[SGVLUG] I'm back and still years behind on my email

[David Lawyer]

I was offline for a while since my ISP (LA Freenet) blocked email from
sgvlug since sgvlug's ISP didn't handle spam complaints in a timely
manner.  Eventually, this go me removed from the sgvlug mailing list.
I'm now back but haven't finished reading and respondin to the long
thread about automobile energy-efficiency which was off-topic.  And
I'll try not to introduce any new aspects to this discussion in my
responses.  This thead is indexed by Google, etc. and I found it while
searching on "pulse and glide".

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be other good forums for such a
discussion.  I've searched with Google and in almost all cases people
don't know what they are writing about, partly because auto cos.
haven't made public their engine performance curves.
> 
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 02:19:00AM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> > Part of the reason was that I didn't read the thread from the start
> > but picked items in the middle.
> 
On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 11:51:36AM -0700, Dustin Laurence wrote:
> I realize you're reading this with some delay because you're on dial-up
> (or at least I suspect that is the reason),

No, that wasn't the reason at all as my fetchmail works in the
background while I'm doing other things.  I was just too busy to
follow the thread even though I was a major participant in it.   I put
a higher priority on getting exercise by riding a bicycle and
numberous other activities, including writing for a larger audience
than just this lug.  I've still got over 1000 unread emails on my PC
including a number still unread in this thread.

> but it often leads to a inadvertent reboot of the thread where you
> revisit issues we've finished with.  It gets difficult to tell if
> you're changing the subject on purpose, missed context, or are
> responding to the subject and context from earlier in the thread.

I'm sorry about this but I didn't think it would be this detrimental. 

[snip]
> I need to stipulate that you've already argued about your driving
> method--you're wrong, it's neither practical nor does it do what you
> think,

No.  You're partly wrong.  The themal efficiency at cruise (at speeds
near speed limits) is said to be about 10% or less (the slower you go,
the worse it gets).  The performance curves show this is reasonable.
So to increase this to almost 30%, all you have to do is press down on
the accelerator and rapidly accelerate.  One gets a 200% increase in
thermal efficiency this way.  You poined out that to minimumize drag
energy (on average) you should maintain steady speed.  True, but the
penalty for not maintaining steady speed is small compared to the gain
you get by increasing 10% efficiency to 30%.  Why do all the economy
run contestants win by doing it this way?  It's recently been called
"pulse and glide".  

As for practicality, I just looked at a DMV forum where someone wrote
that pulse and glide could be permitted in car-pool lanes but it's
obviously not a serious proposal.  But as traffic diminishes due to
oil depletion in the future, then with less traffic, pulse and glide
could work in the right-hand lanes of freeways.  Also, a platoon of
cars could pulse and glide in sychronization like crickets chirping.

			David Lawyer

I've told you why, and I will not discuss it further because it's
> boring and repetitive.  So I am *only* talking about storing energy
> internally and *not* in the car's own bulk kinetic energy.