Obama Announces New Tighter Fuel-Efficiency Standards - to cost $1,300 per car??

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7622306&page=1


The changes will likely mean higher price tags on new cars for consumers -- on average about $1,300 more per car by 2016 -- which the president acknowledged today. But he said the increase in mileage standards will negate that initial expense by lowering fuel costs. Americans will make that money back over three years in fewer trips to the pump, he said.

"The cost of driving these vehicles will go down as drivers save money at the pump," Obama said. "If you buy a car, your investment in a more fuel-efficient vehicle, as a result of this standard, will pay off in just three years."

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Now people are wondering: "How can we get that kindof improvement in gas mileage for only $1,300 per car? Hybrids cost about $4,000 more per car? This is impossible!"


Hold on there Sparkie. I think Obama knows about the "secret" engine that Ford is making. Ford calls it the EcoBoost engine. It gets 30% better gas mileage (if you direct inject Ethanol 85% intothe combustion chambers. Without ethanol you get about 20% better fuel economy) and Ford's initial cost estimate for the engine was $600 to $1,000, mass produced. Sounds kinda familiar doesn't it? $1,000 ...$1,300.

Yes Sistie Uglers, the only way you can do this for anywhere close to $1,300 is not with a $4,000 (extra cost ) hybrid but with Ford's ethanol direct injected, turbo-charged Ecoboost engine.

To refer you to a spreadsheet i intoduced a week or so ago the payback period for the Ecoboost engine in the spreadsheet is very similar to the 3 years Obama mentioned in his announcement (he was using a price for gasoline of $3.50 a gallon and cost for the Ecotech of $1,300).


http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/Hybrid_MPG.xls


I think Obama is trying to do two things at once here. Get quicker reductions to GHGs than we can with $4,000 hybrids (or $10,000 - $20,000 plug-ins) and perhaps save the domestic auto industry by pushing them into making a car that will get mileage improvements similar to the standard hybrid's for about one third the cost. -- a much more sellable proposition for most American's wallets.

It's been one of the most hyped and media-covered new engines in recent memory.

unveiled the Ecoboost there has been almost no talk about it in the media. Very few people have heard about it or know that it only gets the 30% improvement in mpg when it is direct injecting E85.

Source?

Your link says:

"The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of current hybrids or turbodiesels—up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline engine—but at lower cost."

That's not the same thing, and it does not specifically mention E85.

Your other link has this statement:

"The engine should use less than five gallons of ethanol for every 100 gallons of gasoline, so drivers would need to fill their ethanol tank only every one to three months. The ethanol used could be E85."

So, not only is it *not* using E85 as the primary fuel (it's using gasoline), it isn't supposed to. The E85 would be kept in a separate tank and only used in a ratio of five gallons per 100 gallons of gasoline. The article does not specifically mention that it's the Ecoboost engine, however, just that they're working with Ford on an engine for 2011. The Ecoboost is already in production.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/startup_working.html

MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company—Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)—to commercialize their work on direct-injection ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine. (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of current hybrids or turbodiesels—up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline engine—but at lower cost.

EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and anticipates engine tests in 2007 with subsequent licensing to Ford and other automakers. If all goes as expected, vehicles with the new engine could be on the road by 2011
~`
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The injection of a small amount of ethanol into the hot combustion chamber cools the fuel charge and makes spontaneous combustion much less likely. According to a simulation developed by the MIT group, with ethanol injection the engine won’t knock even when the pressure inside the cylinder is three times higher than that in a conventional SI engine. Engine tests by collaborators at Ford Motor Company produced results consistent with the model’s predictions.
(more)
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here's a link to the paper by the three MIT professors who designed the engine: http://lfee.mit.edu/public/LFEE%202006-01%20RP.pdf

before I brought it to their attention. I know a lot of motor heads too btw.

Small economy cars were usually a lot cheaper than large gas guzzlers.

... he has to throw something in to let the auto corps get more profit
than they otherwise would on the smaller more efficient cars.

Profit per vehicle on a SUV is higher than on a smaller car so this
is a bone tossed to the Detroit mob to stop them blocking it ...
letting the public blame "teh environment stuff" for a higher price.

(No, rewarding a bribe is something completely different ... this
is merely rewarding a campaign contribution ...)

for years you were able to get a 4 cylinder Camry, Accord or Saturn LS that had a final drive ratio good enough to get you around 35 highway mpg and low to mid 20's around town. I had a Saturn, and knew people with Accords and Camrys and we used to compare mileage all the time. And these are real cars-- hardly flimsy little shitboxes. Throw a V-6 in there and you drop the mileage by at least 20%, but you go faster so hardly anyone ordered the Four.

They've got SEVEN YEARS to some up with more economical cars, which not only means hybrids but lighter cars, diesels, small changes like electric power steering and less rolling resistance in the tires, flexfuel, and who knows what other new stuff they'll come up with. I could see another grand or so in the price just due to inflation, but this is bullshit-- scaring people into thinking cleaner and more efficient cars have to cost more.

Since the 1970s cars have slowly improved mileage (Except for the SUV craze of the late 1990s till about 2006). The Companies did this by doing the following:

1. Reduce weight, The steel in Cars became thinner, Engines became lighter, Transmissions became lighter. Internal volume did not change but the huge land yachts of the early 1970s lost almost a 1/3 of their external size and this vastly improved millage. Plastics came into use as an effort to reduce overall body weight and thus help fuel economy

2. Smaller engines, Transmissions etc. Now this is related to the reduction in weight, less weight, the smaller the engine is needed to move the car (and the smaller the engine the smaller and lighter the transmission can be).

3. Turbo Charging and other improvements in performance of Smaller engines. Turbo chargers vastly improved performance of an engine, without a significant gain in weight. Electrical controls replacing the Carburetors and points improve fuel economy by making the engine efficient. Computer controlled fuel system improved performance of smaller engines so smaller (and lighter) engines could do the job larger engines did in the past.

Notice the one area where Car makers did NOT go (Except for the period of the late 1970s, when gasoline prices were high) was to cut performance. The cars of today can do speeds equal to and exceeding the cars of the late 1970s (But NOT the 1960s with their 350 Plus Cubic Inch engines, and even 454 cubic inch engines). The reason for this was car makers started to make smaller cars with even smaller engines in the late 1970s, performance suffered but then the above improvements started to kick in and performance started to improve in the 1980s.

The biggest problem since the 1980s has been most of the easy ways to improve mileage while maintaining something close to the performance of the 1960s have been done. The move to smaller cars did most of the improvements in Corporate fleet average in the 1980s and 1990 (along with improvements in electrical controls of the fuel system). What the car makers have hit since the 1990s is a brick wall, that has to be worked around (The brick wall is the inherent cost of using an internal combustion engine, you use so much power such to move the engine let alone the rest of the car).

The only way left to improve mileage of the internal combustion engine, is to make it smaller AND to operate it less. This is how both Toyota and its Prius AND how VW and its Lupo addressed the problem of how to improve the fuel economy of the internal combustions engine.

Right now, Toyota seems to have won the bet, it put a small engine in a mid size car, but then used that engine NOT as a direct propulsion of the car, but as an electric generator. The Generator then does two things, first provide to the electric motors that propel the wheels, with any excess power being stored in batteries. When the batteries are full, the engine cut off and the car is propelled by the batteries till they are almost empty OR extra power is needed (i.e. to accelerate the car). This improves mileage by cutting back usage of the engine, if the engine is NOT is use, no gasoline is being consumed. The downside of such hybrids are that they have two engines (One electric, one gasoline) instead of just one for a conventional car (Through the Hybrids saves weight do to the fact it does NOT need a transmission or drive train, the electric motors can be attached directly to the wheel and connected to the generator or battery by electrical cables. This combination system is expensive and some people estimate a 30 year repayment period compared to a three year re-payment on a conventional system.

VW took the other option in the form of the Lupo. The design was for a smaller engine but in a smaller car with less performance. While the Prius can do what most other cars can do, the Lupo (Never sold in the US) never was intended for high speed operations (and by high speed I mean over 40 mph). The engine, like the Prius cuts off when NOT needed, but does NOT operate as a generator, it just shuts off and the cars coasts. Manual Steering and non-powered brakes were standard with the Lupo (Neither needed power from the engine to operate). When you can to a stop the engine would cut off, and start backup when you touched the gas pedal. Notice performance was reduced, but fuel economy actually exceeded the Prius but since the Lupo was NEVER sold in the US, Prius could claim best fuel economy in US ads.

Now, while it looks like the Prius is the winner, but the Lupo may be the winner in the long run. The reason is simple, it is not much more expensive then a conventional car and exceeds the Prius in Fuel economy. The thing holding the Lupo back is it is NOT design for speeds over 40 mph. For most people that is enough 90% of the time (Through convincing people that is the case if a different story, people like speed). One of the problem when it comes to testing "City Cars" is the EPA test assumes 50 mph and the present generation of City Cars can get up to 50 mph, but by overreving the engine, thus killing fuel economy (Thus the Lupo EPA Fuel mileage will be less then actual usage if speeds are kept low). On the other hand the Prius gets better mileage on the EPA test then people get in real life, do to the fact it is geared to 50 mph for maximum fuel economy, but people who by it, like most other car drivers, go faster (And speed kills fuel economy, the heavier the car and the faster it goes the more energy is needed to propel it forward).

I foresee the Lupo type car winning out in the long run, but people will have to accept its lower performance. People will object to such lower performance, but will buy it once gasoline goes through the roof (Which probably will NOT occur for a few more years). At present the Prius is winning, but historically it is the poor that opts for better fuel economy first, and at present they can NOT afford a Prius. IT is such poor people, willing to accept slower speeds just to get to work that will propel the Lupo Type City Car to Victory, but it will be a long drawn out fight before the City Cars beat out the Prius.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimates we could produce 1/3rd our total transportation fuel requirements from bio-fuels (i.e. Ethanol).

NOw, this engine improves fuel economy 30% while using only 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline.

What this means is if all the cars on the road were using this engine It would take 5% of the fuel supply (in the form of ethanol) to reduce gasoline requirements 30%.

Now you still have 28% (33% - 5% = 28%) of the fuel supply (as ethanol) to displace gasoline by substitution. That means the total reduction of gasoline consumption would be 30% (from improved fuel economy) + 28% (direct substitution of ethanol for gasoline) for a total reduction of 58%.

... and this at an additional cost of $1,300 per copy (I think the extra $300 may be for additional technology enhancement other than the Ethanol direct injection). This is much more affordable to many more people than hybrid technology or plug-ins so it would be adopted much more quickly, leading to faster GHG reductions.


At $1,300 extra for one of these you would get much faster adoption than you would for $3,000 to $4,000 additional for hybrids and $10,000 to $20,000 for plug-ins. Now, were going to need plug-ins and hybrids but until they are on the road in numbers this engine would be providing reductions in GHGs for less investment.

> The Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimates we could
> produce 1/3rd our total transportation fuel requirements
> from bio-fuels (i.e. Ethanol).

The term "bio-fuels" does not equate to "ethanol" so you should not
pretend that it does by using "i.e." (like in the above).

Bio-fuels *include* ethanol but not exclusively and to pretend
otherwise is something between misleading and dishonest.

:shrug:

I am a big supporter of increased production of biodiesel. In 2008 we produced about 686 million gallons of biodiesel (two months estimated there). In 2008 we produced 9.2 billion gallons of ethanol. So ethanol represents 93% of the total biofuels supply. So it does represent most of biofuels. But I would like to see biodiesel increase it's production. We need more of it. I think, in particular, biodiesel would be a great fit for agricultural uses. It would be made close to the users reducing transportation costs and biodiesel would reduce the carbon footprint of all agricultural commodities.

YOu certainly can post about biodiesel in case you think I need reminded of it. I would welcome being more informed on it.


Regarding the ORNL research: http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf">Feasibility of a Billion Ton Annual Supply. The bulk of the supply they are forecasting is going to come from agricultural and forest product waste material. I think the great bulk of that is going to be made into (cellulosic) ethanol.


BTW, some are exploring making biodiesel from algae and this could significantly increase biodiesel production if it pans out.

Thanks for reminding me about biodiesel and I would welcome seeing your posts on this valuable tool (or that other biofuel) in reducing fossil fuel use and GHG emissions in the future.

Biodiesel is more significant in the EU than in the US.
Thanks for the explanation.
:hi:

Make absolutely sure that you clean well and thoroughly dry every single piece of equipment that you are planning to use in order to create your homemade biodiesel. This equipment has to be clean and dry, and you need to make sure that you are just as careful whenever you handle all of the ingredients. More info at http://biodieseltips.org/

the ethanol allows them to turbo-charge the boost high enough to get so much more power they can downsize the engine to about half the displacement it would need with a gasoline powered engine.


http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/startup_working.html

The ethanol-boosted engine could provide efficiency gains comparable to those of today’s hybrid engine systems for less extra investment: about $1,000 as opposed to $3,000 to $5,000.

IIRC the $1300 figure represents shifting the AC Compressor, Power Steering pump and any other accessories from belt driven to Electric.