On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:54:44 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

DrollTroll wrote:

My '07 Fit is a great car, so far. Wife measured 46.4 mpg's highway. Can
fit big people, versatile, peppy, can haul a fair amount of ****.
CR loves it.

I've gotten the average up to 41 MPG so far just in very
congested city driving! (That's on my 2008 Honda Civic hybrid.)
The engine is FAR from broken-in yet at about 40 miles. I'm
sure from the trend it will continue to go higher.

Jon


Hybrids are the coolest thing going. Wife drives
a Toyota Prius. 53+ mpg average on the highway.
Even better around town. The first car at our home
that I know I won't ever work on. ED

ED wrote:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:54:44 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:


DrollTroll wrote:


My '07 Fit is a great car, so far. Wife measured 46.4 mpg's highway. Can
fit big people, versatile, peppy, can haul a fair amount of ****.
CR loves it.


I've gotten the average up to 41 MPG so far just in very
congested city driving! (That's on my 2008 Honda Civic hybrid.)
The engine is FAR from broken-in yet at about 40 miles. I'm
sure from the trend it will continue to go higher.

Jon



Hybrids are the coolest thing going. Wife drives
a Toyota Prius. 53+ mpg average on the highway.
Even better around town. The first car at our home
that I know I won't ever work on. ED

Wow, that's way better than the published numbers! I just
bought a 2008 Honda Civic hybrid because the published numbers
were better. Maybe I goofed! The Prius hybrid drive system is
absolutely brilliant, and I assume patents are preventing any
other maker from using that system - basically an electric
transmission, where a significant part of the power flow goes
between two motor/generator units. We're still under 100 total
miles on the Honda, but will be taking a little trip over the
holiday, so we'll put a few more miles on it.

I got really excited with a guy who was selling a Honda Insight
on eBay with a lifetime average of 81 MPG! (That was over
130,000 total miles.) But, my wife wouldn't let me buy a 2-seater.

Jon

On 2008-08-30, Jon Elson wrote:
ED wrote:

[ ... ]

Hybrids are the coolest thing going. Wife drives
a Toyota Prius. 53+ mpg average on the highway.
Even better around town. The first car at our home
that I know I won't ever work on. ED

Wow, that's way better than the published numbers! I just
bought a 2008 Honda Civic hybrid because the published numbers
were better. Maybe I goofed! The Prius hybrid drive system is
absolutely brilliant, and I assume patents are preventing any
other maker from using that system - basically an electric
transmission, where a significant part of the power flow goes
between two motor/generator units.

If *that* is what the patent covers, then there is prior art. I
used to work at an Army R&D lab, and one of the things which I saw in
the big machine shop was a truck with a jet turbine driving a generator,
and each axle containing a pair of electric motors where the
differential would have been. And -- I saw it running around the place
sometime later. The turbines were connected to about 6" diameter
exhaust pipes about 10 feet tall or so -- and you could still hear it
coming with no problems. :-) This was perhaps somewhen in the 1980s.
And I remember that the army was in the habit of patenting everything
invented there which was not hidden under classification status, so this
almost certainly was patented at the time.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" writes:

On 2008-08-30, Jon Elson wrote:
ED wrote:

Wow, that's way better than the published numbers! I just
bought a 2008 Honda Civic hybrid because the published numbers
were better. Maybe I goofed! The Prius hybrid drive system is
absolutely brilliant, and I assume patents are preventing any
other maker from using that system - basically an electric
transmission, where a significant part of the power flow goes
between two motor/generator units.

If *that* is what the patent covers, then there is prior art. I
used to work at an Army R&D lab, and one of the things which I saw in
the big machine shop was a truck with a jet turbine driving a generator,
and each axle containing a pair of electric motors where the
differential would have been. And -- I saw it running around the place
sometime later. The turbines were connected to about 6" diameter
exhaust pipes about 10 feet tall or so -- and you could still hear it
coming with no problems. :-) This was perhaps somewhen in the 1980s.
And I remember that the army was in the habit of patenting everything
invented there which was not hidden under classification status, so this
almost certainly was patented at the time.

That doesn't sound anything like the Prius power split device. It's a
single planetary gear arrangement, with one motor-generator driving
the sun gear, the internal combustion engine driving the planet
carrier, and power to the wheels coming from the ring gear (there's
also a second motor-generator on this shaft). The result is they've
got what amounts to a continuously variable transmission, which can
also go in reverse, without all the nasty belts and things. It's
really ingenious.

http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

2003 VW Jetta TDI. No expensive batteries to replace. Best MPG= 55. Worst
was 45 and that was @ 85mph into a headwind. No hybrids for me yet. I hit
105mph passing two big 18 wheelers. Good power and good MPG.

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:02:33 -0700, "Stuart & Kathryn Fields"
wrote:


2003 VW Jetta TDI. No expensive batteries to replace. Best MPG= 55. Worst
was 45 and that was @ 85mph into a headwind. No hybrids for me yet. I hit
105mph passing two big 18 wheelers. Good power and good MPG.




Impressive stats---I had a 80's Renault gta that ran like that---
hard to believe that we haven't improved in auto technology
since the last crunch...


I looked pretty hard at the field including a jetta-- there's few of
'em around here but the closest dealer is 1.5 hrs away, 3 month wait
list to get a new prius.

There's a prius taxi fleet in Vancover BC with over 200k miles on each
unit and no battery failure to date... ED

Stuart & Kathryn Fields wrote:
2003 VW Jetta TDI. No expensive batteries to replace. Best MPG= 55. Worst
was 45 and that was @ 85mph into a headwind. No hybrids for me yet. I hit
105mph passing two big 18 wheelers. Good power and good MPG.


There's a guy who was selling his Honda Insight a few weeks ago
on eBay. He had a LIFETIME average of 81 MPG, over 130,000
miles. I assume he was doing some kind of hypermiling
technique, but that is VERY impressive. There's a guy who is
known as the "king of hypermiling" who jumped into an unmodified
Honda Insight provided by a friend, and did 181 MPG on a 20 mile
test course in a competition! Holy COW! There's this auto X
prize to come up with a 100 MPG car, and it already exists!

Jon

DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2008-08-30, Jon Elson wrote:

ED wrote:


[ ... ]


Hybrids are the coolest thing going. Wife drives
a Toyota Prius. 53+ mpg average on the highway.
Even better around town. The first car at our home
that I know I won't ever work on. ED

Wow, that's way better than the published numbers! I just
bought a 2008 Honda Civic hybrid because the published numbers
were better. Maybe I goofed! The Prius hybrid drive system is
absolutely brilliant, and I assume patents are preventing any
other maker from using that system - basically an electric
transmission, where a significant part of the power flow goes
between two motor/generator units.


If *that* is what the patent covers, then there is prior art. I
used to work at an Army R&D lab, and one of the things which I saw in
the big machine shop was a truck with a jet turbine driving a generator,
and each axle containing a pair of electric motors where the
differential would have been. And -- I saw it running around the place
sometime later.
The M1A1 has electric steering, basically the steering motor is
connected to the differential pinions. I think they actually
use two differentials, so that the motor doesn't have to spin
around with the differential. This is the key to steering at 60
MPH without burning up the steering brakes.

The Prius has two motor/generators, a big one on the ring gear
that is connected to the differential, and a smaller one on the
planetary carrier. The engine is connected to the sun gear.
This allows the big motor to move the car, or the engine to move
it, by swapping power between the two motor/generators with
VFD-like electronic drives. Depending on the speeds controlled
by the VFD's. it works as a continuously variable transmisson.

I've been learning about how to drive the Honda hybrid to best
effect. Despite published documents, it can actually run on
electric power alone when coasting. It also cuts off the intake
valves and changes the valve timing to reduce engine drag to nil
whenever power isn't needed, switches to 3 or 2 cylinders at low
power, and fiddles the valve timing to keep the throttle wide
open most of the time, and control engine output with valve
timing. I think it should be able to use the electric drive
more, and need to do more research on it. But, a light foot
makes a HUGE difference.

Jon

Jon Elson wrote:

But, a light foot makes a HUGE difference.

I just put a new head on my '94 Escort. Runs noticeably
better, and on the first full tank since the work, I got
34.5 mpg. That's strictly city street driving in Grass
Valley, approx 2200 feet, and not much level ground. I
believe it was only rated 30 mpg new. Fueleconomy.gov has
revised numbers to reflect how '08 cars are tested, and that
down rates it to 26 mpg city.

Can't wait to see what I can squeeze out of it on a long
highway trip! Not too shabby for a car I paid $1600 for...


Jon

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:03:49 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

ED wrote:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:54:44 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:


DrollTroll wrote:


My '07 Fit is a great car, so far. Wife measured 46.4 mpg's highway. Can
fit big people, versatile, peppy, can haul a fair amount of ****.
CR loves it.


I've gotten the average up to 41 MPG so far just in very
congested city driving! (That's on my 2008 Honda Civic hybrid.)
The engine is FAR from broken-in yet at about 40 miles. I'm
sure from the trend it will continue to go higher.

Jon



Hybrids are the coolest thing going. Wife drives
a Toyota Prius. 53+ mpg average on the highway.
Even better around town. The first car at our home
that I know I won't ever work on. ED

Wow, that's way better than the published numbers! I just
bought a 2008 Honda Civic hybrid because the published numbers
were better. Maybe I goofed!

No worry Honda makes a great car--I had a Prelude that was
flawless..The hybrid is like driving a video game to see how
good of mileage you can get--We have friends that can't
get over 50mpg with there's it's the way they drive..ED



The Prius hybrid drive system is
absolutely brilliant, and I assume patents are preventing any
other maker from using that system - basically an electric
transmission, where a significant part of the power flow goes
between two motor/generator units. We're still under 100 total
miles on the Honda, but will be taking a little trip over the
holiday, so we'll put a few more miles on it.

I got really excited with a guy who was selling a Honda Insight
on eBay with a lifetime average of 81 MPG! (That was over
130,000 total miles.) But, my wife wouldn't let me buy a 2-seater.

Jon