Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
The Insight's 1.0L delivers best economy between 1750 and maybe 2250RPM, with 1500 to 2500 still delivering "reasonably good" economy. In practice, when I accelerate at high load up to 3K RPM there are noticeable economy losses. Taking it up to 3-4k on a highway on-ramp might drop a trip with 10 miles of cruising afterward from ~95mpg down to 75-65mpg, when compared with keeping it below ~2250 when getting up to speed.
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Yes, but that's why I said NA engines. I perhaps should have said 'standard' NA engines. Pretty much every NA 4 cylinder car is over powered and under geared and really only needs three speeds for our needs.
My 875cc (turbo) Fiat needs all it's 5 speeds, as does my 1.6 Renault (turbo diesel -six speed triple overdrive). Both of these sit on 2000 at 60mph, but have a relatively narrow sweet spot.
The gains of gutting a 5 speed into a 3 of course wouldn't be worth the effort, but if you were building a car from the ground up, every little bit adds up, especially when we start talking about 60mpg+.