Re: We need a cute name for this deficiency (somewhat OT)

The Phantom wrote: 
Here'a an article where it is suggested that if a car runs partly on
the energy from batteries and partly on gasoline, the gasoline mileage
is thereby increased.  Article at:
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/article.adp?id=20050813125209990004

  Quotes from the article:

"It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an
80-miles-per-gallon secret — a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that
boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it
can burn even less fuel."

"Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230
mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new
company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for
about $12,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen
said."

  I guess if we follow this line of reasoning to its ultimate
conclusion, an all-electric vehicle with a gallon of gas in a gas can
in the trunk gets "infinite" miles per gallon.  I suppose to be fair,
"infinite" is too many.  We should compute mileage this way:  drive
the car until it's scrapped out, having been driven for, say, 100,000
miles; divide by 1 gallon (the gallon that was in the gas can in the
trunk all this time), and get 100,000 miles per gallon.  A lot less
than infinite, but quite impressive nonetheless.

  We need a cute name for this inability to think straight about gas
mileage.

Couldn't that gallon of gasoline be recycled into another 100,000 mile car?

--
Humbly--Ed

"If the man doesn't believe as we do,
we say he is a crank, and that settles it.
I mean, it does nowadays, because now we
can't burn him."  (Mark Twain)
.