In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 03:12:30 -0000, Robert Bonomi
wrote:
In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:20:17 +0100, No Spam wrote:
Hax Planx wrote:


I once picked up a hitchhiker who claimed he knew of a guy who bought a
prototype Chrysler that got 80mpg.

Well seeing as there are many road vehicles in Europe that routinely
hit that figure its not surprising,

Can you provide examples of 80mpg production vehicles please?

Schwinn, Raleigh, Murray, Titan, To name just a few manufacturers. grin

Heh. Good point, but I get the feeling the guy was talking about cars.
He went from "many" to one model that isn't produced, pretty quickly.

Lots of little motor-bikes and scooters over there -- a fair number of
which get mileage numbers in that range. Top speeds of 65 km/h, or less,
(sometimes significantly less) though. Supurbly suited for 'in-town'
errands and such, much less so for inter-city travel.

The French-manufactured 2CV typically got 50mpg on a _bad_ day.

Yeah, but I'm, er, pretty sure it wouldn't pass USA'n crash tests. What
with the seats being basically lawn chairs and all, for starters.

I know of at least 2 that are operating in the U.S. licensed, 'street
legal'.

80mpg is _not_ unrealistic. With one of my old cars, I routinely got
in excess of 20mpg at highway speeds. NOT impressive in and of itself,
but that was with a car weighing roughly 7300 lbs, and powered with a
7.8L engine. Automatic transmission; _with_ the air-conditioning on.

Scaled down by a factor of 4 -- you're talking about something in the
1500 lb range, with a circa 1.6L engine (assuming you drop the a/c).

Well, if it was linear, sure. But, aerodynamics play a bigger part than
you'd think at higher speeds. A late 60's/early 70's Saab 96 weighs
something like 1900 pounds, has a 1.7 liter engine, and gets 25MPG.

Yeah, you have to reduce the frontal cross-section, and thus aero drag,
proportionally, as well. Which is why I continued ....

I'm underwhelmed with those Saab figures -- in that same time-frame, got
23MPG in-town, with a 3200lb Dodge, with a 4.6L V-8 engine in it.

In the late 80s a friend was getting 43-44 mpg on the highway, with a
Nissan Sentra, with a 2.8L (I believe, might have been a 2.2) engine.
With the a/c running. More like 50mpg without the a/c.


Its probably only going to have 2-place seating -- a 'roadster' type,
or maybe a Morris 'mini'.

Or, something lightened so far that it's unsafe. I'd rather spend a bit
more on fuel and live. Make it biofuel so we can make it here, rather
than giving money to people who hate us, and we're getting somewhere.

Have you ever run the numbers on how much biodiesel one can produce from
an acre of farmland in a year?