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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
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
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 - .
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.
My regular Honda Civic that I drive to work every day gets about 400 miles to the tank. If I had to only fill up 5 gallons, compared to the 10 I have to now, I'd hella get it.
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.
You don't have to charge the battery in a hybrid from an external source. Ever. Just put gas in. In fact, aggressive driving with lots of hard braking would charge it faster in current hybrids.
Honda has a sweet prototype called the DualNote that makes 400hp and gets 43mpg. I would certainly be in for that!! I'd be even happier at 200hp/86mpg, though. Something small and fun like a WRX that gets 86mpg would rule.
I think it looks more like one of those new ugly Toyota MR2's.
On a side note, I don't think anyone should try and recreate the F40, it's the greatest driving machine of all time.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Also sad: Proof that a cool car doesn't make you look any less geeky...
Kill, Tux, kill!
But with no back seat, how are you supposed to get laid???
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
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.
It's great to see one of these cars that actually looks cool, even if the models posing with the car don't.
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.
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
First of all, large electric motor => large batteries => expensive, heavy and takes a lot of space => not suitable for a normal-looking (or in this case, great looking) car. Because if it didn't have large batteries, the range would be very limited - the small gas engine would not be sufficient to keep the battery charged. This depends on HOW small we're talking here, but if it needs to be large enough to basically deliver all the power for the electric motor, it would be wiser, energy-wise, to forego the generator and have the gas engine run the wheels directly, since even the best generators have noticeable losses of energy.
Second, the idea is to have the two engines do what they each do best. The electric motor keeps it humming along the highways at cruise speed (where little power is needed), and the fuel one delivers the power to accelerate (where more power is needed). So you get the best from both worlds.
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.
The idea seems to be that using ordinary fuel will speed acceptance. No Joe Sixpack will want a natural gas engine if he THINKS there's not going to be a gas station within range wherever he goes. The hybrid car presented in the article is really just another fuel burner with a really impressive miles/gallon figure, so there is nothing more to worry about than what to do with the gas money saved :-)
Personally, I can't wait for this type of car to reach my country, where fuel is $1/liter. If only they'll put this style of engine in a more usable size car (say, one that can hold my family of soon-to-be 5 persons) and still reap the benefits of a hybrid engine. No wonder my country is the place in the world where 33 km/l VW Lupos are most popular :-)
Black holes are where God divided by zero
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
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.
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
Gasoline is a fluid with weight characteristics similar to water. 1 gallon of water weighs 8 lb, one liter of water weighs 1 kg. Gasoline is slightly lighter (floats on water) but this vehicle runs on Diesel, which I don't remember it's actual weight properties. As a result I am assuming that it is also similar to water, someone can provide the correct numbers.
.18% of the weight of the car. I do not know what the crossover point for this vehicle is, but at some point the added weight for a full tank, with expected passenger load will result in lower millage figures than they designers think is acceptable.
At five gallons, or just under 20 liters, the weight of the fule is 5*8/22000 or just over
The average range for cars on a full tank of gas isn't much differnt than this vehicles range. Both are significantly longer than most purely electric's 75-100 mile range. Though for 99% of my needs, 75-100 miles is more than sufficient.
400 miles at 70 mph (average freeway speeds) is over 5 hours of driving.
But then I don't speak for how you use your car.
-Rusty
You never know...
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.
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
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."
Deep cycling batteries is hard on them. Laptops and cell phones are usualy run low when used, or are left on to charge most of the time, also bad.
The Toyota Prius has an 8 year warranty on the battery. It's a Nickel Metal Hydride battery. It is designed not to be deep cycled. Running out of gas and going electric only is very hard on the battery.
The electric provides short bursts of high torque for merging on freeways, climbing hills, stop and go city traffic, etc. Regenerative braking and the gas engine keeps the batteries up. Gently pulling away from a stop sign leaves the gas engine off until you reach about 10 MPH, then it starts using the generator. No gear grinding cranking noise from this one. The best thing about the Prius is the almost silent engine. It's totaly quiet at stoplights and you don't notice the engine when it starts because the small amount of road noise masks it.
In short, I also like the car because I can enjoy my music in it. (Get the CD changer option!)
The truth shall set you free!
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!
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.