Wes wrote:

If you think walls are thin now wait until they try to meet the 2012 35mpg
CAFE standards.

Listening to the j*ck*sses in Washington claim how the new energy bill is
going to save each citizen lots of money just about made me want to puke. My
next car will likely rust out before I finish paying for it.

Wes
It is going to be really hard to meet the 35 MPG standard
without major changes in the drive train. Lightening just isn't
going to get much further. The last gasp was lock-up torque
converters. Now, they are going to have to get serious.
Combining start/stop technology with something like stratified
charge or some other scheme to get rid of the throttle and run
the engine at full cylinder pressure all the time (like Diesel)
is going to be required. C'mon, Detroit, we know you've had
stratified charge systems running since the 1970's.

Electric steering is already coming in, saves a Hp on the
steering pump. Next is something in the auto trans to reduce
the demand of the hydraulic pump. They may already have gone to
variable-displacement pumps instead of fixed-displacement and a
pressure regulator in many newer transmissions. I think the
start/stop systems may use an electrical pump so the engine
doesn't need to pump up hydraulic pressure before the
transmission can engage.

But, these are all small tweaks. The Otto cycle needs to go,
and something more efficient at mid-throttle needs to replace
it. Diesel, of course, has been there for decades.

Jon