Gas Prices Going Up

Car, 15min commute. Buses, 1hr 15min commute.

Forced downtime, which is nice if I got puzzles/magazines to catch up on, but otherwise just “wasted” time.

Sometimes it’s interesting just watching the scenery, but you’re still at the mercy of waiting for the buses, etc.

Thing is, if I save even that half-hour of commuting time, I can give it right back to the company. If I’m forced to spend it, well, I can spend it driving in/back, or let Mr Bus carry me. Either way, I ain’t spending it again.

Isn’t that the truth

The mileage tests on those sales stickers have start stops to show “urban cycles”, so the companies cheat by start-stopping the engines. Then sticking us with the stupidity.

In no engineering world does it make sense to do that to engines, but, the companies simply don’t care.

Then you have the dumbest in humanity adding to engine destruction by blasting the engine at start-up. As a car guy, I cringe when I hear that. One of my in-law does that and I tried to explain the damage he is doing to the engine….he dismisses it, his explanation is the harder you rev it, the faster it warms up, therefore less wear. Vroom-vroom voodoo idiocy.

Engines need oil pressure and volume for the bearing surfaces. The problem with cold starts is that the oil is so viscous, that even though the pressure is sky high, it does not flow fast enough through the oil passages, thus starving the bearing surfaces. That is why some have gone to synthetic and 0 weight. The lower the weight, the faster the oil flows in cold weather.

Remember the days of 20w40 summers and 10w30 summer oil? Gone. With synthetics, they resist shearing off far better and they don’t break down as quickly in higher summer temperatures so now we have 0W20 or 0W30 all year round.

How long one warms up the engine depends. In a modern car, in summer, on a flat driveway, through suburban roads, slow acceleration for a few minutes, ten seconds are enough. As long as there is no high rpms needed to overcome some obstacle or merge into speeding traffic. As the temperature drops, the need to warming up increases. If there are obstacles, like going through snow, uphill driveway, need to merge into fast moving traffic, then the time keeps rising and rising.

I can see 5-6 minutes for 0.F merging into moving city traffic. Worse case for the car engine/drivetrain is to jump into highway speeds. Consider an engine block heater and votive candles to the Car Gods. At minus 20 Minnesota winter…a good bon fire. Lol

In my area, at O.F, unless there is snow on the ground, one is idling out and practicaly idling/puttering through multiple blocks of slow suburban stop-go before encountering moderate speed main roads. Ideal, low stress start-up driving. A minute is enough.

How long one takes is a calculated decision that separates a good driver from an appliance jockey.

Yep, and it just doesn't seem right. I know the feeling first hand and was glad we made the move.

Wow and to think when I first posted about this it was just a note on seeing

that gas may rise up above five bucks on the news.

As for a lot of you that are in the EU and other places, you have to remember

just one or two counties in a state in the US can be the size of a small country.

A lot of us have to drive to get the things needed that a lot people in small towns

and large cities take for granted that they can just walk down the street to buy.

Looks like sanctions on Iran and Venezuela are contributing quite a bit to this recent price increase.

Just one tiny question for all who wonders “how fast li-ions do degrate”:
Have you ever disassembled/rebuild any gasoline (diesel) powered engine?

I have. What’s your point?

You should wonder how many parts there are, how uneven they degrate and how this influence on total lifetime (when one broken $5-part can ruin whole engine).

It’s a machine with hundreds of parts, some wear more then others. Some can go a million miles. Some will be replaced even though they could still go on. Some can be lightly re machined and go on.

I’m not sure where you are going with this.

Fuel engine (consist from thousands parts) have more probability to be broken at same mileage.
Fuel engine output is not easy to measure, same time on-board fuel consumption meters are not precise at all.
At the same mileage, fuel engine car will lost much more power and efficiency (in % to the new one) neither li-ion battery pack.
But fuel cars are not equipped with big touchscreen that shows you this information, so you dont care.

Comparing apples and oranges.

A good diesel engine will run for 1 too 1.5 MILLION kilometers. Routinely done by Benz taxis. They still have 80% of their power. Then they could be rebuilt for another million kilometers.

That’s 5000-7000-10,000 cycles for battery packs. Fantasy stuff.

Nissan guarantees the battery in the LEAF will have at least 66% of original capacity after 160,000 kilometers.

The highest mileage internet claims, but no actual proof, is for over 600,000km by a few Tesla owners. I tend to ignore internet claims by fan boys. On the other hand, I have ridden in lots of diesel taxis in Europe with far more actual mileage.

Right, comparation between modern cars and cars that were developed 50 years ago is defently apples vs oranges.
Go to the MB website, choose any model, check engine code at wikipedia - and we can continue this discussion.

Engine code? Wiki? What are you talking about?

There is nothing to discuss if you can’t make a coherent argument.

When there is a big data, coherent arguments are not required.
When you can do few clicks and check out how many spare parts are were sold per each sold car. How many versions of compressors, HPP and injectors have been changed just in one engine generation. How many employers do this job and how many tons of broken parts are sent by each dealer service each month back to the manufacture.
Yes, I would like to know which engine can reach 1.5M km (not reachable for many trucks nowadays). Please choose it here: List of Mercedes-Benz engines - Wikipedia

You mean over a BILLION cars/trucks need engine parts? WOW. That’s something unheard off.

Obviously you don’t have a clue about engines other then nonsense.

Mileage? Just a few selling databases.

116 diesel cars with over half million kilometers. Including several over a million to 1.6 million km.

Car.gr - Αυτοκίνητα, ταξινόμηση: χιλιόμετρα (πολλά πρώτα)>500000&fuel_type=2&offer_type=sale

3116 diesels over 320000 kilometers

600 trucks with over 1.5 million kilometers.

https://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/Trucks-For-Sale/search-results?sort=distance%3Aasc&modelkeyword=1&mileage=900000%3A\*

I could search hundreds of other databases but I’ve wasted enough time with you.

Not one of those trucks that I looked at in your own links say anything about any possible engine/transmission replacements, so that fact alone negates your argument of internal combustion outlasting battery.

Cheers David

What kind of stupid straw argument is that? If you don’t know what a straw argument is, look it up.

There is no such thing as ANY battery ANYWHERE in ANY vehicle lasting even a 1/3 of the high mileage cars and trucks. NONE . ZERO. Not even phony big fish stories and wild imaginations of online fan boys.

Meanwhile there are literally millions of cars/trucks with high mileages everywhere on the planet.

One more thing that is still a fantasy in the battery world……Mercedes cars normal is a maintenance list for 241,000 km service. Routinely surpassed by either gas or diesel. I actually sold my ’95 in ’05 with 400k and he drove it 70k a year until it started to get serious rust.

Vast majority of cars are scrapped because of rust, accidents or people getting bored of them, rarely for worn out engines.

The fact is that it was about the life of the batteries, not the cars, it was stated they would only last a short time, well just replace the batteries just as the internal combustion engine is replaced.

“rarely for worn out engines” that is because the engines are replaced.

It seems you are a bigger fan boy of polluting internal engines than I am of electric cars.

Nuff said, Im outa here.

Cheers David

Edit:- Jay Leno’s 1909 Baker Electric still operates on its original Edison cells, that’s 110years!!

Yeah.

Electric engines crush internal combustion engines by far on power, torque, reliability, efficiency, and of course, durability.