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October 28, 2008

Unintended consequences

Many have remarked that the ancient American cars still on the roads of Cuba is a testament to the powers of human ingenuity and the inability of communism to deliver automobiles to the people. With that firmly in mind, I draw your attention to the new fuel efficiency rules for taxis in NYC. The rules require that "new black cars that enter service beginning Jan. 1 must carry a fuel economy rating of at least 25 miles a gallon in the Environmental Protection Agency’s city test cycle; the requirement steps up to 30 m.p.g. a year later. A 25-m.p.g. rule took effect for New York’s 13,000 yellow taxis in October." Unfortunately, there are no cars that fit the bill.

There’s only one problem: no new full-size sedan comes close to 25 m.p.g., let alone 30 m.p.g., in city driving. The Lexus LS 600h L, the only large hybrid luxury sedan, is rated at just 20 m.p.g. in the city. It costs more than $100,000, a price that makes it a non-starter for independent drivers who are used to paying $15,000 to $25,000 for a used Town Car or $40,000 for a new one.

And then we learn that these old cars (grandfathered into continued service) can me made to last:
With a basic design that dates to the ’70s, the Lincoln Town Car is built on a heavy steel frame, akin to old-school S.U.V.’s -- one reason for its city fuel economy rating of 16 m.p.g. But the things that make Lincoln a dinosaur also make it a favorite of drivers and fleet operators: the Town Car is a simple, spacious and durable tank that’s inexpensive to buy and repair. Drivers say they routinely put 250,000 miles or more on a Town Car in brutal city driving before having to rebuild its V-8 engine or its transmission.

"You can buy a Town Car even with 100,000 miles on it and it will run forever if you do the maintenance," said Salah Eldamarany, a driver with Legends Limo and Car Service in Brooklyn.

Black-car drivers say that while some customers are supportive of hybrids and would sacrifice some room or amenities to ride in one, others would not be satisfied if a Town Car stand-in was not as luxurious and roomy.

So you'd expect that people would hold onto the old cars as long as they could, maintaining them like the Cuban cars until held together by the rust and paint. The government noticed that this would be a problem.

For operators who are not ready to get rid of their Lincolns, the city plan includes a phase-in retirement period. Essentially, six-year-old Town Cars will be steadily removed from service, with virtually the entire fleet converted to the 30-m.p.g. standard after 2013. Operators who license a new 2009 Town Car before Jan. 1 will be able to operate it the longest, for five years, before it is forced to retire. Several drivers said that they and colleagues are rushing to buy Town Cars before the January deadline to delay the switch as long as possible.

With gas prices having fallen to a recent lows, I bet this last mandate will have the real bite, where mostly it is those owners that have to replace their cars complying with the new rules. But I also expect real pressure from the many taxi and limo drivers to repeal this rule (or allow old cars to continue service) once the smaller operations are forced to buy the less luxurious and more expensive cars with higher maintenance costs.

I guess a few years time may allow more hybrid choices, including in the town car, so technology may provide an out. Another possibility is a partial engine idling system:

Buying a vehicle that is powerful enough to handle the most severe loads imposes the full-time penalty of a big, thirsty engine.

That inefficiency may be relieved somewhat by the emergence of technology that enables engines to shut down some cylinders when the power demand is minimal, reforming a gluttonous V-8 into a thriftier, part-time 4-cylinder. This development, effectively adapting engine size to suit the task, continues a trend toward variable engine controls already under way.

Systems to adjust the engine size -- or more precisely, the number of cylinders in use -- will appear this year on models from three automakers, all incorporating mechanisms to idle half the engine's cylinders by shutting off the fuel injection, the sparkplugs and the valves for intake and exhaust.

General Motors calls its system Displacement on Demand, DaimlerChrysler's name is Multi-Displacement System and Honda's label is Variable Cylinder Management.

Cylinder deactivation is an effective way to reduce fuel consumption because only a small fraction of a vehicle's maximum horsepower -- typically less than 30 for today's aerodynamic cars -- is needed to maintain highway cruising speeds.

ldilocks V-8's, Always Just Right
If half the engine means twice the fuel efficiency (that would seem the upper bound) then this would get them the efficiency they need since the town cars are rated at 17 / 25 mpg. However, given that the only large hybrid luxury sedan is rated at just 20 / 22 mpg, I wonder how much can be squeezed out there by idling.

Source:
Fuel-Efficient Black Cars: A Taximoron?

Posted by OneEyedMan at October 28, 2008 7:52 AM

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