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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (52793)	3/30/2009 8:42:58 PM
From: Gary Mohilner	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

GM and nearly all the other car makers are almost willing to go out of business before revealing a little secret. They know how to make their cars go further, lots further, on a tank of gas. The reason, oil interests are so great in all these companies. I know of two specific examples, one that I cannot fully explain. I was only 13 when a neighbors best friend took delivery of a 1956 Oldsmobile in Detroit under a program where you save more then the cost of the trip if you flew back to get the car. He drove as far as Denver with the fuel tank still completely full. I certainly don't know what was running the car, but I suspect there may have been a small liquid hydrogen tank hidden somewhere. They found him and Denver and made him return the experimental car. In Engineering school perhaps 8 years later a new professor was brought into the department to teach thermodynamics. At a time when we were discussing vortices he mentioned at his previous job at Allis Chambers he and another engineer designed and built a carbuerator that would better atomize the fuel making combustion more complete. Installed on his roughly 6000 pound Ford Country Squire which had a 429 cubic inch V-8 he was achieving 75 mpg. He knew this would never make it into any useful device, but it demonstrated what could be done. He indicate performance characteristics of the car didn't change dramatically though I suspect most of the pollution controls were eliminated as the engine ran so much more efficiently. I know, stories like this have been around for decades, I just happen to have known two principals who testified to it. As an engineer I also know that our gas engines are very inefficient, so the potential's there to greatly improve them. The problem is such a boost in milage puts an industry practically out of business. If a 6000 lb behemoth like a Ford Country Squire can get 75 mpg, what does that do for the bigger SUV's of today that probably weight no more than 4000 lbs. How about a Hybrid powered with a 100 cu. in. 4 cylinder engine, perhaps 300 mpg or better. Imagine the change to the economy when you should fill the gas tank and change the oil at the same time. As I say, petroleum interests in virtually all the carmakers have always prevented such action, but if threatened with the end of their existance, perhaps something will break free. Gary