If only Moore's Law applied to autos, we'd have nearly unlimited range on a gallon of gas by now.
Why isn't gas mileage improving for new vehicles?
- Thread starter dualthreat
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I watch that way too much on the 3.5 hour drive home all the time.
My best 25 mile stretch is 27.3 mpg, 50 mile is 24.8. Am averaging right at 19 mpg since I bought it.
Many trains are electric, using the diesel to power a generator that runs at a constant/optimized speed. Electric motors produce max torque at 0 rpm, so they're perfect for moving heavy loads.
Most of the kinks in the diesel emissions systems have been worked out. Things like EGR are much more reliable now. And there's a hell of a difference between a bad EGR valve and a "bad engine."
A diesel will always out pull a gas truck. So if you need to move big loads, diesel is your best bet. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to rent a big truck for a day than it is to buy, operate and maintain a 3/4 or 1 gas truck when you only really need it 10 days a year.
Go to Wisconsin. Hunting season's culture is driving around with deer attached to the bumper, on top of the car, or on a trailer or extra tailgate on pretty much any type of car.
I've seen them stuffed into trunks as well.
You shot something while it was eating, and then had to prove it by tying it to your roof.
Impressive stuff.
They are getting better MPG but there are a number of factors in play on why it's not better. A few just off the top of my head.
#1 Americans have switched to bigger vehicles. Even the same models are a lot bigger. A Honda Civic is bigger than an Accord from 20 years ago. Less cars in general compared to trucks/SUV's.
#2 Safety-Cars are a lot safer now but that safety comes at a price, which is weight. Weight hurts gas mileage. A mustang from the 80's average around 2,500lbs. A mustang today weighs 3,500. I think safety and size are the two big reasons.
#3 Performance/Power-As an example, a top end Mustang from 73-82 averaged around 150hp, 83-93 around 200, 2010-Now around 400+. You've seen this with nearly every vehicle. Most cars now have double the power they did in the 70's/80's.
#4 Ethanol hurts MPG
With all that said, you can get cars that get amazing gas mileage, they are just not as popular.
#1 Americans have switched to bigger vehicles. Even the same models are a lot bigger. A Honda Civic is bigger than an Accord from 20 years ago. Less cars in general compared to trucks/SUV's.
#2 Safety-Cars are a lot safer now but that safety comes at a price, which is weight. Weight hurts gas mileage. A mustang from the 80's average around 2,500lbs. A mustang today weighs 3,500. I think safety and size are the two big reasons.
#3 Performance/Power-As an example, a top end Mustang from 73-82 averaged around 150hp, 83-93 around 200, 2010-Now around 400+. You've seen this with nearly every vehicle. Most cars now have double the power they did in the 70's/80's.
#4 Ethanol hurts MPG
With all that said, you can get cars that get amazing gas mileage, they are just not as popular.
I have a 2017 Hyundai Elantra that averages 40 MPG. It's paid off and maintained every 3,000 miles. Been driving Elantras since 2004 (including my one year in atLAnta with a brutal daily commute), and they just keep getting better and better. Best deal on the road IMO. Mostly work from home now, so I don't even have to take her out much any longer until football season.
I would add to the weight thing, is that all the bells and whistles that people love on their vehicles add weight also. That's why ford changed to aluminum to try to offset some of it.
I have a new Chevy 1500 for towing a boat (that’s my humblebrag). My best MPG average for a 50 miles stretch is 27 MPG if you trust the real time readout. This was no load, no wind, AC on, going 60 MPH, flat road.
The truck has the cylinder deactivation feature where it can run on 4 out of 8 cylinders, but I don’t know how much fuel this feature saves.
The total avg since I had the truck is about 18 MPG.
The truck has the cylinder deactivation feature where it can run on 4 out of 8 cylinders, but I don’t know how much fuel this feature saves.
The total avg since I had the truck is about 18 MPG.
I'm not surprised at all you get 40mpg since I get 38mpg in one of the worst traffic cities in the country. I went from also working at home to 80 mile urban commute. One day I was skateboarding to a coffee shop to work (maybe not smart as I'm getting older) and the next I was driving 40 miles one way.
Went back and forth on the Accent or Elantra since the Elantra had great MPG for the size. I went with the smaller one mostly because I park on the street a lot and don't need the back seat that often.
Unless the Accent and Elantra change a ton or the competition improves it's going to be tough for me to get something different. I'm really putting a ton of miles on so probably 2-4 years is what I'll have left even though I tend to keep cars a long time.
There are a lot of factors that go into this, mainly how a diesel locomotive works. The drive motors are actually electric, the diesel is just a generator. I think another big one is no tires. A lot of energy is used up fighting tire friction.
Maybe I'm old school but I'll sacrifice fuel economy for performance and safety. Give me a gas guzzling American brand vehicle made heavy that isn't going to crumple like a pop can in an accident any day.
Family of 4, our Chevy Traverse probably gets worse average gas mileage than the car I traded it in for which was a 2007 Monte Carlo SS with a V8. They get similar in town around the 16-18 mark but my Monte probably got 24-26 on the highway while I probably get 22-24 on a good day with the Traverse. I'll take the trade off for the comfort and safety factors.
Family of 4, our Chevy Traverse probably gets worse average gas mileage than the car I traded it in for which was a 2007 Monte Carlo SS with a V8. They get similar in town around the 16-18 mark but my Monte probably got 24-26 on the highway while I probably get 22-24 on a good day with the Traverse. I'll take the trade off for the comfort and safety factors.
I drive a diesel F-250. About 50% of the time I'm towing and the majority of the rest of the time I'm driving solo. I'm sure lots of people judge me for driving a honking big diesel with no passengers and no trailer or load. What am I supposed to do, get a second vehicle? That doesn't make sense either financially or environmentally.
FWIW, I average around 16 mpg but I'm pulling a pretty heavy trailer.
Maybe this is been said somewhere lease, but trains are efficient because of a lack of friction (hardened steel rail and hardened steel wheels mean only one extremely small contact patch for each wheel) and because the engine is used only to power the wheels to move the train ( plus a few other electrical items in The cab).
How many electronics and gadgets and gizmos does your car run all the time? Radio lights computer windows locks phones etc. every one of this takes power from the primary task of the engine Increase weight (electric motors are very heavy for their size) and reduces the distance traveled on a tank of gas.
I read an article a few years ago comparing the 1990 Camry with the late model (2015ish). The 1990 version got something like 10 mpg more than the late model. The reasons sites were the older version had no bells and whistles and weight half what the late model did.
Another thing I saw said that every 100 pounds of weight added to a car can reduce the mpg by up to 1. So 1000 pounds of extra comforts (which happens faster than you think) is 10 mpg lost.
Another thing to consider is how we get clean air affects the mileage. In Europe where gas has been astronomically high for decades, they need high efficiency vehicles to be able to afford to drive them. They don’t add more gadgets to the exhaust system to strip out pollutants , they burn less gas. A few years ago there was a Subaru there that was getting over 70 mpg because the engine wasn’t being used to pump exhaust through a cleaning system. That’s twice the mileage of the same car here meaning half the emissions.
In the US we have decided that cheap gas means burn every drop you could dream of, so what’s another three higher pressure exhaust cleaning methods, all of which require more fuel and power to operate (the catalytic converter being the most egregious). This is one reason why it is difficult to get a car made in Europe legal in the states.
At least the stinking little forest rat isn't jumping out into traffic anymore.
