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As the cost
of fuel rises, so do the number of recycled witch doctor devices
offered for sale.
These things are nothing but snake oil, but they are not
necessarily cheap. Not one of them has ever been approved by
the SAE (Society of Automobile Engineers) and I doubt any
of them ever will be.
Jonathan Welsh published an excellent article in the Wall
Street Journal this week and what he has to say is accurate.
(it also saves me the trouble of having to repeat what
he has already said):
"High gas prices have produced a bountiful supply of one kind of product: fuel-saving gadgets for your car.
These devices,
which cost anywhere from $35 to $300, are pitched as simple ways
to improve fuel economy. While not
all of the devices are new, $4-a-gallon gasoline has increased
consumer interest and inspired new ad campaigns
-- often evoking hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels.
A kit called Water4Gas,
for example, has instructions for converting your car into a "water
hybrid" that uses "the atomic
power of hydrogen" for less than $150. The Magnetizer offers
to save fuel by rearranging the ions in your fuel line.
The maker of the Fuel Saver 7000 says the $170 device boosts
fuel economy by treating gasoline to a "3-stage"
vaporization process.
One familiar type
of fuel saver looks like a fan or turbine made of sheet metal or
plastic and ranges from $35 to $65.
Installed in a vehicle's air-intake system -- typically
by the driver -- such products, with names like Turbonator, Spiral
Max
or CycloneFuelSaver, are supposed to improve fuel combustion
inside engines by causing incoming air to swirl.
Another type of
device works on the fuel to make it burn more efficiently. Some systems
inject air, water or other vapors
or liquids into the fuel mixture before it enters the engine
or infuse fuel with tiny amounts of platinum.
Others use heaters to expand the fuel or employ magnets
attached to the fuel line to modify the fuel.
But auto-industry
officials and federal energy experts say fuel-saving add-ons don't
work.
The US Environmental
Protection Agency and Federal Trade Commission have tested products
that claim to boost fuel
economy and found they generally don't improve vehicles'
efficiency -- and they sometimes actually harm performance
and increase emissions. The dozens of products tested include
some air-swirling gadgets, magnetic devices and
liquid-injection systems, though not specifically the FuelSaver
7000, Water4Gas, Magnetizer, Turbonator, Spiral Max
or Cyclone. And drivers, beware: In some cases, installing
certain devices can void cars' factory warranties.
"We have tested
a range of these products and have found they generally do not improve
fuel economy,"
says EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn.
'Best and the Worst'
Manufacturers of
the devices stand by their products, some saying the EPA and FTC reports make
negative statements
that are too broad. "The high price of gasoline has brought
out the best and the worst, and there are a lot of gimmicks
on the market," says Roy Martin, owner of Fuel Concepts
LLC, the North Royalton, Ohio, company that makes the
Fuel Saver 7000. "I've read the EPA reports, and I say
they're crazy. My product works," he says.
The EPA and FTC
"only test the ones that don't work," says Louis H. Elwell III, chairman
and president of Vortex Fluid
Optimizer Corp. The Hattiesburg, Miss., company makes the
Vortex Fuel Saver, a system that uses magnets to affect
the fuel, air and coolant entering an engine. He says the
Vortex uses technology that boosts fuel economy by at least 10%.
Despite all evidence
to the contrary, many consumers are turning to fuel-saving products,
hoping for an easy way to get
more out of each gallon of gasoline. John Signorotti was
looking for a quick, simple way to improve the fuel economy of
his 2004 Toyota pickup truck. For about $70, he bought
the TornadoFuelSaver, a small, fan-like device that swirls air into
the engine in an effort to improve fuel combustion.
"It didn't work,"
says the California financial adviser. "I tested it and then returned
it for a full refund." He says local mechanics
told him any swirling effect would dissipate by the time
the air mixed with the fuel and entered the engine. But he says
he did
have some luck with a device called a throttle-body spacer,
which swirled the air and fuel mixture closer to the engine.
He says it boosted his fuel economy by about 10%. The maker
of the Tornado product, now called CycloneFuelSaver,
couldn't be reached to comment.
Sales of Products Grow
Sales of fuel-saving
products, which also include fuel and oil additives, have continued
to grow even as the overall auto
and auto-parts markets have sagged. Peter MacGillivray,
a spokesman for the Specialty Equipment Market Association,
a trade group that includes some manufacturers of fuel-saving
devices, says 2008 so far has been the biggest sales year
ever for add-on fuel-saving products. While the group doesn't
release sales figures for the segment, it says fuel-saving
products contributed to 4% growth last year in the auto
aftermarket.
Mr. MacGillivray
says the broad category includes some "smoke and mirrors" products,
but it also includes many that
improve engine efficiency, such as certain high-performance
air-intake and exhaust systems.
These upgrades,
ranging from improved mufflers to entire exhaust systems, can cost
$1,000 or more, and they require
more time and skill to install than the products covered
in the EPA and FTC reports.
How to Improve Efficiency - stop pressing hard with your right foot.
EPA officials say
there are simple, proven methods people can use to increase fuel efficiency,
starting with changing
their driving style. Avoiding rapid acceleration and hard
braking, coasting whenever possible and obeying highway
speed limits can increase fuel economy by more than 20%,
according to the EPA.
Properly inflating
tires, keeping the engine in tune, removing excess weight from the
vehicle and avoiding idling for
long periods also helps.
Aaron Flies, a
coffee-shop owner in Vancouver, Wash., bought a device called a Scan
Gauge II with a screen that
gives readouts of moment-by-moment fuel economy, average
and throttle position. It is meant to remind drivers to go
easy on the gas pedal. Mr. Flies says the company van was
getting 12 to 13 miles per gallon, mostly in urban driving,
and has logged 15 to16 mpg since he changed his driving
technique.
"Now I'm saving about $120 a month on fuel," he said.
May 30th
2008
Prius battery pack.
Many years ago, as some of you will remember, the media
were all over the fact that an electric blanket produced a pretty
hefty electromagnetic field and these blankets should
be turned off when you went to bed, because it wasn't a good idea
to
bathe in radiation while you slept. That whole affair
seems to have faded to nothing, possibly because electric blankets
are
a thing of the past. Whether the bum warmers in your
car seats produce the same effect, is an unknown at this point.
Next up was the kafuffle over high-tension power lines,
which when strung over farmers' fields caused cows to abort, or
stop
producing milk. The electromagnetic
radiation these lines
produce can be easily detected when you drive below them as your
radio will momentarily stop working.
When microwave ovens first arrived, the standing advice
was to stay away from them while they were working and not to peer
through the window at your food as it rotated on its
little stand. In this case, it's microwave radiation that is the
concern, but it's
still a case of the unsuspecting public being subjected
to radiation without their full knowledge.
Then, of course, the cellular phone showed up and the
jury is still out on whether your brain is subjected to enough electromagnetic
radiation to do you any real harm. Although, The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing
Radiation Protection says that use
of the phones by both pregnant women and children should
be "limited". It concludes that children who talk on the handsets
are
likely to suffer from "disruption of memory, decline
of attention, diminishing learning and cognitive abilities, increased
irritability"
in the short term, and that long-term hazards include
"depressive syndrome" and "degeneration of the nervous structures
of
the brain".
I know of one case where a car owner who parked in
a particular spot, used to come back to find his trunk lid was
open.
The lid was openable from a distance by remote and
at that particular place, some random, stray radiation was on the
same
wavelength as his remote. So we are surrounded
and unsuspecting of the electromagnetic
radiation that is ever increasing
every day.
Many scientists and policy makers agree that hybrid
vehicles may be good for the planet.
To a large and insistent group of skeptics, however,
there is another, more immediate question:
Are hybrids and eventually fully electric cars, healthy
for drivers?
There is a legitimate scientific reason for raising
the issue. The flow of electrical current to the motor that moves
a hybrid
vehicle at low speeds (and assists the gasoline engine
on the highway) produces magnetic fields, which some studies
have associated with serious health matters, including
a possible risk of leukaemia among children.
With the batteries and power cables in hybrids often
placed close to the driver and passengers, some exposure to
electromagnetic fields is unavoidable. Moreover,
the exposure will be prolonged — unlike, say, using a hair dryer
or electric shaver — for drivers who spend hours
each day at the wheel.
Some hybrid owners have actually tested their cars
for electromagnetic fields using hand-held meters, and some say
they are alarmed by the results.
Their concern is not without merit; agencies including
the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute
acknowledge the potential hazards of long term exposure
to a strong electromagnetic field, or E.M.F., and have done
studies on the association of cancer risks with living
near high-voltage utility lines.
While we live with E.M.F.’s all around — produced
by everything from cellphones to electric blankets — there is
no broad agreement over what level of exposure constitutes
a health hazard, and there is no federal standard that sets
allowable exposure levels. Government safety tests
do not measure the strength of the fields in vehicles — though
Honda
and Toyota, the dominant hybrid makers, say their
internal checks assure that their cars pose no added risk to occupants,
as you would expect. But that's like sending the fox
to guard the hen house.
Researchers with expertise in hybrid car issues
say that while there may not be cause for alarm, neither should
the potential
health effects be ignored.
Charges that automobiles expose occupants to strong
electromagnetic fields were made even before hybrids became
popular. In 2002, a Swedish magazine claimed its tests
found that three gasoline powered Volvo models produced high
E.M.F. levels. Volvo countered that the magazine had
compared the measurements with stringent standards advanced by
a Swedish labour organization, not the more widely
accepted criteria established by the International Commission on
Non Ionizing Radiation Protection, a group of
independent scientific experts based near Munich.
The concern over high E.M.F. levels in hybrids has
come not just from worrisome instrument readings, but also from
drivers
who say that their hybrids make them ill.
One lady in New York, bought a new Honda Civic Hybrid
in 2007 for the 200 miles a week she drove to visit grocery stores
in her merchandising job for a supermarket chain. She
said that the car reduced her gasoline use, but there were problems
— her blood pressure rose and she fell asleep at
the wheel three times, narrowly averting accidents.
I never had a sleepiness problem before, she said,
adding that it was her own conclusion, not a doctors, that the car
was
causing the symptoms.
She asked Honda to provide her with shielding material
for protection from the low frequency fields, but the company
declined
her request last August, saying that its hybrid cars
are “thoroughly evaluated” for E.M.F.’s before going into production.
The lady's response was to have the car tested by a
person she called her wellness consultant, using a TriField meter.
The TriField meter is made by AlphaLab in Salt Lake
City. The company defends its use for automotive testing even
though the meter is set up to test alternating current
fields, whereas the power moving to and from a hybrid vehicle’s
battery is direct current. Generally, an A.C. meter
is accurate in detecting large electromagnetic fields or microwaves.
Testing with a TriField meter led one Californian
to sell his 2001 Honda Insight just six months after he bought
it
— at a loss of $7,000. He said the driver was receiving
“dangerously high” E.M.F. levels of up to 135 milligauss at the
hip and up to 100 milligauss at the upper torso. These
figures contrasted sharply with results from his Volkswagen van,
which measured one to two milligauss.
He said he tried to interest Honda in the problem in
2001, but was assured that his car was safe. He purchased shielding
made of a nickel-iron alloy, but because of high installation
costs decided to sell the car instead.
Honda points to the lack of a federally mandated standard
for E.M.F.’s in cars. Despite this Honda takes the matter seriously.
“All our tests had results that were well below the
commission’s standard,” referring to the European guidelines.
Kent Shadwick, controller of purchasing services
for the York Catholic District School Board in York, Ontario, evaluated
the
Toyota Prius for fleet use. Mr. Shadwick said it was
tested at various speeds, and under hard braking and rapid acceleration,
using a professional quality gauss meter.
“The results that we saw were quite concerning,”
he said. “We saw high levels in the vehicle for both the driver
and left rear
passenger, which has prompted us to explore shielding
options and to consider advocating testing of different makes
and
models of hybrid vehicles.”
Donald B. Karner, president of Electric Transportation
Applications in Phoenix, who tested E.M.F. levels in battery electric
cars for the Energy Department in the 1990s, said
it was hard to evaluate readings without knowing how the testing
was done.
He also said it was a problem to determine a danger
level for low frequency radiation, in part because dosage is determined
not only by proximity to the source, but by duration
of exposure. “We’re exposed to radio waves from the time we’re
born,
but there’s a general belief that there’s so little
energy in them that they’re not dangerous,” he said.
Mr. Karner has developed a procedure for testing
hybrids, but he said that the cost — about $5,000 a vehicle
— had prevented its use.
A consultant with a speciality in E.M.F.’s and electrical
sensitivity, was one of the electrical engineers who tested the
Insight in 2001.
He agreed that the readings were high but did not want
to speculate on whether they were harmful. “There are big blocks
of high amp
power being moved around in a hybrid, the equivalent
of horsepower,” he said. “I get a lot of clients who ask if they
should buy hybrid
electric cars, and I say the jury is still out.”
May 23rd
2008
The price of oil, inflation adjusted is now back to
where it was in 1983, at the time of the oil embargo.
So for twenty five years, we've all had a bargain
ride and we've taken advantage of it by using up as much oil as
we possibly
could. Now the
chickens have come home to roost and our behaviour where energy is concerned
is about to change
dramatically for the better
In 1983 I was working as an energy conservation consultant.
In those days, the buzz word was energy conservation, the climate
change scam had not yet been adopted by the naive
media. But as the price of oil dropped towards $10 a barrel, so
my work
became less in demand, although I was still very well
occupied.
This week, I dusted off a file for my own home. It
involves the installation of a heat pump, a new furnace and a new
electrical panel.
Total cost today: $ 17000. But I'm anticipating that
my home heating oil bill this coming winter will be in the region
of $3600.
The heat pump conversion will save about 50% of that,
or $1800. Still, that only gives me a ten year return on investment
and
that's not good enough, particularly since the calculations
don't include the interest that the seventeen grand would earn
if not spent.
Nevertheless, the heat pump file is going to remain
on my desk. If oil really does hit $250 a barrel, the time will
undoubtedly come
when my personal project will be viable.
The Saudi oil minister once said that the only true
energy conservation method was price and he's absolutely correct.
We won't try to save energy if it's cheap.
Some nights, on my way home from the garage, I get
caught at a railroad crossing. One locomotive (a diesel/electric
"hybrid"),
rattles through
pulling a mile and a half of containers on flat beds. If that freight were
on the road, it would be pulled individually by
a hundred or so eighteen wheelers using an obscene
amount of diesel oil to achieve the same result - delivery of goods.
The days of the trucking industry are numbered and
the railroads are a very good investment.
The only advantage the trucks have is the concept
of JIT (just in time), because the trucks can get it to its destination
much faster.
But that concept has to change. JIT is no longer viable
it it's going to cost twice as much as rail transport.
Same with buses and planes. We will no longer be able
to run a bus with one passenger on board, or a plane that's half
empty.
Major, major change is upon us. The era of the small
car is about to blossom.
Ironically, the econazis will finally get their way.
Not because of the simpering and whining of Al Gore and company,
but because the
only true energy conservation method is price.
Gasoline at a $1.50 a litre seems outrageous today,
but it's still the cheapest liquid around.
Take a look at this list from a US study.
This makes one think and also puts things in perspective:
Diet Snapple 16 oz ... ........$10.32
per gallon
Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz ..........$9.52 per gallon
Gatorade 20 oz ................. $10.17 per gallon
Ocean Spray 16 oz ......... ..$10.00 per gallon
Brake Fluid 12 oz ...... ........$33.60 per gallon
Vick's Nyquil 6 oz ............... $178.13 per gallon
Pepto Bismol 4 oz ............ $123.20 per gallon
Whiteout 7 oz ................... $25.42 per gallon
Scope 1.5 oz ......................$84.48 per gallon
And this is the REAL KICKER...
Evian water 9 oz $1.49..$21.19 per gallon!
$21.19 for WATER and the buyers don't even know the source.
(Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)
Ever wonder why printers are so cheap?
So they have you hooked for the ink.
Someone calculated the cost of the ink at $5,200 a
gallon.
So, the
next time you're at the pump, be glad your car doesn't run on
water,
Scope, Whiteout, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or God forbid,
Printer Ink!
Not only this, but if you want to build an oil refinery
think in the billions. If you want to bottle water, all you need
is a flat floor and some bottling machines. Think
millions.
The oil companies are nowhere near as big a rip off
as bottled water or Microsoft!
The vast majority of newspaper
car reviews are written to fill the spaces between automotive
advertisements while
sucking-up to the dealers and manufacturers who
provide the ad revenue. When I caught sight of Tom Keane's take
on the new Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid in the San Francisco
Chronicle, I decided to see if the paper had any teeth left
in its automotive editorial coverage.
In a word, no.
Keane didn't just imbibe the GM Kool-Aid, he cut-and-pasted it. The scribe went straight for the official press release.
Hey, at least Keane admitted
the description came from "the Chevrolet people." But he begins
the piece with his own,
bold assertion. "With gasoline topping $3.50, there's
no better time to drive the Malibu Hybrid."
To make his case, Keane compares
the gas-electric 'Bu to the much thirstier 3.6-liter V6-powered
Malibu, which gets 17
mpg city, 26 mpg highway and 20 mpg combined. He
points out that the Hybrid is $4k less than this more-deluxe
model.
Well, yes. And it beats a Chevroletn Suburban $22K,
12 mpg city and 15 mpg highway.
Reality check: the 2.4-liter
four-cylinder Malibu Hybrid gets 24 mpg city and 32 mpg highway;
27 combined on the EPA test cycle.
The non-hybrid model with a 2.4-liter four-cylinder
engine gets 22 mpg city, 30 mpg highway and 25 combined
– a difference of only two mpg across the board.
In contrast, the Camry Hybrid betters its gas-powered
sibling by 12 mpg city, three mpg highway and nine mpg combined.
But what can Keane do? He can't
point out if you spend $4k more for the Hybrid you only gain
two mpg.
That might make readers think
GM isn't very good at hybrids, and we can't have that. In fact,
reading this paean to erstwhile
pistonhead perfection, I began to wonder if Keane
worked in the SF Chronicle's advertising department.
You know, formally. No joke. It happens all the
time.
At the bottom of the review, I read © Motor Matters, 2008.
Motor Matters caters primarily
to the newspaper industry. The website proudly proclaims they
have "12 automotive writers
to provide editorial support for your automotive
advertisers." They provide "accurate, clean copy written by…
people [who]
are highly respected by the automotive industry."
Well duh! What's not to respect
for an auto exec or dealer thrilled to the gills by glowing
reviews of the latest metal?
Motor Matters cites the number of papers that carry
their reviews as "evidence that what we produce is informative
to readers
and beneficial to advertisers."
Motor Matters make no bones about
their complete lack of editorial integrity. Their reviewers "give
driving impressions,
report their findings with integrity, but not in
an objectionable manner." Screw the readers, for whom an automobile
is their
second largest financial purchase (after their
house).
Screw the truth.
Motor Matters' website provides
links to suitable examples of their fundamentally unobjectionable
copy, hoping to lure
newspapers ready, willing and able to sacrifice
editorial honesty for the good of their automotive advertisers.
One of these is Keane's review of the Chrysler
Sebring convertible.
To refresh your memory, when
TTAC tested the Sebring, we noted:
"when the trunk lid pops to swallow the top, the
entire car shakes like a pole dancer, wobbles a bit and then clunks
alarmingly when sealing shut." Our conclusion?
"I wouldn't keep the Sebring past the standard warranty period
based
solely on the scary top operation… If it was my
hard-earned $30Kish, I'd spend it on a Mustang GT Convertible,
VW EOS,
SAAB 9-3, Mazda MX-5 or ANYTHING else."
So what was Keane's take?
He loved the "bright interior
appearance, " the "remarkable shifting of various hardtop components
as they… folded
into the rear compartment" and "its attractive
design." In parroting a variety of numbers provided by the factory,
he cites
the top's "30-second opening and closing operation"
(which we actually timed at 45 seconds).
Keane closes with "this automaker offers up-scale
quality vehicles with eye-appeal." Oh, and that "their products
should
keep the Chrysler showrooms busy for a long time."
Has he even driven past a Chrysler showroom lately?
Keane also mentions that a Chrysler engineer accompanied him on the test drive. Nope. No bias shown there.
We understand that automotive
writers like Keane have to put food on their table. We know they're
part of a corrupt system
that's as outdated as some of the products they're
shamelessly promoting. Sadly, we also know that the average
newspaper
reader is oblivious to the lies, spinmongery and
propaganda perpetuated by the craven automotive press. Rest
assured that
as long as media outlets keep publishing crap like
this, TTAC will keep sounding the alarm. And telling The Truth About Cars.