[geeks] What is Microsoft planing with this?

[wa2egp at att.net]

> I didn't believe that. I'd heard it before but didn't believe it.  So
> I looked it up and it was even BETTER. According to the 1984 EPA
> report (http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/84guide.zip), the Civic
> Coupe- I'm guessing they mean the CRX- with a 1300CC engine beat the
> estimated mpg of 51 by a wide margin, posting 57 City/67 Highway in
> one test and 54/64 in another.

There used to be a show on TV called "Fight Back" with a David Horowitz (IIRC).
It was one of those consumer advocate shows.  They wanted to test Honda's claim
of 62 mpg.  With the help of the Automobile Club, they filled the tank of one,
locked it (the tank) and someone drove it between some town (could have it been
Sacramento?) and LA.  The Honda people were getting worried since it got back 
late.  Turns out the car got stuck on the LA freeway in rush hour traffic.  
When it finally returned, they unlock the tank, and filled the tank again, 
measuring the fuel they put in.  From the fuel and distance, they calculated 
65 mpg.  Even the Honda folks were surprised.  Could they have slipped them a
"modified" car?  Could be.  I don't trust the EPA.  They don't actually put 
the car on the road.  They strap it on to a dynamometer and "calculate" the 
wind resistance to reduce the milage.  Detroit can send stripped down prototype
models while foreign car manufactorers have to send the cars us normal people
buy.  I could never figure out how a big ass Buick could get the same mpg as my
old 1.3 L Tercel.  Even the engine was twice as big!

> One thing I always wondered about was why Honda never went beyond the
> EXP2-Tech prototype desert racer they fielded around '96 or '97. A
> clean-burning, fuel-injected two-stroke seemed promising. I guess they
> looked at the cost of ramping it up and how far they could take it in
> light of all the work they already had on four-strokes and figured
> that the risk of running afoul of future regulations wasn't worth
> it. Oh, well.

Our govenment could have crippled it.  When they demanded that Honda put the
computer and all of the other antipollution stuff on the CRX, the milage dropped
to the mid 40's  in spite of the fact that the car was passing the future
California pollution standards without it.  Geez, I still remember the 
American Insurance Institute's video, shown on the news, where a 73 Corolla
was bursting into flames when being rear ended and how dangerous they were, and
yet, Ford was making Pintos with the blastomatic gas tanks.  Money talks....