Tradeoffs Between Energy Efficiency and Performance

Energy efficiency was never a really major concern for me in a washing machine, because although it is used regularly I use cold wash light duty or medium duty for virtually everything so the overall total energy usage is quite low.

As long as it did the job without damaging the clothes and was reliable and had a long life then the slight difference in energy efficiency offset against the (generally) increased cost of the unit didn't seem that important.

Home heating and air conditioning, well that's a different story.

Maybe, filter the exhaust then vent to the intake?

Then where would the humidity go?

The dryer should be in a separate, unheated/uncooled room with a separate air intake. There is always a window at least a little bit open in our laundry room, and most of the time the door from the house to to that room is closed.

Filtering/recircing alone is not a solution. The water has to be removed from the air.

There are now condensing clothes driers, which provides one alternative that has some advantages, though in hot climates, it would still be better just to locate the drier outside conditioned space.

Another possibility is an intake duct with some form of heat exchange with the exhaust, such that make up air was not sourced from conditioned air and was pre-heated by exhaust air. The intake and exhaust would need to have enough separation to limit recircing wet exhaust. Also, the heat exchanger design/effectiveness will be challenged by the opposing requirements of easily clearing lint buildup, maintaining reasonable heat exchange and having a form that allows location in the wall space typically available.

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As dkwarner suggests, keeping the drier in unconditional space is probably the best option in many scenarios.

Coaxial aluminum vent pipe. Put a 4" inside a 6" so that the dryer exhaust rejects some of its heat to the incoming air. The difficult part is getting an adapter so you can plumb the pre-heated intake air into the dryer. You would need to block off the intake vents of the dryer (usually in the base and on the back panel, and then plumb a second vent pipe into the dryer.

I've thought about this, but I'm not sure it's worth all the extra hassle.

I did however insulate on the inside of the panels of my dryer with foil-backed rigid foam insulation boards to greatly reduce the heat loss through the metal panels. I did this when I had to replace the glide bearings and rear roller bearings on my trusty Maytag dryer. There is considerable heat loss through the panels. The top of my dryer used to get quite warm when operating. Now, you can barely feel the difference in temperature. I did the top, front and rear and the sides. Figured no sense in doing the bottom since much of the air comes through that anyways.

I've had similar thoughts. Of course, manufacturing a drier with integral heat exchanger and good insulation could offer better performance. I doubt this is likely to happen in the near term though, since I doubt the measures of efficiency (used by the likes of EnergyStar, or more informally in any consideration consumers may give to the subject) include much consideration of these often large secondary effects.

"Airconditioned air is being heated to dry clothes..."

True, but here in Florida that air conditioned air is also a lot less humid (more dry) than the outside air. If I tried to feed my dryer with outside air, the clothes would take days to dry, not the 90 minutes they usually take.

It's not just the higher temperature of the air that drys the clothes, lower moisture content of the air plays a significant role.

When I lived in the desert in southern CA where the air moisture is practically non-existent, I considered the same thing....but the problem with the outside air there is that even on windless days there air seemed to have a significant amount of dirt floating around in it. The thought of sucking that into the dryer was not appealing.

I wouldn't recommend using a no heat setting and attempting to dry clothes using unconditioned air in the summer in Florida...it would take a long time. With added heat however, the air can carry off much more water.

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Remember, this isn't merely a problem of just reheating air that you just paid to cool. The problem is that every cubic foot of air the drier pumps out of the airconditioned space is a cubic foot of humid, hot outside air that has been pumped into the airconditioned space.

Readily exchanging outside air really reduces the effectiveness of efforts to insulate the home. You wouldn't argue against the benefits of reasonable efforts to insulate/improve insulation of air conditioned space in a Florida home, would you?

"I wouldn't recommend using a no heat setting and attempting to dry clothes using unconditioned air in the summer in Florida... "

I didn't mean to imply you recommended a 'no heat' setting....just non-conditioned air. To me this means the dryer would be taking in moist and warm (or hot) air as opposed to cool and dry air. The moist warm air would not be less effective at drying the clothes than the cool dry air as they both would be heated by the dryer, making both the necessary temperature. I would expect the scenario using warm moist air at the inlet would take longer to dry the clothes as it has to remove more moisture.

I am willing to accept the fact that my assumptions may be flawed or at least make too little difference to be of consequence (i.e. does the additional heating of the cool air offset the additional drying of the warm/moist air?).

I think the way to evaluate it would be to examine the energy costs of both scenarios (using conditioned air to feed the dryer and using non-conditioned air) to see which consumes the least.

Furthermore, one should look at whether or not there are ill effects on the dryer sucking in unconditioned air and operating in a warmer, moister environment relative to a dryer operating in a cool/dry environment.

Lastly, are there any adverse effects on the clothes or for the wearers of the clothes from a dryer using outside air? My wife has allergies, would the dryer sucking in unconditioned air be coating the clean clothes with pollen from the outside air? I'm sure my wife would be able to tell within 10 minutes of getting dressed. Of course it's possible to at least filter the air prior to entering the dryer just as the AC unit has a filter.

Air that is drier would allow more rapid removal of moisture at the same flow rate, if heated to the same temperature. Often heat is added at a fairly stable rate, so cooler input air will not reach the same temp are warmer input air. The large heat capacity of water will of set this for cool dry vs. warm set scenarios, but at the typical percentages, cooler input will typically result in lower ultimate temp. There is probably some advantage there for delicate temperature sensitive materials, but from an energy efficiency perspective, when conditions lead to a large portion of the energy bill going to maintaining a temperature/humidity difference between living space and outside, having the drier use and exhaust air from the living space is typically a big loser.

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I suspect driers typically work with sufficiently high flow rates that air inside the drying space does not have time to get too close to saturation. This would make using inside air particularly expensive to use.

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I doubt your wife's alergies are less likely to be triggered by pollen first drawn through the home to replace what the drier uses of the interior air, than from pollen that doesn't first travel through interior spaces.

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I know there are exceptions for which using expensive conditioned air to feed the drier makes sense. Most of the time the energy analysis points fairly unambiguously to avoiding using conditioned interior air to feed the drier.

"Often heat is added at a fairly stable rate, so cooler input air will not reach the same temp are warmer input air. "

Do you know that? Your statement makes it sound as if you are making a reasonable educated guess...but is it true? I can also imagine a dryer manufacturer deciding that in order to get consistent performance the air coming into contact with the clothes must be at a certain minimum temperature or even a given temperature and thus heat the air to that design temperature (regardless of input air) (I just did a quick internet search on how dryers regulate temperature and what I read sounds like they use a thermostat meaning they heat the air to a given set point). Imagine a dryer being used in the winter up north. If the dryer is only designed to heat up the air 30 degrees, then you'll be trying to dry them with 40-60 deg air. How effective would that be?

I doubt your wife's allergies are less likely to be triggered by pollen first drawn through the home to replace what the drier uses of the interior air, than from pollen that doesn't first travel through interior spaces.

I'm not sure quite what you mean. I do believe that her allergies are more likely to be triggered by allergens covering all her clothes due to outside and unfiltered air blowing over clothes in the dryer than by air coming into the house to replace air sucked into the dryer.

The air drawn into the house to replace air being taken in by the dryer will gradually circulate in the house and be drawn into the return air duct where it will be highly filtered. Plus the allergens have a chance to settle on things that are not directly on my wife's body.

You may be entirely correct on the topic, but I can't get my mind around the relative magnitudes of the effectiveness of using dry air at a certain temperature compared to moister air at a higher temperature. I'm sure such data exists, but I haven't stumbled across it yet.

"...dry them with 40-60 deg air. How effective would that be?"

I haven't done any math, but knowing how dry the air tends to be when the outside temperature is in the teens, heating that air 30° would drop the humidity even further, so it might be quite effective.

It's been a long time since I lived in such climates, but I'm pretty sure I remember hanging clothes out to dry on a clothesline when the water in them froze almost instantly, and they became stiff as a board. The next morning they were completely dry and flexible, with no heat added (freeze-dried). Add enough heat to that dry air to bring it up 30°, and they would dry rather quickly.

I can't argue about effectiveness of drying clothes with cool or cold air....but adding heat to 30 degree air will not dry it out.

The moisture will still be there unless it evaporates. The relative humidity will drop....but it will still have the same water content. Heating the air means that the air is able to hold a higher moisture content.

"The relative humidity will drop..." That is precisely what I meant!

If air that has a relative humidity of 50% at 30°F is heated to 60°F, its Relative Humidity drops to around 20%. That's definitely going to absorb water more easily.

Yes, it is. Which is what I'm getting at.

Cool/dry air when heated up will have more moisture carrying capacity than warm/humid air heated to the same temperature. Or at least that's my belief. If I ever get a little time from work, I'll actually go through some math to convince myself.

I don't think you need to review any math to convince yourself. You are already convinced....

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...which is completely reasonable, since dry air brought to the same temperature as more humid air does have more capacity available to hold water. That really is somewhat of a red herring, though, as I don't think anyone was disputing that fact.

You are already convinced....

No, I'm not. I just don't know.

That really is somewhat of a red herring, though...

I'm not sure why you say it's a red herring.

It's the basis of why I am in doubt that using moist but warmer air as an input would be more efficient in drying clothes than using cooler dryer air as an input. I don't have an intuitive feel for which parameter has the greatest impact.

I'm not quite sure how one would go about calculating the true efficiency when the drier is in or near an air conditioned space. There are at least three basic scenarios:

1. Drier input is from air conditioned space and drier output returns to air conditioned space. This clearly places a large extra load on the air conditioning system, but since it avoids modifications to the building, I suspect it is fairly common.

2. Drier input is from air conditioned space and drier output goes outside. This is probably the best as far as drying speed is concerned, but the replacement air must still come from outside and be cooled and dried by the A/C, so there is still a significant additional load on the A/C.

3. Drier input is from outside and drier output returns to outside. This is probably the most efficient method, since no energy is expended removing water from the air, but the drying cycle will clearly take longer, so I'm not sure. There will still be some heat transferred from the drier cabinet, so there will still be a small increase on the A/C load. As others have pointed out, the efficiency will depend on how much heat, if any, is exchanged from the output air stream to the input air stream, and how well the output stream is directed away from the input air stream.

If you are able to do some calculations, please share them here!

I suggest there there is a 4th scenario - Your number 3 implies the dryer is located in an air conditioned space. So number 4 would be drier input is from outside and drier output returns to outside and the dryer is located in the garage of some other non-conditioned space thus the heat through the dryer cabinet would not add a load to the AC.

My home is configured as the second scenarios you describe (so it's of the greatest interest to me). I agree scenario 1 may be the least efficient. And while I understand the why some may think scenarios 3 is the most efficient, it's not obvious to me. Of course it depends on what the operating conditions are (ambient temperature and humidity).

If I am able to model the different scenarios, I'll certainly post them. (if someone else beats me to it, I won't complain).

OR, you could have the 5th scenario: Dryer is in utility room next to garage (utility is conditioned air). Dryer exhaust is to garage (car gets covered in lint), just lovely, not to mention the flame hazard on starting the car.

In the winter, the wife runs dryer at night especially on extra cold nights, even if she has to just soak a towel in water...all for the cats that live in the garage cat hotel (previously unfortunately referred to as the garage cat house).

Which is more efficient (to my health): (a) kill the cats, and put an end to this insanity, or (b) look in the box and see if the cat is alive (thereby perturbing the system), or (c) just let things continue as they are. I chose (c).

Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh.

There are quite a few arrangements that could be considered, but I think 2 through 4 cover the most common set ups.

I don't think many people are exhausting their drier into airconditioned living space...whether thy draw it from there or not. Even in unconditioned living space, that much humidity is bound to cause problems in most places.

There is another option, kind of a 2b. Instead of just pulling in outside air from wherever it leaks in, a heat exchanger, the type used for heat recovery in building ventilation, could be used to prevent heat the drier feed and cool the outside air closer to indoor temps. The air from outside could be directly routed to the air handler. The air going to the drier could possibly be heated by other loads along the way and by the drier exhaust.

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If one was really set on using less humid indoor air to feed the drier, exchanging heat with the air drawn into the house would be take some load off the AC unit and a little off the drier as well.

exchanging heat with the air drawn into the house would be take some load off the AC unit and a little off the drier as well.

Yes, I've heard of that. Also recently read about preheating the air going to the dryer by passing it by the waste heat of the condenser coil of the AC unit. Of course that may not be very practical in many housing or apartment configuations.

There are actual red herrings?

Not sure what the intended objects were in your reply, probably pictures of red herring (pl.)

I think I will stick with option c of scenario 5.

Keeping the wife happy is clearly a high priority!

Believe it or not, that's why our drier has never been connected to power. It has been used as a storage cabinet for many years. She prefers naturally dried clothes for some reason... So here's scenario 6: Drier in place, but never connected.

You guys have way too much time on your hands......

.....just start the car in the garage, to keep the cats warm at night.....

10 years ago, I sealed my Maytag electric dryer, then made a connection for air to come from outside the house into the dryer. I used a screen mesh and pleated filter mounted to the inside wall of our utility room; a short piece of 10" dia duct through the wall from outside. I did this to please my wife who said that the dryer was causing the air conditioner to stay on when the dryer was on. In a short time, I found this to be very efficient. My wife doesn't interrupt me about the dryer/air conditioner anymore. True event.

'...Do you know that? Your statement makes it sound as if you are making a reasonable educated guess...'

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Indeed a guess on my part, but a safe one, none the less, since after all we are discussing efficiency here, and if the cooler air is to be heated to the same temp it requires additional energy input.

One of the important things to keep in mind here is that the drier is typically not saturating the exhaust air. The exhaust air is humid, but even after cooling along the path out the vent, it typically is not forming condensate immediately....drier vents blow lint but don't usually drip condensate. This means the exhaust, even after cooling some is below saturation... meaning it was certainly well below saturation when it was hotter.

So, no I don't know for a fact the same amount of heat is added. It was a conservative assumption since if it were not true (if the cooler air requires more heat) it only adds support for what I am explaining.

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If you think the process would be more efficient with dehumidifier air, perhaps installing a dehumidifier and perhaps a pollen filter on the drier intake would be something to consider. I don't think the dehumidifier will save energy in the grand scheme however.

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I do think sourcing your drier make up air from outside will reduce the amount of pollen drawn into your home. I'm sure pollen on clothes may be a problem for some, and filtering drier make up air may help. It seems that pollen in the air is also a large concern. While your house filter may eventually get it, it would be better to not be regularly drawing it in.

As opposed to "conditional" air? Breathing is absolute, not conditional.

Hmmmm, yes, quite.

Damn predictive text, always trying to sneak in its 'corrections'.

At times yes supposed energy efficiency has greatly annoyed me in the use of equipment and actions of my work.

I absolutely hate trying to use underpowered and or poorly built equipment that simply lacks the motive power and physical robustness needed to do it's intended job.

It ranks right up there with much of the bogus reasonings behind emissions compliances and ill thought out safety compliances as things I have very little tolerance for at times.

Case in point: I have utilized a number of rubber impeller pumps (eccentric cavity) to transfer chemicals when blending my corrosion/scale inhibitor at work (that we use hundreds of gallons of per year, or is it thousands (depends on the year I suppose).

The old ones (Mfr anonymous) had good starting torque on the 110 V single phase motor, and could be plugged into an extension cord as needed to make the pump proximate to the drum being pumped out. The rubber impeller pumps have great suction lift, as long as any fittings are not leaking air.

The new pump (Mfr. also anonymous, but is the "new" house brand where purchases both took place) has not near the starting torque of the old one, and will simply not rotate from dead stop if attached to an extension cord. Then the pump is nowhere near the intended application. So much for "efficiency". How is that "efficient" if the damned thing cannot even do the task for which it is designed?

My postulate: Efficiency is zero and irrelevant if performance is not = unity. Performance as a Delta function is not my idea of a good time had by all.

Your pump manufacturer likely made the decision to cut the torque of the pump motor strictly for economic reasons. Less copper means a cheaper motor, sorry about the lack of torque.

I recently worked for an appliance manufacturer who purchased motors from Asia. We were constantly tweaking the motor windings to make the motors as cheap as possible so as to maximize company profit. Being the engineer, I tried to get them to avoid sacrificing quality for profit, but to no avail. This was pennies per motor, but over the 10's of thousands of motors, it adds up.

What are you gonna do, the almighty dollar rules. The customer (sucker) drools.

Lo: You are absolutely right about low copper motors from China. Maybe the OEM told the Chinese manufacturing contractor to put X amount of turns of copper in the motor winding but they used X-20%, hence T-40% starting torque, and yes the motor was apparently made in China. I suppose they kept the extra copper to wire someone's house.

Yea, but just think about all that electrical energy the proud new owner is saving......! The appliance doesn't do what the consumer wants, but they save all that electrical energy while it doesn't do what it's supposed to do! I think it's a win-win....for the mfr and all the GHG enthusiasts out there! I mean, who cares about cleaning clothes when the appliance has all THAT going for it, right?

Do we detect a slight aroma of cynicism?

Yup, it costs extra money and time to save a little water. I figure if I buy a new machine now, I should break even when I'm around 130.

I don't think anyone has ever purchased a machine primarily on its electrical consumption, they want clean clothes!

I don't think anyone has ever purchased a machine primarily on its electrical consumption, they want clean clothes!

It's not the consumer's choice.

I think the new machines are fine. I don't believe that inferior machines survive the "acid" test for long.

Our front loader takes 48 minutes for a "normal" load and 65 minutes for an extra dirty load.

Does it save energy? Don't know.

GA

Unfortunately high efficiency, green, eco friendly and what not tend to be the top calling cards for all around crappy products that barely do what they claim to excel at.

Personally if at least one tree doesn't fall over or burn down some place whenever I press the go button on something I am not pleased with its performance.

You can always be relied upon to burn a tree or a truckload of tires!

such a machine will be very expensive.will you like a wife who spends a lot of your money and only does householdwork and baby sitting.

pnaban: If such a woman exists within the confines of the Unites States of America, she would be arrested for non-conformance with standards of equality for women movement. If you can find such a woman here, keep her, and keep her a secret, for her worth is more than rubies. My wife is near that, as she is fiscally smart, frugal, and is a consummate planner of all changes to our abode, and its surroundings. She is a true domestic engineer in the highest sense of the word. Her illness(es) prevent her from running all over town spending her money, so she saves it, and accuses me of being a shopaholic when I go buy food, or anything else we need. I lover her, and sort of hate her at the same time.

Not even mentioned that you have someone to wrestle (sweat out) or should I say in engineering terms "agitate, ripple, jerk" every night? Oh, I partially got your point though.

Efficiency in the first place should be an objective to performance. One can not easily call a non-performing machine efficient.

I think you stated my postulate in reverse. There is no efficiency when performance = zero.

Yes buddy, I could relate Gringogreg's awesome signature, in talking about performance " The older I am, the better I used to be".

My new machine is so efficient with it's meager use or water that I run it through twice to make sure the soap is washed out of my clothes. I have a well so plenty of water here in Vermont. The environmental regs give me no choice.

That's why I'll keep my 1989 Maytag W/D set running until they pry them out of my cold, stiff fingers. A few years ago I had to do my first maintenance job on the washer when the gear box finally ground to a halt. A new gear box was about $200 plus my labor. I figure I'm good for another 20-ish years. Replaced a couple of dry-rotted looking hoses while I had it apart. My wife purchased a set of Whirlpool Duos (W/D) for the upstairs. I noticed the towels that come out of that are NOT as clean as the towels that were washed in the old soldiers downstairs. I can feel the detergent residue on the towels. I also found that adding a tablespoons or two of TSP to each load does wonders.

I'll ask my wife and come back with an answer. Last I have seen there was still a washing machine somewhere in a room called laundry. But why would I know?

If the engineer is smart he lets his wife buy the washing machine unless he is prepared to defend his choice.

She needs to get the one that gets the clothes clean.

Economics too should be considered,items like initial cost,interest payable,energy consumption,maintenance cost(spares/labour),salvage value,space required,warranty etc should be studied.

GA!

We don't use a dryer (Have one, but never connected it). When we replaced my 30-40 year old Kenmore washer, the guy that delivered the replacement said "You'll be lucky if you get past 10 years with the new one.".

There ought to be a a tax, inversely proportional to the expected lifetime of the device under normal usage, paid by the manufacturer. With modern materials, there is no reason why they couldn't economically make a washer with a 50-year life expectancy, allowing for replacement of a few valves, controls, etc.

In two more years, my Carrier A/C will be 50 years old. I've owned the home for over 45 years, and have spent $200 on maintenance over those 45 years. That's the way it otta be!

Remember this so-called engineering practice called "planned obsolescence"? I think it has turned and bitten itself on the tail now.

Another unspoken word in here so far is reliability. In a power plant (slightly OT), there is efficiency (needed for base load units), performance (especially needed for base load units), and reliability (important for base load and for peak stacking units).

The thing with the smaller units that get struck when supplies are tight is that they need not be as efficient as the big units, need not have ultimate performance even (in other words if they are labeled as blocks of 100 MW, if only 90 MW can be put on the unit due to environmental conditions that day, then that is what it is), but they had better be reliable (especially if the owners want that unit to be struck in the open market the next day).

Sometimes in my world, I view longevity and reliability as opposite sides of the same coin. One really needs both sides of that coin working for them.

My mother had a saying "break it in, wear it out, make it do or do without".

"It wasn't possible to repair the old one,"

I call BS on this one.

If it was possible to build one, I believe it is possible to repair one. Sure it may not be practical or economical but c'mon. An engineer says it isn't "POSSIBLE". Even it were true, who would admit such a thing.

He would have been better off stating that his Wife wanted a new color to match the wallpaper.

I was paraphrasing a story I heard secondhand... so blame me not the source.

Massey-

Congratulations on the repair successes!

The testimonials to longevity are great but what about the many others that are not economically worth or feasible to repair? If it was possible to build one doesn't mean that it is cost effective to repair. Bought the wife the top of the line clothes washer because she wanted it and it had a good history from other owners. Fortunately, with much disgust, I also got an extra 2 year warranty on it which I then extended to 5 years. In those 5 years the drum had to be replaced twice at no cost to me but at more than the original purchase price. Another benefit was this was a tricky job and their mechanic did it in less than an hour each. It was replaced, after the warranty ran out, when it failed the third time!

On the other side I have a table saw that in 47 years I haven't even had to replace the v-belt, same for daily used air compressor, dehumidifier (the fan bearings seized but have already ordered a big size computer fan to replace it), electric carving knife, and the toaster oven we got as a wedding present still works. One drill press was my father-in-laws and must be at least 60 years old. I have the wrenches he used as a Sea-Bee in AK during WW2.

Everything must be looked at from an economical stand point before repairing or trashing/replacing. Sentimental can be an expensive thought.

Also, one of my boats is 55 years old and still doing fine. Now that I am sentimental about!

Good Luck, Old Salt

My parents, married for 65 years, received a Sunbeam T-20 automatic toaster as a wedding present. They raised six children and that toaster has been used every day. They're still using it today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3RAQ8cW2w (not my dad, but it is a very similar toaster T-35)

The funny thing is, when my dad opened this wedding gift, he thought to himself, "Gee, this is kinda neat, but it won't last."

When it comes to washers and dryers, toilets, vehicle emissions.......leave it to California to drive the rest of the country into the range of absurd! So, it isn't necessarily a change driven by efficiency, nor better results. California wanted to save water....so the rest of the country gets "water efficient" toilets that flush so well. ....And clothes washers that work so well.......And automobiles that burn more fuel and get less horsepower......And tractor-trailer rigs that also get less horsepower, cost a mint to maintain and purchase, yet still have to drive the same 55 mph on California roads and interstates.

I have '97 vintage Maytag washer and dryer set. They do a great job, and I have yet to spend a dime on maintenance on either one. Water is plentiful where I live. Most people in the USA don't live in California........so why are they driving the boat on all these bone-headed decisions?

Because they are "Progressive" and "Liberal" - meaning translated as they have an agenda to push, and for many years California was the one State in the Union leading the pack as to new legislation. They can legislate a grasshopper to devour an ant.

I've lived in California for most of 60 years, but have also lived in the East and Midwest, as well as South America. Near the beginning of that time, I took advantage of the fact that cars were so easy to work on that I could, and did, replace the engine in my car with no help from anyone other than Sears! I hate the fact that cars are now so complex that I can't do any significant work on them.

BUT, in the '50s and '60s you didn't need to see anything to know when you were approaching Los Angeles, because your eyes started burning from the smog. In fact you couldn't see anything much over a mile away, if that, because of the smog. Now, in spite of the fact that there are several times the number of cars (I was unable to locate a number for the '60s in several minutes of search), the smog is vastly reduced.

In fact a Forbes headline states: "Los Angeles Pollution From Car Exhaust Is Down 98% [since 1960]".

"...And automobiles that burn more fuel and get less horsepower..." That simply is NOT true! The car I drove in the '60s got around 20 miles per gallon, driving 55mph. The one I drive now gets 42 mpg average, and over 50 mpg on horizontal freeways at 75mph. It is hardly a race car, but it is a full-size car, and I believe has better acceleration than the one I had back then.

Well, the subject at hand here is washer machines. Tell me I'm wrong about water usage being driven by California for toilets and appliances.......

And California is such a fickle state. I got out of engineering for 8 years, and my wife and I drove for FedEx all over the country and Canada during those years. So, I can make a better comparison than most, and from experiences only 6 months old. California is running low on water in all reservoirs, lakes, streams. Yet, Southern California gets the lion's share of water from all over the state......so that the medians can be green, palm trees can grow, yards can be green, golf courses.......basically keep the illusion alive that southern California is some kind of water-rich oasis. In the meantime, agriculture in the state suffers horribly. And, to top that off, California welcomes millions more folks from south of the border with open arms....despite the job and water shortages.

But....let's be fair. During the 50s and 60s there was no EPA or OSHA. INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION was also a major part of the mix....perhaps most of the mix, since far fewer people owned cars in California and all the other states. Smog was a major problem in the East, too! I remember the yellow-brown air and the stench crossing from Philly to New Jersey in the late 60s and early 70s, and the yellow foam that floated everywhere down the rivers into the Chesapeake Bay. That wasn't from cars.

As far as horsepower.....perhaps I should step back and condition my comment. During the late 70s and into the 80s and 90s, cars sucked massive amounts of gasoline and had less horsepower. There were exceptions.....my 83 Dodge Charger with the Holley dual barrel feedback carb got 44 mpg hwy, 32 city. But mostly, Detroit at first kept big engine displacements into the mid-1970s, and greatly decreased horsepower, but picked up very marginal efficiencies. Late 70s, Detroit downsized the vehicles. In the 80s, vehicles were downsized and so were engines, mostly. Then came EFI, with marginal gains in efficiency. I would say, then, that the vast majority of gains in air cleanliness in Cali have come from: industrial efficiencies, running industry out of California, running electrical power plants out of California, and the like.

As for diesel engines.....carbon soot is heavier than air. It settles out, and biodegrades. So what does California do? Mandates that diesels have particulate filters put on....just in case, maybe, possibly, could be, that soot contributes to smog. Trucks are limited to 55 mph.....and account for less than 5% of vehicles on California roadways. BUT......cars and light trucks are allowed to drive at 70 mph, which is not exactly in their high efficiency operating range......to "HELP" reduce smog....

If I was from California, I don't know that I would be commenting on efficiency and performance for much of ANYTHING.

How interesting. When i read the thread title I wondered if it was about Volkswagen.