Well well well
Looking at the report, GM might be in some trouble. http://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/TE_Mind_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf
No more than most. I dunno. We keep talking about this test but nobody's really talking about exactly how shit the European test is... At 49 s, the car slowly accelerates to 32 km/h in 12 s (manual: 5 s in 1st gear, 2 s gear change, then 5 s in the 2nd gear), cruises for 24 s, slowly brakes to a full stop in 11 s (manual: last 3 s with clutch disengaged), then pauses for another 21 s (manual: 16 s in neutral, 5 s in the 1st gear). At 117 s, the car slowly accelerates to 50 km/h in 26 s (manual: 5 s, 9 s and 8 s in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears, with additional 2 × 2 s for gear changes), cruises for 12 s, decelerates to 35 km/h in 8 s, cruises for another 13 s, brakes to a full stop in 12 s (manual: 2 s change to the 2nd gear, 7 s in the 2nd gear, last 3 s with clutch disengaged), then pauses for 7 s (manual: in neutral with clutch engaged). The cycle ends on 195 s after a theoretical distance of 994.03 meters, then it repeats four consecutive times. Total duration is 780 s (13 minutes) over a theoretical distance of 3976.1 meters, with an average speed of 18.35 km/h. That's the "low speed" half. There's a "high speed" half, too: At 201 s, the car cruises at 70 km/h for 50 s (manual: in the 5th gear), then slowly accelerates to 100 km/h in 35 s and cruises for 30 s (manual: in the 5th or 6th gear). Finally, at 316 s the car slowly accelerates to 120 km/h in 20 s, cruises for 10 s, then slowly brakes to a full stop in 34 s (manual: in the 5th or 6th gear, lat 10 s with clutch disengaged), and idles for another 20 s (manual: in neutral). Total duration is 400 s (6 minutes 40 s econds) and theoretical distance is 6956 meters, with an average speed of 62.6 km/h. Compare and contrast. Not only do American standards require five different regimes of test, but... EUROPE CITY: Max 50km/h, avg 18 km/h, time 780s, distance 4km USA CITY: Max 90 km/h, avg 34 km/h, time 1872s, distance 17km EUROPE HIGHWAY: Max 120 km/h, avg 62 km/h, time 400s, distance 7km USA HIGHWAY: Max 96 km/h, avg 77 km/h, time 765s, distance 16.7 km EUROPE HIGH-SPEED: NA EUROPE AIR CONDITIONING: NA EUROPE COLD TEMP: NA In my search on this, I came across Jalopnik's helpful answer as to why European cars get better gas mileage than American cars. Their answer? "Imperial gallons, asshole! Smootches, Gawker.When the engine starts, the car pauses for 11 s - if equipped with a manual gearbox, 6 s in neutral (with clutch engaged) and 5 s in the 1st gear (with clutch disengaged) - then slowly accelerates to 15 km/h in 4 s, cruises at constant speed for 8 s, brakes to a full stop in 5 s (manual: last 3 s with clutch disengaged), then stops for 21 s (manual: 16 s in neutral, then 5 s in the 1st gear).
After a 20 s stop - if equipped with manual gearbox, in the 1st gear with clutch disengaged - the car slowly accelerates to 70 km/h in 41 s (manual: 5 s, 9 s, 8 s and 13 s in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears, with additional 3 × 2 s for gear changes), cruises for 50 s (manual: in the 5th gear [sic]), decelerates to 50 km/h in 8 s (manual: 4 s in the 5th and 4 s in the 4th gear [sic]) and cruises for 69 s, then slowly accelerates to 70 km/h in 13 s .
Elon Musk recently said that what we're seeing might be a result of ICEngines hitting their limits. I'd take it with a grain of salt, as he obviously has an interest in electric engines, but it is a pretty compelling argument all the same.
Yeah I'd call that a bit of a conflict of interest. VW wasn't doing what they were doing to increase efficiency (not primarily anyway). They were keeping NOx emissions down, which can be dealt with, just not at the price that VW wants to sell cars. I imagine most of the discrepancy is due to the fact that people drive like assholes most of the time. The way we accelerate and break can easily bump the fuel efficiency down a lot. Maybe not 50%, but easily 20, 30%. Anyway, there's no way that electric cars will ever be more efficient than gas/diesel cars. Electric cars require a minimum of three energy conversions, so even if there are zero emissions at the tail pipe, most of your dollar savings is due to coal being dirt cheap, not greater efficiency. Electric cars have the potential to be less emitting than IC engines should we all be using solar and wind eventually, but they won't be more efficient, because the physics don't really support that. Musk risks his own credibility when he says stupid shit like that, even though people want to fellate him even more every time he does. It's not a compelling argument, because it's not true (which I take as a standard of compelling). We could all drive Corollas and we've hit our fuel efficiency standard overnight. But so long as people want 5-Series and Model S we're not anywhere close to reaching the limit of fuel efficiency.
To split hairs, Musk doesn't argue that electric is more efficient, but ICE must go the efficiency route, and there are diminishing returns. Electric motors don't necessarily have to be more efficient to be a better choice. In fact, the extra conversion step can actually be an advantage. For example, electric allows for multiple energy inputs so they could technically use the most attractive (clean and/or abundant) source available (solar in Arizona, geothermal in Iceland, natural gas in South Dakota, etc.) to produce electricity, whereas gasoline must come from oil, and it must be refined and shipped.
Mmmm, careful with that axe, Eugene. Internal combustion engines make peak efficiency at peak RPM. Electric motors make peak efficiency at zero RPM. That's why electric cars can forego transmissions and transmissions are teh suck from an efficiency standpoint. Combine that with the fact that thermal efficiency on Diesel runs 50-70% on herkin' big mills; otto cycle will be less than that. Electric motors on the other hand can hit 95% efficient all day long. Assume your battery conversion is only 65% efficient and you're still at 61% efficiency (and you don't have a transmission to worry about). What's the efficiency of hauling gas to the station vs. powerlines to your house? What's the efficiency of refining diesel out of petroleum vs boiling water in the desert? There's a lot of places where the electric system stands to gain efficiency while the petroleum system is pretty much stuck at state of the art.Anyway, there's no way that electric cars will ever be more efficient than gas/diesel cars.
Engineering wise ICE engines really are hitting their limits. There is only so much you can squeeze out of an interrupted combustion before reliability starts to suffer. Getting more power out of ICE is easy, getting more efficiency is not easy at all. The current alley of improvement seems to be increasing the compression ratio, the higher the ratio the higher the efficiency. The limitation here seems to be the piston getting too hot and melting. It is the only component in the engine that can not be cooled sufficiently. Heat pipes inside the piston might help but haven't been tried afaik.