December 12

9:47 I believe it was only after they watched OBDII data in real time (injectors opening time, ultimately real time fuel consumption) they realized one major way in which a car could save fuel.

Until recently, on an automatic transmission when you were releasing gas pedal, the torque converter was disengaging and the engine was going down to idle while the car was running on inertia. Then the torque converter would engage again when pressing gas pedal. Besides the small but present risque of loosing vacuum thus power brake in the unlikely but statistically real possibility of disconnected engine to shut down for diverse reasons, the engine had to use fuel to idle, and that is up to 20% of maximum use at full engine power (by my observations reading real time data on Torque app, name coincidence, unrelated to what i'm talking about torque converters, requires a bluetooth connector that costs a few dollars).

So what they did was reprogram the transmission to keep torque converter engaged while cutting injector time to 0. Car's inertia would also keep engine turning with nothing coming in or out of it, usually at 2000 rpm instead of 750 at idle.  Not a significant source of engine wear, especially because there's no air or fuel coming in and no power output. However, for those seconds the car won't use any fuel as opposed to idling like in the old setup. Very similar to a manual when you release gas. (Up until these days i thought the difference in mpg between manual and automatic was by use of hydraulic, lossy, torque converter. Not entirely true). Yes it feels differently when driving, but can get used to. No difference on cruise control.

Downturn. It adds to car's inertia when breaking, torque converter should be disengaging when pressing brake pedal.

Another thing, most surprising but not to my 14 years old mind when i saw the first time brake pads and calipers and discs. Then i could not understand what is moving brake pads away from the rotor when releasing brake pedal. The answer, back then and always, was nothing. There was nothing that would separate pads from rotor. Supposedly, by releasing pedal, pressure in the hydraulic circuit would go to 0 and, by not having any force on caliper's piston, there would be no breaking force which roughly, is true. So back then i educated my mind to believe so. Aha, how stupid me!

However. In the event of having an air bubble in the system, which would expand when releasing brake pedal, the pressure would not be totally 0. Also, by inertia, when steering, and due to vibration and other factors, pressure of the pad to the rotor would not be always 0. Tiny but big enough to make for a few percents in fuel economy, depending on driving situations. So they finally added springs like i saw on my 2018 Elantra (and forgot to put back a couple of times which led me to re-do the whole thing, like yesterday during the storm) that would keep pads apart (maybe not if you had air bubbles big enough to beat those springs when expanding). (Yes there is a tiny hesitation in braking when comparing to non-spring situation on the same car, but again i think you can get used to it). Not talking about the situation when you have dust (mostly coming from new ceramic pads) settling on the clips where the pads are sliding to back and forth and that dust prevents your pads from totally releasing pressure on the rotors.

These two "little" things, that could have been fixed no problem decades ago and cost nothing, added together, lead to an increase of mpg by maybe 5-10 miles per gallon. What else?

11:30 "I'll huff and i'll puff". I think there's a lesson to be learned from this video. BTW, where are the tornado safe concrete rooms Bill Clinton wanted to be made in every house in the tornado alley?

I believe a house "3D printed" out of concrete that could be "laid" in a few days, which BTW is one continuous piece of concrete, would withstand a tornado.

5:19 Looks like Captain Pandemics to me...