Aerocivic - how to drop your Cd from 0.31 to 0.17

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by basjoos

I guess there's not much interest in the general motoring public for a car like the aerocivic, other than vaguely in its novel appearance. It's only within that small fraction who values fuel economy who values it, and with our current low gas prices, that small fraction is even smaller than normal.

They're functionally innumerate. And in a 'capitalist' society, that's a very queer situation.
Any 16-year-old, beginning a 60-year driving career, banking the savings from AeroCivic into an Index Fund, by time of retirement, would have saved enough to pay cash for a Rolls-Royce.
Get Rich Slow is not a concept acceptable to capitalists.Only Get Poor Slow.

[Bicycle Bob]

^^ When silicon took all the drudgery out of math, there was a real danger that people would use their calculators when buying credit, insurance, and other shell games. Learning how to turn everyday situations into equations is not hard, but as shown above, the results can be amazing. One friend stayed car-less and owned a house in Ottawa free of debt at 29.
To keep the economy booming, calculators were regarded as not reliably available, and math instruction turned to extremely arcane number theory, of interest to perhaps .1% of grads. This, quite predictably, persuades most students to ignore numbers. Half of them can't even calculate their pay, and so few bother that there are now major scandals about years of wage theft.

[Fat Charlie]

Actually, the dumbest people I've ever worked with have been quite good at doing math.

I picked cases in a freezer warehouse where each picking team got paid 8.25 cents for every case they picked. These guys could look at a truckload's pick stickers, read the number of cases in the load, estimate (based on how large the printed stack was) how long it would take their team to pick it and then estimate to within $0.25 how many dollars an hour they would make on that shift- and then how it would affect their 8 week average of pay. They could effortlessly calculate how quality audit results would affect their pay and know exactly how to bring their audit results into the needed range.

They could also look at the shift's work and know immediately if splitting an 8 ball would pay for itself in increased productivity. I did my own math (rather, I applied it outside the confines of the immediate shift) and was one of the few who didn't consider coke a PED. Totally unrelated to that, I was one of the very few on night shift who hadn't lost his license to a DUI- which oddly enough raised my pay by getting me into gigs that involved driving to other warehouses. I didn't have the seniority to snag those assignments, but I was legal to drive.

So simply saying "they can't do math" ignores the problem. They can do math, they just can't think things through. Jamie Lee Curtis put it very well:

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by basjoos

I guess there's not much interest in the general motoring public for a car like the aerocivic, other than vaguely in its novel appearance. It's only within that small fraction who values fuel economy who values it, and with our current low gas prices, that small fraction is even smaller than normal.

with gas price in my area it's 2.99 a gallon... i think manufactures should start building Aero cars for this state and Hawaii ( aero versions) since we have the highest prices on the west coast.

[Bicycle Bob]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

with gas price in my area it's 2.99 a gallon... i think manufactures should start building Aero cars for this state and Hawaii ( aero versions) since we have the highest prices on the west coast.

-- Until you get to Canada.

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by Bicycle Bob

-- Until you get to Canada.

4.60CAD per US gallon=3.78L =3.37 USD yeah not much more ..


the prices can change fast it went up like 50 cent in a week at the local station even though all the oil went negative 50$ clearly the station is price gouging

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

with gas price in my area it's 2.99 a gallon... i think manufactures should start building Aero cars for this state and Hawaii ( aero versions) since we have the highest prices on the west coast.

Haven't bought fuel in Reno lately have you? We're 0.15 above San Fran.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

Actually, the dumbest people I've ever worked with have been quite good at doing math.

I picked cases in a freezer warehouse where each picking team got paid 8.25 cents for every case they picked. These guys could look at a truckload's pick stickers, read the number of cases in the load, estimate (based on how large the printed stack was) how long it would take their team to pick it and then estimate to within $0.25 how many dollars an hour they would make on that shift- and then how it would affect their 8 week average of pay. They could effortlessly calculate how quality audit results would affect their pay and know exactly how to bring their audit results into the needed range.

They could also look at the shift's work and know immediately if splitting an 8 ball would pay for itself in increased productivity. I did my own math (rather, I applied it outside the confines of the immediate shift) and was one of the few who didn't consider coke a PED. Totally unrelated to that, I was one of the very few on night shift who hadn't lost his license to a DUI- which oddly enough raised my pay by getting me into gigs that involved driving to other warehouses. I didn't have the seniority to snag those assignments, but I was legal to drive.

So simply saying "they can't do math" ignores the problem. They can do math, they just can't think things through. Jamie Lee Curtis put it very well:

' Functionally innumerate' doesn't rule out a person's capacity to work with numbers, only that their behavior implies that they might just as well not be able to, for the consequences they and the general public will suffer.
My middle brother never stopped to calculate what his cigarettes, beer, and marijuana cost him a month. He never had enough money for a monthly mortgage payment because he drank and smoked it. And his twelve years of mandatory public schooling never gave him the courtesy of a home economics course which might have 'shown' him the arithmetic of immediate gratifications cost, versus long-term gain.
And it's interesting that the retirement pension plan for the public educators was heavily invested in tobacco and alcohol, globally. And I don't know what teachers ever did to decriminalize drugs, which at least wouldn't have helped bankrupt people like my brother. Or kill my oldest brother's dog, to steal copper pipe out of his backyard, in order to buy crack cocaine with.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

with gas price in my area it's 2.99 a gallon... i think manufactures should start building Aero cars for this state and Hawaii ( aero versions) since we have the highest prices on the west coast.

A look at receipts from California's oil industry, and pressure from state-level petroleum industry lobbyists who finance reelection campaigns for state legislators might influence any decision making with respect to consumer savings.
They've done all they can to destroy home rule. This 'client / patron' relationship dates to at least the Roman Empire. ' There is nothing new under the sun.'

[CeeforCitroen]

I've been thinking - fuel economy aside - these aerodynamic mods are going to make the car faster. Isn't it every boy racer's dream to own a fast Honda civic - far more than the drag inducing body kits and spoilers. Imagine this on a Type R. The Fast and The Furious would have nothing on it! Now, before I get banned from the forum for suggesting anything as fuel wasting as racing. I will add that as the drag coefficient goes down, the stock gear ratios become unnecessarily low now you don't need to be so far up the power band to fight Aeolus.

I have also noticed that a lot of cars (usually hatch back like my Citroen C2) just stop suddenly at the back. The air just kind of clashes together like a judge's hammer on a bench instead of "pinching" the car forward. The front of the car parts the air which needs power, but the air gains some potential energy, and you can reclaim some of it from the back end.

Could not even semi trucks have some sort of fold out or inflatible pyramid where the back trailer doors are? It would tuck back in when in town to not make the vehicle longer than it needs to be.

Another thing that is confusing is an article on Wikipedia that lists drag coefficients but a hemisphere is displayed as a lower drag coefficient than a sphere. This would seem to be wrong to me unless the hemisphere is side on - but there was an arrow pointing to the round side so I'm assuming that was faced into the wind.

Another weird quirk is whenever a car company puts out an "eco" car which has the aerodynamics of a shed. Which do you think has the most drag? A Smart Fortwo or a McLaren F1? Is there a speed at which the McLaren F1 would get better fuel economy?