Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarpop
... they said that only 25% of the fuel is actually used to propell the car. 75% comes out the tailpipe.
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Where were you when those numbers (along with maybe 100 others) were posted?
In ten gallons of gasoline, something above 1 gallon does productive work. No, not all that energy is lost in a tail pipe. Other losses include heat (ie radiator) and vibration. What are the world's lowest performance cars? Ones that make the most noise. Crappiest vehicles include most every truck and car with a V-8 including Mustang, noisy Corvette, Camaro, etc.
Another myth is pollution control. Fools believed what was told without facts and numbers. Propaganda experts, spin doctors, and business school graduates said more pollution control means lower gas mileage, less horsepower, and slower cars. Reality. How to increase gas mileage and increase performance? Decrease pollution.
What does a catalytic converter do? If you don't know this, then you were always part of the problem. Burns the gasoline that the engine didn't. Burns gasoline that should have been making energy in the engine.
Hydrocarbons burned in an engine means less pollution, increased efficiency, and more horsepower from a smaller engine. Nitrogen oxides broken up into non-pollutants (nitrogen and oxygen) also create more productive energy. But many American auto executives (and the politicians who protected them) had a George Jr brain. So they lied (to us and themselves). Too many of us also worshipped George Jr's brain; believed those lies.
If three out of every ten purchased gallons of gas did something productive, then global warming, pollution, and the energy crisis are averted. But since so many of us so hated the world as to buy GM cars (tell GM to not innovate) and promote other myths such as ethanol and hydrogen, then something close to 1 out of every 10 gallons is productive. The waste is that massive.
Those numbers assumed we need 200+ hp engines. Another solution just waiting for innovators to solve. A 60,000 pound 18 wheeler only needs 350 or 500 horsepower. Why does a vehicle 30 times lighter need 200+ horsepower? It does not. But we install engines with ten times too much horsepower so that innovation need not be done. So much stifled innovation all to the glory of people with a George Jr intelligence level.
The opportunity for innovation and its resulting advantages are that large.
What do wackos want? Drill, drill, drill! Wackos cannot innovate, cannot admit what the real problem is, and only understand "More Power" - a Tim Allen joke about people who remain that dumb. Wackos want "More Oil". Then wackos can get their $40million paychecks while stifling innovation.
Yes, much less gasoline (than your numbers) does productive work. Well understood by those who used the same logic that also challenged the Saddam WMD myths.
Your numbers give automobiles too much credit. Those numbers say how easily we could massively reduce our energy consumption if we built gas ovens to cook MBAs and wacko politicians inside them.
Notice, I did not give numbers for the amount of energy saved and usefully used; if we only burned the problem - and not its symptoms.