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SDSU Students Create Sporty Hybrid Vehicle
Nevyan writes "SDSU Engineering students working in conjunction with real life designers create an electric hybrid vehicle that actually...well.. looks cool for all the right reasons. Participant in the Tour de Sol. I happened to see this vehicle on campus at SDSU and I want to buy one so badly." Njaneer.com has more information and photos - here's one to give you an idea of the size.
I've been saying this among friends for a while... the only reason that these early electric and hybrid cars all look like ass! I think Honda caught onto the design thing, and thus we have the hybrid Civic. Other than that, this new car looks almost attractive.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
I am sure that after you spend all that money on one of those suckers... you'll be glad you're saving all that gas money
laff, thats the "riot" by thunder ranch.
not exactly but i assume its mods are for the hybrid part or it could be the riot 2 (thunder ranch is slow on putting things on their page)
-rev
Right next to the picture of a tiny 'high performance' car that probably wouldn't withstand the impact of the cone its steering around is a link entitled 'SDSU College of Engineering suffers a tremendous loss... which details a professor who recently died in an auto accident.
Just a warning to all of my fellow South Dakota residence... in this case SDSU is not South Dakota State University in Brookings South Dakota, but sadly is in fact San Diego State University... blast those Californians taking all of our acronyms... in this world if you say SF or SD people think you mean San Francisco or San Diego... when will the world learn that they mean Sioux Falls and South Dakota instead! The FAA and Post Office agree with me... when will the rest of you?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
i know it's not completely on topic, but i'm starting to question whether or not hybrid cars are really more safe for the enviornment. after all, where does the electricity for the car come from? mostly from fossil-fuel burning power plants which really do the same thing as your car.
i may be missing something here, if so please point it out.
greg clarke
sig - .
If you were to remove the Manufacturer, Type, and Maximum Range lines from the specs page it would read like any other car company. I wonder why it only has a 5 gallon tank, which limits it to 400 miles driving range (which is still decent). I attend Western Washington University, where our engineering department is famous for the Vehicle Research Institute... I wonder if there's anything similar happening on campus.
sig.
it looks like one of those fiero F40's. I wouldn't wanna be seen dead in that thing. Maybe Carmac could get one tho.
Pablo Piccaso was never called an asshole. Not like you.
I've said for a while that when they make electric or hybrid cars that are as fun to drive as mine (I drive a Mazda MX-6, '93), I'll go for it. With a peak output of 250HP, that's definitely getting there! I haven't actually tested my car for power / accelleration, but 0-60 in 7s is nice. I just wonder how long the battery would last with ME driving!
Now, if they can find a way to produce them economically (i.e. I can't pay more than $40,000CDN for one), then I'd buy one.
-iF
250 Horsepower, 0-60 in under 7 seconds, 80 mpg - when can I buy one?!
With the price of gas expected to rise by 40 cents a gallon in the Chicago area to more than $2/gallon, I wouldn't mind owning one of these. It's about time a "high performance" vehicle was truly high performance when it comes to fuel economy.
Having been a gear-head for a while, I can tell you that high-performance and fuel efficiency were often on opposite ends of the spectrum; high performance has been synonymous with poor fuel economy ever since I can remember. It's good to see engineering talent change this. I for one wouldn't mind owning a very agile car with good fuel economy.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
That's either one of the most common misconceptions about hybrid cars, or a magnificent troll. I'll answer it either way, just so somebody else isn't confused...
Current hybrids like the Prius, Insight, and Civic don't need external electric charging. Their batteries are very small, and store energy generated by braking or excess power from the gas engine if necessary. The economy comes from a couple of things:
1. You get back energy when you brake.
2. Your gas+electric motors combined are approximately the same power output as a traditional gas motor, but you can turn off part of a hybrid when you don't need it. So you've got the power you need for acceleration, but once you're cruising, the extra motor can cut out leaving you using less energy.
3. Your gas engine can shut off at stoplights, since your electric motor acts as the world's most kickass starter motor. (For example, the Prius' electric motor brings the gas engine to speed in less than one revolution)
4. Your electric motor doesn't waste power "idling".
At no point are you ever charging your battery with power generated from a power plant. They really are just more efficient than gas-only cars at the moment.
And *only* at the measily cost of somewhere between $40-120K US.
Give me a break...
Well, this is the first hybrid I've seen that you literally put on! On your ass for that matter too!
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Ironically, this hybrid burns diesel fuel. That is a pretty dirty thing.
However, one way hybrids are cleaner than conventional rides burning the same materials is that they run their combustion engines at a constant "ideal" rpm. All piston engines have a specific RPM where the ratio of pollution to power is smallest. Car engines driving wheels mechanically pollute more and burn more fuel because have to speed up and slow down.
Diesel-Electric trains replaced direct drive combustion and steam locomotives decades ago for this reason.
But with no back seat, how are you supposed to get laid???
Ages: 3 yrs. & up Right.. I am 23, and I doubt I would be able to fit in one of them.
It looks kind of fun though, not quite a good as the one mentioned in the article, but still nice (for little people). Quite scary the way they mention risk of death though.
All you looking at the performance and gas milage of this car, have a look at what powers it. Sure there's an electric motor which gives you the fast 0-60, but if you look at the specifications page, you'll notice that all that electricity is powered by a Volkswagen TDI diesel engine.
:-)
This is the 1.2 liter Lupo engine. Without the electric motor it gets 78 miles to the gallon anyway! Now while cars with this engine aren't sold in the US, one can purchase a Golf or Jetta with a slightly larger 1.9 liter TDI which makes 50 MPG, and generates between 90-115 HP. (with a torque peak of 155 lb. ft. @ 1900 rpm) 0-60 is a pathetic 10s, but 0-40 is a phenomenal ~4 seconds, which I find easily leaves a Subaru WRX or a BMW M3 in the dust.
(Yeah, that's me in my diesel Golf playing "the fast and the furious" on the streets of Boston twice a day.)
click here
Weather it renders better or not, I still love Mozilla 1.0
Not more than you need, just more than you want
Hybrid cars get their power from burning gasoline in a regular car engine. They just need to burn less of it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... I see at that web site
http://www.njaneer.com/
That the Mechanical Engineering department chairman
died in an automobile accident on April 23rd.
I don't suppose he was driving their hybrid
sports car design at the time, was he? Hope not.
That car is awesome. Is it licensed for use on
US highways? I hope a startup company runs with it
and sells lots of them for low prices. We can wish.
It's great to see one of these cars that actually looks cool, even if the models posing with the car don't.
The Toyota Echo and the new Corolla have a similar VVT gas engine as the Prius, and Consumer Reports tests suggested that their real-world gas mileage was only marginally worse than the Prius.
Cars (internal combustion engine) emit more nasty stuff than greenhouse gases - chemicals such as benzene, adversely affect human health.
In fact, the two most carcinogenic substances known are emitted from trucks. Diesel fumes are generally considered 25 times more carcinogenic than cigarette smoke - we worry about some passive smoking in a bar, but have trucks/buses/generators blasting diesel into the air *WTF*?
The comments of Dr. Paul Davies were even raised in the South Australian parliament - that more people die from exhaust emissions each year than speed and alcohol related road accidents!!!!!! Where is the TV advertising campaign "Drive a diesel engine - and you're a bloody idiot" !!
In terms of health hydrocarbons suck - to me it makes more sense to emit some extra C02 in order to make electricity for cars. Other than it's affect on global warming, C02 is relatively clean - its not unhealthy to breate - certainly compared to car emissions.
Production of materials such as concrete produce obscene greenhouse gases, we could make a few less tons of that per year to compensate for the extra levels from electricity for cars
"I've been saying this among friends for a while... the only reason that these early electric and hybrid cars all look like ass! "
Arrrrggggghhh!!! Finish the sentence! What is this supposed to mean?
-Tyler
Vacuums really make my blood boil.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Not to be negative, but the front end doesn't look like it offers much in the way of shock absorbtion. Perhaps that's just a matter of the way I drive.
It does look cool though.
Here before all but 8486 of you.
Spend all the money you save on gas on a cheapo motel room... ;-)
IMO, one of the reasons why we don't see many of these hybrid cars on the road is because they look so damn stupid. Have you ever seen the Honda Insight? It looks like an old CRX, except it's more streamlined, and smaller.
:)
Let's face it, we all want a car that gets good mileage, but we also want a car that looks good too. If we all cared about gas mileage, we'd be driving Geo Metros. But we aren't, because they are ugly cars that are slightly larger than a Matchbox car, and they wouldn't hold up in a fender bender. Everyone wants a big vehicle...not 1975 Cadillac big, but big enough to make us feel safe and look good at the same time. Most hybrids out there lack in the second department.
Auto manufacturers seem to be catching on, and they're starting to make hybrids of existing vehicles (the Honda Civic and Ford Escape come to mind). But they need to start cranking out hybrids of existing models that people like, or models that resemble the SDSU vehicle. Hell, I'd like to see a hybrid Volkswagen Jetta...not that they don't get good mileage as-is, especially if you have diesel. But that's besides the point.
Until the auto manufacturers start doing that, I don't think we'll see any general acceptance of hybrid vehicles, because nobody wants to plunk down the money for a silly looking electric Matchbox car.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Are those doors or drive-in-movie trays? What is that, like 3 less inches you have to step over to get out? I say save money on hinges and go dukes of hazzard style.
c-hack.com |
Which is smaller and has fewer residents than South Dakota... home of (you guessed it) wheat, barley, durum, sunflowers, and canola. 36 B-52's, some air refueling tankers, 150 Minuteman ICBMs.
My roommate's from there... I quote "North Dakota? Heh... not much going on there. Heck, the largest city in North Dakota is less than half the size of Lubbock, Texas".
http://www.njaneer.com/cave_1.jpg
Not really a CAVE, but the three projectors, curved screen, and the two pipe / 2x8 channel late model deskside Onyx2 makes it a "Reality Center". Not too shabby.
Don't forget the world's largest petrified wood forest in lemmon.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I mean really...it looks like a frigging go-cart.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
This vehicle is a hybrid, meaning that they couldn't go electric all the way.
And since it only has two seats, you too get to experience the "Art of Compromise", and you too can't "go" all the way.
Like a heroin addict gone to methadone instead of quitting cold turkey. Like a red meat eater only eating chicken and fish instead of going vegan. Like a virgin, touched for the very first time....
No wait... that's right.. You don't get laid. All you get is Road Head. Behold the art of compromise!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
A few years ago our jack ass governor (the one who for a time got rid of the adopt a highway program to keep a couple of gays from adopting a 2 mile stretch and who is currently in the middle of an embargo against the nation of Canada)... anyway... a few years ago he started a program of wiring ALL of the SD schools, public and private. For the last 3 years, every single grade school, middle school, high school and college have had AT LEAST a T1 as well as video conferencing rooms to allow students to take classes from remote sites... We continue to lay more and more cable and for the last few years have had more buried data cable per square anything then any place on earth. That... and we have a lot of corn!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
It looks fake.. to me. Seems like the people are just placed in the image
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I see that their onboard computer and even their dashboard is controlled by LabView. Any idea the specs are on the computer that's driving this? I'm curious as to the CPU/Ram and power supply choices.
I'm at Cornell, and several of my close friends are involved with the FutureTruck competition (http://www.hev.cornell.edu). Very very cool stuff - They've made a Ford Explorer with a Miata engine (turbocharged) and electric motor. Much more practical than yet another sporty car (which I think has been done better...witness the EV1, for instance).
Go Cornell! Competition starts Monday! Go Big Red!
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
Actually, it's about 800,000 people -- with all those 10 person families' kids leaving the state every year, they need the help (the population never rises even though the average family size is about 8).
I don't get it. Please explain.
Firstly, why use a dual engine design? couldn't the gas engine simply be used to power a generator? it being more effiecent to tune a engine to run at a constant RPM. Just have a large electric motor and a small gas motor.
Why is it that all the hybrids I've seen thus far seem to just piggy back a electric engine on a motor cycle engine and make the car weigh in at 2 kilo's. Couldn't the electric motor be part of the weel assembly since it is, after all, only kicking in on the low torques.
Finally, Why use petrol and not natural gas or some other alternative fuel, If you make the tank the standard size then you should be able to get around the "not having enough gas stations problem" which holds these types of fuel back? Since you aren't constantly filling the thing up.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
they where not trying to rip off either Lotus Elise or the Electric Tropica ......
M0571y H@rml355.
Hey all, I am a engineering student at SDSU, and although I didn't help build the car, I designed the logos and graphics seen on the car. There aren't any current pics of the car with these logos, but hopefully soon. I finished them up right before we got out of school at the end of may, so I didn't get to see the final product on the car because I moved back home for the summer. For those wondering the CPU specs...it's running a 1ghz celeron. I dunno how much ram but I am assuming no more than 128-256. I talked with the main designer for awhile about his choice, and he said he didn't need much power in terms of CPU. I tried to convince him to let me build him something better, but he refused. oh well! later (sorry if I made other posts, this is my first time posting here, I messed up)
Oh and it's a cute little death trap. Imagine what a Maibatsu Monstrosity would do to that thing...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Umm ok I don't get it. Its a hybrid vehicle obviously designed for people who like sports cars. Sports cars never have back seats, or if they do they are so small as to be all but unusable anyway. So if you want a family car, don't buy a 2-seater.
All brought to you by the guys who supplied to electic side of the drivetrain, AC Propulsion.
We will see more Hybrids over the next ten years or so as the oil problem hasn't gone away and as supplies dwindle is likely to become poorer in quality. Pure electric cars are not pollution free. They only shift the environment problem to some huge nuclear or oil powered facility elsewhere.
My father (who is now retired in France) worked on a number of Hybrid Vehicles about 15 years
ago. A number of projects were built inluding a lightweight terrapin racing car, a hybrid based on the popular "Nova" kit car (if you dont know what these look like, one features in the film Cannonball
Run II). Also a Hybrid Vehicle bus was built for the Manchester Passenger Executive. This eventially resulted in an EEC initiative to built
a number of Hybrid Vans for local authorities based on the popular FWD Ford Escort mk III of the time. I dont know what happened to this project.
Some of these early projects were let down slightly by the lack of availability of small efficient petrol engines but this has probably changed now but they were also powered by highly efficient lightweight permanent magnet
disc motors which offered performance improvements
over the heavy "milk float" motors being used in the electric vehicles of the time.
Last time I checked the official uk gov web site Hybrid Vehicles made no mention of these developments, only those of Japanese and American manufacturers.
If the carpool lane was full of cars, it wouldn't be any faster than all the other lanes in the parking lot. The solution is carpool lanes filled so drivers can safely travel the speed limit.
....in any way shape or form???? Well, i have to say, personally i disagree. It is good for a wierd electric car, but they need to make them look like internal combustion powered cars (normal ones). seb
After having worked on several electric cars (conversions), and being 'into" electric/hybrid vehicles for well over two decades, I can say nice effort, nice lines, but when can we buy one that's affordable?
And speaking of un-affordable, here's something pretty darn sweet that's been around since 1997.
I like this TZero better because it can be a pure electric around town, and for long trips you just hook up their very cool 'Long Ranger' hybrid trailer, which allows for continuous highway cruising.
And it's quick too!
I want a TZero!
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
It has 4 wheels. I fskcing hate car. They are incredibly inneficient.
They have 4 seats while take a look out your window, how many of them are ocupied? 4? 3? 2? Motorcycles are far more efficient at this.
The tires have a LOT of friction. In fact, the sportier the car, the larger footprint these tires have, having more friction and demanding more horsepower to spin. Motorcycles are far more efficient at this, All of them have more or less the same very small footprint. The are is like the size of your palm.
Driving , contrary to riding, is unintuitive. Yes, i said unintuitive. Riding is intuitive, because when you turn, your body goes with the turn, and doesn't go away. Also, you turn instictively, by looking at your path. This might turn for the bad tho, if you ever heard of "target fixation": there is an obstacle on your road which you want to avoid. if you make the kistake and look at it to avoid it... byebye...if you want to avoid it, you look at the PATH you want to take to avoid it. How long did it take you to find out just how much to turn the steering wheel so as not to go out of course? How long for the bicycle/motorcycle? there.
Cars are space hogs. They are 3-4 times the size of a motorcycle.
Mileage.
Motorcycles don't collect crud under the seats, no way you lose a coin and try to find it (if you drop a coin while riding, you lost it for good!hehe). No way you can distract yourself by smoking/drinking/eating ice cream/reading newspaper (i've seen them all, you probably have seen worse)
With motorcycles, traffic jams don't exist.
Unless you don't dress properly (and contrary to common thoght you do NOT need to dress like an onion!!!there are very few specific clothes you need to wear, which are easy to remove.and they probably look cooler than a seatbelt.) you don't have to worry about rain/whatever.
They are slower, less safe than motorcycles. (if you think i am getting insane on the "safer" part, do notice that i am talking about EVERYONES safety, not only the ones who is in the car but about those outside it.)
The only reasons cars are better than motorcycles is because you can carry (where do you think "car" came from? "carriage". Yes, the thing with horses/cows) lots of stuff with them. And to carry your family. (if it has more than 2 persons , that is if you have children.*)
Cars suck.
(*:just so you don't think i am a misanthrope or something, i want to have kids (even if you hear me sya otherwise under some circumstances- i'm fickle) and the fact that i ride a bike won't hinder me from having kids.)
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Lotus already did this ages ago. They took an Elise and converted it. Geeks might be interested to know the elise has a bonded extruded aluminium chassis, weighs less than a mini, does 0-60mph in 5.6 seconds (with an untuned 1.8litre 4 cylinder engine), and is rated as being one of the best handling cars on the planet ! Pics of mine here
There are just so many things I want to say about so many of the comments here that I don't know where to start.
First off, I was at the 2002 Tour de Sol where this car was supposed to be the best car ever. All you have to do is check out the scores. The car from SDSU finished the race with -18 points. Yes, that is less than zero. Just showing up and filling out paper work earns some points. Where was all this 260hp performance? If you want to see some real student built hybrid vehicles check out Western Washington University's Vehicle Research Institute at http://vri.etec.wwu.edu. We have several hybrids. Some are conversions but we tend to specialize in the ground up design of real vehicles.
Second, plugging an electric car into the wall is more efficient and cleaner than burning gasoline to power a generator. This is because it is easier to clean up the emissions from a large plant, it's all in one place, than it is to clean up the tailpipe of many cars that move all over the place.
Third, diesel engines are more efficient than most other internal combustion engines. Those of you that think they are dirty and pollute the air more than gasoline engines are also wrong. You probably think of those city buses and heavy equipment belching black smoke into the air when you think of diesel power. That's only because those engines are not very well tuned. A well tuned diesel engine is just as clean as a well tuned gas engine.
Finally, hybrids rule. You get the best of both worlds. Electric drive that is most efficient at low speeds and internal combustion power that is most efficient at cruising speeds. I have spent a couple years of my college carrer researching and building a hybrid vehicle so it pains me to see people so uninformed about what is happening to the cars of the future. Pure electric vehicles are not generally accepted by consumers since you have to plug them in every night or you don't get to work the next day. Fuel cells require gaseous hydrogen. When is the last time you went to the corner refuelling station and found hydrogen? Hybrid vehicles use technology for a sustainable future.
"On April 23 2002, Dr. Larry Thompson was tragically killed in an auto accident."
Unless this is a joke I feel sorry, and am sorry for the friends and family of this man... but dammit they can tell the future well!
Get your Unix fortune now!
You can have sex with a real live girl in an envelope if you both want to. Back seats are nice, sure, but not mandatory.
Any car on the planet -- even a Citroen 2CV -- can hold more beer than you can.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Better performing if you don't mind stopping to recharge every 100 miles. The appeal of hybrids is that you never plug them in, as the IC engine recharges the electric doohickeys or whatever. I'm all for true electric cars, but the infrastructure to make them useful to most people simply doesn't exist. Maybe someday, but not yet.
If the car pool lane was full, another carpool lane would be added.
By the the time you have two full car pool lanes (half of your highway) with on average tripple the amount of people you have essentially doubled your roads capacity (2*3) + 2 = 8 apperent lanes. I would imagine there would be signifigantly less traffic jamming if the road had the capacity of a 16 lane highway.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
new slogan: "coolest looking car to get smoked by a ford focus"
You are also forgetting that this is Slashdot and that 99% of the people here wouldn't get to use a backseat even if it did have one.
That this plastic-looking car here on slashdot ALSO used disel as it's fuel component. I'd be more worried about saftey in both cars than anything else.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
In memory of Dr. Larry Thompson, 1952-2002
Well, the auto companies (well, really the auto industry) stand to have a more damaged profit margin than the oil companies do. An ICE (internal combuston Engine) based car cost 28cent per mile to run (about 6cent of that goes to gas, the rest is spend on brakes, oil changes and replacement parts and repairs), and electric car cost about 6 cents per mile run, around half of this is spend on charging the batteries, the rest is spent on new motor brushs (At 80k miles) and replacing all the batteries after 4 or 5 years (also brakes, which may wear less if you have regenerative braking, or may wear more because the car has to be heavier due the wieght of batteries.
I think that everybody in a household should have an electric car for driving around town...
Here are 100s of ICE cars converted to electric
I'd like to see a used car dealership that buys ICE cars with blown motors and converts them to electric, every town should have one....
M0571y H@rml355.
I've always been wondering this: how long does the battery last? I know in all of the rechargable batteries that I've had, the stored power decreases as the battery ages (for example, car batteries, laptop batteries, cordless phone batteries,...). Eventually they need to be replaced.
How long can you expect to get good performance from one of these batteries?
What is the impact on the environment when the battery goes bad and gets replaced, or the whole car gets junked?
If a car gets into an accident, are we now going to have battery acid squirting all over the already f'd up victims?
Sorry... thats what I get for posting in haste!
It should read:
"...the only reason that these early electric and hybrid cars haven't caught on is because they all look like ass!"
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
A while back i stumbled across a company called AC Propulsion. They built an electric car that has better acceleration than a farrari, porche, and others.... and it's funny that this new car looks just like it, but with tiny body kit...
e . tm
...what do you think?
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_hom
The company that makes the electric motor their using is AC Propulsion, and they make a kick ass 100% electric vehicle with that same motor.
-rr
I am
0-60 in 10s is faster than a BMW 5 series from the 80s, faster than many high priced sports cars from the 70s, and faster than many "muscle cars" from the 60s. Just because the average econobox smokes all of these now doesn't mean it's "slow."
Nice picture of the car thou, wish i could see the rest of the page.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Greetings, I would like to set the facts straight to those who see this as a "Rip-off". The body was, in fact manufactured by Thunder Ranch. However, this is a one-of-kind mold that has undergone significant modification from the original. In fact, a computer model representing the topological changes is found on my website (www.njaneer.com). From those geometric specifications a new mold was created: It is truly a one-of-a-kind. Secondly, we have spoken to the original designer of the RIOT body (the one McBurnie appropriated) at the SEMA show this year in Las Vegas. Needless to say, this person is not too happy with Mr. McBurnie and to this day has remained persona-non-grata. Oh, and Mr. McBurnie has yet to supply the owner with a single royalty for using the body design. Our business dealings with him were horrendous. I recommend to all who care to listen not to affiliate their business with this organization. How they mange to stay in business, continues to leave me in perpetual state of incredulity. We will never conduct business with Thunder Ranch again. McBurnie may have dabbled with electric car technology, however, his frivolous efforts pale in comparison to the L3 technology. A 260 Hp, 80 MPG "True" Parallel hybrid electric vehicle with fly-by-wire technology is vastly superior to anything McBurnie has produced or, ever will. The mere mentioning of his efforts (or him period) in conjunction with ours, serves as a extreme injustice towards the Herculean effort that it took to design and manufacture an entire vehicle from the ground up with 6-8 students in a haphazard lab complete with antiquated equipment and a shoestring budget. If you must comment, try ascertaining the facts first. Sincerely, Design Lead and Vice President, L3 Research Inc.
Greetings, As far as our innovative technology is concerned, a majority of it is proprietary and not for public consumption--that is why the website is restricted in its information content. As far as your (jonbrewer) heterodox facts pertaining to the Lupo are concerned: at the time the car reached Washington, DC, after driving 12,116 miles from Berlin, the cumulative average fuel usage was 95.2 mpg (2.47 l/100 km). In addition, yes, they were maintaining an average of 87 KPH or around 55 MPH: A variable in the standard driving cycle, which is officially recognized as the speed from which vehicles are rated for fuel economy. The 78.7 MPG was achieved after 20,712 ROAD miles. I would say, that no matter how you identify with these facts, it is impressive on any level. True, the website is short of a professional grade. However, for free--it seems to the job. In fact, it works so well, that it continues to echo a societal perspective that is purblind at best regarding Hybrid technologies . For your edification, the website was produced by an individual who volunteered his time to work on something that he could clearly see was great--he was not a webmaster but, had the minimum skills to contrive a functional site when we needed it. Your nescience opinion regarding our technology does not surprise me. Having worked on this project for three years as the design lead, my experiences with the public have demonstrated unequivocally that people are quick to point out the mistakes, misfortunes and failures of others. Neither capable of understanding nor able to engage in a similar endeavor, they dignify those who represent a passion to do things great at any cost, with languid dogma and a short sightedness. I am sure my synopsis falls short of being considered a raconteur but, I find it rather troublesome that comments such as yours are not alone. We are nothing more than a group of individuals that set out to do what "they" said could not be done. The PNGV had 10 years to achieve this milestone, and they failed. Now we have an administration who thinks fuel cells are the answer--in twenty years, maybe. Nevertheless, for now we need an interim solution, the L3 Enigma (I purport) represents just that. In closing, my prolix aside, a demonstration of the L3's capabilities would end all incredulity in this matter. Furthermore, it would unequivocally demonstrate that our "strategy" is truly unique and a technology to be recognized. Regards, Design Lead, L3 Enigma
Yea, the VCR cost a $1000 when it first came out. You need to pick another planet to orbit around.
Sure, it looks attractive, but unless there are some major support beams underneath, I won't ride in it. I'm a firefighter for Moorland township in Michigan, and I've seen cars torn in half by collisions.
Most cars today are of unabody construction, meaning that what you see of the car is actually what holds it together. Looking at that photo link, I can't easily imagine that car holding together in a head-on collision. Even if it did, it'd probably fold over the top.
What's this Submit thingy do?
Regarding the brushes in the electric motor... In the Toyota Prius, it's an induction motor/generator.
Regarding the brakes and wear regarding the increased weight from the batteries. In the Toyota Prius, it's 110 lbs. The 1.5 Liter engine with the generator/starter and motor/generator and battery is about the same weight as the V6 engine it replaces. So same weight, but most of the braking is done regeneratively, so brakes are saved from wear.
Since the gas engine is shut down much of the time, and does not waste fuel idling, the recommended service interval (oil changes) is 7500 miles, not 3000 miles most cars get. Think of the oil saved, not just the gas saved. Even with the savings, it has the get up a go of a typical V6 of the same weight.
The truth shall set you free!
I'm currently driving a 2001 Civic HX CVT (non-hybrid) and averaging around 36mpg. (They claim 40, but we all know that the claims are always high.) The new hybrid civic claims 50+ mpg, and while I don't expect it to hit 50, I imagine it will do better than my conventional civic, despite having the same conventional body parts as all the other civics.
This depends on the design of the hybrid system and what type of transmission is used. I think the design you're referring to uses the electric motor as the main drive, and a small gas engine to charge the batteries as needed.
As far as I know, none of the available hybrid automobiles are doing this. Honda uses a simpler design, where the main drive is a gas engine, with a small electric "assist" motor. The Insight and Civic are never running electric-only, and use their gas engine traditionally. The electric motor acts as a booster to give you more acceleration.
The Prius is more complicated, and allows electric-only driving. However, the main gas engine is still used to directly drive the wheels.
Now, the advent of CVT transmissions has produced some gains in this direction-- but they're not exclusive to hybrids. Because they're continuously variable, the engine rpm can stay relatively constant. My non-hybrid CVT civic has a couple of spots on the tach that it prefers-- somewhere around 2000 for cruising, and much higher for acceleration.
This might be true of factory hybrids, but if you want a pure electric converted from $300 car with a blown out engine, then you find that weight saved from the removal for the ICE, exaust system, fuel tank (and fuel), isn't going to off set the weight of enought deep cycle batteries to give you a nice range...
Check out the before and after curb weights at evalbum.com.
M0571y H@rml355.
Diesel-Electric Locomotives have been around for a long time now...it's a proven technology, combining power and economy. What is needed is a one-ton GMC Suburban with a diesel-electric powerplant combination that gets 100+ MPG...I'll say that much for the hybrid in the article, at least they are using diesel technology which is already more economical than gasoline. Most of the current hybrids while impressive for their "fuel economy" are not very "fuel efficient" which are two very different concepts. Fuel economy being "cheaper to fill up" while fuel efficiency would have to take in the passenger capacity, cargo capacity, weight, and other factors to determine what you are getting from the vehicle for your fuel dollar.
"It is better to light one tiny candle, than to curse the darkness..." - Confucius