Talk:Flexible-fuel vehicle/GA2

GA Reassessment

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Needs to be drastically condensed and Brazil and USA updated

Specifically it no longer meets good article criteria 3:

"Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)."

So it needs a lot deleting and to be rewritten in summary style and Brazil and USA updated.

Would anyone like to take this on? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal of GA status.

The article has major issues, and I believe that it even fails the B criteria. It fails to clearly describe what its topic is (and what it is not), it fails to describe how its topic works, and it attempts to describe all sectors to which its topic applies (it lists countries with FFV availability in great detail instead of summarising them briefly). Furthermore, it assumes that the reader already knows what the topic is.

First of all, the article mainly describes cars as flexible-fuel vehicles, whilst not explicitly stating that a flexible-fuel vehicle has to be a car. This problem is possibly the cause of all other major issues this article has. The terminology section describes a bunch of different things and gives a bunch of different examples but lacks a brief, easily comprehensible and yet precise defintion of the topic. Why is it so complicated to define a flexible-fuel vehicle as "a single-tank vehicle, mostly a car, powered by an Otto internal combustion engine designed to run on alcohol fuels, typically ethanol or methanol, mixed with any amount of conventional petrol"? If all the specific examples (=where technologies apply and who applies them) were removed from the section, only a fraction of the current text would remain. I find it very important to differentiate between an Otto-powered FFV car and an Otto-powered "normal" car running on bog-standard E10 95 RON petrol (standard petrol in many European countries containing 10 per cent ethanol); the article fails to do that. There is also no section that at least briefly describes how a flexible-fuel vehicle works (the Otto engine relies on compression of a premixed mixture, thus alcohols are good fuels, etc.). This includes that, there is no description of why FFVs have greater specific engine power (because of a greater mixture lower heating value), ethanol gradually embrittling rubber hoses (=one reason why not all cars are suited for ethanol fuels), or no coverage of additional concepts that could be applied to the subject (exempli gratia Diesel engines running on ethanol are uncommon, but this concept works and it could be mentioned).

The list of countries ("flexible-fuel vehicles by country") is a typical Wikipedia article problem and this article is a good example – instead of describing a subject briefly, the article describes the subject in unnecessary detail for each individual country. In this case, this has resulted in a bunch of different sections and subjections, all based on arbitrarily collected exmaples presented to the reader. There are history sections, lists of available cars, and different projects certain car makers have started. I reckon though that, it would be best to limit these sections to quantifiable things (id est number of cars with FFV technology in these countries) – this approach would effectively reduce all these sections down to a single section or maybe two or so; this means that there is so much unnecessary content in this article that I believe is not good content: This is a good article, so the GA criteria have to be applied fairly strictly – I suppose that it is not pure invention if I argue that the article fails WP:WWIN's WP:NOTGUIDE: The article describes to the reader which flexible-fuel vehicles he/she can currently buy in certain markets, including number of available vehicles, brands, and even actual models, despite that it should not do that!

Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 16:14, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Post scriptum: Most of the pictures in the article depict actual car models in a way that implies that you can buy these cars. The article should instead depict only a few cars to illustrate that FFV cars look like normal cars; including pictures of all available FFV cars is not useful. And could somebody please explain why all these pictures have these photoshopped "flex" badges? I find that very bizarre, and it only adds to the theory that the article trys to be a guide of some sort. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 16:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• Any volunteer to update? E10 now also standard UK - so UK readers could be interested in this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57585105 Johannes Maximilian or anyone - do you want to have a go at updating the article? If nobody comes forward I will delist. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:18, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I suppose I could do it, but it would take a while. Delisting the article is a reasonable thing to do. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:33, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Johannes Maximilian Yes you are right it looks a fair amount of work. I guess it depends if you think this type of vehicle has a future - maybe as a bridge towards electric cars? Or maybe they are already obsolete and not worth your time? Will Americans convert their beloved classics to electric or flex fuel? Or maybe only Jair Bolsonaro knows - will he support this industry? If you are willing to make a start I can abandon this review if you like so you are not under pressure. Or I can delist it and you can submit it as a "good article nomination" if and when you get it back into shape. Either way even if you don't get it as far as "good" any small improvements you have time to do will benefit others I am sure, as from your comments above I see you know the subject very well. Some editors like to do small additions so if you only had time to do a big big ruthless prune that might give them confidence. DELETE DELETE DELETE! Which do you prefer? Should I abandon the review or delist? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Go ahead and delist the article. I can still work on it and rewrite it in the future, it doesn't have to be done now. I personally don't mind whether or not my articles on the English language Wikipedia are GAs, but maybe I could try it with this one. I suppose this technology is not obsolete yet. There is research going on and converting all vehicles to electric certainly isn't a good idea – just think of lorries or even combine harvesters. These vehicles would at least double in price if they were electric, and that would render them uneconomical. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Delisted. You are right the article does not seem to mention lorries only light trucks. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)