Full post up at Homeland Stupidity

here’s a teaser:

Before the SUV craze, soccer moms and families on road trips availed themselves of the station wagon. Available with three rows of seating (although those back seats weren’t the most comfortable), V-8 engines, and taking up no more space than a large sedan, these were truly the best of all worlds.
–snip–
Under CAFE, these relatively efficient and easy to use animals (when compared to SUVs) became unsustainable as fleet mileage was pushed ever higher.

It’s shorter than my usual fare, which is why I didn’t quote more.

So what has CAFE given us?
1. destroyed the large family car
2. made cars small and light to the point of being unsafe in crashes (as my knee can testify to)
3. reduced the incentive to move off foreign oil
4. pushed people into SUVS (admittedly along with several other factors)
5. falsely favors hybrids due to the retardation of EPA testing
6. reduces the incentive to move to biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel

I covered both points 3 and 6 in Quitting The Oil Addiction: Leave CAFE Alone in which I compared quitting oil to to quitting smoking, and in a piece I did for Homeland Stupidity.

There’s probably plenty more that CAFE has hurt. But I am at pains to remind people that the primary impetus behind my distaste for CAFE is that it prevents us from moving to biofuels sooner. Yes, it’s a libertarian standpoint, but it’s one that happily coincides with my deeply rooted and religious devotion to conservation.

Introduction
Well the title’s a bit misleading, actually I’m going to talk about all sorts of things that reduce our dependence on oil. I’m going to try to cover the basics of how to fix the oil problem from the perspective of cars and automotive technology, rather than supply side aspects of either increasing availability or increasing efficiency (and thus lowering costs) of oil production.

While this is largely a political blog–and I’m a blatant free market supporter–I intend to stay away from those issues for the most part, such as the recent Democrat blocking of the building of new refineries (which would’ve increased both efficiency and supply, thus reducing price), the ludicrous current attempt to increase CAFE standards, or how futures markets actually work. Although those are worthy of discussion (perhaps more so than automotive technology), they’re beyond the scope of what I want to do here. Besides, this is for the Carnival of Cars.

We’re going to talk about hybrids (bad), hydrogen (bad), fuel cells (meh), ethanol/internal combustion (good), worn vegetable oil/Diesel (good), and a couple of other smaller technological changes either on the horizon or . It’s going to be a pretty superficial view, but I’ll try to link to sources that can extend your search for information if you want. Or, google’s there too.

Hybrids
Hybrid this, hybrid that. Nothing pisses me off more than claiming that hybrids will solve the problem. Sadly, a majority of people seem to believe this. Including some of my fellow med students. So first thing is a quick and dirty lesson in the physics of hybrids.

Cars need energy to do their thing. They need energy to go from a stop to 40 mph. They need energy to stay at 40mph because of wind resistance, friction between the tires and the road, and friction inside the drivetrain (which is why you can’t just idle at whatever speed you want). And cars also need energy to stop. While the engine takes care of the first two, the brakes take care of the third. This energy is supplied by the friction between the brake pads and the discs (don’t ask me how drum brakes work), and then dissipated as heat. Which is why the discs on roadrace cars look like they’re glowing so much of the time, they’re doing a lot more work than our brakes do.

What a hybrid does, on the other hand, is take some of the energy the brakes use when you come to a stoplight, and store it as electrical energy in the batteries. It then uses that electrical energy to turn the wheels of the car when you leave that stoplight.

See the problem? Hybrids get their mileage increases by storing your stopping energy. That means the more you stop, the more your mileage will increase. Now, out here in OKC, I use my brakes only four times and come to a complete stop only twice on the 15 mile journey from my house to med school. And these stops are from 45 and 35mph. I spend most of the drive, on the other hand, at about 70 mph. So exactly how much would a hybrid increase my fuel efficiency? Not a whole lot. The energy it takes just to get me to 70mph is twice as much as the energy that could be stored from both of those stops, and that assumes perfect efficiency on the part of a hybrid mechanism. Which means the only savings I’d get would be roughly half of what I spend from the time I hit the onramp to the time I merge. Even if we’re going to be charitable, we’re talking about a mile or two per gallon here, roughly 6% increase. Not exactly earthshaking change here.

Do hybrids make sense for some people? No doubt. If I were living in NYC, or Dallas, or out in So Cal, I’d be stopping a whole hell of a lot more. The number of stops (and the number of starts) I make would be many, many times more during the same length drive, so my savings would be a lot more. But unless you’re in one of those places, we’re talking several thousand dollars more for an incremental increase in gas mileage. Not cost effective. And if you do live in one of those places, why aren’t you using public transit? It’s what I used, with no qualms whatsoever, when I lived in a big city.

Hydrogen
Now the major problem with hydrogen is that it can’t actually be found or mined; it has to be manufactured. In other words, your ‘hydrogen-powered’ car is actually coal, nuclear, hydroelectic, or *gasp* oil powered. You need energy from a separate source to make hydrogen. It’s an energy currency not an energy source. There is talk about certain kinds of bacteria and their ability to emit hydrogen gas, but they’ve been saying that since I was in grade school 10 years ago, and still no practical large-volume production techniques exist.

The biggest problem with hydrogen, more than the fact that you have to make it using energy, is the fact that this process isn’t that efficient. Meaning you actually expend more energy making hydrogen than you do using it. Which is something of a problem, ain’t it. Widespread use of hydrogen would actually reduce our energy supply.

My final comment on hydrogen is that there is an entire industry that makes a lot of money because hydrogen is so hard to produce, store and use. Doesn’t seem like the smartest place to start given that, let alone all the theoretical problems with it.

Fuel Cells
First time I remember reading about fuel cell cars was in 3-2-1 Contact Magazine in the early 1990’s. All the buzz around them is now dead. Couldn’t say why, I don’t keep as good tabs on that as I do on the other stuff. They seem alright in scooters (I know it looks like a motorbike, but performance and capability wise, it’s a scooter). And in mass transit vehicles. Part of the problem of course is their huge expense. As expensive boutique items or when the costs are defrayed by the 50 or so people that can ride in a bus they’re probably fairly cost effective. Just not in cars that tend to have only one or two people in them at a time. Another of course is that many fuel cells use hydrogen. See above. Others use methanol, which seem to be doing alright. But as power producers, fuel cells have a pretty bad performance/weight ratio. Besides, if you’re going to use alcohol for power, why not move on to…

Ethanol
I’m not a drinker, but I sure as hell like the idea of ethanol powered cars. So does Brazil. Why? First thing is we can largely use existing technology. For around ten years several Ford engines (the 3.0 and 4.0V6 come to mind) came ready to use ethanol straight from the factory (called flexfuel vehicles because they could use both gasoline or ethanol). They stopped because no one seemed to care, so why spend the extra couple dollars on the ethanol-friendly parts? GM, seeing the writing on the wall, has just started doing it. Literally all engines currently running on gasoline can be adapted to use ethanol readily and fairly cheaply. And there ain’t much power loss.

And what about supply? Actually that’s probably one of the biggest benefits of ethanol. Due to farm subsidy rules, about 40% of our corn crop is simply burned or destroyed every year. If you’ve seen either GM’s or Ford’s flex fuel logos you’d know that corn is what car ethanol would be made of. And if a walk through the supermarket only illustrates 60% of our corn supply, that’s a lot of unused raw material for fuel production. It’s true that Brazil has the advantage of sugar cane and a tropical environment, meaning that ethanol could be produced more cheaply and more effciently over there. But at current levels of oil and gas prices, ethanol has actually become cost competitive even using our inferior corn. I know a lot of people don’t like the current gas prices, but honestly, if 3 dollars a gallon for the forseeable future is what we gotta pay for cleaner air and weaning ourselves off oil, I’m totally down for it. And don’t forget that once ethanol sees more widespread use as an actual commodity expenditure on research and design of ethanol production will skyrocket. Production will increase, it’ll grow more efficient, and while it’ll never be as easy as in Brazil, it’ll be a ton cheaper than right now in our extremely production-limited situation.

From a technical standpoint, ethanol is the simplest to implement. Factory re-tooling would be minimal and could probably be accomplished within the space of a single year. Although not many, there are and have been ethanol stations all around the country. It’s totally clean burning (unlike hybrids). And, unlike all of these other technologies, we could retrofit cars already on the road to run on it very easily (I’m considering it for when my warranty lapses believe it or not). From a supply standpoint, it looks pretty good too. Plenty of raw material readily available, easier to produce, store, and work with than hydrogen, and could probably just hijack the mid-grad octane pumps and put ethanol in their place (do you know anyone who doesn’t either put the lowest or the highest octane in their car?).

Biodiesel & Straight Vegetable Oil
Well, first traditional diesel. Diesel small cars on their own would be a large improvement. They’re more sophisticated and quieter than ever. I’ve had the good fortune to both drive and ride in newer generation small diesels, something you can’t do here. Unfortunately, the low-sulfur diesel that those little engines require was supposed to get here in around 2000, but was postponed–twice–to 2006. Which means missing an entire model cycle of production of high mileage little cars, and their effect on our oil consumption. As a former Ford Focus owner, I have to say the only thing that could’ve made that car better at its price point would’ve been a 1.8L TDCi just like you get in London.

If you’ve ever driven or ridden in one of those VW diesels and had something bad to say about the experience, you have to remember that because of those diesel problems, our engines are a generation or two behind the ones in Europe. They’re smooth, they’re quiet, and boy are those little torque-monsters fun. Not to mention the routine real world 50-60mpg they get. Heck, Vauxhall is showiong off its Eco-Speedster Concept, a diesel powered derivative of its popular Vx220, which is in turn based off the Elise.

Biodiesel and SVO are if anything an even better deal than ethanol. If your car has been converted for SVO use, you can literally use the vegetable oil that McDonald’s et al. throw out. Which has the cool side effect of exhaust that smells like french fries. And the conversion is if anything easier than for gas. If you use properly processed biodiesel, you don’t have to change a thing. If you decide to run unprocessed vegetable oil, there’s some work required, but not a whole lot. Relatively cheap kits to convert your little vw or pickup truck to SVO have been out for several years now. I’m less up on the supply issue, but like ethanol, it starts with leafy green stuff, and I do know it’s considerably cheaper than buying petro-diesel (unlike ethanol). And, as I mentioned, plenty is thrown out before it ever gets to market, let alone at the dinner table.

For more than you ever want to know about biodiesel, go here

Efficiency Increasing Technology
Continuously Variable Transmissions can increase fuel mileage dramatically. A car has a different level of efficiency at different points on the tach. This is why I get better fuel efficiency at 80mph than I do at 70mph despite being in the same gear at a higher RPM…I mean, I don’t cruise at 80, officer. The CVT lets you sit in the fuel ‘efficiency sweetspot’ while you’re cruising no matter how fast you’re going. And the ‘power sweetspot’ when you accelerate. Which is a pretty cool deal. Now, as an enthusiast, I’m not a big fan of em because of the loss of the fun factor (have you heard a 4.6L 3valve as it approaches 5500RPM?). But 99% of car owners aren’t and would happily take the tradeoff.

Displacement On Demand. I haven’t been keeping up with it because I don’t want it on my car. Like I said, I’m an enthusiast and a tinkerer, and DOD hopelessly complicates the valvetrain and the computer interference. But most owners won’t even put a K&N filter on their car, let alone yank off the entire cylinder head so he can send it off to Livernois for porting and new cams. Heck, most owners don’t even know what cams are. This is a neat function because it basically turns your v8 into a v6. Pickup truck owners have probably noticed that their buddie’s 4.3L V6 gets better gas mileage than their 5.4L v8, even though both are driving automatic F150’s at the same speed with the same amount of payload. Same sorta effect with DOD.

We’ll leave it at that for now.

Conclusion
I do have to mention CAFE and EPA standards in passing. The first point one has to remember is that one of the things that is motivating us to develop new non-oil-based technologies is the price of oil. More and more people are looking at hybrids (misguidedly), one of my buddies is about to convert his truck over to ethanol, and Dad’s just sitting and waiting for the new generation diesels so he can convert one of them over for vegetable oil. As I mentioned earlier, part of what’s making ethanol viable in temperate zones is that gasoline has crossed the $2.50 mark. Even if manufacturers could meet the 40mpg CAFE standards I’ve heard talked about, all we’d get was a loss of that motivation when gas prices fell, and an apathy that would keep us sucking at oil’s teat.

While we’re on the subject of gas mileage, it’s important to note that the EPA hasn’t changed their testing regimen in the last 30 or 40 years. In other words the city stop and go portion is done at 30mph and highway is done at 55mph. Not the 40-50 and the 70-80 we actually find in the real world. Some of these hybrids because their engines are so small, keel over and die above 60, getting worse gas mileage than a large variety of conventional cars. Even talking the compact but conventional cars, their EPA ratings can look a lot worse than real life because they’re so far out of their efficiency zones at those highway speeds. Heck, my 2006 Mustang GT supposedly gets 18mpg in the city and 23 on the highway. Which is news to me, because I could’ve sworn it was doing 22 and 29, respectively. Maybe my odometer is broken.

Finally, I’d like to add that the enthusiasts among us whether we be drag racers, open track, dirt, show car builders need to start supporting those technologies that are both more effective and less intrusive. Whether hybrid, hydrogen, or fuel cell, we’re talking about the very soul of our cars being stolen. But ethanol-based and diesel cars have actually been competitive in the enduros like Sebring and LeMans, not only that but both of those were based on production engines in one way or another. In other words, if we go to ethanol, that’ll still be a 350 chevy in your driveway, and a Boss 429 in my dream garage. Our cars will change so imperceptibly we won’t even be able to tell the difference. For a guy like me, that’s pretty important.

Maybe I’ve changed some minds, maybe I’ve sparked some interest. But the reason I’m so ardently against most of this garbage, from CAFE to hydrogen, is because it’s just that. It’s more expense, it’s more difficulty, for no change in the status quo. But with the right technology, and an honest assessment, we stand to not only reduce emissions to near nothing as well as reduce our dependence on oil, but retain the automobile as we know it.

UPDATE: Courtesy of Mark Tapscott, I found this excellent (more technical) read by corndog about the benefits of ethanol. It’s a good play-by-play refutation of EtOH’s many detractors.

I picked up a 2006 Mustang GT last October. I love this car. It’s got the right number of cylinders (8), its driven by the right set of wheels (the rear), and it’s got the right kind of axle (solid). It’s the second best looking mustang ever, after the 1969s and tying with the 1970 models. It’s got 300hp and a shade over that in torque right from the factory while being the cleanest burning Stang ever built. Toss in the most controllable (seriously, throttle steering and controlling slides is so easy half the time you don’t realize that’s what you’re doing) and best-handling factory ride in years, and you have a winner. And, to top it off, this car has a very impressive level of fit and finish for a price of 25,000 dollars.

Any way you look at it, this car has stepped it up compared to Mustangs of yore. Indeed it’s probably one of the best buys at its price point, period, so long as you don’t need too much trunk room (although it has more than enough for my single early-twenties needs). Even the back seat is big enough for crosstown trips, which wasn’t the case in years past.

But a car is never really perfect as it comes from the factory. Sometimes they mature in later production years (as the Ranger did), sometimes you have no recourse but to turn to the aftermarket. Lets face it, muscle car boys are tinkerers, and as I sit here I’m drawing up a list of things I want to do to my little GT. We also know that the pony car wars are begging to be reuinited. Between the Hemi Magnum (yeah, two too many doors, but it’s still a beaut) and the more or less in the bag 2009 Camaro, the Stang won’t be cock of the walk much longer unless Ford changes some things.

(you can click on all images to see a larger version)

Exterior:
For the most part, executed beautifully. It’s got the ginormous hood and the tiny trunklid. The GT at least has the 1969 lookalike 4 headlights. And the grill, is for the most, well done. The roofline really works on the car.

But two problems:
1. The rear fender. It doesn’t have that athletic bulge over the rear wheels that was practically synonymous with late 1960’s musclecardom. The Camaro, the Charger, the Mustang, this, along with the long hood, was part of their common design DNA:

1969 Chevrolet Camaro

1969 Dodge Charger

1969 Ford Mustang

It doesn’t look bad on a coupe like mine…

but you can definitely tell something’s just a tad off kilter on the convertible:

It just looks a little too slab slided, ruining the otherwise sleek and sexy exterior design, compare this to a 1969 convertible on the other hand:

It just flows a little better.

I’m not sure how Ford missed this given the fact that every other retro msuclecar design goes out of its way to include that ‘haunch’ in their design:

The 2009 Camaro

2006 Dodge Charger SRT-8

Luckily a few guys have noticed that exact defect in an otherwise beautifully designed car. You may have seen Kenny Brown’s CSR racer on the internet or in a newsrag before:


Perfect execution, perfect proportions. Me, I’m a bigger fan of the old-school coupes than the fastbacks (strange, I know), so the roofline changes I could take or leave. But I can’t wait until I have enough cash to throwdown on one of these kits. The company Kenny Brown contracted this out to had an article in one of the Mustang magazines a few months ago. Unfortunately the link they gave in the article doesn’t work. At any rate, I bet one would just have to get ahold of Kenny to get that info. On to the next, much more minor, problem.

2. No ducktail spoiler. Mustangs came with a variety of decklid spoilers back in the day including more conventional ones..

and ducktails that blended gracefully into the rear decklid…

Now, I honestly don’t mind the traditional style spoiler, but the one on mine just doesn’t look tacked-on enough. I know that sounds strange, but one of the things I loved about the late 1960’s mustangs were just how many parts looked like they were made in the garage and glued on (like the hood scoop, the rear windshield louvers, the chin spoiler). It’d just be cool if Ford offered a well-blended ducktail as a factory option instead of going through the aftermarket for one (there were at least 5 companies making them last time I checked.

Interior:
I love the interior of this car. It took some work to find a cloth-seated GT, but the tuck and roll upholstery and the subtle pony outlines in the fabric really make my day. Changing some of the fake-metal parts in the car (like the steering wheel trim and instrumentation and A/C duct bezels) would make the car feel a bit more high class, but as I said, it’s already got a great interior for the price point.

Suspension:
There’s been a lot of talk over the suspension on the new cars. Some people scream up and down that no car has any business without an independent suspension in this day and age. Most of them aren’t muscle car fans or drag racers. Many others would’ve kept their SN-95s or Fox bodies indefinitely if Ford hadn’t put a Plain Jane 8.8inch rear end in. Many of them would’ve preferred going back to the old-school 9 inch differential, for crying out loud. Most of the sorority girl v6 owners don’t even know what an axle, let alone care about what kind is used.

Again, here Ford is to be commended. They didn’t sell us out, but they didn’t give us a bump-steer-filled, jittery ride that rotates if it so much as looks at a damp street. Indeed, as I’ve mentioned this is one of the easiest steering cars I’ve ever driven. Responsiveness, suspension compliance, and handling are as good or better than the BMW’s, Mercedes’, imports, and other cars I’ve driven.

In more high performance versions, an independent may or may not be necessary. This car is definitely more competent than the pre-blower Cobras (never driven any of the Eaton-lunged monsters, but I imagine it’s not too different). But since everything has gone up a notch, this chassis could give a Corvette a run for its money with a nicer engine (which I’ll be getting to in a minute) and a more sophisticated suspension.

I’ll probably drop the car with some high performance springs and double adjustable shocks some day, but for tooling around, auto-x and a bit of backroads twisties driving, it’s pretty much unnecessary. I’d fear disturbing the great compliance the car has now by messing too much with suspension geometry.

Engine:
If people thought the live axle was a controversy, they haven’t seen nothing yet. The old-school guys won’t trust the newfangled overhead cam modular motor. 10 years since it became standard equipment in the v8 mustangs, there have still only been a handful of them compete in any of the many Mustang racing bodies. Randy Heywood’s beautiful 5.4L Super Street Outlaw showed a lot of promise, and as far as I know has been the only mod motor to have competed at the Super Street and Pro levels.

They’re good little engines, very efficient and very clean, a combination of new technology and old respect for cubic inches. Problem is, they’re little. Since 1995, all mustangs have come from the factory with no more than 281 cubes. The previous smallest v8 in a mustang was the 289, and that was way back in 1964-1967. While the 5.4L (330 c.i.) v8 exists the only non-truck it’s been seen in is the breathtaking Ford GT. And while a similar package will appear in the much-awaited Shelby GT500 version of the Mustang in 2007, there’s a need for more displacement lower in the pricing scale.

Frustratingly, there have been answers to this problem that have existed since before I was old enough to drive. The 5L version of the mod motor uses the 4.6L block. It does away altogether with cylinder liners, instead spraying the bore material directly onto the block. It’s no bigger than the current engine physically, but using this tech would bring us back up to 302 c.i. At least this one is available (albeit at 60% of the cost of the car) from FRPP, called the Cammer.

And then there’s the solution of the stroker kit. The car would’ve lost some revvability, but more than made up with it in torque.

Combine the two, and you end up with a 5.2-5.3L car coming in right at 320 c.i. and having considerably more capability for very little increase in manufacturing costs.

The Charger is out, and the Camaro will likely return. with the 6.0L LS2 and the 5.7L Hemi, I’m down a whole 70-something cubic inches, and while my car has more horsepower-per-cube than either of them, that ain’t going to win any races at the strip.

As Motor Trend pointed out, the Mustang GT will be left in the dust by the Camaro Z/28. As a lifelong blue oval fan, I ain’t too happy about that.

Conclusion:
All in all, this is a great car, and I can’t say that enough. I only spent so much time nitpicking because I love this car. This isn’t criticism but a pistonhead’s thoughts about where the future of this car should lead it. A few minor cosmetic changes and applying the off-the-shelf engine solutions already available are all that the Mustang really needs. And I hope they come as the years go by.