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Some guy was caught driving down the interstate at night without his headlights. When stopped, he explained that he was "saving energy," and apparently he really believed that.
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I once drove the 100-mile Route 9 "The Airline" from Bangor to Calais, Maine, in the middle of the night in mid winter. There was a full moon, and a fresh fall of snow the day before. I drove the whole way without headlights (just because I wanted to), and could see perfectly. Never met a single car, which was par for the course in the 60's. It was beautiful, a transcendental experience.
I once drove the 100-mile Route 9 "The Airline" from Bangor to Calais, Maine, in the middle of the night in mid winter. There was a full moon, and a fresh fall of snow the day before. I drove the whole way without headlights (just because I wanted to), and could see perfectly. Never met a single car, which was par for the course in the 60's. It was beautiful, a transcendental experience.
I've driven without headlights on occasion too, either just for the helluva it or to escape the law , but this guy was doing it deliberately to save energy!
It's possible to estimate the power needed to run the headlights from the wattage, many sealed beams are around 45 W or 90 W for 2. But, like I posted, if you raise the load on a lightly loaded engine by say 5%, fuel consumption does not go up by 5%.
It's possible to estimate the power needed to run the headlights from the wattage, many sealed beams are around 45 W or 90 W for 2. But, like I posted, if you raise the load on a lightly loaded engine by say 5%, fuel consumption does not go up by 5%.
What about if someone had two or four LCD screens playing a video from the in dash DVD system hooked up to a powerful amp and big subwoofer?
What about if someone had two or four LCD screens playing a video from the in dash DVD system hooked up to a powerful amp and big subwoofer?
I have never heard of anyone documenting a drop in fuel economy from using electrical accessories. Even a 100A, 12V alternator would only make 1200 watts at max output, IIRC that's only about 2 horsepower. This would be the same order of magnitude of speeding up from say 45 to 47 MPH - in principle you should burn a bit more gas at the higher speed (unless you are going to a more efficient RPM, see how this gets complicated?) or maybe consider the drop in MPG you would get by carrying a passenger rather than driving alone in the car.
Well I am no engineer Lux... Resistance at RPM is better though. I agree so far as I can tell with you, but then that just makes me wonder about mc brushless alts... I have no idea if that type offeres any resistance at all because they are enclosed.
I think what you are trying to say is they reduce MPG by about 1/10th of one MPG - ie if you get 33.5 without the lights, you would estimate 33.4 with, right?
Is this just a SWAG, based on some measurement, or what?
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, but this guy was doing it deliberately to save energy!
