Featured It turns out that Akio Toyoda was right

yes for BC, I believe for all of Canada as well. But errors in mixing may occur. I've read sometimes you may even get ethanol-free, more likely in outlying areas, if ethanol wasn't available.

 

Efficiency is a cruel task Master's actuary. How do you account for large/small vehicles, Leadfoot/hypermiler efficiencies, Sub-Zero snow encased streets/ 72° f Tailwinds ... 10minute uphill in gridlock/90 minutes nonstop at 30mph. Throw in a few dozen plug in hybrid combos?

 

Same way as now. My suggestion would only eliminate the needless extra complication that comes from using liquid volume instead of energy when calculating a ratio that's supposed to be about energy.

 

"The five therm gas cans are in isle153." - Never to be overheard at Menards

 

Why not move our fuel can measurement to "calories" .... that's equal to 1 cm of water being raised 1° Celsius in temp.

.

 

The California 'EV mandate' is an extension of older programs and policies that drove the adoption of the Prius and other hybrids. Without those, and similar programs and incentives in other states, the Prius would not have been the huge success it was.

The ICE market growth is leveling off, while the plug in segment is growing.

The funny thing here is that some cars have shown improved energy efficiency when using E30 and E40 compared to gasoline.

 

Not surprising - the flex fuel industry magically did that calculation decades ago. The efficiency only counted gasoline in the "gallon" - which meant the gallon was only 90% counted.
.

 

That is not how we pay for it though...We pay for the whole thing.

 

Sure, because the right measurement units for a can are volume units, like gallons. A can has volume, and it doesn't know the energy density of whatever you pour into it.

The gas meter on the side of my house still reads in cubic feet. It doesn't know the energy density of the gas flowing through it, so the conversion from cubic feet to therms has to be done by the utility when they print the bill, because they know the conversion rate for the gas they sold that month. A gas pump display could easily do the same thing for the blend of gas you're buying, and show you the therms you bought and charge you for them.

If you're filling a five-gallon can, the pump'll shut off around 6.05 therms if you're buying E0, or 5.78 if you're buying E15.

People could get the hang of what's going on pretty quick.

 

With the assumption the car was using E85 half the time for CAFE. At least before, the rules changed to the manufacture having to prove consumers are using that much E85. Then they cut back on the number of flex fuel options, and the ethanol lobby pushes for E15 for all.

But that is not what I was referring to. The miles per btu with some cars was higher with 30% to 40% ethanol than with blends and straight gas. Also happens to be the content level to not risk phase separation. If there was an E85 station nearby, I would have tested it out in the Ranger.

 

This same news (from different sources) of Akio Toyoda being [arguably] right has been popping up every week for the last two years. It has got old.

 

Pushed by the same people that brought us the news that slow down EV adoption rate is an end of sales, perhaps?

 

or the board members who didn't want him ousted

 

And if only Toyota had already figured out how to build BEVs like Tesla does, half of their vehicle production would be BEVs now. So, there is a lot of hypocrisy here. They know how to build internal-combustion engines best—probably better than everyone else—and they want to stick with it as long as possible.

 

Until they do, there is nothing at Bill Penny Toyota that I have any interest. Just after midnight, I took my 2019 Model 3 to test the latest Full Self Driving that was downloaded the day before.

There have been two, reproducible "phantom brake" events. I had verified the first, a false 15 mph zone, was gone on my first test drive. The second I tested this morning, a false 35 mph zone, is also gone. The new driver profile "Hurry" maintained the same speed as entering the false, unposted, speed zone. I'm having a hard time finding the latent defects of FSD and the new ones are minor if even noticed.

Bob Wilson

 

On my 2025 Camry with the complimentary subscriptions active, I strongly believe the road sign recognition gets most of its data from navigation or some other cloud database. There are too many cases where it shows incorrect information, changing when there are no signs around. There is a long stretch of US 29 that is 60 mph. It insists large portions of it are 45 mph. It ignores / does not recognize a sign saying end 45 mph, for instance. It should then default to 55 mph but does not have that data,
In areas where I see the errant speed limits, Apple Maps is correct.

Did Tesla ever fix the government complaints about Actually Smart Summon(?) where it ignored some obstacles, etc.?

 

I'm not sure what "the government" complaint is (was?) My only problem happened over a year ago when there was an intense pouring rain and I could not get the car to come with my iPhone 7. My most recent test with the iPhone 14 worked perfectly.

My summon use cases are rainy or foul weather. Otherwise, I usually have a cart and no problem going to the car. Now if we can just get grocery carts that drive themselves to the cart corral. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

I think this is the NHSTA investigation.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2024/INOA-PE24033-35917.pdf

 

There is no question that we get more of things we subsidize, so those incentives must have added to Prius sales. That doesn't mean that the Prius wasn't a viable product. People who buy hybrids without subsidies now are doing it because those products are desirable at market rates.

The Prius in this market predates the departure from prior programs in 2007 when a 5-4 Sup Ct majority decided MA v. EPA a significant policy departure. It isn't merely an extension of a program that mandates some small fraction of cars to have zero emissions to then require that they all do.

Battery cars have a place in the market. If they are good enough, people will buy them at market rates and use them (or lease them as my family did an EV1 more than a quarter century ago). If they aren't, having the state restrict or prohibit alternatives doesn't serve consumers well.

 

Sometimes there are valid reasons for promoting something that isn’t ‘good enough’ yet.
Like everything in life, there are people on both sides of the issue.
There aren’t many places in the world that practice laissez-faire economics anymore, if any.
We’ve seen those results