Hi.

Please consider this:

• Would it make sense for the owner of an older home to open the windows while cranking up the AC or furnace? He feels safer breathing fresh air, and doesn't want to hassle with dressing up/down for the weather. He rails with complains about their outrageous fuel bill, and against the utility company.
• How about a new, efficient home owner?
• If the owner of a super-efficient hybrid solar powered home opened his windows year round would it make sense?
• How about if most everybody did it?

Well it doesn't make sense to me either. So let me apply this to automobiles.

Does it make sense with gas prices well over $3 or $4 per gallon to drive in anything less than a purposeful, efficient manner?
If the driver of an old car isn't taking steps to curb his fuel bill by more thoughtful driving, should he wail with complaints about his gasoline bill?

How about the owner of a newer compact or subcompact car?

Isn't purchasing an efficient hybrid car, then driving as everyone else with little to no thought of efficient driving habits- is like buying a solar powered hybrid home and keeping the windows open?

How about if everybody else is doing it? After all, going super speed limit feels safer, and arriving a couple minutes later is a hassle (Like dressing up or down for weather)

Are we "Grabbing the horse by the reins" and taking responsibility ourselves, or taking for granted the car will do it all? After all, we did buy a fuel efficient car, so we did our part and it should end there.

Right?

 

Straw man arguments aside, judging the practicality and impact of changing everyone's driving habits is difficult. The idea of 8-lanes of traffic performing 25-45mph pulse and glide all out of sync scares me to death. If we had the organizational skills to get enough people to sync themselves to make the situation safe, we'd also have the ability to plan bus routes that satisfy the 90% of our driving needs.

I could argue that everyone should pick-up an inexpensive motorcycle for warm weather (>50F) commuting. $3k spent on Kawasaki EX250s would reduce fuel consumption, ease the strain on our infrastructure, and be a hell of a lot of fun. It's ridiculous, though, and I know it wouldn't really work. Is my suggestion much different from yours?

 

It's a good point.

After driving my Prius for only a short time, I found myself using the instrumentation to help me drive more fuel efficiently. So, no, I don't expect my car to simply "do it all for me".

And I have also thought that it would be beneficial to have a "real-time fuel use" gauge in ALL cars. I can't help but think that if people could just see a visual display of how their use of the "loud pedal" influences their gas mileage, some of them just might drive more fuel efficiently.

 

Hi,

Hybrid electric vehicles have unique properties that differ from those of gas-only piston, Wankel, diesel, steam, gas-turbine and electric vehicles. There is also a difference in characteristics based upon transmission, manual or automatic, as well as aerodynamic drag and rolling drag. Sad to say but many drivers learned on one architecture, in the USA a gas-only automatic, and see cars as a means to an end . . . to get to where they are going.

Each vehicle architecture has its strengths and weaknesses, which is why what works for one vehicle could be poison for another. It is a feature that hybrid skeptics are quite willing to exploit to write faux vehicle evaluations that cater to the ignorance of their readers. But I also realize there is something called the 'learning curve:'


Drivers have different expectations of what a car should do. As far as my wife is concerned, "get there the fastest" rules. In contrast, my Scottish heritage says, "get there frugally." So I do not expect my wife to adapt to my understanding of hybrid vehicles and modify her lead-footed driving pattern but my screaming in terror in the passenger seat about "Uh Oh! You're about to blow the nanny frantz" usually works . . . as long as I don't take a nap.

Personally I think the right answer is to build vehicles and systems that reward efficient driving. But as I learned in operations research, this means going beyond the boundaries of just the car. The whole system has to work to make efficient driving a 'win-win' situation.

One of the things I would like to see would be vehicle wireless systems that allow truckers and real drafters to established a tightly coupled, reliable system to make truck-car 'trains.' I would happily split my gas savings with a trucker whose vehicle had a link that would allow my car to automatically maintain a close following distance with appropriate 'instant braking' and steering assisted following. If it were good enough to let my car steer and brake itself so I could relax, I would give the trucker all of my gas money and a tip. For truckers, such a system would allow a relaxation of the 'on road' rules. A 'follower' driver would only have to credit half of his seat time if the lead vehicle handled steering and speed control.

My thinking is we need parallel efforts:

• understanding vehicle architectures - one of the reasons why I was first and remain attracted to this heterogeneous, hybrid web site.
• understanding our particular vehicle - why I also follow the technical forums of PriusChat.com and the Yahoo Group "Prius Technical Stuff."
• understanding the total transportation problem - again, an area where GreenHybrid.com often offers unique insights such as the recent discussion of ethanol blends

There are other approaches but that is what freedom is about. Folks get to make their own choices and I wish them well. But for now, my interest is hybrid vehicle architecture followed by experimental verification of the hybrid I own.

Bob Wilson

 

Hi
In response to bwilson; I can only say that now I have a probable explanation as to why I got such incredible gas mileage on my recent cross-country trip: cruising along in the wake of trucks. It requires that one pay quite a bit more attention to what's in front of you, but hey, saving $$ and creating less of a carbon footprint is worth it, right? I don't understand the physics of aerodynamics, but it works!!

 

Actually I just look for a nice, slow moving truck and use them as a 'pace car.' I don't get so close as to 'tail gate' but enough that following traffic can pass easily thinking I'm stuck behind the truck. I am but not in the 'draft.' I'm back in the 'turbulence' with plenty of time to react to road hazards.

Bob Wilson