On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:43:42 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:07:59 -0400, "David Spiro"
wrote:

I agree that diesel is more fuel efficient, but, IIRC, it also tends to be
more of a pollutant that regular gasoline. Has there been any improvement in
Europe in combating this problem? As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in.

Cruise control is provided on most executive level manual-transmission
cars in the UK. If you think about it, it's not necessary to change
gear to maintain a constant speed on the motorway, certainly not in
the types of car that tend to have it, which tend to be those with
larger engines. It is fitted to more and more cars these days because
it's something that can be provided using a few lines of code in the
ECU and no additional physical hardware bar an on/off switch. It has
nothing at all to do with the transmission.

The Euro IV emission standards are coming in, which require
particulate traps and catalysts. Some bus operators are injecting urea
into the exhaust to remove nitrogen oxides chemically. See
http://www.oxonica.com for more details.

Lorries now have to be fitted with speed limiters set at 56mph, while
buses and coaches are limited to 62mph. This means that the driver has
his foot on the floor, and the speed limiter adjusts the fuel to keep
the speed where it needs to be. I sometimes drive a small bus with a
speed limiter, and it is quite easy to get along on the Motorway, as
you have a useful differential speed with the heavy lorries. Most of
the time you are in the left hand lane (and vehicles with speed
limiters are prohibited from using the right-most lane anyway) and
overtaking is a gentle process.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org