"The 100-Year Toaster" (Ch. 7)

Million Mile & 100 MPG Cars. In today’s chapter we take on some of the most vexing design-balancing problems of all.  Though not limited to cars, the design tradeoffs are easy to understand and they translate well to other transport modalities such as ocean-going vessels and airplanes, as our quest for “Good old-fashioned American Quality” continues through the Seven Major Systems of Life.

First, though, the usual headlines and ChartPack as the helium-laced markets can’t seem to get enough of themselves and the prospects of cheaper money.


23 thoughts on “"The 100-Year Toaster" (Ch. 7)”

  1. G –

    U have nailed a major culprit in WAR of/for the Human Souls. “social media eye crack” is a tool of the ‘”darkness/heaviness”, drawing us ever farther away from “source”.. loosing touch..

    E.C.D. had minor setback yesterday, as they uncovered 16 Tons of Cocaine at Port of Phila. Good news, this was only one of several boat loads of coke coming into East Coast ports this past week – so dont worry my prettyz, we gotz enough product to keep the “snow” falling all summer. Bwahahaha the “war on drugs” is just like the “war on terrorism” One BIG F-ing joke.. on US.

    Current article posted to ZH reviews historic use/circulation of currency. Shows Gold and Silver DO NOT circulate when another alternative exists = fiat/barter.
    1965 saw US replace silver coinage with bi-metal “sandwich” coin, Pres. Johnson assured the 2 would circulate side by side – NOPE – silver was “held”, bi metal circulated..hmmm

    • The war on drugs, war on sex, war on freedom, war on everything else is actually well summarized in the term “War on Joy”!

      Addictive drugs have consequences, and pretty much anything else used irresponsibly does too. Instead of simply enforcing laws against negative consequences that may be due to “drugs”, we just take away a source of pleasure. Same thing is true of sex(why is it illegal to buy or sell it?). Now it’s virtually illegal to even advertise for a partner due to FOSTA and SESTA! Why shouldn’t anyone build a car according to their desires, with reasonable standards such as light positions and intensity, brake adequacy, etc., and adequate power for the public roads? If someone screws up, it’s on them. Instead, we take a prescriptive approach that’s only do-able by well financed companies with lobbyists. Same is true for poorly designed houses that comply with prescriptive building codes.

      One size does NOT fit all!

    • All the so called “WARS” you mention, and other people have mentioned on here (poverty, drugs, etc.,), are just another BUSINESS MODEL. That’s it. This people/groups in power in our society do NOT EVER want to solve a problem that they can figure out a way to make a PROFIT from. IT IS ALL A BUSINESS MODEL. That’s why you know it is Luciferian; Luciferians BUY AND SELL ANYTHING!!!!

      • I tend to agree, but why is it impossible to buy their product?

        Trying to buy sex or drugs(only select ones, of course) is virtually impossible for the average guy who’s not connected. Shutting down CL and BP didn’t help. Getting connected puts you at greater risk than most people are willing to take. It would seem to make more sense from a business perspective to keep the selling illegal(as a barrier to entry) and the buyers free of penalties.

  2. in 78 a car drove from texas to DC on ten gallons of gas.. he was followed by every MSM news station.. went before congress.the us military every branch mind you and I think toyota have the design he had patented each a shade bit different… .

    Texaco has a yearly contest.. back in the late fifties I think or early sixties.. ( when cars were heavier..) that had a car that got well over two hundred miles per gallon.. they even had it published in a book of designs..
    hundred mile a gallon car.. not out of the scope of reality.. Hydrogen.. guy in tennessee built one and drove it till he died.. has over 1300 patents for the govt.. of course he didn’t really let everyone know about it.. but .. I am sure he was allowed to as long as his designs went to the govt.. and only the govt for their use only….although there is a museum in tennessee that has the car for everyone to go look at..
    OOOPS sorry guess the Water car museum has been permanently been shut down.. to bad.. some really interesting stuff there..


    until the petro dollar is extinguished for some other form of backing for our cash.. you will never see any of the new technologies used.. even the bloom box has been quieted down.. if you want to build one for yourself.. I think you would be ok.. as long as you don’t try to share the information with anyone or try to sell it for gain..

  3. I’m quietly enjoying the fact that my registered vehicles each have over 300K miles on them and none were built during this millennium. They’re daily drivers. I actually do have over 100K miles on some brake pads and having examined them, note that they’re not yet ready to replace. Even driving mountain roads, it’s possible to be easy on a vehicle, though wheel bearings take a beating. I have several vehicles, most of which are not registered at the moment. I always keep one ready to rotate into primary service if needed. All of them were bought for at or about scrap value, so no excess resources were expended.

    It makes no sense to have less than two vehicles per family – even a family of one. Even with the extra insurance cost, you are far less likely to be stuck anywhere for long, and if you are, you have wheels to continue functioning. I need an economy car for distance driving and a heavy hauler for multi-ton loads. Each vehicle could be far more efficient if it was built lighter and using lean-burn tech if/when it was perfected and implemented. Diesel is even better, but expensive. The EPA regs pretty much mandate a rich-burn tech and three way catalyst, and total emissions per mile are not even measured. Just emissions as ppm! The best way to reduce emissions is to reduce fuel consumption, yet it’s ignored. I read about a 500lb weight reduction on an economy car without even affecting the structure. I’ll be doing something similar, though probably more extensively. You need a four door car for cheaper insurance rates, yet I rarely if ever have even one passenger. Again, the heresy of one size fits all. BTW, water injection might make sense here – it’s 16% humidity at the moment. Unfortunately, closed loop operation via O2 sensor feedback makes lean burn adaptions virtually impossible, and open loop operation defaults to excessively rich burn on most vehicles. Of course, EPA also mandates that you can’t legally install an aftermarket or homebrew ECU of a non-approved design. It stifles real innovation and keeps us on a collision course with peak depletion.

    • NM Mike, I got over 168,000 miles on a set of brake pads. My better half is a mechanic, he would put the car up on the lift to show the fellas the brake pads for SEVEN years running, and he never had to replace them. He’d brag on my driving; it was a stick, and I loved driving that car, downshifted. We sold the car at 246,000 miles only because a better one came along. We don’t buy new, we restore and fix, not having car payments and the high insurance payments to go with it has been a blessing in these changing uncertain times.

  4. Many more people are going to die as a result OF the hybrid vehicles than because of the excess pollution caused by the vehicles they replace. Light weight, high plastic, low steel vehicles are not nearly as crash-worthy. This cost benefit analysis has already been done and you came up on the short end. Dead people don’t complain as much.

    • That is a Fox News statement CPA. It other words…it’s a lie. Total crapola. All electric cars are the future. Tesla’s for example are one of the highest safety rated cars in the world. Extra crash resistant reinforcement was built up front in the “frunk” area due to no engine. Meanwhile…More than 150,000 gas powered cars catch fire each year. A few Tesla’s have caught fire yes…that will go down to zero because Elon Musk cares about stuff like this.

      When you Combine more and more autonomous features, they will become even more safe. I can’t tell you how much better driver I am because of this car. I sucked before. I get distracted when I normally drive.

      I understand that the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are also safe and well above the average safety rating of a gas powered car.

      • You miss that the Tes has a much greater carbon footprint. You see, the electricity comes from somewhere. I studied this years ago when my company was doing instrumentation for the Argonne Labs HEV Challenge series. A lot of EV’ers think if they can’t see the coal plant charging their rides, it must not be there.
        Wake up and smell the PPM – you’ll find it when you look.

  5. Part of the VW Diesel caché is the vehicle’s economy. There are many excellent discussions regarding tire pressure, rolling resistance, and both static and acute coefficients of drag at TDIClub.

    There is a mileage rally run yearly from Maine to the Keys. When I was a lurker at TDIClub, the (2 of the past three races) winner had driven a (Passat?) TDI with skinny tires @ 60psi, same as the Prius and Insight entries. Members used to tease him, saying if you taped a raw egg to his go-pedal he could drive from Boston to Manhattan without breaking it.

    Personally, I’ve found it difficult, keeping my foot out of the carburetor (now FI system), but driving style makes a huge difference. I would not accept the findings from that article, unless the vehicle used was driverless, on a closed course, using a single profile for all test runs — and made a LOT of test runs. The mileage hawks (or whatever they’re called) at TDIClub log hundreds of thousands of miles.

    FWIW Bob Bondurant recommends 44psi regardless of manufacturer recommendations, tire width, profile, or composition, as being the best compromise between performance, stability, and predictability…

  6. Aerodynamic drag is always an issue, but becomes the principal consideration at ~47mph, outstripping rolling resistance, frictional losses, and mechanical drag. At 40mph (with no wind) there’s virtually no difference in aerodynamic drag between a Ford Flex or Volvo “shoebox” (240-series) wagon, a Freightliner COE (flat-face) semi, and a Porsche.

    At 55mph, the differences are huge…

  7. My 1935 International Harvester half-ton pickup (6′ bed) is made of 18ga (cab) and 16ga (bed) steel, with a quarter-inch steel box-frame. It weighs in at 2785 pounds. Go check out the curb weight of your modern pick’em-up, and try not to blush when you think of all the “weight-saving features” the manufacturer has conned you into believing both exist, and save weight.

    My IHC will run all day @50mph and pull down ~26mpg. It’d probably suffer a hernia if I tried to get it over 55. My newer Ford will cruise comfortably at 80mph, all day long, but I’ve got to drive 55, with a tailwind, to get it over 14.3mpg…

  8. For economicable driving, how ’bout a Volkswagen?

    The Volkswagen Lupo is a city car produced by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen from October 1998 to June 2005… The Lupo 3L was a special edition made with the intent of being the world’s first car in series production consuming as little as 3 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres (79 miles per US gallon or 94 miles per Imperial gallon…)


    IIRC, VW advertised 107mpg (US) when they toyed with my emotions by threatening to bring it to the U.S.

    • Not good enough? Okay then, maybe a VW 1-L?

      The prototype VW 1-litre concept car was shown to the public in April 2002 when Ferdinand Piëch, then Chairman of the Board of Management, drove the concept between Wolfsburg and Hamburg as part of the Volkswagen annual meeting of stockholders.

      For aerodynamics, the car seats two in tandem, rather than side-by-side. There are no rear view mirrors and it instead uses cameras and electronic displays. The rear wheels are close together to allow a streamlined body. The total aerodynamic drag is 0.159…

      Empty vehicle weight is 290 kg (639 lb).

      The XL1 is the third iteration of the Volkswagen 1-litre car, unveiled at the 2011 Qatar Motor Show. The diesel plug-in hybrid prototype is branded as a “Super Efficient Vehicle” (SEV)… According to Volkswagen, the XL1 can achieve a combined fuel consumption of 0.9 litres per 100 kilometres (260 mpg-US.) The XL1 uses a two-cylinder turbo-diesel. The electric motor pitches in with 20 kW (27 hp) and 100 N·m (74 lb·ft) of torque, and can work in parallel with the diesel or drive the car independent of it. According to Volkswagen, the vehicle consumes 0.99 l/100 km (238 mpg-US; 285 mpg-imp), giving it a 650 km (404 mi) driving range on one tank of fuel.

      I’d be stripping out that 6 liter tank and replacing it with one that’s 12 gallons. The idea of visiting the Bronx Zoo, then being able to drive nonstop to the San Diego Zoo, somehow appeals to me…

      • Our checkbook is ready for this or the Lupo!

        But this is exactly the point of the book, don’t you see? It’s all a con job to make up jobs to keep us all terribly busy over-consuming so we can be worked and taxed to death…for what?

  9. “Mandatory sterilization of sex offenders including rapists seems common sense. But because of “cause marketing” we don’t really want to solve anything because it’s a monetization, you see?”

    Indiana had a law on the books a hundred years ago — don’t remember the particulars, just saw it on a plaque in Indy a few years back, but I believe it entailed sterilizing sex offenders and women who had 2 children out of wedlock — part of the Margaret Sanger drive to remove undesirables from society by eliminating their ability to breed — better living through eugenics, and all that. The law was on the books for several years before declared unconstitutional by some court or other, probably the USSC…

  10. The problem isn’t “high choice” with big-ticket items. It is planned PHYSICAL obsolescence. When we had a thousand car manufacturers in the U.S., everyone had to build quality and simplicity or go out of business.

    Stuff just “worked.”

    Now, not so much.

    My old IHC truck has five wires which run to its rear end: Tail, L-turn, R-turn, backup, and fuel sender {RH tail lights were not required until 1949, turn signals not until 1952, it has both.} They’re 16ga rubber-jacketed (and still supple) and feature sealed, silver-plated eye-lugs. My ’93 F150 has 16, 20ga, brittle wires in brittle plastic insulation with crimp-fit harness connectors. My newer Ford has about 40, a mix of brittle 20ga and 22ga wire with soybean insulation, with even more connectors.


    Does a RAM Truck really need a separate computer for each door, to control power window and mirror function? Do we really need a cute little dash light which tells us which tire is low, or which light bulb burned out? That stuff is nice, especially if’fn you’re lazy, but it adds layer upon layer upon LAYER of unnecessary complexity and thousands of pounds of excess weight to what should really just be a homogenous agglomeration of simple machines.

  11. If a shooting war blocks the Straits of Hormuz, I am thinking I will put an electric cargo bike on order. Mopeds, scooters and motorcycles require additional insurance and licensing here, and cargo versions don’t seem to exist, at least stateside.
    There is one hybrid car on the market which supposedly gets around 58 MPG combined cycle, the Hyundai Ioniq, but if fuel goes to $12 per gallon like Ray believes it will, it will be time for some lifestyle changes. At least the traffic would thin out a bit. I would expect that if fuel goes that high, then rationing will follow shortly after.
    Very little of the local electrical production is based on hydrocarbon fuels. Natural gas, coal and wind power are what produce electricity here.

    • …Not THIS Ray.

      We’d have rationing ‘long before domestic petrol hit the $12 mark.

      We’d also have an emergency defense initiative — basically the CiC would tell EPA, DoE, USDA, and the entire “green movement” to pound sand, and we’d drill & build new refineries wherever necessary.

      That said, after the Ayatollah Khomeni successfully overthrew the Shah’s government, he and his puppets declared War against the United States as nearly the first action taken by the new government. We have been at a technical and political State of War with Iran since 1979. This is one (but far from the only) reason why we receive zero oil from Iran. A war in the Persian Gulf &or Straits region would be an inconvenience for several billion people, especially if Hamas took out the neighbors’ ports. It is therefore, not a desirable diplomatic outcome, shotgun, or otherwise.

      • You know, I bet that was someone else that made that $12 remark, but I found your real comment on the situation in question to be equally interesting.

    • It’s been a while since I searched out the Lupo 3L or VWs 1L cars. I saw this at wonkypedia this time around:

      “According to the Lupo 3L instruction manual, the 3L engine also runs on Rapeseed Methyl Ester (RME) without any changes to the engine.”

      This means it is a “factory greasemobile.” If it burns RME without mods, it’ll burn any vegetable oil without mods (Mr. Diesel designed his engine and demonstrated it, running on peanut oil.) VW (and everybody else’s small) diesels have always been able to burn veggie oil. What they haven’t been able to do is initiate combustion on veggie oil. The “greasemobile conversion” entails installing a small tank and a second plumbing run, for dino-diesel, so the engine can be started with petroleum diesel, then switched, once running, to vegetable oil. If the 3L can actually initiate its combustion process on vegetable oil, that’s an engine/injection I want to get me grubbies on, just to see how it works…

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