Air conditioning vs DRL

"Yeah, but what mpg will your Camry be getting while it's towing my
race
car? (Probably about the same once the hitch tears off....) "

JS> Well, if we are serious about saving fossil fuel then there is
really no purpose in pouring millions of gallons of fuel into gas
guzzling race cars is there. Why burn that much fossil fuel just to
watch cars go around in circles. I think that the gas guzzler tax
should be expanded to cover race cars don't you...and applied annually.

John S. wrote:
> "Yeah, but what mpg will your Camry be getting while it's towing my
> race
> car? (Probably about the same once the hitch tears off....) "
>
> JS> Well, if we are serious about saving fossil fuel then there is
> really no purpose in pouring millions of gallons of fuel into gas
> guzzling race cars is there. Why burn that much fossil fuel just to
> watch cars go around in circles. I think that the gas guzzler tax
> should be expanded to cover race cars don't you...and applied annually.
>

well, the original poster wasn't worried about saving the world, just
how the mpg was with the A/C on vs the windows down.

so... whatever. Feel free to have the last word on this, I'll be at the
racetrack.

John S. wrote:
>
> JS> Well, if we are serious about saving fossil fuel then there is
> really no purpose in pouring millions of gallons of fuel into gas
> guzzling race cars is there. Why burn that much fossil fuel just to
> watch cars go around in circles. I think that the gas guzzler tax
> should be expanded to cover race cars don't you...and applied annually.
>

Shoot, while you're at it why don't you just kill off about 3 billion of
the world's population. THAT would fix a lot of problems, and you
obviously don't care whether people enjoy life or not...

"Steve" > wrote in message
...
> John S. wrote:
> >
> > JS> Well, if we are serious about saving fossil fuel then there is
> > really no purpose in pouring millions of gallons of fuel into gas
> > guzzling race cars is there. Why burn that much fossil fuel just to
> > watch cars go around in circles. I think that the gas guzzler tax
> > should be expanded to cover race cars don't you...and applied annually.
> >
>
> Shoot, while you're at it why don't you just kill off about 3 billion of
> the world's population. THAT would fix a lot of problems, and you
> obviously don't care whether people enjoy life or not...
>

Whoah, here!

There is only ONE thing that an increasing human population returns as
a benefit - economic growth. That is simple - more people, more consumers,
more sales. The problem though is that in an economy that is 20 times
more productive than it was 50 years ago, and yet does not have 20 times
the number of people, what do you do with all that extra productivity?
Well you could use it to give everyone shorter work weeks - but we don't,
instead we just sell people more and more crap.

But, for EVERY OTHER measure of life enjoyment, an increasing
population is a BAD thing. More people means more competition for
the choicist places to live - wouldn't we all like homes with views? It
means more competition for land - so we are all stepping on each other -
more competition for food so we have to artifically jack up crop yields
with fertilizer, pesticides and everything else - a larger number of
criminals assuming the crime rate remains the same percentage - and
studies have shown that as people are more crowded the crime rate
goes up anyway, and it certainly greatly increases many pressures
that trigger wars. Even our own revolutionary war that started the
United States - do you think England would have sent soldiers if
the 13 colonies had a grand total population of 500 people?

EVEN technological advancement - the rapid increase of technological
change has been argued to be driven by increasing population as the
larger population increases the number of geniuses - is a wash because
the vast majority of technological advancement is for solving problems
that have increased population growth as a root cause - so it becomes
a self-fulfilling cycle.

We are human beings who are intelligent, and we know all of this
damn well. We have enough intelligence to figure out ways to halt
our population growth, and to reverse it in a humane manner. Passing
laws that make it more difficult to raise lots of offspring is a pretty
intelligent and humane way to do this in my book. Today the Earth is
very overpopulated - if we as a life form are so numerous that our
very presense and activities are now affecting the planet's weather
(global warming) there are too damn many of us. And if population
advocates like you are allowed to keep spewing then eventually
the population pressure will force a war, and then you will indeed
see 3 billion of the population killed off - but that way it will be
done in an extremely unpleasant manner. Far better to allow that
3 billion to never be born by simply forcing everyone to have fewer
children. If every breeding couple had only 2 children, then natural
attrition would reduce the population over time, without disruption.

Ted

> wrote

> The second test was more practical. They charged two nominally identical
> SUVs with exactly
> 5 gallons of fuel, and drove them at 45 mph until they went dry. The one
> with the AC off and the
> windows down continued to lap for 15 miles after the AC on version went
> dead.

The german automobil club ADAC made this test too.

At 130kph with only the front left window down,
an Audi A4 consumed 0.13 liter / 100km more, a Golf IV 0.29 liters more.

The AC itself uses 0.3 to 0.7 liters per hour, depending on its size
(at 130kph this means 0.23 to 0.54 liter / 100km).

http://www.presse.adac.de/servicethe... PageID=16527

But AC is not the same as window down,
the blowers would compare to window down.

If it is really hot outside, AC is a safety feature too.
Only AC can cool down the air and decrease humidity,
open window or blowers might throw only hot air on you.

Prof. Dr. Arminger in a study for Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen
(belongs to the german government):
Compared to a temperature of 24°C,
27°C means 6% more accidents rural, 11% more urban
32°C 13%/22%, 37°C 18%/30%.

http://www.autolook.de/Verkehr/Klima/klima.html

Thomas

"John S." > wrote in message
oups.com...
> "At one point, it was suggested that disabling DRL's was a fuel saving
> issue,
> and calculations show that for a large numbers of cars and miles
> driven, there is a finite
> savings in fuel. This might be statistically and regulatorially
> significant when combined with
> other techniques which yield small incremental savings. "
>
> JS> They would have to figure out what the net savings would be. From
> the savings in gasoline they would have to subtract the cost of people
> injured and killed because they ran into a car that was not visible
> because the DRL's were off. Consider not only the4 direct medical
> costs but lost wages too.
>

I think if you did a study you could probably figure out when DRL's are most
effective. I'm sure it's obvious but a DLR's accident prevention usefulness
is
probably nill at noon on a bright summers day. If the automakers put
computers
into the vehicles that only turned on DLR's when they were needed - such as
at dusk - then you would get the benefits of accident prevention with the
benefits
of fuel savings as well.

And in any case, there is another part of your cost/benefit analysis that is
wrong too. You need to look at the type of accidents that DLR's prevent.
Front end collisions mostly, where the driver that has the DLRs is not the
cause of the accident. I am talking the kind of collision where Sally Sue
pulls out in front of a vehicle coming down the street and POW gets T-boned.
If DLRs were on the approaching vehicle then Sally Sue might have seen
the vehicle. The problem here is that Sally Sue showed incredibly poor
driving ability, or incredibly poor judgement, or extreme alcohol impairment
by pulling out in front of the vehicle without DLR's to begin with. So you
save her life from a T-bone collision that would have normally killed her
and taken her out of the driving community thus preventing her from getting
into an accident that is worse for someone else - like she near-misses
getting T-boned on her drive home from the bar because a set of DLR's
made her stop from pulling out into an intersection, then proceeds to
T-bone someone else, killing them. And she walks away from it since
cars mostly are designed to provide greatest protection in a frontal
collision. Thus leaving her free to kill again.

Sometimes, it is better for the entire driving community to allow someone to
kill themselves rather than to try to put some kind of safety thing that
will prevent it. That is why, for example, that we do not employ millions
of
traffic cops who do nothing but stand at intersections staring at
crosswalks.
We as a society have figured out that if the pedestrian has a DON'T WALK
sign flashing at them, and a red traffic light against them, and they see
traffic
going through the road in front of them, yet still choose to talk out into
it to
cross the street, that we as a society have decided if they are going to be
this
stupid then better that they be run down by a bus rather than be allowed to
live
to proceed to then get into a car and kill someone else.

And as a point of fact we DO employ traffic cops that do this -for
children's
school crossings, to do this exact thing to children - but we only do it for
children, not adults.

Ted

A particular thanks to Thomas for this post. I have read tests by the
German club before and
they have provided some of the better documentation on a number of issues.

Im glad this thread developed some interest. I am not sure that the
American public is well aware
of the degree of the predicted fossil fuel shortages to come, nor basically
do the people believe
it is serious.

Time will tell. Data at this point indicates that global petroleum
production peaked in the 1990's
and would have done so earlier except for some geopolitical issues. After
this point, production
has leveled out, and a decline is expected within the next decade. This
decline, paired with the
increase of consumption by advancing nations, can make matters difficult.
The availability of oil
for our use is almost certain to decline drastically. Oil prices of several
hundred dollars per barrel are predicted.

American doesnt own all the oil it uses today. We buy it from producer
nations, for the most part.
We consume nearly 20 million barrels per day of the total world production
of 70-80 million barrels.

And that arguable concept was really why I started this thread.

> Her parents live 60 miles away in the country so I have driven it lots
> and it's a rather boring drive... lots of time to play with the onboard
> mpg meter some days...

Onboard MPG are notoriously inaccurate. The method the mythbusters
used (actual driving, actual measurement of MPG) is a far better way to
measure.

wrote:
> > Her parents live 60 miles away in the country so I have driven it lots
> > and it's a rather boring drive... lots of time to play with the onboard
> > mpg meter some days...
>
> Onboard MPG are notoriously inaccurate.


Cite?

The trip computer on my Volvo is very accurate and compares correctly
with standard fill-up/odometer measurements.


Joe

wrote:
>
> > Her parents live 60 miles away in the country so I have driven it lots
> > and it's a rather boring drive... lots of time to play with the onboard
> > mpg meter some days...
>
> Onboard MPG are notoriously inaccurate. The method the mythbusters
> used (actual driving, actual measurement of MPG) is a far better way to
> measure.

Except they didn't do it very carefully. If you really
wanted to do it properly, I believe you would use an
external graduated transparent container conencted directly
to the fuel pump. As soon as you start dumping fuel into the
standard gas tank, the number of possible errors goes up
dramatically (at least for the short distance they ran the
test).

I agree that the on board fuel computers are inaccurate for
making precise fuel mileage measurements. However, they are
OK for making a comparison (assuming you can hold other
factors constant). I used mine to chart the decrease in
mileage as speed increases. After taking a lot of
measurements, the results comapred well with my theoretical
expectations (trends, if not the actual mileage). Of course
there are lots of factors that can screw up the comparions.
These include wind, inclines, acceleration, other traffic,
road type /conditions, outside temperature, etc, etc). If I
wanted to make a comparison, I'd do the following -

Find a nice level stretch of divided multilane highway (say
US 64E between Tarboro and Robersonville). On a nice 80
degree day get the car up to cruising speed with the AC on
and the inside temperature stable. Set the mileage computer
in the "average" mode and hit the reset button. When the
"average" mileage stabilizes (usually after about two miles
for me on a level road), turn off the A/C and roll down the
windows. Observer what happens. The mileage may go down (or
up). Repeat the process in the opposite direction. Then
repeat it again except start out with the windows open.
Starting with the windows open is not really fair, since
additional load will be imposed on the A/C when it is
switched on to achieve steady state, but at least you should
try it in fairness. You might also try it with the windows
down and the A/C on for a worst case set-up. Of course the
differences might be so small you can detect a
difference.....

Ed