On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:43:04 -0000, Robert Bonomi wrote:
In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:

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.

Wouldn't do for me for my 90+ miles per day commute, I'm afraid.
That and the whole "idiots not seeing bikes" problem.

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.

Well, it was just an example of "car of that weight and displacement not
getting 80" I guess was my point. Saab has always been very good about
aerodynamics; I think the drag coefficient of the Saab 96 is 0.39 or so,
which for a 1960 design is pretty low.

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?

No, I haven't, but I know there's an awful lot of farmland in CRP (or
whatever it's called this decade), which could be growing corn for
alcohol or soybeans for biodiesel/cattle feed if it paid well enough.
I'd rather see the gummint subsidize something like that than some of
the other (ahem) stupid stuff it's spending our money on.

Dave Hinz