One could wonder what many thousands well paid mechanical/electrical engineers, working for car/truck manufacturers, have been doing for the last 50+ years.

I'm not so sure about the "well paid" , but for the most part they show up to work and do what Management tells them to do. If you think it was easy to break out of that mold, I remind you of what happened to Preston Tucker.

This wasn't done earlier because efficiency was not a priority. Efficiency was not a priority because gasoline/diesel prices were low and CAFE standards were stagnant for years. The SUV craziness was fueled by cheap gas and the high marginal profits of light trucks. Jimmy Carter called for a new energy paradigm 30 years ago, but for various economic and, ultimately, political reasons, we didn't listen. Now it's catch up time.

The difficulties with improving transportation efficiency are political, not technical. No amount of 'automotive Bill Gates' will change that.

Nick:

If USA's vehicle efficiency gain is political; and the voting majority wants oversized gas guzzlers; and politicians have to be re-elected; the road to efficent locally built vehicles will be very long.

It will therefore take a very strong national leader to convince the majority that catch up time has arrived.

Just goes to prove the auto companies have been without good leadership for decades; else they would have listened to President Carter instead of fighting cafe standards and buying off politicians. Instead of paying engineers to design and to develop new efficient engines, management spent the money on PR, lawyers and politicians, a shameful display of protecting profits instead of innovating and building markets for new products.

MITI has had a combination air bearing electric turbo supercharger for a number of years. APT has had a similar one. Hydraulic hybrids will give all the needed starting torque. Reading these pages must give anyone the clue. Big engine plus big torque plus big vehicle equals big profit. I know this, and if someone gave me a F350 used, old and working well, I would keep it and drive it as much as I do my present vehicle. ..HG..

Sounds like people are confusing promises with reality here.

Even with the todays newly available electronics to control such a device, I am unconvinced it is better to add this expensive gear to a turbocharger rather than just improving the control of the turbocharger.

I was at a conference about oil reserves in Washington D.C. 5 years ago. There was a professor, John Heywood, head of MIT's engine department giving a presentation.

He basically said that car companies had more than a dozen almost fully developed fuel-saving techniques sitting idly on their shelves because the market wasn't ready for it. It was just not economical with cheap gas.

So go ahead and blame mechanical engineers (who actually developed and researched those technologies) and the car companies, but please try to remember how you and your friends spent their money on cars 5-10 years ago...

So what about the seemingly slow adaptation of these fuel saving technologies..? Well, car models have a very long lead-time. In order to make these technical marvels so unbelievably cheap, car makers have to have highly specialized tools to build them and these tools have to produces hundreds of thousands of units to be economical. Basically, the economical cars we see today, aside from Prius and Insight, look exactly like the other models, structurally. What has been changed? Maybe low resistance tyres, lower ride height, blanketing off some of the air intake, maybe a new front bumper, aerodynamic underside of the car, higher gearing ratio, new engine software, new battery/alternator and electrical power management, and in extreme cases electrical power steering and A/C drive. Stop'n'go technology can be bought as a kit from Bosch without requiring changes of the engine room layout, which is extremely expensive to implement.

The new VW Golf VI is an example of a car, where the entire design was dictated from the get go - it had to be exactly like the previous model on all the key measurements of the car. It basically has the same chassis.

However, have patience for another 5 years and we will see car makers have a lot more room to maneuver because they are not already locked in by investments made several years ago. I expect to see body shapes with improved aerodynamics. I drive a Golf V and I'm actually a little frustrated that it's too tall. I'm 6 feet tall and I have 5-6'' above my head in the cabin... I don't need that much more space - it's just hurting the aerodynamics of the car. And all the other little tricks will come into play and make a big difference.

This is also why Prof. Heywood did not think the hybrids stood much of a chance - because of their high cost and the numerous relatively cheap technologies available to make ICE cars get MUCH better gas mileage.

This seems like a good technology, but a day late and a dollar short.

For all you auto industry bashers, please realize that your hated Suburban, the very anti-green definition of bad vehicle, achieves 50% better mileage than the most economical car on the road, when CAFE was first measured.

And every other car or truck on the road, no matter the company, does better than the best of 1973. That is a long road to have come, in the competition to combat the monopolistic, oil PRICE crisis, in the relatively short time since then.

Fuel economy has doubled, and then doubled again, to get to where we are today. At the same time the newest cars exceed all toxic emissions requirements; and most newly introduced power trains in them, are producing ZERO Pollution now.

Tremendous advances, with cars offering triple digit economy, and genuine substitutes, requiring little or no oil, are on the verge of being offered for sale.

Please take your complaints back to 1980, when they might have been valid. Complaining about not using today's technology, back before it was invented, is particularly mindless.