Here’s the audio of this week’s Wheels Up! segment with my friend Bill Meyer over at KMED Radio in Medford, Oregon:
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Eric, I thought I should bring to your intention this latest article about how “green” EV’s are actually in the real world beyond the hype.
Laura Harris – Natural News July 5, 2023
“A new report has revealed that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) produce much more greenhouse gases than their manufacturers claim.”
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General rule of thumb – if the car costs more to manufacture, and is more complicated – it is using more carbon.
And don’t forget, if a car lasts decades, the overall carbon is greatly reduced compared to throw away EVs.
I bet the Geo Metro is one of the lowest carbon vehicles there is – cheap to produce, and lasts forever, easily serviceable, and in fact I would say it the easiest (modern injected computer controlled engine)car to work on ever.
The Geo Metro only has one injector – TBI – either it works or doesn’t, and you can check the spray visually with a timing light. Yeah. Not any other car I know you can do that.
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Also, I am repeating my last year hypermile performance test with my 300k mile Geo Metro. Last year I got over 74 mpg on a 52 mile loop, never exceeding 45 mpg, engine off coasting downhill, etc.
This year, same loop, except I have high pressure 8 ply 12″ tires they use on those little Jap trucks. I put 52 psi in, to cut the rolling resistance, and I removed the cat which also made a huge difference. The rest of the car is stock, except a lighter 10w30 engine oil for tranny fluid with 2 cups of Lucas (tranny stop slip) to stay the leaks; and half a can of Engine Restore to solve my fading compression. (That stuff really works, and I measured my compression several times)
I am very happy to report 84+ mpg on the first two runs yesterday and today. I try to be scientific, I use the same station and pump to top off, first run was fuel stopped at first click, today I visually topped off with the fuel above the fill check valve. Can you imagine driving 52 miles on 0.61 gallons, I did it twice. Hardly believable I know but the guy who runs the Ecomodder website got 99 mpg.
https://www.metrompg.com/posts/99-mpg-metro-green-grand-prix.htm
I attribute the gain (from 74 to 84 mpg) by having the catalytic converter removed, and higher pressure tires. I was unable to drive as slow as I wanted because of traffic.
Next trick will be to remove the alternator drag on the motor with a cutout switch. They claim a 10% gain from that alone.
What sucks is that a 30 year old car gets better fuel economy than expensive hybrids. Can you imagine what you could get if the metro was redesigned with a very low drag coefficient and a lighter weight? Both are achievable easily. My car weighs 1700 lbs. What if the weight was reduced another 200 lbs with aluminum instead of steel sheet metal?
Hi Jack!
I agree. My truck – even though it only averages about 22 MPG – is also very “green,” relative to an EV such as the Ford Lightning. Mine was made 22 years ago. Since then, “zero emissions” have been created manufacturing another as I have not needed a new one. Nor 1,800 pounds of battery pack, either – as new Lightning will long before 22 years go by. I am also willing to bet that whatever “carbon” my truck “emits,” it is – overall – lower the “carbon” produced in the course of generating the electricity burned up by the consumptive EV energy hog…
I like those old Nissan pickups, and I have owned 5 of those 720 models. Yes 5. And my favorite was a 1982 king cab 2wd with the 2.2liter 5 speed which got nearly 30 mpg on the freeway. It was the fuel sipper of small econo trucks – and I owned 2 Ford Rangers, Chevy LUV, F-150s, F-250s, etc.
The mpg nerds will tell you that the early 1980s was sweet era of good fuel economy, like that Honda CRX rated 67 mpg highway. I had one, the top 3 gears were overdrive. Because it had poor compression (because it was old) I could not shift into into 5th until I was going 60 mph.
I can drive in 5th gear all day in my Geo Metro at very low speeds. I mean really low, like yesterday, I was in 5th on the flat, going as slow as 25mph. How I wish I had a tachometer and real world mpg readout like the new cars.
Hypermiling: never exceed 2,000 rpm, always feather the throttle, coast as much as possible, never use the brakes unless you have to, which requires intelligence, observation, and planning. It’s actually NOT easy to do.
https://www.cruzetalk.com/attachments/40-mpg-comparison-constant-speed-chart-jpg.7552/
https://www.metrompg.com/posts/photos/mpg-vs-speed-chart-z-b4-aft.gif
https://forkenswift.com/album/24-graph-speed-mpg-insight.jpg
Every hypermiler nerd knows, you want to drive at the lowest rpm in 5th – to minimize air drag, engine speed friction, and rolling resistance. Can’t do that in a CRX. Must be the stroke length or something.
I don’t expect anyone to believe my claims of 84 mpg, I don’t! Something must be wrong with the measurement, like fuel expansion. I triple checked the car’s speed and odometer, using Google maps, road mile markers, and those pesky radar speed readouts they put everywhere. My speed and odometer readings are spot on. (I also have stock tire size, so no surprise).
To remove the fuel variable, I actually filled the tank yesterday to a visual mark – above the filler neck check valve – and you have to dribble the fuel in – and you have to know the station owner to do this. I actually got almost an extra gallon in the tank above the first click off – but that is very suspect because the first click shutoff is dependent on the angle and depth you put the nozzle in.
My big problem with my test is other traffic, so I am going to do it again maybe Sunday morning. I am also going to try to drive all the way across Oregon on one tank of fuel.
One of the great inventions of our age of OBDII is instant and cumulative mpg readout in real time – so the driver can see instantly how changing driving habits saves gas.
If you have 1996 or newer, you can get one cheap on Amazon that works with your smart phone.
Unfortunately for me, I have OBDI in my ’92 Geo, and my only data point is when I fill up. Geo Metro enthusiasts have purchased 96 or newer so the Scan Gauge II will work and give you instant mpg – but the problem is GM redesigned the car, computer, gear ratios, cam everything the car lost mpg.
The mpg nerds built a MPGuino do it yourself scan gauge for older cars.
“MPGuino is part of the OpenGauge instrumentation effort, which was created to make available efficiency instrumentation of all sorts. MPGuino specifically is a Miles Per Gallon gauge for fuel injected vehicles that is based on the arduino platform with some extra circuitry for monitoring the fuel injectors and the speed sensor in the vehicle. “
Yukon-
I can’t find your recent post on housing and rates but what do you think of this?
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/10/home-prices-hit-new-highs-driven-by-tighter-supply.html
Now higher rates create “tighter” supply? LOL.
Reminds me of this title:
‘There Are Some That Refuse To Admit Defeat But These Are A Minority’
…”The Daily Mail. “Homeowners are sitting on a negative equity timebomb after losing $108.4 billion on their property values this year, experts say – with households in Washington, California and Utah worst affected. Zackary Smigel, founder of Real Estate License Wizard, told DailyMail.com: ‘We are indeed witnessing some worrying signs of negative equity, especially in certain regions.’”…
http://housingbubble.blog/
Real estate is always unique to type and price but the piece on the site you link to conflates everything everywhere. If you believe higher interest rates “control inflation” in any asset class you’re deluded. It’s a belief in the Fed and it’s policy making. I always ask for any other examples in history in any country where central bank rate policy controlled inflation or produced deflation. Why couldn’t Argentina ever “control inflation” with higher interest rates? The only example ever given is the US and Volker in the early 80s. There were so many other factors in play then, from boomers entering peak earning years to Reagan’s massive deficit spending, there is no logical correlation. Yet the delusion persists.
My day is over.
That housing blog is kick ass/libertarian with a long history of calling it correctly.
Make of it what you will, I’m outta here.
…Hope you get a good day tomorrow.
That blog’s living in ‘08/‘09. Did we even see 7% rates then? Yet high prices persist. Not transient.