My mother has had a Toyota Avalon since 1995 that I am inheriting when she buys a new one next year. I have been using it to drive to and from college and I really would like it to have better fuel economy. Before the Avalon, my mother had a Camry and she really liked its fuel economy, but while she likes higher fuel economy, she does not want to buy anything that would consider a downgrade so anything more fuel efficient than the Avalon is out of the question.

I have been thinking that if car manufacturers offered small supercharged engines in their luxury cars, people would buy them, as people would both be getting a big luxury car and better fuel economy. Given that the Camry's fuel economy is rated to be identical to the Avalon when the Avalon's engine and transmission are placed in it, I figure that if Toyota put the Camry engine and transmission in the Avalon, the Avalon would get similar fuel economy to the Camry and because of that, if Toyota put the Corolla engine in the Avalon, the Avalon would get similar fuel economy to the Corolla because the five-speed automatic transmission in the Avalon would compensate for its increased drag co-efficient as opposed to the four-speed automatic transmission in the Corolla. With that in mind, I think that if Toyota used the Corolla engine in the Avalon, supercharged it and used a six-speed automated manual transmission (or even a seven or eight speed automated manual transmission because automated manual transmissions are much smaller than equivalent speed automatic or even manual transmissions) instead of the Avalon's current five-speed automatic transmission, fuel economy would be much better than it is now and horse power would be close to the 192 horsepower (170 horsepower by today's standards) V6 in the original Avalon.

Does anyone think that if someone wrote a really nice letter to Toyota, they would offer an Avalon with a supercharged Corolla engine and a better transmission so that luxury car buyers would have an option will lessen the United States' dependence on foreign oil?

 

I don't disagree, but unfortunately, luxury is all about "conspicuous over-consumption."

Luxury means bigger, heavier cars, better yet SUV's, with V8's, V10's, and who cares about fuel economy. At least that's what it means in America.

That's the America we are trying to change.

I consider my Prius an upgrade, from my Civic.

No, I don't want a luxury car or SUV. The extra expense is not justified, I am safe in a smaller car with my brain engaged in driving defensively at all times, and I have grandchildren who will inherit what's left of the planet when I'm gone.

People around the world look at us as fat-a** Americans in our fat-a** cars, for good reason.

Harry

 

Car and Driver magazine has pointed out that gas mileage of today's cars could easily be lots higher than it is, but for one thing: the auto makers' customers keep demanding [i.e, buying,] cars that are heavier and have bigger, more powerful engines than they did ten or twenty years ago.

when cars get heavier and engines get bigger, several laws of physics corner you into lower gas mileage, whether or not the car is ICE, hybrid or Back To The Future powered.

until or unless more buyers settle for smaller, lighter, slower-accelerating cars, this trend can not be reversed without doing it by government edict, and there are a lot of us who don't like that approach.

my '04 Prius is big enough, fast enough, smooth enough and roomy enough (and tows a big enough trailer) for me and it's been giving me about 47 mpg in recent months of suburban hilly Raleigh, NC driving.

yet i'm surrounded by suvs and pick-em-ups with big engines which were bought by people who, for their own reasons, chose those vehicles.

yesterday a salesman proudly described his Isuzu as "letting him haul all kinds of stuff around, and still gets 17 mpg!"

17 mpg was satisfactory for him. 35 mpg when pulling our trailer is about the lowest i want to go. but that's me and that's him.

$3-4/gallon gasoline seems to be the only way this will change, and it's going to hurt lots of people financially when they have to buy a new vehicle and find out their old tank is now a drug on the market.

i bought my Prius in april of '04 and sold my california house around september of '05. i prefer to be ahead of the curve.

not everybody can, and obviously, not everybody wants to.


ps. my first car was a 12-mpg Corvette. it got better gas mileage than a
friend's Thunderbird (8mpg), but at 29.9 for Getty hi-test, a 20-gallon tank went from empty to full for under $6.00. but that was also 1969-1971. i operate on some skill and lots of luck.

 

Hi,

The problem is more than just the physical size of the engine. One of the key efficiencies of the HSD/TSD is the size of the electric motor to handle short-term, high energy demands. This effectively 'smooths' the demands on the ICE so a smaller, more efficient ICE can be used and still get acceptable power.

Then there is the problem that as the ICE size decreases and the power demanded increases, the internal parts have to work at higher temperatures and speeds. This makes them more expensive and worse, they tend to wear out faster.

If you are going to be stuck with the Avalon, then you might consider "low hanging fruit" solutions (assuming you are a do it yourself mechanic):

1. implement your own auto-stop/start - there are a number of minor technical problems to solve but it is a solvable problem. This would at least avoid idling fuel waste
2. re-cam the Avalon - put in a cam that partially Adkinsonizes the ICE. You'll get less power but the power you get will be much more efficient. Significant engine rebuilding is involved as well as getting a custom cam.
3. trailer EV - a technically more challenging problem, this entails designing and implmenting a 'trailer' that becomes an electric 'pusher' in speed ranges that make sense. The next effect is a '6th wheel' hybrid where the electric trailer adds two power wheels. Crude, it would be effective.

But if you can get the Avalon title, consider trading it in on a used hybrid. The prices are low and likly to stay low until gas gets back to $3/gal. sometime in the spring.

GOOD LUCK!

Bob Wilson

 

wow! excellent idea! let me brainstorm it with you!

take a trailer like mine or maybe smaller, like Honda Goldwings pull...
fill it with latest-technology batteries.
with the right hitch, you could even have a one-wheeled trailer, which is in many ways, lots simpler and easier than even two wheels!
tie it into the hybrid computer and have it do lots more pushing than the on-board batteries do now. car and driver magazine recently showcased a Mini with something like 200+ hp electric motors in each of its four wheels! how about one or two of those under the trailer??? kind of how buses' engines turn the extra two wheels behind the four in back supporting the back of the rig?

i'd bet a trailer like that could be made lower than the license plate of a Prius and less than a few feet long. maybe 2-300 pounds total, but worth about another 20-30 mpg!
hm?

 

After doing some reading, it seems that the Corolla has a supercharger option in England, which gives it 215 horsepower, more than both the first and second generation Avalons and competitive with American luxury cars. According to its advertised fuel economy, it gets approximately 22.8 mpg city, 38.7 mpg highway and 30.7 mpg combined. If Toyota would use it in the Avalon with a decent transmission to compensate for the increased aerodynamic drag, we could be seeing numbers like that in the Avalon.

It seems that the latest Corvettes are getting 18 mpg local with 6.0 Liter 400 horse power V8 engines (probably using cylinder deactivation) and manual transmissions. If a car with a 6.0 Liter 400 horsepower V8 can get 18 mpg local, I would expect that a car with a 3.0 Liter 192 horsepower V6 (like my Avalon) would get at least 30 mpg local. Unfortunately, fuel economy is not and probably never truly has been a priority for automobile manufacturers, so it does not.

I actually discussed manually doing item #1 with my uncle and his response was that it would ruin the car's long term reliability, so that is out. #2 sounds nice, but I am in college so I cannot afford to do it. If I could, I would be paying for an all-electric conversion instead of an engine rebuild. #3 is not feasible, as it is far outside of my area of expertise.

As for selling the car, when my parents were looking for a new car for my mother in 1995, I selected the Avalon, as I wanted to drive it when I was older, so now that I am older, I am driving it. If I was to sell it, two very bad things would happen. One, my mother would be upset with me for having driven a red car for eleven years because of me when she wanted to drive a silver car and two, I have wanted to drive it so long that selling it would not be good for my mental health. You just do not want to drive a car so long and then sell it when you finally can because you wished the vehicle manufacturer engineered it differently. I have other reasons to keep it as well, but I will not elaborate on those.

Thankyou for taking the time to post your suggestions; I appreciate it, but beyond things that can be done like keeping the tires at 34 psi and maintaining it with components such as iridium spark plugs, there is not much that I can do to improve its fuel economy. I will be moving into a dorm fall 2007, so my gasoline consumption will drop from not having to make a 60 mile two way commute (120 miles if you include the fact that my mother needs her car to run errands) each day.

 

dear Shining Arcanine

how do i say this?.....

the auto companies really do not shove cars down the throats of buyers.

buyers go to dealers and choose the kinds of cars [and trucks] they want.

manufacturers respond to those wants by supplying "what sells."

most of the public media echo the messages of "the manufacturers are doing it to us," and that's also "the way things work in America," which saddens me greatly, but please don't fall into the media's trap of blaming the manufacturers for what their customers are doing.

 

Hi,

Let me suggest a couple of things to think about:

1. Unicycle has severe stability challenges - to resolve you'd need at least two arms to the car body.
2. Powered two-wheels has far fewer stability challenges - but under power in a turn, it could amplify the turn and even drive the vehicle 'into the ditch.' This is the most interesting challenge and using a U-joint with angle and strain sensors would be the place to start. A ball joint is totally out!
3. Available power is weight limited - if the trailer is too light, the wheels will lose traction. Definitely the trailer will need traction control built into the wheel control algorithms. But the wheel loading limits how much practical power is available.
4. Motors in the 3-6 kW range - primarily from fork-lift and some powered wheel chair vendors.

When folks were first talking about 'plug-in' Prius, this was my first thought to carry the batteries and possibly even self-powered to minimize the loading the mother vehicle. The trailer advantages include the ability to modularize the trailered power source to investigate any radical power source. Even if there is a catastrophic failure, the distance minimizes the risk to the mother vehicle.

Bob Wilson

 

plusaf, I neither said that automobile manufacturers shoved "cars down the throats of buyers" nor did I insinuate it. If you can find where I said such a thing, I would be interested in reading it, as I neither can recall nor find anything of such a nature written by me in this thread.

I encourage you to re-read what I said, as it appears that you are viewing what I said to be something that upsets you on a psychological level and without realizing it, you are using me as a scapegoat to relieve the stress that it causes you.

 

I agree, my 2.7L I4 Tacoma is a oddity, almost never purchased, even though it costs $1700 less than the 4L V6, and is rated at 20/27 vs 16/20.

Even at $3 a gallon most Tacaoma buyers wouldn't consider the 4 cylinder, it's gay you know. The salesman likely won't have a 4 cylinder on the lot, so there is hidden pressure to buy the big motor if you don't do your homework.