[Previous] Michigan near bottom in fuel efficiency boost from cash for...

 [Next] Hybrid Cars: Ford Fusion hybrid up for North American Car of Y...

Some related posts from Technorati and Google.

[Green Car Congress] Green Car Congress: Mercedes to Introduce BlueEFFICIENCY C-Class ...: As a further contribution to reduced weight and friction, the BlueEFFICIENCY C 180 KOMPRESSOR and C 200 CDI saloons are equipped with a newly developed final drive featuring further-improved antifriction bearings, forged differential gears and a lightweight construction. These measures reduce the friction forces within the transmission, hence the engine expends less energy in overcoming them.The longer final-drive ratios of the BlueEFFICIENCY versions also help to reduce fuel consumption.

[EcoModder.com] Massive cardboard air dam on Geo Metro, A-B-A coastdown test ...: Darin,you were the one to remind me that CAR and DRIVER's low-hanging Pinto front airdam still registered lower drag( ie.better mpg),so I had to give it a yea.Bondo did get in trouble on his F-150 with a "low" front airdam,and only restored mpg after clipping it back higher.Your clearance violates the SAE recommendations for "approach"

[Consumerist: PSAs] 7 Things To Regularly Check On Your Car To Save Money - The ...: @kc2idf: Most of the literature I've been looking at online (in the last five minutes) suggests that, for city driving, opening the windows and turning off the A/C will yield the best fuel efficiency. At highway speeds, however, the windows will create so much of a drag that it's actually more efficient to put them up and turn on the A/C.

[Autoblog Green] Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHybrid arriving in the U.S. this summer ...: Especially on country roads and highways the S 400 BlueHYBRID achieves a further efficiency improvement by moving the so-called operating point of the gasoline engine to produce a lower specific fuel consumption. The extremely high start-off torque made possible by the boost effect of the electric motor gives the driver a particularly exhilarating feeling of powerful acceleration, while fuel consumption and emissions are reduced.

[EcoModder.com] What car makers *should* be doing! - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling ...: I want to try to list steps that car makers could/should take to improve the fuel efficiency. The most obvious would be to mold the plastic on the front of the vehicle to be smooth and round, with grill openings that are sized (and placed) only as required to cool the engine.

[The Oil Drum - Discussions about Energy and Our Future] The Oil Drum | American Physical Society Report on Energy Efficiency: It can designate the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office (EERE) with the responsibility and augment its budget for that purpose, but in that case, DOE must be careful not to allow short-term activities to continue to diminish long-term opportunities. The department can also create a new structure to support long-term applied research or adapt Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), which was established by the America COMPETES Act.

[Autoblog Green] Ford plans to increase efficiency by dramatically reducing weight ...: It's rather amusing how some Europeans pretend to be "so very green" and look down on Americans, considering that the environmental movement started here in the US, and the California clean air standards are the highest in the world. Until recently, diesels couldn't meet the California clean air standards, and even the new "clean" diesels barely meet minumum clean air standards.

[Megan McArdle] Fuel efficient or market efficient? - Megan McArdle: What the 'car czar' needs to order GM (and others) to do is very simple -- GM must make a car as good a Camry or Accord and sell it for $1,000 to $2,000 less than the Camry or Accord (because GM's reputation is worse, so the resale value is lower and people won't pay as much). Further, it must earn a healthy profit while doing so (even while continuing to carry higher labor and legacy costs than its competitors).

[CarDomain Car Blog] 2007 Nissan NISMO 350Z: More Than The Sum Of Its Parts - CarDomain ...: The NISMO 350Z is a high-content, limited-edition package that includes a special racing-inspired aerodynamics package combined with specific handling upgrades to the already sweet-handling 350Z chassis. I felt a great deal of satisfaction that despite nearly 2,000 miles behind the wheel, I didn’t ding the low-hanging front chin spoiler even once.

[drive blog] drive blog: M3 raises performance bar but does it stand out enough?: That doesn't allow you to get it seriously sideways in the dry -> that's what breaking traction is good for not just f*cking burnouts GTiHO - and with regards to capacity the old ecotec v6 was 3.8lts, the wonderfully crappulent 'Alloytec' is 3.6lts, less torque less pulling power on a heavier car, so even burn-outs are less smokey, the Falcon on the other hand has always grown in capacity or at least remained the same @ 4.0lts, it works a lot less harder to push the lighter Falcon, and better burnouts if that's what ur want.

[F1 Fanatic - The Formula 1 Blog] Adjustable wings in F1 - a change too far? (Poll) | F1 Fanatic ...: Finally they have chosen to attack the problem by bringing back slick tyres and reducing wing sizes (which is exactly what the FIA Advisory Experts Group told them to do almost a decade ago). But with the added complexity of these adjustable wings, to say nothing of KERS and other changes, it might be hard to see which rules have the desired effect and which don’t.

[Wheels] How Smart Is Smart? - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com: I have owned a Smart car for over two years.(I live in Canada where the diesel is the only option) We do get 60 miles to a US gallon and I find it an extremely enjoyable car to drive. The comments of both the test drivers in New York and LA indicated to me that they want all the benefits of a sports car but something special in terms of economy and performance.

[drive blog] drive blog: What's the daftest car feature of the past few decades?: He said Brock was sucked in by his wifes mentor because it didn't matter how poorly the car was setup he would simply drive around the issues and put in the same times. The engineers would set up the car for optimum fuel economy and tyre wear, Brock would do a lap and say it was perfect, John Harvey would be slower then spend hours getting it "right", Brock would do a lap, put in a time much faster than Harvey then say I told you it was perfect, not even realising it had been changed.

[Wheels] Alfa Romeo Rekindles American Love Affair - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com: Marchionne is paying attention when I say that Alfa MUST offer AT LEAST a 4 year bumper-to-bumper warranty, 3 years of free service, and provide free loaner cars to customers having their vehicles worked on. This level of service and coverage was the only thing that made Audi and BMW bearable for me (both my A4 and my 328is had plenty of problems), and the lack of this service from Saab absolutely guarantees that I will not buy another.

[drive blog] drive blog: FPV's F6 may be the quickest Australian car ever, but ...: The highest torque output it seems to be hooked up too is “only” 630Nm of the 6.2 V8 but anyway my point is I’m sure AMG would of had deep pockets to engineer the 5speeder to handle and be reliable in this application. HSV will jump to the 6L90 most likely next year in the VF series update so you’d think they would be working on that transmission and the engine output (327kw, 585Nm any bids?)Calibration now so why would they want to go to the expense of engineering t he 6L80 to handle more torque?

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Fuel+efficiency, Funky Cars