Mazda 6 i-ELOOP recuperative braking system
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
I was having a conversation with @CannonFodder and @Pragtastic last night about cars I'm potentially looking at. One of the vehicles on my short list is a Mazda 6, which gets 40mpg highway with something (awkwardly) named i-ELOOP.
The article linked there explains it. I've decided I'm not buying another hybrid due to the huge price premium ($8K over non-Hybrid in my Fusion), so a gas engine that gets the same mileage is pretty compelling.
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The TL;DR is that the car decouples the alternator when it doesn't need it, which is one less motor to turn with gas, which increases efficiency.
That's not a Ford.
Believe it or not, as a Detroiter, it does weigh on me. Buying an American car is actually a pretty big deal around here. It's a thing. I'm not 100% sold on the Mazda yet, but it's in the running.
That article is out of date. Ford and Mazda ended their manufacturing partnership in 2013. The Flat Rock plant now builds the Ford Fusion and the Mustang.
Source: I drive by and they have a 200-foot massive mural on the side of the factory that boldly and proudly proclaims what they build there. It used to be the Mazda 6 and now it's the Fusion on that banner.
Source 2: The plant's website
I have a fondness for the current generation of Mazda vehicles. They are all fun to drive, good on gas, and don't break the bank. Give it a test drive and report back.
I currently lease a 2014 Mazda 3 S Touring. I have been a very happy camper with the choice over a year into the lease.
I have a friend from Detroit who said when he was growing up, any foreign car was likely to get its windows smashed in... Is that still a problem?
This system doesn't really save you anything. The alternator only develops as much load on the engine as being drawn out as electrical power less dynamo efficiency losses; the fact that you're using that power to charge a capacitor instead of a battery is immaterial. You're taking another efficiency hit on the DC-DC conversion as well. My 2006 Civic came off the lot at about 38 mpg real world and is down to about 32 at this age; the only fancy stuff on it is VTEC variable timing in efficiency configuration. I would hope that almost ten years later you'd be able to buy an uncompromised high-efficiency powerplant from an American company without wasting money on gimmicks.
When I look at the two cars side-by-side as a consumer who doesn't necessarily understand all of the engineering that goes on, here's what I see: the Mazda 6 is larger, almost 550 lbs heavier, and has a more powerful engine, yet gets about the same mileage as your car when it was new.
The i-ELOOP magic widget thingy might not play an enormous role in the fuel economy, but it's getting tougher to make efficiency improvements without resorting to technology outside the engine.
Test drove the new 6 in September of last year and I really liked it. The 2.5 was pretty spunky and smooth, but 4 cylinder engines are noisy. The handling was far better than anything I had driven that day from the like of Hyundai, Honda and Toyota. The 6 didn't suffer from the electronic steering numbness that Toyota had. The interior was a nice place to be and had all of the bells and whistles I could ever need. The Sonata was a close second to the 6 and was what my Mom had ultimately decided to buy.
Disclaimer: I own a 2010 Mazda 6 and may now be partial to the brand.
That's always been an urban legend in most ways: There was a union hall in the city with a parking lot that had a sign that said "Ford, GM, or Chrysler vehicles ONLY - we cannot be responsible for what happens to your FOREIGN CAR if you park here!" etc. There were rumors of foreign cars getting their windows smashed at those union hall parking lots.
It was kind of one of those jokes that made the rounds to scare outsiders a bit, like a joke at their expense. I've owned many foreign cars in my life. Never have I had a single negative experience based on driving one around Detroit (even at union halls, whom I've counted among clients in my past life as a business owner). I was even a union worker driving my Toyota to my union job. Nobody really cares so much that they would actually damage your vehicle. The most you have to deal with is sneers and shitty comments.
It's a problem the same way dropbears are a problem in Australia.
I currently have an American car, but from 1998 to 2011 I drove Japanese cars. In that time one guy yelled at me from his pickup truck once, shortly after the great recession started and the automakers were looking like they could go under.
But I also took this picture a mile from my house:
Edit: I wonder if they would allow me to park a Subaru Legacy built in Indiana...
I would have protested when I drove my Camaro, since it was built in Canada.
Also, feel free to point and laugh at any recent Chrysler vehicles in that lot.
Don't confuse them with facts... Nobody cares that "foreign" cars are built here and "domestic" are built abroad. Nor do they care to understand that these foreign car companies employ large numbers of people...
But not here. It's about Detroit jobs. You can tell me all the cars that are built elsewhere in the US but when your entire neighborhood is decimated by hundreds of foreclosures because the factory production left, it doesn't matter if it went to Ohio, Tennessee, or Japan... What matters is it left here. It's not so much about "Built in America" as it is "I support employing my neighbors with my purchase"
My neighbor, who therefore also lives a mile from where that picture was taken, works for the Toyota office in Plymouth, MI (as opposed to the Toyota Tech Center in Ann Arbor). It's complicated these days. My other neighbor is retired from Fiat-Chrysler and I have no idea if they're American or not.
This is the truth. Unfortunately, far too few of the "rah rah, 'murica!" people understand the nuances in production.
I completely agree with you here. I was mainly speaking about places like Oklahoma where "BUY 'MURKIN" is a way of life. Hell, even the TOYOTA dealer tried to push me to buy a Mustang when I traded cars last time (I declined).
I'm not sure if I dislodged the thread with the lulz gif, or if Drasnor did it by shating on the engineering concept leaving nothing to say about it.
I mean, basically it was a continuation of a mumble conversation with Eli and Ryan. Anything goes at that point
It does sound like a really cool bit of technology
Fixed it for you.
Real talk any impact production, sales of anything has on any given economy is incredibly complex and hard to grasp given the global trade of labor and goods.
Most alternators are so efficient now that even not using to draw power wouldn't really yield much, probably 1-2hp which translates to 0.lotsofzeros1 mpg improvement.
Toyota did this with an OIL PUMP, which I still don't understand. They developed this electric oil pump that runs on the same current as the fuel pump supposedly in an effort to eek out that much more fuel economy.
To be fair, any car built in America actively supports the economy. Pretty much every entry model from Toyota, Nissan, VW, Honda, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Subaru have FATP in the USA. I imagine this is mostly due to the tremendous shipping costs associated with large items like cars.
Always reminds me of Gung Ho and that company "Assan" trying to build cars in the USA for the first time. Great movie if you haven't seen it.
When I interned with Ford in high school (long ago in a galaxy far far away), you could only park in the closer lots if you had a Ford. However, my husband, who works for GM currently, said there are all sorts of cars in the GM lot (some of this is because they have a lot of contractors).
I had a mazda cx7 which I really liked until the turbo failed 20k miles after the warranty -- my experience lately has been that Ford and GM have better warranties on their cars (I have a Ford Escape (bought before Aaron started at GM) and a Cadillac ATS) -- so you might want to check on that as well. If you're buying the car vs leasing it, it might be worthwhile to get an extended warranty if you put a lot of miles on the car.
Yea, the turbos on that generation of Mazdas were absolutely horrid, leaking all kinds of oil into the turbine. Zoom zoom go Boom boom.