# Was the perfect car outlawed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043 "2011-11-25T14:26:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/101 "2011-12-02T22:29:57Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > I don’t think **Rick** ’s mocking engineers, but people who have to keep throwing their supposed credentials around and then fail on fairly basic stuff. Exactly. **Una** I have nothing but respect for you, your abilities and your credentials. Also my father was an engineer, and one of the smartest men I have ever known (not just intelligent, but smart. There is a difference.) I respected the hell out of him, I wish he were still with us. There is a huge difference between when someone mentions that I am an engineer, and when someone proclaims **I AM AN ENGINEER!!!** With the first, I can say to myself, cool, I can take the conversation to a more technical level. These people are fun and great to deal with. On the other hand the **I AM AN ENGINEER!!!** types are pretty much impossible to deal with, as they are the world’s foremost authority on any and all subjects (just ask them) and will not believe that they could be wrong on any subject. It doesn’t matter if the subject is one they studied or not. Case in point. I had a Volvo in my stall once. The driver’s window regulator was out of adjustment Pulling the door panel and readjusting the window regulator cost $18. In addition the window switches had gotten mixed up (push the left front the right rear window moved) so I noted on the back of the RO that the window regulator was out of adjustment ($18), and oh by the way the window switches are mixed up, I will fix those for no charge. Service adviser tells customer exactly what I wrote. He being the world’s greatest ELECTRICAL ENGINEER!!! He is not going to pay me to swap some switches around (didn’t matter I was going to do the switches for free, he just heard switches and $18, and as the world’s foremost authority he only has to listen to what he wants to) He proceeds to come out to my work stall and start to take the door apart to fix the switches. for the next 10 minutes or so I watched in amazement of the greatest demonstration of physical ineptitude I have ever seen. Pure physical comedy. Mind you, I could have done this job in less than a minute. When he gets done, he stands up and with a big smile says: “There I didn’t have to pay you $18.” "Gee that’s great sir, except for three things. 1. You still haven’t adjusted the window regulator which is what the $18 charge was for. 2. I was going to fix the switches for free 3. You just broke a $250 door panel in half by taking it off wrong. I fail to see any savings here." 😃 As a friend of mine once said: Rick, you really don’t suffer fools gladly, do you? The answer to that is a resounding no. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/102 "2011-12-02T22:36:55Z")
My dad is an engineer. Mechanical Engineer, to be precise. He worked for Harris in FL and then on the Space Shuttle program for a while. Now he runs his own business redesigning and upgrading replacement parts for Total Gym systems, and he manages to make a living for himself. I’ve never heard him boast or brag about being an engineer. I don’t know that I’ve actually ever heard him say it at all, in fact. For him it’s just what his background education was in, and that’s that. I have never encountered “bragging” engineers, but I think I’d roll my eyes if I did. That said, I know engineers take a lot of math. When I took “business statistics” in college I called up my dad hoping for some help. To my dismay, he said “statistics is really hard, I was never any good at it.” DOH! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/103 "2011-12-02T23:15:55Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > You haven’t seen this one dress of mine… > > Ok but on topic, what is the highest MPG of any normal, available car right now? (Not talking about concept cars or track cars–speaking strictly of commercially available cars.) > > My mom gets good mileage on her Prius, but she spent a lot of money on that Prius and I’m not convinced that the savings over the life of the car will actually match the premium she paid for the car itself. Is it? Cite? 😉 One thing about old mileage stats- they are based upon old mileage estimates, which were known to be quite high. Or they are based upon a driver memory, which is known to be pretty dubious. I’d say the Honda Fit is the best cluck for your buck car. CR agrees but rates the Ford Fiesta slightly higher- one version gets 45mpg Highway. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/104 "2011-12-02T23:19:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Cite? 😉 All I’ve got is her word. There is a display on the dash that shows what MPG you’re getting. She claims between 40-50mpg most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/105 "2011-12-02T23:58:41Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > All I’ve got is her word. There is a display on the dash that shows what MPG you’re getting. She claims between 40-50mpg most of the time. Originally Posted by OpalCat _You haven’t seen this one dress of mine…_ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/106 "2011-12-03T00:01:26Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > That said, I know engineers take a lot of math. When I took “business statistics” in college I called up my dad hoping for some help. To my dismay, he said “statistics is really hard, I was never any good at it.” DOH! There are so many different kinds of math that saying something ‘involves math’ is about as descriptive as saying it ‘involves computers’. I can see where an engineer, someone more accustomed to calculus, might find statistics a bit odd, especially if he never had the experience of studying set theory, which is one of the most math-for-its-own-sake kinds of math there is. Statistics is expressed in the language of set theory. About the Masters Of The Universe Engineers: The [Salem Hypothesis](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis) exists for a reason. The Salem Hypothesis says: > [@](#): > > [P]eople who claim science expertise, whilst advocating creationism, tend to be formally trained as engineers. It’s part of a much larger, much stranger trend for the well-educated complete nutbags to be engineers by training; [in short, engineers have a strange connection with woo](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo) and I’m pretty sure the engineers that do become woo-meisters are of the Masters Of The Universe persuasion. As a specific example, Andrew Schlafly was trained as an Electrical Engineer before he went into the fake encyclopedia game. (Schlafly has questioned the validity of complex numbers. Many sane EEs use complex numbers every single day and they love them. Most crazy-go-nuts engineers don’t go that nuts.) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/107 "2011-12-03T00:09:52Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > So having a pickup get 20MPG is one hell of accomplishment even though 20 is no where near the 50 that a Prius gets. But then again you can’t haul 1,000 lbs of cargo in a Prius. The non-linear nature of MPG makes this even more important. Per-mile, upgrading a truck from 15 to 20 MPG saves more fuel than upgrading a car from 30 MPG to 50 MPG. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/108 "2011-12-03T01:39:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Cite? 😉 > > One thing about old mileage stats- they are based upon old mileage estimates, which were known to be quite high. Or they are based upon a driver memory, which is known to be pretty dubious. > > I’d say the Honda Fit is the best cluck for your buck car. CR agrees but rates the Ford Fiesta slightly higher- one version gets 45mpg Highway. the ones on [fueleconomy.gov](http://fueleconomy.gov) have been revised downwards as estimates on how past cars would have performed on the current test cycles. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/109 "2011-12-03T04:58:23Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Una, if you explain it to me I promise to believe you. The power your engine puts out is the power demanded of it. When the wheels are in the air and pressing against nothing, having to drive nothing but themselves, then the only power you need to produce is that which is needed to overcome the engine, transmission, and drivetrain friction, if the wheels are turning at a steady state. This can be verified by the fact that when the wheels are in the air, getting to 5,000 rpm only takes a very slight amount of pressure on the accelerator, thus meaning you are only working the throttle a small amount. This is akin to “what takes more power, walking 5 mph on level ground, of 5 mph up a hill.” Obviously, the hill takes more power, so the speed is not the sole determinant. The mistake people make is assuming that power required at X rpm is the same regardless of the demand required. There are other fallacies of automobiles which my students, many of them who claim to be “car experts”, make: - Big cars get better mileage than small cars because they can coast farther. - Tire pressure doesn’t impact fuel economy, it only impacts tire life. - Fuel injection only saves gas at idle. - Three speed manual transmissions save gas compared to five-speeds, because they weigh less. It boggles. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/110 "2011-12-03T05:11:25Z")
Yes it does boggle many times. You might want to explain the difference between FI and carb the way I heard it in a training meeting way back when. “Fuel injection squirts fuel into the engine, carburetors on the other hand suck.” I would add in every sense of the word. ---
**Author:** ![Anachronism](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@Anachronism](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anachronism)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/111 "2011-12-05T04:01:23Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > All I’ve got is her word. There is a display on the dash that shows what MPG you’re getting. She claims between 40-50mpg most of the time. Are these accurate now? Or maybe some cars are better than others? The one in my 2003 Nissan Maxima is always optimistic by about 3mpg compared to calculating by mileage driven and amount of gas added to the tank. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/112 "2011-12-05T04:06:47Z")
> [@Anachronism](#): > > Are these accurate now? Or maybe some cars are better than others? The one in my 2003 Nissan Maxima is always optimistic by about 3mpg compared to calculating by mileage driven and amount of gas added to the tank. in theory, I’d expect the display to show the most correct value. after all, the PCM knows how much fuel it’s injecting and how fast the car is going at all times, so it’s really not that hard of a calculation. I’d expect disagreements to come from tank-to-tank variations vs. the averaging/integration window that the PCM uses. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/113 "2011-12-05T08:32:18Z")
I recall an article in Popular Mechanics back in the 70s abou a prototype car from one of the European auto makers, Audi or Saab, designing a car intended to last 20 years with no major service - every element made out of the most rugged, longest lasting materials. The problem was that it would cost $120,000 in 1970s dollars and it turned out that nobody really wanted to drive the same car for twenty years. ---
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/114 "2011-12-06T01:04:59Z")
> [@Anachronism](#): > > Are these accurate now? Or maybe some cars are better than others? The one in my 2003 Nissan Maxima is always optimistic by about 3mpg compared to calculating by mileage driven and amount of gas added to the tank. In my (very) limited experience I’ve found US cars to be the most honest: 2005 BMW M3: 8% Optimistic 2006 Chevy HHR: 2% pessimistic 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302: 1% pessimistic So both US cars read LESS on the display than actual while the BMW read quite a bit high. BTW, I’m very confident in these numbers. I check the odometer against mile markers and average several tanks. Yes, I’m a bit OCD on this kind of stuff! ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/115 "2011-12-06T22:02:29Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Would everyone kindly take their penis-based postings to some other thread in IMHO and let this thread be about automobile engineering? Thank you. > > Disclaimer: I do not speak for the Straight Dope _Message Board_; I only speak for the Straight Dope. I agree!!! ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/116 "2011-12-06T22:38:14Z")
> [@Anachronism](#): > > Are these accurate now? Or maybe some cars are better than others? The one in my 2003 Nissan Maxima is always optimistic by about 3mpg compared to calculating by mileage driven and amount of gas added to the tank. Sorry, I can’t say. I have no way of checking ☹ ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/117 "2011-12-06T23:50:03Z")
> [@robcaro](#): > > I agree!!! Geeze, the last post with the word “penis” in it was on 11/26! ---
**Author:** ![BaconAndEggs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@BaconAndEggs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaconAndEggs)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/118 "2011-12-07T00:32:09Z")
The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” it seems like the government or automakers didn’t want electric cars to dominate the roads. The car company leased out the cars in the early-mid 90’s? and went to everyone who had one and demanded it back, and crushed them…makes me think oil comapnies paid off the car companies. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/119 "2011-12-07T00:44:53Z")
> [@BaconAndEggs](#): > > The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” it seems like the government or automakers didn’t want electric cars to dominate the roads. The car company leased out the cars in the early-mid 90’s? and went to everyone who had one and demanded it back, and crushed them…makes me think oil comapnies paid off the car companies. Or, the more likely explanation is that it would have lost GM even more money than they already had sunk into the EV-1 to sell them to lessees. [http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/2006/06/gms-ev1----who-killed-common-sense.html](http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/2006/06/gms-ev1----who-killed-common-sense.html) “Who Killed the Electric Car” is a load of shit. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043/120 "2011-12-07T02:49:33Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > Or, the more likely explanation is that it would have lost GM even more money than they already had sunk into the EV-1 to sell them to lessees. > > [http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/2006/06/gms-ev1----who-killed-common-sense.html](http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/2006/06/gms-ev1----who-killed-common-sense.html) > > “Who Killed the Electric Car” is a load of shit. True, what killed the electric car was Physics. We simply didn;t have the technology then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-perfect-car-outlawed/604043.md?page=7)