close as possible to an equivalence of MPG. My argument to that would be that it's impossible. It's apples and oranges, and no amount of math is going to change that. There are just too many relevant variables - where your power comes from, how far you live from the power plant, the cost of electricity, the cost of gas, the nature of the driving you do (if a hybrid), and on and on. The only way to make the math work is to turn these variables into constants, and now you're making assumptions that don't apply to everyone. And again, why is deemed fair to "charge" electricity with transportation and transformation, but to ignore these for gasoline? Just because MPG ratings have been around forever doesn't mean they are still a relevant form of measure for all types of vehicles. We need to start separating out the economic from the environmental. Hell, even a bicycle isn't free to operate it - if you're going to ride it you're going to burn more calories, which means you need to eat more food ($) and you'll send more poop down the toilet (emissions). Would you attempt to try and get an MPG equivalent for a bicycle? | ||
| Sifo |
My argument to that would be that it's impossible. It's apples and oranges, and no amount of math is going to change that. There are just too many relevant variables - where your power comes from, how far you live from the power plant, the cost of electricity, the cost of gas, the nature of the driving you do (if a hybrid), and on and on. The only way to make the math work is to turn these variables into constants, and now you're making assumptions that don't apply to everyone. And again, why is deemed fair to "charge" electricity with transportation and transformation, but to ignore these for gasoline? Cost isn't factored into MPG or MPGe (the DOE version). It's all physics. How much energy to move a mass down the road. Economics have nothing to do with these calculations at all. | ||
| Blake |
XL, >>> then it is only fair to use refineries and transportation costs for MPG Then you'd have to do the same for the coal, include the mining, transport and processing. That type of comparison is addressed in the article in the section entitled "Well-to-Wheel". It shows a factor of 0.89 for gasoline and 0.303 for electricity on average. Factoring out the 0.89 in order to rate wrt a gallon of gas at the pump would yield 0.303/0.83=0.365 on average for American electric power generation. It would be lower for just coal and oil generation. I used 0.33. See how amazing I am!   Just noticed something hilarious. In the wiki article near the top it already states... overall energy consumption for the vehicle may also need to include the energy used in the production of whatever energy carrier is used for the vehicle and the energy used in filling the "tank". For example, with electrically powered vehicles, a full accounting of all energy consumption would include the efficiency factor for conversion of primary fuels into electricity and the efficiency factor of charging the battery from the electrical plug. LOL! But the editors say I need to source my contribution. Too funny. (Message edited by Blake on February 11, 2011) | ||
| Xl1200r |
>>>Then you'd have to do the same for the coal, include the mining, transport and processing. I agree, that's the point I was trying to make. The Wheel-to-Wheel method, as far as I'm concerned, is a much better teller of what a vehicle is using. I have to be honest, I'm not well-versed in the math you used and don't really understand what the numbers mean (though I have an idea), but the bottom line is the 'fuel' for your car is either coming from a gas pump or an outlet, and choosing to factor in the energy it takes to get it to the outlet and not the fuel pump is a bit biased. Like I was trying to say with Sifo - I understand that cost isn't a factor for MPG, but the reality is the conversation to dollars is easy and constant. No matter how much gas costs, a car that gets 30mpg will cost half what a car that get 15mpg to drive. If you want to know the pollution factor, that's what the smog index is for. And it's for this reason I don't disagree with the EPAs method, because I think that's what they're trying to accomplish. If the Volt gets an MPGe rating of 93 (or whatever it was), all it means is that to drive it on a day to day basis, a regular car that gets 31mpg will cost just about 3 times as much in fuel. This stuff really can get complicated... the "Impact Rating" of the vehicle could include EVERYTHING - how much impact to create the power it uses... how much impact your share of the energy it took to build that powerplant, what it took to build the car itself, what it took to build the plant the built the car. Right down to how many trees were cut down to print the paychecks to pay all the engineers to design the thing, the guy who sweeps the floor at night, and on and on. I think coming up with a comprehensive total impact rating on a vehicle would be extremely difficult, the challenge is coming up with a fair standard. >>>LOL! But the editors say I need to source my contribution. Too funny. Did you try citing the article itself? lol I get a kick out of how vague, to layman, that paragraph is, like they're actively trying to hide it. | ||
| Blake |
I did indeed cite the article itself. Wow, it is really bad. I just submitted more content, purely factual, no POV verbiage whatsoever and documented my edits thoroughly in the edit notes. Some new "editors" deleted it all and blocked any more editing for a day. Fascist scumbags. I also notice that none of the propaganda has any citations. The bogus EPA formulas just appear and are claimed to be a form of the governing equation reduced for electric only and combined electric and gasoline. Liars. I need help. Some cohorts in editing the wiki once it opens back up tomorrow. | ||
| Blake |
Forbes nailed it! The even got the very same 0.365 factor the we calculated above. http://blogs.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/2010/11/24/the -epas-electric-vehicle-mileage-fraud/ | ||
| Sifo |
If the Volt gets an MPGe rating of 93 (or whatever it was), all it means is that to drive it on a day to day basis, a regular car that gets 31mpg will cost just about 3 times as much in fuel. Except that isn't what MPGe stands for at all, at least according to Wikipedia. They say it's all about comparing the energy used, nothing about the relative cost of that energy. That is exactly what makes this so dishonest. | ||
| Blake |
>>> choosing to factor in the energy it takes to get it to the outlet No, not "get it to" or transport it to the outlet, but rather to create it in the first place. It takes three times as much energy in coal to create what is generated in electricity. Then you have to transmit it on top of that. Try it this way... An electrical charging station contains a mini generator powered by an ultra-high efficiency gasoline engine, so it's a stand alone electrical generator. That generator, just like a huge commercial power-plant, must burn fuel, in this case gasoline, in order to generate the electricity. If that generator burns three gallons of gasoline in order to charge up an electric car with 33KWH of electrical energy, and the car can go 100 miles on the charge, what is the car's MPGe? Pretty obvious that it would be 100 miles per 3 gallons or 33 MPGe, no? The EPA is saying that it is (100 miles / 33 KWH) X 34 KWH/Gallon of Gasoline = 103 MPGe The EPA is pretending that ALL the energy in the fuel is converted into electricity, which is a lie. Only about a third of it ends up being transformed into electricity. The coal and the powerplant cannot be discounted just because they are remote from the plug, it's all still one system. Which is correct? | ||
| Blake |
>>> If the Volt gets an MPGe rating of 93 (or whatever it was), all it means is that to drive it on a day to day basis, a regular car that gets 31mpg will cost just about 3 times as much in fuel. NO! That is exactly the fallacy I'm trying to reveal. It has no such meaning whatsoever. It really means nothing in tangible terms. | ||
| Aesquire |
IF you drive the Volt 5 miles to work and 5 miles back, on a sunny day, when it's warm, your MPG equiv should be quite good. Drive it in winter to NY from TX and it's low 30's. There is an enormous difference between winter & summer range on an electric. That's why they sell ok in CA, some in large North Eastern cities for the bragging rights, and very few to anyone who lives 20+ miles from work in the great white north. I've been waiting for this article to hit the web. http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-f uel/electric/electric-car-future-test-drive?click= main_sr | ||
| Blake |
>>> IF you drive the Volt 5 miles to work and 5 miles back, on a sunny day, when it's warm, your MPG equiv should be quite good About 34 MPGe. You could get a lot better using a hybrid. Or a motorcycle! | ||
| Queenofspeed |
Blake, Dan from NRHS here. I have no idea if your actual numbers are correct or not but I 100% agree with your basic premise. To say that an electric or hybrid car gets 100 mpg is a total lie when the batteries had to be charged ahead of time. The electricity had to be generated somehow and that takes power! Period Well said. | ||
| 46champ |
I just read the Popular Mechanics article the comment section at the end was enlightening. They just don't get it there is no free lunch. | ||
| Datsaxman |
Yes, a fallacy it is. TWO machines have to be fed for the EV to run: the generating plant @ 35% or so, and THEN the EV. Both MPG and EV calculations ignore the same thing, which is the original sourcing, processing, transport of the base fuel. If you want to compare fuel economy rates between IC and EV, you have a ONE STEP process for the IC but a TWO STEP process for the EV. This is not so much a matter of engineering as it is a matter of physics. You can invent new tech, but the laws of the universe...not so much. | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Blake, Popular Science has an article this month siting the very number you dispute. I think a letter to the editor from you is in order to put them straight. You've already done the heavy lifting with your calcs and numbers so it wouldn't take long. I'd really like to see that in print in the PS letters to the editor next month. I totally agree with your assessment of the false numbers and of Wiki's agenda. Brad | ||
| Imonabuss |
Thank you for the excellent factual posts, Blake. You are so right, and I wonder why in the world these crazy false numbers are being promoted by the government. I have to hope ignorance and not manipulation, but my gut tells me otherwise. | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Blake, Sorry, it was Pop Mechanics, looks like it's already been discussed. Brad | ||
| 46champ |
I have a question are these electric vehicles getting a partial pass when it comes to road taxes. The cars pay registration fees like any other car which at best pays for running the state DMV system. But the rest of the system is paid with gas taxes both state and federal. Am I missing something? Or do roads not need maintenance when an electric car drives over it. | ||
| Datsaxman |
Interesting point. They have historically: 1. NOT paid an equivalent tax. 2. Been subsidized wrt development as well as construction costs. 3. Been quite expensive, system-wide. | ||
| Sifo |
You bet they are getting a pass on road taxes. This is on top of other tax breaks they offer to incentivize electric vehicles. How long with they be happy with loosing those tax revenues though? Once there's a critical mass of electrics on the road you will likely find that you are paying a "road tax" when you turn on a light bulb. | ||
| Blake |
Whoa, no tax on the electric fuel to support the roads? Unbelievable. |
