Shifting at the peak of the power band is only useful if you drive around at full throttle constantly.

Do you mean the torque peak or the HP peak? That's at 3900rpm and 5650rpm respectively in my car and much higher than the 2200-2500rpm I usually shift at, which is the most widely recommended shift point for gasoline-engined car.

I know my car simply doesn't calculate fuel usage below 30km/h, which can skew the numbers if I do a lot of rush hour driving. I keep track of my mileage on fuelly, and at the moment, it's at 8.9l/100km compared to the 8.8l/100km my car shows. The difference is smaller than on your truck, but it's definitely there.

Nice example of shit that never happened. Have you actually ever talked to actual unemployed people? BY FAR the majority of them hate being without work, but they just can't find any jobs within their skillset. Every unskilled position is filled by non-union people working at or below minimum wage already.

Of course there are people who vehemently refuse to work, for whatever reason. Would you rather they be thrown in the gutter and left to die, or given a small allowance, enough to put a roof over their head and food on their table? Let me give you a hint, the first option is barbaric, primitive and abhorrent. The second option is the only humane choice.

Activate 2-step authentication as well. Every 30 days, I have to enter a code that I receive via SMS in order to login to my Gmail account on a trusted computer (my home desktop). On every other computer, I have to enter a new code on every login attempt. So unless an attacker gains access to both my password and my phone, they won't be able to get in.

https://accounts.google.com/SmsAuthConfig

I'm 5'10", 210lbs and I consider myself fat. My BMI is 30, which puts me in the "obese" category, statistically speaking. Adding 50lbs would put me way into "visibly obese" territory, in fact that's what I used to weigh before I started working out and eating healthier food.

Then again, no matter what I do I can't seem to get below 200lbs. I do crossfit 3-4 hours per week, always take the stairs, stand at my desk at work, ride my bicycle, cut out white rice, white bread, potatoes etc. from my diet, stay away from sweets and all those things. I wouldn't even mind weighing in at 210lbs if I could just lose the gut.

Sounds about right for me as well, thankfully not to quite the same degree as you. I overheat easily, like for instance riding my bicycle even in winter weather with just a regular jacket on. Forget about bicycling for long distances in summer, even in shorts and a t-shirt, I'm sweating like mad in minutes.

I have a theory that this is related to my inability to get below ~95kg. I work out hard 3-4 times per week (hard ~1 hour crossfit workouts), I always take the stairs, I've all but eliminated white rice, white bread and other simple carbs from my diet, I've cut down severely on my serving sizes, I've pretty much cut out all snacks completely (apart from the occasional piece of dark chocolate, one is human after all), I hardly ever touch alcohol and never in large amounts, and yet my weight stays right where it is.

I know my weight will balloon upwards if I start eating badly again (I was over 120kg at one point), but my current body fat percentage is ~30%, my BMI is ~30 and I just can't get rid of my belly etc. seemingly no matter what I do.

But at least I'm never cold, I guess.

Why the assumption that I live in the US?

I live in Europe, and my first two cars both had around 70hp. One was a Corolla that weighed around 800kg, the other a Nuevo Panda at around 950kg. I had lots of fun, ran rings around bigger cars in city traffic and got speeding tickets in both.

My current car is a Peugeot 406 with 160hp and it's just objectively better in every way. It's roomier, faster, quieter, much more fun to drive and a lot more comfortable to boot. I absolutely wouldn't mind if it had 200hp (which the V6 model has), but I make do with 160.

Yeah, if it's anything like their currently diesel/electric hybrid drivetrain, you can only go couple of miles on a "charge". The zero-emissions bit is a nice little bonus for short distances, but the real meat lies in the ability to recover braking energy, which is a huge deal when it comes to increasing fuel mileage and decreasing brake wear.

Where do you live that a C-segment car with a ~110hp engine is high-powered? I'd place it as midrange at best.

I only know of diesel hybrid drivetrain currently on sale, coincidentally, it's built by Peugeot Citroen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_HYbrid4

It works in a different way to the Prius and other gasoline hybrids. In essence you have a normal FWD car with a diesel engine and an automatic gearbox, to which is added a RWD electric drivetrain and electronics to make things work in harmony. The idea is to use the road as a transmission between the two powertrains, while still letting you drive in pure electric mode for a short distance in town. The additional electric drivetrain means that you effectively have 4WD as well.

I hope you are aware that Citroen have had world-beating expertise in hydropneumatic suspension, brakes and power steering since they introduced the technology to the car market in the 1950s?

If it involves hydraulic oil and/or compressed nitrogen, they know better than anyone else what they're doing.

VW has a history of making bold claims about fuel economy and failing to meet them. An acquaintance of mine drives a Seat Ibiza Ecomotive, a 1.2L 3-cylinder turbodiesel super-economobile, basically the same as a VW Polo Bluemotion. Its fuel consumption is 69 US MPG on paper, but it's rare that he even gets above 50 US MPG, driving normally.

Meanwhile, I drive a 12-year-old Peugeot 406 with a 2.2L gasoline engine and no particular fuel-saving initiatives. Fuel consumption on paper is 26.5 US MPG, I average 26.3 US MPG with a mix of both normal and 'spirited' driving. My parents drive a 12-year-old CitroÃn C5 with a 2.0L engine, their consumption figures pretty much match mine (it's a heavier car).

So there you have it, anectdotal evidence show us that Peugeot CitroÃn are much more truthful in their mileage estimates than VW is.

Yeah, I was talking about the glowplugs (I used to drive a diesel car). Realistically, you only need to heat the fuel cell to the point where it can run itself, at that point you don't need the battery for the heater anymore, since the fuel cell provides its own power.

It'll run at lower efficiency until it heats up, but as long as you can get it to the point of "thermal self-sufficiency", it's really no different than having a combustion engine that needs to heat up before it runs at optimal efficiency. The fuel cell will probably heat up faster, too.

As for the CO2 issue, a methanol/propane/whatever will still emit CO2, but it'll emit a lot less for the same distance covered compared to a combustion engine vehicle, and it's more flexible in regards to finding a CO2-neutral fuel to power it.

That was most likely because of the hydrogen they use and not because of the fuel cells. Hydrogen is ridiculously hard to store in liquid form. It needs to be cooled to an extreme degree, kept under high pressure and it tends to escape through even the smallest cracks. Which is especially bad considering how it embrittles metal over time.

Gasoline, (bio)diesel, ethanol, methanol, this new biofuel, propane etc. don't have this problem. We have well-proven storage methods that are both portable, dependable and durable. Everyone talks about fuel cells an hydrogen as if that's the only viable combination, but any fuel source that can react with oxygen (ie. all of them) are technically viable alternatives.

If fuel cells operate at lower efficiency when cold, all you need is a battery-powered pre-heater, just like on diesel engines.

The issues you mention are precisely why battery tech is still not mature enough, and why we need non-hydrogen fuel cells instead.

The electric motor is not the problem in cold weather, in fact it actually works better in those conditions!

Electric propulsion is the future, we just need the right energy storage solution.