So what happens when 100LL is gone anyway?

Sylvain wrote:
Morgans wrote:
"Mike Rapoport" wrote
modern European deisel automobile engines are not seen in the US
Why is that?

Beats me, one of these things that only someone in
marketting can understand I suppose :-), may be the
same reason why you can't buy in USA cars with reasonable
gas mileage even though they are widely available
elsewhere -- i.e., there are cars out there, with
conventional gas engines which beat the gas mileage
(real life numbers not marketting hype) of the overhyped
hybrids and with decent performance (actually a heck of a
lot more fun to drive than what's available here); Even
manufacturers that do make such cars and do have a presence
in USA do not sell these models here. I suppose
they know what they are doing, but I am still puzzled.
I did write once to Peugeot (never expecting an
answer) asking them why I couldn't buy their products
over here and got a nice answer (to my surprise,
it was not a canned answer and someone went through
the trouble of addressing the points I was making)
explaining things a bit (apparently they prefer to go
after 'emerging' markets which have better growth
potentials); may be also a cultural thing, folks
here like gaz guzzling big engines even to commute
at 55 mph... what do I know, I am just a bloody
foreigner :-))

the funny thing is that now that I live in California,
even with gas retail prices only a fraction of what
is available in Europe (even today), I still end
up spending more on gas than I was in Europe (gaz
guzzling piece of junk that cannot do better than
26 mpg combined with much longer commute distances)

--Sylvain

You do see some European diesel engines in the US, but they are not the
same ones they use in Europe. That is because the US lead Europe in
cleaning up gasoline engines and their fuel, but nothing for diesel's.
The European's have caught up to us and have now past us and included
diesel engines. They have cleaned up the diesel fuel, that is take out
the sulfur, and won't run on our dirty fuel.

I think you are mistaken there. Emissions are mesured in ppm, because
it's the only possible way, you can't collect the NOx from an exhaust
stream and put it on a scale.

Actually you can measure it in % of air. This is common when the
amount is greater than 10,000 ppm or so. But even smaller amounts can
be measured that way but too many zeros. 100 ppm is 0.01%.

Roger wrote:

They do? I drive a Toyota 4-Runner and it only has MPH.

Must be pretty old -- they've had a kph scale for years.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

Repo Man wrote:

I can see you disagreed with it. But maybe your child could do a better
job explaining why.

Ah! So you were writing for ignorant children. That explains it.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

ShawnD2112 wrote:

Which leads to some funny anomolies here in the UK. Everything is metric
except for two measurements. Beer is still sold in pints (thank God for
that!). Road distance is still measured in miles but fuel is sold in
liters. Brits still talk about miles per gallon (Imperial, mind, not US)
but I've started thinking about gas economy in terms of miles per liter
because the math is easier. A bit bizarre but you soon get used to it.

I lived in Ireland for quite a while and they had their share of
confusing anomalies as well: road signs; there were (may be still
are) two kinds: the old kind, written black on a white background,
which give distances in miles by default, except when explicitly
indicated otherwise (as they sometimes did); and the new kind (I
suppose to replace the ones some tourists would take home as
souvenirs), written white on a green background, that give
distances in kilometers by default, unless explicitly indicated
otherwise (as they sometimes did); e.g., you happily drive along to
Dublin, see a sign saying: "Dublin 50" and later see another sign
saying "Dublin 65", and yet are on the right track... the other
thing was that, while eager to adopt the metric system, they
did not always get it right, and the conversions were not always
made as rigorously as you might expect :-)

--Sylvain

Good point. Pardon my coloring my spelling with Americanisms.

Shawn
"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...
"ShawnD2112" wrote:

Road distance is still measured in miles but fuel is sold in
liters.

that's litres, not liters. :-))

#m
--
Three witches watch three Swatch watches.
Which witch watches which Swatch watch?

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:19:01 +0200, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Roger,

What would make you think that? Other than the "Hummers" and the
really expensive *big* SUVs people are looking at mileage.


Yes, but the American look at mileage is worlds apart from a European
look at mileage.

True, but when you've been looking at 10, then 15, then 20 MPG over
the last 40 years, 30 MPG looks like something with super efficiency.
BTW my wife's mini, mini van which has almost 200,000 miles on it
still gets almost 40 MPG

However it's not as simple as just choosing to go to smaller more
efficient cars. In many cases it's just not practical, safe, or
economical. In many cases, if not most, the little European car would
not be safe or practical here.

Actually a large percentage of our population would like to get really
good mileage and I mean as the Europeans see it, but they are the ones
stuck driving the 20 and even 30 year old, two and three ton rust
buckets often known as "Bondo Beauties", that get maybe 15 MPG on a
good day, going down hill with a tail wind. There are many who would
dearly love to have a car that gets 40 and 50 mpg, but they can't
afford to purchase one. Then there are the farmers who have to make
the choice between getting a car and truck, or just driving the truck.
When you are looking at another $20,000 for just a small car it's an
easy choice. Then there are people with large families that have to
get them around some how. Remember, much of the US is rural and a
drive to town can be quite a trip.

Although we are seen as a society with every one driving a huge new
car, we are really a society with a few driving the new ones and a lot
of families driving those old rust buckets, or people driving the
pickup or SUV they use for work for their regular driving.

You are also looking at an entirely different set of traffic
conditions. Effectively, we have no mass transit except in some
local settings. Amtrack is not heavily used except in some specific
areas and requires massive subsidies.

That puts some very heavy traffic on the roads where we are mixing
every thing from very large tractor-trailers to small economy cars.
The yearly death toll is coming down, (I believe a bit over 43,000
last year put it close to a 20 or 30 year low. Some one on here
undoubtedly has that statistic) but the safety measures add weight
and size to the cars and that reduces mileage. We have so many cars
on the roads that we have to apply anti-pollution standards to the
cars and those reduce the gas mileage. We have literally millions of
cars on the roads every day. Just the disposal of worn out tires is a
major problem. I read, and I don't know the accuracy of the
statement, that more oil is thrown out into the woods from individuals
doing their own oil changes every year than the entire Exxon Valdez
(sp?) oil spill.

Unlike Europe our population for any working area is widely spread,
meaning long drives and a need for both safety and comfort.
Homes near the working areas are either in the high priced district
and out of reach for most workers, or slums where no one wants to put
their families. So to save money we end up burning more fuel.

It's not unusual for production workers to spend an hour or more
driving to get to work and another to get home. In some areas it's
twice that or even more.

Some years back I used to spend nearly an hour and a half driving to
and from work (65 miles). That's three hours a day and that was mostly
at cruising speed on open or back roads. You bet I wanted 30, or 40
MPG or more, but back then there wasn't a thing available stateside
that would do it and do it safely on the expressways. Back then the
imported cars were not the high quality we see now and planned
obsolescence was the word for the American Auto Industry. We had a
beautiful home out in the country, but a long drive for both of us.
Now we have a much smaller home only 4 1/2 miles from town (11 from
the shopping center)

Now as to the large cars: If people would car pool and fill the seats
the amount of gas per passenger mile would drop dramatically. Car
pooling alone could make a big difference in the amount of crude
required and reduce pollution. Unfortunately car pooling is not
effective in many areas due to the wide spread population.

Because much of the US consists of miles and miles, of nothing but
miles and miles, mass transit becomes impractical and uneconomical in
those areas. That means the individual needs a vehicle that can be
used to haul more than people.

I drive a relatively small SUV (huge by European standards), but it's
used more as a truck for hauling stuff (rear seats folded down for
even more cargo area). So for me to get the utility I need (hauling
equipment and parts), I'd need at least an economy car and a truck.
Although the car would save me some gas on some trips, the truck would
cost me more gas when not hauling a full load. So the SUV is a good
compromise.

We have a "County connection" small bus system and I could use that
for my trips into town, but it's actually more expensive than driving
the SUV and I'm not just counting the gas.

If the county would ever get in a bridge across the river to the East
of me, it would cut the distance to the airport and to the shopping
centers to less than half. I could easily ride my bike to the airport
when I didn't have to haul things. At 4 1/2 miles it'd be a quick hop
even on the bike, but it's currently over 11 miles to the shopping
center through heavy traffic and 9 traffic lights.

So, it's a complicated issue that goes far beyond the availability of
cars and engines that get much better gas mileage. Me? I moved much
closer to town, bought a much smaller home, and make about half the
trips I used to make.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Roger wrote:

However it's not as simple as just choosing to go to smaller more
efficient cars. In many cases it's just not practical, safe, or
economical. In many cases, if not most, the little European car would
not be safe or practical here.

Maybe not, but it *is* as simple as using smaller, more fuel efficient engines.
The full-size Ford pickup of the 60s came with a 2.3 litre engine of about 60
hp. Today, the smallest engine available is 4.2 litre of 202 hp. That is not
needed for either practicality, safety, or economy.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)

You used to have a question mark after this in your sig. You've
confirmed now that yours is it?

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Matt Barrow wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

Matt Barrow wrote:


"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
thlink.net...


He has a point. Cheap fuel has encouraged consumers to do all the

"wrong"

things for a country facing rapidly rising energy costs. Living far

from

work, driving large vehicles and living in large houses are all

encouraged

by cheap fuel. It makes more sense to tax consumption than production.


Nice elitist attitude.

Elitist? It seemed like a pretty straightforward summary of the
situation to me.



It's ONE summary.


The economics of cheap energy DOES encourage the above.


So?

So how is the statement elitist?

Matt