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We don't need hybrids,.. we need 55MPH! - a long winded ramble.

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Zenmervolt said:
And if the highest gear means you need to be going much faster the additional drag (remember that drag increases with the square of speed) may make it less efficient in the higher gear,

ZV
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And power required to overcome that drag goes up as a cube of speed.
 
AstroManLuca said:
You can't change the laws of physics. Gas mileage drops off above 55 because of air resistance. Cars are always becoming more aerodynamic but there's only so much you can do. Reducing weight could also improve fuel economy, but gas mileage will always be better at 55 than it is at 75. The best they can do is try to minimize the amount of fuel economy drop-off above 55.

If you think about it, it's amazing cars these days get as good mileage as they do given they generally weigh a lot more than cars of decades past. The more streamlined shapes and more efficient engines have been good enough to offset the weight gain, but I do agree that I'd like to see mileage start to go up instead of staying stagnant.
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You're assuming too much. SOME cars may be most efficient at 55mph, but it isn't the magical number for every single car out there. There are too many variables. My old car got 32 mpg at 70mph very consistently, but when I took a trip that was 60mph the whole way (filled before and after the trip for curiosity sake) I got 29 mpg.
 
SparkyJJO said:
You're assuming too much. SOME cars may be most efficient at 55mph, but it isn't the magical number for every single car out there. There are too many variables. My old car got 32 mpg at 70mph very consistently, but when I took a trip that was 60mph the whole way (filled before and after the trip for curiosity sake) I got 29 mpg.
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I've recently been taking a notice to my car's mileage as well, though my observations are in no way scientific I've noticed that under 65 mph my car gets <21 mpg but at 70 it gets about 26mpg, and surprisingly at 80 it gets about 26mpg (as read by the computerized mpg gauge)
 
ussfletcher said:
I've recently been taking a notice to my car's mileage as well, though my observations are in no way scientific I've noticed that under 65 mph my car gets <21 mpg but at 70 it gets about 26mpg, and surprisingly at 80 it gets about 26mpg (as read by the computerized mpg gauge)
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Maybe at 100 it will start to re-fill your fuel tank.

If cars only got their best mileage at these higher speeds, their EPA highway numbers would all be much different.

Particularly with the claims of much higher mpg going from 55/60 to 70/75.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Maybe at 100 it will start to re-fill your fuel tank.

If cars only got their best mileage at these higher speeds, their EPA highway numbers would all be much different.

Particularly with the claims of much higher mpg going from 55/60 to 70/75.
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I had a jeep that did this as well. I imagine it hit a lean spot in the RPM range if I was cruising 75 instead of 65.
 
angry hampster said:
I had a jeep that did this as well. I imagine it hit a lean spot in the RPM range if I was cruising 75 instead of 65.
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That could be true for a specific vehicle, but I would imagine it's more likely to be that the vehicle is out of spec, and using too much fuel at other times.

Overall, it's very unlikely that vehicles get better mileage at the higher speeds.

The mfgs would be clamoring for testing that took the higher highway mileage into account at higher highway speeds. Particularly since those highway speed limits were raised.

The mfgs scratch and claw for every tenth of a mpg.
 
I've found the sweet spot on my 2003 Chevy Trailblazer EXT with the 5.3L V8 and 3.43 diff to be 64 mph where it gets 22 mpg highway. I don't drive 60 mph, much less 55 mph, even in the slow lane because I would be too much of a safety hazard for the majority of people driving their vehicles 70+ mph. On our long family driving vacation to yellowstone, it averaged 19 mpg at 75 mph. Of course it felt kind of wierd driving through Colorado doing 75 mph in the slow lane while being passed by Prius's doing 85+ mph.

Beginning Saturday, the Texas state law will go into effect that will change the current 70 mph speed limit to 75 mph. By September the speed limit in rural areas will increase to 85 mph.

City driving, sheesh, it gets a whopping 13 mpg (averages 17.6 mpg combined city/highway). That's why I mostly drive my '63 Chevy Corvair for city driving and it gets 22 mpg (24 mpg highway at 70 mph).

If we could get rid of this ethanol crap that the feds mandiated to put in our gasoline, I'd say the majority of us would see a minimum of 10% increase in gas mileage and lower emissions.
 
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IcePickFreak said:
Yeah... 4.10 gears aren't going to like cruising at high speeds. Big surprise.

In the G8, with the stock 2.92 rear end (yeah, seriously) I'm only hitting 2k rpm at 80mph in 6th and it's still got plenty of power without downshifting at all (3rd runs up to just under 110 at WOT.)
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Truth, I had 3.73 gears in a lightly modded Mustang GT and was turning around 3,000rpms in 5th at 75mph. That car was fast but a fuel miser it wasn't. I think 17mpg was typical for mixed town/freeway IIRC.
 
overst33r said:
Actually they claim that E10 has fewer emissions than gasoline.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/emissions_e10.html

I agree that we would get better mpg.
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Nothing personal, but I don't believe everything the EPA says.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/20/3674976/the-epa-has-finally-realized-that.html

The EPA has finally realized that automakers have done their own successful science -- for decades.
Posted Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 Updated Friday, Jan. 20, 2012

To the average reader, one story McClatchy published on January 11 would seem like a minor one, with no "hot buttons" to keep it in circulation. The story concerned nothing more serious than the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency had agreed to allow Anchorage, Alaska, to drop its vehicle emissions-testing program, first put in place in 1985. That's when, according to the article, Anchorage - not unlike other cold weather climates with hundreds of thousands of vehicles - had failed the government standards only for carbon monoxide. Under the program Anchorage had reached standards attainment in 1997, yet continued the vehicle emission testing for another 15 years. Even that fact didn't seem to warrant any serious contemplation; no one asked, "Why?"
I found it amazing that drivers in that city don't even have to test their new cars for the first six years of ownership, and only once every two years after that. But it was these next few lines that everyone should have questioned, at least those who live in areas where vehicle emissions are still tested:
"EPA officials in Seattle and Anchorage said Tuesday the main reason behind the local drop in carbon monoxide has been the production of more efficient vehicles that don't pollute that much." The article then quoted John Pavitt, the EPA air compliance inspector for Anchorage, as saying, "You're just not finding a lot of dirty cars any more."
Really? I hope everyone caught the significance of those statements - that the EPA finally recognizes just how incredibly clean the modern automobile has become.
Credit Automakers, Not Mandates
Of course, new cars did not become super clean because of anything as low tech as an emission test. Instead, one has to credit the engineers at the world's automakers, who designed systems that have improved not only fuel efficiency but horsepower also - while slashing harmful emissions to near zero. What's troubling about the EPA's admitting as much in January of 2012 is how long it took them to notice. The fact is that this scientific revolution in modern vehicle power trains started in the late 1980s, when Honda introduced modern engine computerization; and soon that technology was in widespread use throughout the industry.
It's troubling because the EPA is supposed to be the nation's ultimate arbiter of science that legitimately can create the cleanest possible environment for our nation. And no one can argue the fact that our cities' air is far cleaner today than during the worst years of the 1970s; so setting standards for automakers to live up to in order to improve the environment has not been a bad idea. The problem is that for the past 20 years, none of the many government mandates seemed to have much cleansing effect on the nation's air.
EPA: Arbiter of Poisons
As for the EPA, it seems to spend far more time these days implementing congressional mandates than looking at the underlying science. A great case in point was the Clean Air Act of 1990. One of its provisions was for reformulated gasoline; America's refiners would add an oxygenate to the fuel, whether it was MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) or ethanol. The logic was that adding oxygen to fuel would make it burn cleaner.
That premise might have been sound 30 years ago, when engines used carburetors, but in the modern engine a computer sets the fuel-air mixture during the process of combustion. The computer can lean out the engine burn - which makes fuel tampering unnecessary. But that provision of the law came into effect just as every car company got on board with these high-tech engines. So it was the automakers committing science, while the EPA was simply enforcing a foolish idea out of a Congress committee.
But then the EPA made things worse. Because the refining industry wanted to use MTBE, the EPA withheld information it had had since the 1980s about how quickly that highly toxic chemical additive could contaminate the nation's drinking water. Yes, the EPA withheld legitimate, vital science to help promote a political mandate.
What happened then? It has been reported that MTBE-contaminated water supplies have now been found in 1,861 locations, in 29 states, and the total clean-up cost is now estimated as high as $29 billion. I've asked this question for many years: At what point did it become OK for the Clean Air Act to violate the Clean Water Act? But no one has an answer.
To be fair, the EPA looked at that 1990 law and then ruled that the majority of gasoline oxygenation would have to come from a renewable source, which left only ethanol. This brought on the 1995 lawsuit from the American Petroleum Institute, in which the EPA had to admit to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that it was well aware that using ethanol could create more smog, not less.
Did you get all that?
We go to a reformulated fuel just as we don't need it -- because our cars are now computerized -- using an oxygenate that the EPA knew from cases in the 1980s would quickly poison water supplies; but the EPA fought in court for ethanol, which the agency had to admit created more smog. Again, where's the science in any of this?
And now, almost 20 years after automakers created and started selling the world's cleanest automobiles, the EPA admitted in the Anchorage case that, "You're just not finding a lot of dirty cars any more." Funny, the entire automotive world knew that 17 years ago, but no one would listen to them.
Changed Focus, Secret New Mission
On the same day McClatchy ran the article on Anchorage, the Associated Press carried the story that the EPA's "most detailed data yet on emissions of heat-trapping gases" laid 72 percent of the blame on our nation's power plants. Suddenly public polluter No. 1, America's motorists, seemed to have been seriously downgraded. Power plants, not cars, were the primary culprits apparently destroying the entire planet.
The very next day, the Associated Press discussed an article published online in the journal Science, which concluded that the smart money now believes we'd be far better off if we quit trying to reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide emissions and focused instead on reducing methane and soot releases into the atmosphere. Those two kinds of pollution are not the major atmospheric issue; but, because they are easier and cheaper to control, reducing just those two kinds of emissions could tip the balance back toward slowing the planet's warming.
Reading between the lines of this study, one realizes that this group of 400 scientists is also willing to look past the carbon dioxide output of automobiles. This may be simple pragmatism: They've probably realized that people are not going to give up their automobiles. So they're urging that we focus on other gas and particulate emissions that could be game changers at a reasonable cost.
For the past 17 years we've been told ethanol was a cleaner-burning gas, when the EPA knew it wasn't, in order to accomplish the agency's mission of reducing smog in the nation's largest cities. Today, the government's mission has been changed to "using ethanol to get us off Middle Eastern oil" -- which it likewise hasn't accomplished. No one realized, because it wasn't announced, that the government had quietly changed ethanol's mission statement from cleaner air to fewer foreign oil imports.
Broadcast THIS News!
None of this discussion changes the fact that many individuals do not ensure that their engines remain as clean as they were the day the car was delivered to its first owner. They fail to do their job by not properly caring for their automobiles. Over the years I have looked at many emissions tests on vehicles with well over 100,000 miles, still blowing 2 hydrocarbons like they were brand new. The service records for those vehicles showed that they were flawlessly maintained. Likewise the reverse was true: On similar cars failing emission tests, further research showed that little if any required maintenance had been done. I have testified to that fact in Austin. No one cared.
But let it be known from this day forward that the world's automotive engineers have designed and built unbelievably clean vehicles. And that power plants, not cars, create 72 percent of the so-called greenhouse gas emissions. And that the EPA has admitted knowing that modern cars are rarely found seriously polluting.
Let it also be broadcast that ethanol is not a cleaner-burning fuel, nor has it gotten rid of Middle Eastern oil. Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has done more to inhibit our importation of oil from that region than anything else.
It would be nice to enter a new Golden Age of Science, where intelligent and cost-effective ideas were enabled to make this a cleaner planet. Instead, we have government mandates that claim to do something to improve the environment - but all they really do is make it look like we're doing something to make things better.
On the other hand, shouldn't we all praise the world's automakers for their contributions to cleaner air, even though that parade is already 17 years late? Nah. The EPA's already claimed the credit for what car companies actually invented.
© 2011 Ed Wallace
Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Association. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four's Good Day and hosts the top-rated talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF AM. E-mail: wheels570@sbcglobal.net, and read all of Ed's work at www.insideautomotive.com

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/20/3674976/the-epa-has-finally-realized-that.html#storylink=cpy
 
Ferzerp said:
I like that argument, but the reason such clean vehicles were developed was only due to mandates to do so.
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I don't disagree with you. But what I expect from the EPA is that once these mandates have accomplished their mission, that they don't continue to force MTBE, then ethonal when both have been proven harmful to our environment. And once it is found out that ethonal creates more smog, then they change the mandate and state that it will get us off of foriegn oil.

Also, I don't like the fact that we have to continue to spend the extra money and time each year to have our vehicles emission tested, when there are so few emissions violators. A safety inspection is $13.50, but with the emissions testing included the price is $39.50. $26 x however many vehicles in this country, is a lot of wasted money. (By the way, if a vehicle is 20 years or older, the emissions test isn't required).
 
Let's see.....

I can get 500 miles out of a 17 gallon gas tank, at 70mph, with the a/c off, and the cruise control on, with mildly rolling highway.

I would probably get all of 525 miles out of the same tank, same conditions, driving 55 mph, and it would take me 2 additional hours to do so.

Tell ya what, granny.....make sure you stay in the right lane while I'm passing you! 🙄
 
Cepak said:
Also, I don't like the fact that we have to continue to spend the extra money and time each year to have our vehicles emission tested, when there are so few emissions violators. A safety inspection is $13.50, but with the emissions testing included the price is $39.50. $26 x however many vehicles in this country, is a lot of wasted money. (By the way, if a vehicle is 20 years or older, the emissions test isn't required).
Click to expand...

Emissions testing is not required everywhere. The EPA only mandates it in areas where the air quality falls below certain standards, and even then the programs are designed and run by the states themselves (for example, in Washington the cutoff age is 25, not 20). Even in states that have emissions testing (30 states according to EPA numbers) the tests are generally only required in certain counties (for example, in Washington only 5 counties out of 39 require testing).

Basically, most testing programs are designed to target areas where air quality falls below defined standards. Cars are easy and efficient to regulate as well, so from the government's perspective, emissions testing is one of the most efficient ways to improve air quality (that is, the dollar cost per unit gain is the lowest even if the total gain is not terribly high).

ZV
 
Cepak said:
I don't disagree with you. But what I expect from the EPA is that once these mandates have accomplished their mission, that they don't continue to force MTBE, then ethonal when both have been proven harmful to our environment. And once it is found out that ethonal creates more smog, then they change the mandate and state that it will get us off of foriegn oil.

Also, I don't like the fact that we have to continue to spend the extra money and time each year to have our vehicles emission tested, when there are so few emissions violators. A safety inspection is $13.50, but with the emissions testing included the price is $39.50. $26 x however many vehicles in this country, is a lot of wasted money. (By the way, if a vehicle is 20 years or older, the emissions test isn't required).
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Ever been to Pasadena in the early 90s? There were days I could stand on Foothill Blvd and you couldn't even see the mountains.

FoothillAltadena2.JPG
 
first off OP for those of us that endured the 55mph limit way back when, it sucked balls, everyone hated it and promptly ignored it whenever law enforcement was not around. secondly, if a given car has a low amount of air drag vs another it might not suffer as bad a hit on FE going 75 vs 55 but for those who claim my car has a "sweet spot" at 80 is a joke, one cannot change the laws of physics, air drag might be less than with a car with poorer aerodynamic profile but there will still be more drag.
 
Cepak said:
I don't disagree with you. But what I expect from the EPA is that once these mandates have accomplished their mission, that they don't continue to force MTBE, then ethonal when both have been proven harmful to our environment. And once it is found out that ethonal creates more smog, then they change the mandate and state that it will get us off of foriegn oil.

Also, I don't like the fact that we have to continue to spend the extra money and time each year to have our vehicles emission tested, when there are so few emissions violators. A safety inspection is $13.50, but with the emissions testing included the price is $39.50. $26 x however many vehicles in this country, is a lot of wasted money. (By the way, if a vehicle is 20 years or older, the emissions test isn't required).
Click to expand...

Drive around Phoenix during the summer and tell me that we don't need improvements to cut smog.
 
I don't doubt fuel savings - if you have an mpg meter in your dash, you'll know what you're getting at what speeds in which conditions. But 55mph is only practical if you live in Bumblefvck, WY and there's not that many cars around. Like many populated areas, you are causing congestion/traffic if you're not doing at least 65mph. I was doing 72mph in the left lane of the Long Island Expressway last night and some old Dodge sedan needed me to move over. Around here with the amount of vehicles on the road, the left lane isn't "just for passing". That'd be stupid because imagine 2 lanes full of cars and an empty left lane. Everyone uses every lane. You better not be doing 55mph in any of them. On deserted highways, I do drop it down a bit, because when it is deserted, it's like 1030pm or later and I'm not exactly in a rush by then anyway.
 
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Didn't feel like reading 6 pages, but at least you mentioned this. Demand or no demand, they will influence the price to keep the same or higher profit.

Here in the real world people would never go along with it (just like they didn't back then) or even if they did the oil futures investors on Wall Street would just artificially inflate oil prices to pad their profit margins thus offsetting any drop in demand so the whole point becomes moot.
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