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Originally Posted by rbohm
that may have been true in the 80s, but not anymore with the advent of modern engine management systems.
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Oh, it is absolutely true. The incredibly inefficient timing and fuel and egr maps required to meet emissions have only gotten WORSE, not better.
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What is costing us fuel economy though is the safety systems required on modern cars. they make cars heavier and thus less fuel efficient. and before anyone makes the claim i am against safety, far from it. i just think that with better designs, and less government interference, the auto engineers can come up with some designs that would be much lighter, as well as much safer. we are already seeing it with crumple zones, and routing the energy transfer around the passenger compartment instead of absorbing the impact and containing it in front of the passenger compartment, which is what was done in the past.
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Weight is only a small factor. it has negligible effects on steady state cruise, and careful driving can pretty much make up for that, and more.
The real issue is that modern engines don't run anywhere NEAR optimum efficiency, thanks to absurd emissions standards.