Quote:
Originally Posted by CSL-Fanatik
Without knowing this for sure, as we are all guessing, I believe that you have made some critical errors in your thinking. We safe fuel because the alternator is not being powered when accelerating by the engine, instead by the battery. Even if we go full throttle, and as you stated the "saved" gas that we do not use for powering the electronics, is now used for acceleration. So, we accelerate as quickly as possible, meaning that we reach a higher speed quicker and go a greater distance. My point is, that even though the saved fuel is burned during an acceleration, we go a greater distance and accelerate quicker, thus the gasmileage improved.
To present the opposite, an engine without alternator, picture a scenario where all electronics use 10% of the power by the car. We now only have 90%, not all 100% to accelerate and reach a higher speed. This means we go a shorter distance at full throttle and burn more fuel to reach a certain speed than we would have, if we would have had 100%.
I hope someone understands the point I am trying to make.
Either way, BER does in fact save fuel.
BMW created Efficient Dynamics, because it is supposed to SAVE FUEL with greater power/greater performance cars at the same time!!
BER does exactly what Efficient Dynamics is all about: IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
Best regards,
CSL
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I understand what you are saying. Good point. But you are talking about a world where inefficiencies scale up linearly. In reality, that's not the case at all, and a car that accelerates slowly is much more efficient than a car that accelerates quickly in reaching the same velocity and in covering the same distance (one will cover the distance sooner than the other, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of efficiency). So, if you floor it with a BER car (scenario 3B), you could very well be operating with less overall efficiency than a non-BER car in scenario 3A.
Also, add to this the stop and go of daily driving. It is highly unlikely you will be going a longer distance because you accelerated faster. The chances are you have simply accelerated faster, only to hit the breaks a few seconds later because you are behind a car or at a light to lose your momentum, and nothing more.
Provided all driving is some kind of mixture/derivative of scenarios 3A and 3B, one will probably use less energy at the end of the day, but I don't know how much without calculating. My guess is that it would not be much though, and that's just a blind guess...Even if it is not "much", BER is still probably a good thing from an efficiency perspective, but one would have to weigh the gains against the costs. Apparently, BMW has done that, and decided gains exceed the costs for the Euro market, and not for the US market, which actually suggests that the gains are indeed not all that drastic. If we had $6 gas here as well, I'm sure the battery problem would have been worth solving.
Regards,