Jon Elson wrote:
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
AFAIK the MGF roadster, not available in the US, introduced electrical
power assisted steering in 1995. I don't know whether other car
companies have moved to such system much yet. In the MGF case it's
basically a servo motor system, no hydraulics involved.