Talk about articles that seem to confirm all of one's prejudices: In Doing what Detroit says is impossible, Daily Kos points to an amazing article about a guy who builds powerful fuel-efficient cars — the sort Detroit says can't exist with current technology.
There are some issues: price, availability of alternate and more efficient fuels, but still…
Bull. The whole article is a mix of smoke and mirrors. Some things are true and verifiable but prozaic. (A diesel engine will give you better mileage than a gas engine. Wow!) Some parts are just sleight of hand. (Injecting hydrogen into a diesel engine but not counting the hydrogen when calculating fuel economy or talking about a $5,000 bolt-on conversion which provides very modest efficiencies but quoting fuel economy improvements from his $28,000 diesel conversion (with additional upgrades of unspecified cost required to reach the quoted figures) that takes at least ten days in the shop as if they are the same thing.) Some have a kernel of truth but are greatly exaggerated. (The company appears to have done some new work on dynamic dual-fuel mixing but hasn’t published the results or applied for a patent.) Some parts are pure imagination. (Stating performance and fuel economy figures for a radical experimental vehicle which he hasn’t even begun to build.) He completely leaves out the negative parts (reduced reliability, potential fuel freeze-ups, having to fill up with two different fuels on a regular basis, trying to find those fuels, difficulty getting repairs, etc.) And, of course, his customers get the joy of being on the bleeding edge of technology with something most people depend on to get to work and back.