Slashdot Mirror

http://www.thecarconnection.com/pf/Vehicle_Reviews /Sports_Convertibles/2005_Mercedes-Benz_SLR_McLare n.S184.A6630.html

The SLR McLaren is listed as a front mid-engine layout, just in case you want to see a(n almost) current car besides the 'Vette which is correctly listed as a mid-engine car.

Nothing that new here.

Energy Conversion Devices has two stock Prius vehicles modified to run on Hydrogen instead of gasoline tooling around Detroit and LA. The hydorgen is stored as a Nickel Hydride (solid). Right now they can travel about 200 miles on a "tank" of hydrogen.

More info on the web site. http://www.ovonic-hydrogen.com/home/home.htm

It's also been on CNBC.
http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid= XOfv_P9SrRHQUdfpqH_nadnlA-YvYzDd&Token=-Q0QvZVYzaU gzNXFHUWxSeG5NMzByN0cx-TEY0SXF4R1NpSmNzVUE5R0xVL3I zOXRI-VFR6UWR2eUdlYjE1UTMxMQ==

And the Car Connection. http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Ca r_News/TCC_Drives_A_Hydrogen_Prius.S196.A11951.htm l

Not defending any company but I read an article in my local paper years ago that described WHY companies are a little apprehensive to correct potential problems themselves. They do not want sued by ambulance chasers and they make a business decision to roll the dice and take their chances. An example used in the article was the automatic shutoff safety handle that lawn mowers have. You know, the extra handles you have to hold down to keep the engine running. It was my understanding that this safety feature was not put into place until the consumer product safety commission made it mandatory. If a lawn mower company would have done it themselves, they would increase their chances of being sued by people that lost toes and feet because they did not put it on earlier year models. Basically, by them putting on later models, they are admitting that the previous design without the extra handle was unsafe. Check out that this story relating to airbags, it made it all the way to the US Supreme Court. Almost the same thing, people suing because their cars did not have air bags and they want money from the car makers.

Neither Mercedes or GM seems to be suing The Car Connection or Brenda Priddy, the woman who took the photos. Is this different from posting pictures of a Mac Mini before its announcement?

Neither Mercedes or GM seems to be suing The Car Connection or Brenda Priddy, the woman who took the photos. Is this different from posting pictures of a Mac Mini before its announcement?

>This actually looks like a reasonable patent -- the inventor did come up with a reasonably novel approach

The Woods Dual Power Coupe combined a gasoline engine and an electric motor through an elegant planetary gear system like that of the Prius.

It came out in 1917. http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Ma chines/Woods_Dual_Power.S196.A1092.html

OTOH if you had even Googled "biodiesel carcinogens" you would know that one of the benefits of BD is exhaust that is 90% less carcinogenic than exhaust from petro-diesel.

I'm already aware of the benefits of bio-fuels over petroleum diesel. I'm even aware of the CO2 benefits of bio-fueled diesel engines over gasoline engines. It would be difficult to read slashdot without being aware of the benefits, but that's not what I was commenting on. I was pointing out a negative that is seldom mentioned on slashdot; diesel engines, even when they run on biofuels, have more soot particles in their exhaust than gasoline engines. If you google "biodiesel particulate emissions" you will see that even biodiesel advocates admit this.

Gasoline produces 15 percent less Particulate Matter than B100 (Particulate matter from B100 is of a less toxic nature than that from petroleum products)

Those soot particles are the main reason why the EPA gives the 2006 Jetta diesel a horrible air pollution score even though it gets over 40 mpg. The difference in particulate (soot) emissions for diesel and gasoline engines is so great that it is very difficult - perhaps impossible - to get light duty diesel vehicles (i.e. cars) Tier II certified in California.

It is, therefore, believed that emission certification of light duty diesel vehicles in California will be possible only if advanced emission control technologies, such as particulate traps and NOx catalysts, are developed.

Right now, every gasoline burning car that is replaced by a biodiesel or SVO burning car causes us to have higher levels of soot in the air. From my original link:

Diesel-powered cars will always produce more particulate matter. The particulate matter, now a known carcinogen, will contribute to immediate health problems if breathed in.
[...]
Bad for lungs, better for the ozone layer
Granolas are split: some think the soot from diesels does more damage to people and animals here and now, while others want to minimize reliance on fuel resources and oil drilling, and to slow climatic change.

That was the problem I was commenting on, and you responded with something totally off topic (a comparison of biodiesel and petroleum diesel.) Now, it is actually possible to clean up the exhaust on diesels quite a bit. That same article goes on to mention a way to solve the sooty particulate emmissions:

Diesel engines can be clean, as clean as comparable gasoline engines if the right measures are taken to reduce particulate matter. Advanced engine controls, particulate-matter traps, and new-design catalysts have helped all but eliminate particulate matter.

Unfortunately, the article does NOT explain the drawbacks of this process; the extra emmissions control equipment costs a LOT, and it reduces the power and fuel efficiency of the diesel engine. That's a problem, since fuel efficiency is one of the main reasons we are considering diesels in the first place, which is probably why most of these methods are still not used on new diesel vehicles. Besides using oxidizing-type particulate filters to get rid of soot can even increase the levels of carbon monoxide:
http://www.fleetguard.com/fl

Don't mod me into oblivion for pointing out a negative to biodiesel. I know about the benefits: http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Ma chines/Diesels_Clean_Green_Illegal.S196.A3569.html

The average 2004 passenger vehicle sold in the US produces 227HP, 169.274KW. So 1477 cars, or a quarter-mile of every rushhour freeway, produces as much power as a 250MW coal plant. Find the relative "smog efficiency", and you've got the miles of freeway - probably not more than a mile or two - that is actually worse pollution than a plant. Most cities have dozens or hundreds of miles of traffic, compared to 2000 250MW coal plants (5E12W total US coal-> electricity / 250MW).

Coal plants might still put out more smog than do cars, but they're clearly in the same league. And cars, especially the SUV fraction of that raises the 2004 HP average so much, have much less emissions scrubbing than do centralized coal plants. So the car smog cycle needs extra special attention.

Also remember that these scrubbing building surfaces scrub smog from both cars and smokestacks. So the fact that both cars and coal need cleanup, and that these surfaces do both, makes the false choice you propose no problem: rather, it points at the promise of this tech as a combined solution.

Of course your suggestion about using the surface entirely for zero-emissions solar collection is probably right, if perhaps for the wrong reasons :). The energy for the decomposition reaction is the critical limiting factor. So the way to go is a solar surface, with pits for absorbing gas. Beneath the surface, their nanotech TiO deposition should create vast fractal surface areas within a milimeters layer, backed by exhaust/drip channels. The solar power drives UV LEDs from the rest of the incident spectrum, and perhaps some transport (nanofans?) to augment the diffusion flow across the enclosed active catalyst surface. Then these tiles get maximum efficiency from every factor in the process.

The missing factors which decide everything about these tiles are the pollution numbers on their manufacture/installation/recycling, and their productivity during their lifetime: both the ones in the article and the SF version I just proposed. If the passive "real thing" is actually better than its pollution cost of use, instead of the alternative "dirty" tiles, then my "active" version will likely be even better. But will it still be a better pollution cost:benefit than a centralized scrubber, running off a high-efficiency (energy) gas-fired plant? Or is all this tile tech talk just hype, making more pollution to use the tiles than they clean in their lifetimes? Even more interesting, how do any of these technologies compare to just planting a lot of trees, maybe all across the surface of the buildings, and around the grounds?

Don't worry, Arnold's on top of it.

I've read elsewhere that it's in the 35mpg highway ballpark. here is an article stating they got anywhere from 39 to 60.

Bill Gates is as responsible for UI design as Lee Iacocca was responsible for car design. They're corporate executives bent on making a profit, not visionary artists.

Iacocca may have decided to go with the "cab-forward" design but he sure didn't come up with it. Similarly, the Windows 95 UI revamp wasn't originated by Gates, but he did hire smart UI designers.

If not for that, and Toyota Siennas and Subaru Outbacks do not tow trailers, I'd have something else - probably a minivan of some sort. Our other vehicle is a Toyota Corolla (Pontiac Vibe actually, rebadged Toyota) which gets used for 80% of our driving (literally), so we're not suffering that much for mileage.

What cracks me up (not really, it's frustrating) though is that US Manufacturers that do sell diesels do not do it for mileage purposes, but only for larger trucks that require heavy load capacities. They only sell large diesels. I'm assuming it's to do with the available diesel fuel and emissions. Checkout this study by Cummins (1 of the big 3 diesel engine companies in the US) on building a light diesel for the Durango. I'd love to see a smaller diesel motor such as this combined with a hybrid setup like GM is working on.

As an alternative to the above, I think that California has a good idea with mandating hydrogen pumping stations by 2010. I think the use of hydrogen in vehicles is being hampered by a chicken and egg type of problem, there will be no vehicles w/o the fuel, and no fuel without the vehicles. I think this will remove that for car manufacturers, and hopefully the public will latch on and buy.

To the parent poster - what do you drive with a 5.7L engine that's not a block - a Corvette, or something from Daimler-Chrysler with the Hemi?

• The scenario that comes most easily to mind is that of the car breaking down on the highway. What are you going to do, without a cellphone, without being able to access the hood?

What are you going to do anyway? The overwhelming majority of people I know do not carry a full set of tools in their car, and even if they do, they carry little to no spare parts. So you break down. You can perform Manly Car Manuever #1: open the hood and stare at the engine. Even if you can diagnose the problem, what are you going to do without replacement parts?

• What if the temp outside is subzero and you're 5 miles from the nearest inhabitant?

And the ability to open the hood here means you can not only perform MCM #1 (detailed above), but you can do #'s 2 and 3: Freeze your ass off while doing it, and cuss at it.

• Crits aside though, the car is pretty nice, and it is also good to see that we are able to make cars easier for the dumba^H^H^H^H^Hnormal people who drive cars and don't want to be concerned with how their car works.

Oh, you're one of those zealots. Now I understand the basis for your objection. Religious issues...

There's nothing that says a person can't know how the car works, and still not want to... or be able to, even!... perform their own maintenance on that car. The concepts here are, frankly, brilliant in that they take into account the existing desires of the target market. A lot has been written here about "reinforcing stereotypes", but the fact remains that most people (men and women) do not perform their own maintenance. Ergo, make the car so they don't have to.

A better article on this project, which is called "Your Concept Car" or YCC, can be found at http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article= 6907 and explains some of the features in more detail, including the big one: the first maintenance stop is at 35,000 miles.

Considering there are millions of "Panther" chassis vehicles out there, the Crown Vic is no less safe than any other vehicle. Let me ask you this, in which other car could I take a 70MPH rear impact from a pickup truck, and most likely survive? None. What other rear wheel drive vehicle is an option for Law enforcement? Same number.

Now ask yourself, did the Crown Vic kill anyone, or did some other driver not paying attention to driving who rear ends a parked police cruiser kill them?