I never noticed the deal about the pledge of allegiance to the dominant religion, I am surprised it is not written down, I woud have guessed it was.  It is such a formal practice, I would have thought it written down.  I have noticed that there has been a lot of rain in Seattle.  The drought continues in Los Angeles, even though this was the rainiest week in a year.  While it has recently been very winter like in New York, up util like January 7 it was unusally nice.  Likewise, it was a nice winter in Minneapolis this year, but there were some pretty bad storms.   Getting to be more bad storms it seems, but on the whole the temps are up.  

I had breakfast with some of members of the Pasadena Mac Users Group today.  Understand the next Mac operating system will not be out until this fall.  We Mac Users sure know what it feels like when you do not believe in the dominate God.  Seems like everyone is blindly following Windows.  Mac even plays Windows, there is nothing magic there.  It is hard to turn people around.

Glad to hear the Prius drivers in Seattle are getting better mileage on the highway.  That Civic Hybrid does very well too.  I am getting a plug in hybird this next week, unless it is late again.  Looking forward to the milage that one will have.

Have a happy Earth Day.

A couple of years ago I rented a Renault Megane diesel, and was amazed with its performance. Compared with a gasoline-powered car, it was just as quiet and, with six forward (manual) gears, was just as responsive. I don't know the emission specs, but what came out of the tailpipe was neither smokey nor smelled.

And look at the fuel economy: 50.4 mpg in city driving, 70.6 mpg in the country, and 61.4 mpg combined. In case those figures refer to Imperial gallons (1.2 times greater than U.S. gallons), the combined rating would still come in at an impressive 51 miles per U.S. gallon.

I mentioned that the car had a manual transmission. Most European cars still do. By contrast, most U.S. cars sold today do not. One way that U.S. drivers could improve their fuel economy therefore is to go back to manual transmissions. According to this Wikepedia article (which references other sources):

Increased fuel economy with a properly operated manual transmission vehicle versus an equivalent automatic transmission vehicle can range from 5% to about 15% depending on driving conditions and style of driving ... [my emphasis]

Among the fewer number of disadvantages of manual transmissions (many to do with learning how to use them properly) the article mentions is:

Manual transmissions often require the driver to place their full and continuous attention on the road, which may be seen as a disadvantage. Some consider this an advantage, as it prevents the driver from other potential distractions like cell phone or radio use.

I would agree with the latter sentiment. Once you are used to them, cars with manual transmissions are more fun to drive, and keep you more alert.

These are only my personal opinions.

On the Prius - only in America would the 1500 cc Prius engine be considered tiny. The best car I ever had was an 850 cc Renault 5 - that thing could motor and got excellent gas milage even back in the 80's.

On the VA shootings - if April 16 was an average day in America the V Tech occurrence would have accounted for less than half the 80+ deaths by gunshot we tolerate every day of every year, and would have amounted to less than a third of the 115+ highway deaths we seem to find acceptable, again, every day of every year. Why is this OK?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Volkswagen opted not to sell the small TDIs in the United States this year because of emissions concerns. We now have ultra low sulfur diesel which makes it possible to put emissions controls on the TDIs. They plan to be back next year with cars that are legal in all 50 states that treat the NOx captured in an emissions system with urea.

Put a clean burning Injected Turbo Diesel in the front end of a aerodynamically clean, lightweight car with a hybrid transmission and plug in capacity and we are talking about a 100 MPG machine.

I enjoyed my manual transmission cars. You have so much control over your machine and fewer losses from the engine to the wheels. However, you have to give up your Starbucks latte and cell phone. Traffic in urban centers today is all stop and go, even on the interstates.

I'm just glad I have my bike.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I enjoyed my manual transmission cars. You have so much control over your machine and fewer losses from the engine to the wheels. However, you have to give up your Starbucks latte and cell phone. Traffic in urban centers today is all stop and go, even on the interstates.

Traffic congestion is a problem in ALL major cities around the world. But Europeans, or at least the French, generally do not snack while driving. Indeed, they generally do not eat between regular meal times at all.

Cardiologists from the 'States with whom I've discussed this phenomenon say that snacking is where most Americans pick up their extra calories. Yet few mentally process that information while they are snacking. (When asked, at the beginning of going on a diet, to write down what they've consumed over the previous 24 hours, many will forget to write down those snacks.) A first step to weight loss is to stop consuming junk calories while driving.

Conclusion: maybe if Americans went back to driving stick shifts, they'd also eat more sensibly.

These are only my personal opinions.

(A stick shift never stopped me from eating breakfast or lunch burritos ... maybe they are too handy.)

At the same time, eating while driving is an insult to good food - and why eat food which is not good? Do Americans really need the distraction of manually shifting gears to distract them from the distraction of car-snacking?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Let's pretend that everyone who ever ate in a car, in fact ate every meal in a car!  Let's pretend they weren't rushing in the morning or at lunch so they could be free in the evening for family or friends!

Let's pretend that wherever they were going, at that point in their lives, was less important than the meal.

(Ye Gods, the Internets is all about people inventing Righteous Indignations to fuel themselves and get them through their days ...)

ffletcher

What is this about a plug in?

Spaceshaper

I suspect that foreign car makers are leery of American car drivers. They don't want to give us small  engines. They have to give us something idiot proof or we will kill ourselves and lawyers will land and feed until there is nothing left to eat.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

• Diesel cars (and the quality of the fuel used in them) have become much cleaner (yes, even in terms of particulate emissions), quieter and more fuel-efficient in recent years: don't write them off yet. I write this not as a diesel "enthusiast" but as somebody who was once opposed to the growth in registration of diesel cars (half of all new-car registrations here in France), precisely because of their particulate emissions. But I have been impressed by how much better diesel cars are nowadays, and am willing to give them a second look.
  
• Americans are frequently taking existing car sizes, fuel-types and other aspects of their cars as a given. Meanwhile, the government is spending enormous amounts of taxpayer money to squeeze a few percentage points of reductions in gasoline use by subsidizing ethanol production and consumption. That improvements of 5-15% in fuel economy can be gained through little or no increase in cost suggests that there are many more cost-effective ways of reducing petroleum consumption and CO2 emissions out there if people would only be willing to think more deeply about the options. (That said, I realize that finding cars with manual transmissions in the 'States may not always be easy; my father-in-law has always owned cars with manual transmissions, and in recent years he has had to special order them.)
  
• Yes, manual transmissions can be more work than automatic transmissions, but as far as I am concerned, that little amount of extra work is worth a 10% improvement in fuel economy.
  
• To argue that "Americans can't drive cars with manual transmissions because that would make it too difficult for them to snack while driving" is preposterous. American exceptionalism is not a convincing argument once one has seen how people elsewhere organize their lives.
  
• Of course I've eaten in a car. But I would not use that as an argument for needing an automatic transmission.
  

Yes, manual transmissions can be more work than automatic transmissions, but as far as I am concerned, that little amount of extra work is worth a 10% improvement in fuel economy.  
..... Of course I've eaten in a car. But I would not use that as an argument for needing an automatic transmission.

Many Americans seem to fetishize manual transmission, feeling it's more "authentic". At the same I've observed many who drive stick shift do so badly: the most common errors are waiting too long to change up, and shifting gears while negotiating a turn. My father was a professional driver who spent his whole working day on the road, fully concentrated on the task in hand. Most of the rest of us though are distracted amateurs, and the less we have to think about the mechanics of driving, the more attention we can devote to our other necessary preoccupations like tuning the radio, answering the cell phone  proper signalling and road positioning, awareness of other road users and static hazards, finding the right turn...

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

The EPA's Fuel Economy Guide 2007 contains ratings for the current year's cars. I have not run through all the comparisons, but if you look at page 4 you'll see that in city driving, the manual transmission version of a Mazda MX-5 drives 13.6% further on a gallon of gasoline than does the same model with an automatic transmission. The Ford Focus Station Wagon gets 8.8% better mileage in highway driving; the Mini Cooper and the Honda Fit get around 6.5% better mileage in city driving, and there seems to be only a very small improvement in the case of the Toyota Yaris and the Hyundai Sonata. There do not appear to be many SUVs made with manual transmissions, but I notice that the Ford Escape 4WD earns a 12.5% better rating for its manual model than its automatic.

Clearly, actual improvements will depend on the vehicle and how it is driven. What you almost seem to be suggesting, however, is that Americans are too lazy or technically incompetent to be able to master manual transmissions, which I do not believe for a minute. If people in other countries can -- and do it safely -- so can Americans.

These are only my personal opinions.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList

It looks like the variation within a car type (6 reports for an automatic) is much wider than the different between car types (manual vs automatics).

It's might be easy to put that down to driving style, but I actually think (based on my Prius experience) that driving mix matters more.

People who drive short hops in-city (with an often cold engine) are going to get much lower MPG than people who warm up the car and run longer.

Oh, note that people who get poorer MPG in this example may also be using less gas per week, or per year.

As an example, they moved my office and my MPG went from 44 up to 48 MPG!  Unfortunately the commute is is twice as far and I burn (almost) twice the gas.

Yow, homeless AND athiest.  That's the life for me.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

So yeah, drag makes a difference.  Not sure a standard configuration 4-seater can repeat that without the blocking truck though.

Hyper-efficient things, like the VW "1 litre" car go tandem to get the low drag:

http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-vw-1-liter-car.htm

Not at all. I believe though that it depends where your starting point is as a driver. I suspect that if you learn automatic first and then pick up manual skills later on when you already feel yourself an otherwise competent driver it may be worth getting properly educated on that transition and not to just wing it. In England you need to pass an additional test to drive stick if you learn on automatic: I don't believe that is general practice here in the US.

Odograph makes a good point: miles per is a phantom target. The less you drive, the less difference it makes.  

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

That said, I don't think the average diesel booster really understands the particulates issue.

I don't think the average diesel detractor understands modern Diesel Particulate Filters.

Or the fact that new 2007 diesel emission laws require much lower particulate emmisions.

-David Ahlport

[M]iles per is a phantom target. The less you drive, the less difference it makes.

So, how does one attempt to influence that? Certainly not by subsidizing fuels (including biofuels), right? If gasoline and diesel prices rise again, or the government levies higher taxes, people will both shift to more fuel-efficient cars and find ways to drive less. My point was simply that there exist already technologies -- technologies familiar to our grandparents, for cripes sake! -- that can reduce fuel consumption per mile with only small investments in learning (not in the vehicle itself, since manual transmissions actually cost less than automatic transmissions).

These are only my personal opinions.

"I don't think the average diesel detractor understands modern Diesel Particulate Filters.

Or the fact that new 2007 diesel emission laws require much lower particulate emmisions."

I understand that the (otherwise sweet) Bluetech Mercedes E320 still doesn't make it here:

"Selling the E320 BLUETEC in California, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire is a little more complex. These states require diesel cars to meet more stringent Bin 5 standards. Mercedes has a solution that involves injecting a mixture called AdBlue, which contains urea, into the exhaust. The system works; the US Environmental Protection Agency is currently trying to decide how automakers should design it to ensure that drivers fill it up as needed. (Consumption is small; a gallon of urea solution lasts about 2,400 miles.) Once the EPA makes up its mind, Mercedes-Benz will roll the E320 BLUETEC out to all 50 states."

http://cars.about.com/b/a/216864.htm

Neat enough tech, but I've been driving my Prius for a while now ... is that what I'm missing?  That I should compare my 2005 Prius to a 2008 ... or later?  Diesel?

There used to be a guy I'd see (in a yellow Volvo diesel) wrapping his turban on while negotiating morning traffic.

Mercedes has a solution that involves injecting a mixture called AdBlue, which contains urea, into the exhaust. The system works; the US Environmental Protection Agency is currently trying to decide how automakers should design it to ensure that drivers fill it up as needed.

Like I said,
You just aren't keeping up with the technology.

http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c060925DieselEngine

-David Ahlport

Here's a nice April 2007 article about what is "expected" in 2008.  I don't think that conflicts with what I've said at all:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp ...

And it's not legal on light duty vehicles in California, or New York, or a number of states because it needs the tank to be refilled.

_

The unique thing with the new technology is that it's all self contained, and doesn't need refilling.

Instead, it creates it own ammonia out of the air by using a catalyst layer.

_

What you're also missing is that BlueTec comes in both forms.

BlueTec1 with the Urea tank for heavy duty vehicles.

And BlueTec2, the self contained system, for light duty passenger vehicles.

-David Ahlport

And here's a wikipedia entry for the Nitrogen Adsorber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx_Adsorbers

-David Ahlport

In the bigger picture, I'd say that if we were inventing the automobile from scratch, stepped gear shifts is probably not the way we'd want to do it. These are more or less a by-product of the torque curve of the internal combustion engine (steam engines don't have 'em, neither I believe do pure electrics). More-efficient CVT automatics like the Prius are probably the future of IC engines, if they have one. And if we expect people to drive from the age of sixteen well into their dotage as we currently do, I'd say the fewer technical complications the better. Of course I'd be much happier if teenagers and dotards (which condition is perhaps only a couple of decades into my future) and in fact everyone in general didn't have to drive so much, which is why I feel we should be pushing so much harder for walkable, bikable, less power-transport-dependent infrastructure and development rather than splitting hairs on a few percentage points here or there on fossil-fuel efficiency embodied in such last-century technologies. This is where the real gains are going to have to be made.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList2& ...

The Wikipedia article is clearly not dispassionate but written by an enthusiast, someone who actually likes cars and the activity of driving, who probably likes tachometers and ammeters and double de-clutching and handbrake turns and all that kind of "real driver" stuff. Someone not like me. I just want to get from A to B, reliably, safely and responsibly. And the notion that the extra complexity of gear-shifting makes it easier to concentrate on the road I find kinda - well - weird.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

In any case, I am certainly not advocating people be forced to purchase cars with manual transmissions! People should have the choice. But when one looks at the car models available, fewer and fewer seem to come with the manual-transmission option, at least in North America.

I have been beating this dead horse, I suppose, partly in frustration at the kinds of statements I see all the time from official government reports, which are then cited by the biofuels lobby and other interests, about how costly it would be to squeeze out higher MPG from vehicles -- e.g., in the context of discussions about raising CAFE standards. What people do not notice is that the studies that produce these figures hold everything else constant -- i.e., they assume EXACTLY the same purchasing patterns in terms of vehicle size, fuel, transmission type, etc. For more details, see my earlier posting on this.

Many politicians (and even some environmental NGOs!) echo this sentiment as if it is law of nature. "Can't expect people to change their driving habits, or the kinds of vehicles they drive, oh no!" (Except of course, people do.) So, the only way to reduce gasoline or diesel consumption becomes, by this logic, substituting another fuel.

Finally, as to the notion that "the extra complexity of gear-shifting makes it easier to concentrate on the road", I suppose it varies by person. You refer to gear shifting as complex. To me (at my advanced age of 53), it has become second nature. But I am convinced that the clutch and the gear shift serves a similar function as a dead man's vigilance device (unfortunate name that) -- i.e., something that provides an additional stimulous connected with the act of driving itself. Also, I just prefer the control and responsiveness of a stick shift compared with the sluggishness of an automatic transmission.

These are only my personal opinions.

I still believe transmission style should not be treated as a key indicator (four legs good, two legs bad) of fuel efficiency in the abstract. The automatic Yaris is still better than almost all non-hybrid manual vehicles available in the American market and so close in performance to its manual sister vehicle that driving style variations are going to be more significant (see the wide range in the EPA user-reported milage). A general impression also is that the delta often tends to be smaller among the higher-efficiency vehicles than for the gas-guzzlers.

And here's an example of another more-significant variant. The Hyundai Sonata is available in a manual 2.4L 4cylinder, automatic 2.4L 4, and automatic 3.3L 6: here are the numbers.
A4     2.4/4   24/33
M-5    2.4/4   24/34
A-5    3.3/6   20/30
The smaller engine automatic is almost identical in performance to the manual, but is as much as 20% better than the bigger-engined automatic.

On driver ADD - I've driven many hundreds of thousands of miles in many different kinds of vehicles, more stick-shift than not, including left-hand-drive, right-hand-drive, three on a tree and three, four, five, and six on the floor. I've driven LHD vehicles in RHD countries and RHD vehicles in LHD countries as well as a variety of conventional and CVT automatics - the earliest of these being a way underpowered little DAF back in the seventies - this was the vehicle that taught me how to shift automatic gear ratios just by attentive use of the accelerator pedal. I have never been able to discern any general concentration advantage in having a more complex job to do as a driver and I see no safety advantage in being compelled to remove one hand from the steering wheel on a regular basis. Apart from anything else, most of the time while driving one is not shifting gears at all. Do we pay less attention to the road during those long periods of noninteraction with the transmission? I sincerely hope not.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

"Can't expect people to change their driving habits, or the kinds of vehicles they drive, oh no!" (Except of course, people do.) So, the only way to reduce gasoline or diesel consumption becomes, by this logic, substituting another fuel.

I've got no problem with people using green electric Hummers.

Hell, electric motors offer some amazing torque and acceleration for heavy loads.
Thats why most trains and drilling equipment use electric motors.

-David Ahlport

I've got no problem with people using green electric Hummers.

Then, GreyFlcn, I recommend that you read Keith Bradsher's classic book, High and Mighty -- SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way.

To quote Gregg Easterbrook's review:

Can it be a coincidence that road rage gets worse annually, pretty much in sync with the annual rise in the percentage of vehicles that are SUVs or pickups? These machines are designed to bring out the worst in their owners while simultaneously making them feel that they are invincible. And they simply take up space, shrinking the road and parking acreage and increasing all forms of congestion. Traffic studies show that the typical SUV occupies as much road and parking space as 1.4 regular cars.

Getting broadsided -- as a pedestrian, a bicyclist or a driver of a smaller car -- by a Hummer is a whole different experience than being hit by, say, a VW Beetle.

These are only my personal opinions.