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8128 miles Per (US) Gallon
idletask writes: "Yes, you read well. This is the new record established this year in the Shell International Mileage Marathon (NOTE: English link, their figures are calculated using UK gallons), held this year on June 1st and 2nd on the Circuit of Nogaro, by a team from Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. This yearly
contest, sponsored by Shell since 1977, consists in travelling the longest distance with only one liter of gas (the record is therefore actually 3494km with 1 liter), at a minimum pace of 25kph (~15mph). Full results of the contest can be found in a PDF file. The only US team who participated this year scored 69th, with 1136mpg (483km with 1l)."
"The only US team who participated this year scored 69th, with 1136mpg (483km with 1l)."
Yes, but the US team's Sport Utility Test Vehicle pulled an ultralight trailer with a teeny boat on it.
I know some of you are having a tough time with the miles-per-gallon or kilometers-per-liter measurement, so I've taken the liberty of converting this to a useful measurement we can all relate to.
Simply put, 483km/1L is 1.2425 x 10^-6 earth-moon distances per cubic centimeter of fuel. I think that puts in it perspective
Of course 2171 actual miles on one liter of fuel would probally NOT scale very well when you are carying 4x the fuel at the beginning (One gallon instead of one liter). With numbers like this, weight must be a very important consideration.
I don't really mind double posts on
The only US team who participated this year scored 69th, with 1136mpg (483km with 1l).
As a European, why doesn't that surprise me?
Hmmm. The US "gas" would still cost approximately the same as the UK "gas" per km.
typical US gas gusler
We'll just invade a gas producing county (like Alaska).
In other news, the US Team won the first international Battlebots championship held this week in Khandahar, Afghanistan.
America's entry "Ogre" narrowly beat the Russian Entry "Krazy Ivan".
In the developing county bracket, the Pakistan entry "Newcombe High" and the Indian entry "Kashmir Sweat-er" stalemated. The resulting fallout cancelled the rest of the tournament.
My father is a blogger.
None of the links in the story provide any useful information at all, as far as I can see. The first is for a "Mileage marathon society" which doesn't appear to have any information about a particular recent contest. The second is for the location at which the event was held; the third links to a blank page inside Shell with some plugin that doesn't work in my Mozilla. Searching Shell for "Mileage Marathon" produces lots of results in other languages and from 1998-99, but nothing topical.
/. as a source of unbiased and accurate information (cough) I'm interested in a few more details...
Does anyone have any actual information about this contest? Much as I trust
...that an English gallon is roughly 500 US gallons.
Not so impressive now, is it?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
The most fuel efficient car you can get in the US is still the Hybrid Electtric Honda Insight. I have about 63 mpg average over the two years that I've had mine.
From the pictures, it looks like one rule was left out.
Genebrew
Unless they've recently changed the rules, they most definitely do _NOT_ give them their litre of fuel and tell them to keep going until they get bored. 8000 MPG, average speed of 20 MPH (say), that's over 2 weeks of continuous driving.
:-) and computed the MPG from that.
Last I heard they took the cars, ran them over an agreed course of a few miles maximum, excluded those who ran too slowly then measured the amount of fuel left in all the cars VERY CAREFULLY
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
it would be much more interesting to see who, given one liter of gas, could win a race over a road circuit. steady-state driving at low speed doesn't relate to most real-world driving.
http://www2.shell.com/home/fr-fr/downloads/eco_mar athon/palmares.pdf
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
So they can find out who are making advances in vehicles that use less fuel so they can have them killed. Don't be surprised if a number of people in the top 10 end up victims of... accidents.
Sadly, my spell checker wouldn't have caught the misspellings.
I guess I'm just an idjit.
My father is a blogger.
...you are virtually pickled in a vat of daily "this is why we Europeans are actually better than Americans" hogwash, resulting in countless superficial analyses such as this.
This is a cool European engineering competition with about the same level of practical significance for US transportation problems that battle robots competitions have for US manufacturing. Maybe more than zero, but not much.
But, as a European, you're not required to think about an issue beyond the point where you think you've found a way to employ it in the service of proving your superiority to Americans. You're not likely to want to, either, because often the deeper you go the less superior to Americans you might feel, and European self-esteem seems to be on such thin ice as it is.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
those english I tell ya....that page has a link for pictures and one for photos. I just don't know about them sometimes ;)
So if you are calculating based on carrying capacity you are incorrect, the Honda isn't the most fuel efficient.
If you are just going by mpg without any other caveats, the Solectrica and EV-1 have you beat because they are pure electrics and use no gas.
On the other hand, Honda's new hybrid (based on the same technology) will probably be an even better family car than the Prius because of Honda's excellent CVCC gas engine technology. Go Honda!
Somehow I'm just not that impressed by a ultra efficient gasoline powered bobsled. I'm sure that there are plenty of engineering challenges involved in getting the most mileage out of the fuel allotted, but wouldn't a more directly applicable challenge be more interesting. Try getting the public to buy one of these things or the government to allow them on the road. I think it's very telling that Shell sponsors a fuel economy challenge with vehicles which no one could ever dream of seeing on an actual highway.
-- Adam
As a European, why doesn't that surprise me?
As an American, why should it? Statistically, we were right in the middle of the curve with our one entry. There were 114 other teams in the competition, most from France (who also came in last).
Did you mean to infer that Europeans are good at statistics?
science is a religion
I participated in the Minnesota Technology Education Association's Supermileage Challenge in May. It was basically the same thing except it was just a bunch of high school teams. It really is a great competition, I learned a lot and had tons of fun.
My team ended up with a top mileage of 305 mpg, this was for the stock class. Fairly good considering we had limited time, budget, and experience.
The way our competition worked is this: Each team is given a fuel bottle and it is weighed before the start. You then go around 2 laps (of the 3 mile track at Brainerd International Raceway) for a total of 6 miles. They then weigh your fuel bottle again to determine how much gas is used (making sure there are no air bubbles in the fuel line). This ends up a pretty accurate way of determining gas mileage. The weight of the gas really shouldn't matter that much, since more weight would mean you carry your momentum longer. You have to complete 6 runs and they take the average of that.
Now since we are high school students, our main goal was to build a working car. You then focus on aerodynamics, good bearings so it rolls well, wheel alignment, steering, and driving practice. Getting practice is key. Not only to determine what will break, but also to get good at controlling your burns. Short burns at high rpm's get you up to speed(roughly 30, which was the max), at which point you cut the engine and coast down to around 10(you have to maintain an average of 15). By the end of the 2 day competition, you saw drivers getting very good at rolling to a stop inches over the finish line.
It was a really fun competition, we saw some very cool cars with everything from carbon fiber bodies, to computer sensors and lcd displays mounted on the steering wheel, and you could download all the data to a computer for analysis. Sweet stuff.
Why not just build a solar powered vehicle
Why not force a guy to drink a liter of gas, then make him bicycle a ludicrious distance.
Why not build a sailboat and pour the gas overboard?
What about nucler sumbarines?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Two silly observations:
1) the home page has a link for "Pictures" and a link for "Photos". I half expected that when I clicked on the link for "Pictures" I'd see more crayon drawings, like the one taking up most of the main page. Not so, both links go to photographs, with "Photos" being slightly more candid.
2) No homophobia or anything, but the second car on the "Pictures" page says "FAG" on the side in big black letters. Heh. That tickles my "Beavis and Butthead" level sense of humor. It's probably an acronym for something, but never in a million years would anyone in the US come up with an acronym like that and plaster it on their vehicle.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Don't know about the Honda, but my Prius uses NimH not NiCad. And believe me, they will get reconditioned/recycled - the pack is large enough to make it economically worthwhile.
The VW super-diesels are not available in the USA yet. But you are right, with bio-diesel they rock.
I'd be interested to know who's fomenting the anti-US propoganda in Europe, and why.
I rarely see any original commentary from such Europeans, just jingoistic repetition of some tired party slogans. Even more worrisome are the steadfast proclamations of superiority, which are eerily reminciscent of the propoganda machines of other more historical regimes.
All citizens of Europe to your feet to proclaim your superiority! Heil Europe! Heil Europe!
People of the 21st century should have some idea of what propoganda is. European parroting the party line with such vigor might shed some light on how easily they'd been sucked into the utter maddness that comprises so much of their past.
So crow all you want about your "superiority", European friends, but answer me this: When your next dictator invites you to join his master plans, will you be fooled yet again? Ha. Enjoy your little period of disillusionment while it lasts. Pride cometh before the fall.
If you are going to post anything that may be considered as vaguely anti-American, do it as an anonymous coward.
I'm now being personally attacked, off-forum, as some kind of anti-American zealot. As someone that made the choice to move to the US, that's something that I am definitely not.
In Europe, and probably elsewhere, American cars have a reputation for being gas-guzzlers. Live with it.
I finished my post with a dig at the price of fuel in the UK. I notice that none of the British took particular offence to that.
It is a simple, indisputable fact that Americans (meaning residents of the US, not all North/South Americans) use MUCH, MUCH MORE ENERGY PER CAPITA (that is per human being) than ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE GLOBE . In fact, more than twice as much as the nearest contender, China.
Now what I want to know is, why do Americans take themselves so seriously? Is it genetic or cultural?
Word.
I hate the pro-American bias in Slashdot...but maybe it's just because many, many more Americans post on this than other countries, and so the blindly patriotic are more represented. It's not the ACs that piss me off (easily blocked) but the people with karma (how can they be so misinformed?)...
But I also suspect it is part of the American psyche to be insecure about the status of your nation (why else would they be so defensive?).
When it gets to the point where you can't state simple facts about America without getting attacked off-forum... that's sad and disturbing.
Are there "international" slashdot-like sites?
Maybe there should be an option on slashdot preferences to automatically block out posts from people from national domains for certain topics which are "sensitive" to people from those countries.
Anyhow, awaiting the onslaught...
EPA ratings, much like ISO ratings, reflect close-to-perfect usage conditions (flat roads, constant speed etc). They are far from reflecting everyday use where you have to slow down/accelerate/etc constantly. And then again there are curves/uphills/etc. I doubt any of the cars you have listed actually score their listed mileages in everyday use. As a matter of fact, most reviews of the Prius (sold here in Europe, unlike the Insight) score it at 35-40mpg rather than the listed 48mpg EPA rating.
Which is where modern Diesel engines take a clear lead: accelerations don't require as much energy as gas engines require. The reason is that Diesel engines spot a much higher torque. Provided that you don't drive hard, you can be sure that VW's TDIs announced mileages WILL be what you actually consume. And if you drive hard, the mileage of a Diesel engine will decrease far less steadily than with a gas engine as well, always because of superior torque. The same goes on if you carry more passengers than yourself alone.
Just for information, I'm the (very) lucky owner of a BMW 330d (WARNING - UK gallons! Following figures are calculated using US gallons though). Cruising at 60mph, mileage is 41mpg, whether the road be flat or not. Cruising at 75mph, mileage "drops" to 35mpg - and this is not surprising if you consider that at both of these speeds, the engine provides its full torque of 288(!) lbft (~1800rpm at 60mph, ~2100rpm at 75mph), and full torque means best fuel efficiency. Not bad for an engine which spots 183hp and has a 3l displacement, eh? (and the car weighs 1.6 ton!)
Another example: a friend of mine owns a Skoda Fabia TDI 100 (a VW TDI, since Skoda is owned by VW - 100hp, 180 lbft torque, 1.9l displacement, 1 ton) (sorry, couldn't find an online review). We swapped cars on a WE just for fun and I wanted to see how well the TDI performed... 46mpg at 60mph and 39mpg at 75mph (yes, greater gap here, but unlike the BMW 3l engine, the TDI isn't on its max torque curve at 75mph).
And as an added bonus, both of these cars are enjoyable to drive. This is not so the case with, say, the Prius (which is available in EU, unlike the Insight). Again, thanks to the torque.
There are still two weak points with the Diesel engines, though, but these are being addressed. Technologies exist and will make inroads into the EU market in the next 3 years:
Of course, ultimately, fuel cells will replace Diesel and gas engines altogether, but it will be a good 10+ years before it gets viable (both cost-wise and reliability-wise). Both of the technologies above exist today and are [already on/close to make inroads into] the consumer market. Also consider that car manufacturers, by 2005, will have to obey "depollution" norms in EU which basically require engines to have a global mileage equal or better than 45mpg. Whatever the technology employed.
This is the best entrant in my opinion. It isn't the "most" fuel efficient entrant but, it is the most practical.
This stealth car not only gets great mileage, it is also invisible to radar. No more worries about those pesky speed traps. Of course, at 20 MPH the only speed trap you'll have to worry about is a school zone. But, no worries in this puppy.
Oh man thats exactly the shit my physics professor would do to us, he really loved dimensional analysis.
:)
:)
I remember on one midterm being asked to convert a measurement in miles per gallon into "furlongs per fortnight" which is pretty easy if you know that a god damn furlong is 220 yards, and a fortnight is 2 weeks. Needless to say furlong was *not* among the unit conversions I had choosen to memorize.
Bonus points if you can convert furlongs per fornight into granpa simpsons "rods per hoghead" (40 rods in one furlong)
Although to this day I still remember the conversion for furlongs, I think what I really learned in that course is not to take classes from assholes
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
On top of this, America accounts for a huge amount of the world's industrial production. A great deal of that energy is actually being used for something. While I will not argue that the USA couldn't do quite a bit to increase efficiency in all parts of the economy (just about everything I've tried to check in depth makes it appear that 2x is quite realistic for most applications not involving direct conversion of electricity to heat), there are excellent reasons why the USA is always going to have higher energy consumption per-capita than the "good folks" of Europe even if they are employing the same technologies just as well.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Gibraltar, which is part of the European continent (the Iberian peninsula, to be precise) and is a part of the British Empire for at least a little while longer. ;)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I've been talking up the need for increased fuel taxes as a way to discourage consumption for over a decade. You can see how much progress I've made.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I don't understand why Shell, the company who helps fund south african dictators to maintain control over their oil supply, is involved with this.
It's like Microsoft having an uptime contest.
c-hack.com |
I knew you lot were lost in the dark ages and still used gallons, but I never would have guessed you couldn't spell "litre"!
It's nice that they get that great gas mileage, but in my opinion they sacrifice power to get it. All of these cars can barely get out of their own way. There are a number hybrid cars that I see regularly on my way to work. Some of the entrance ramps to the highways around here are pretty short and you have to give it some gas to safely merge into traffic. Well, these car come down the ramps nearing a snails pace. You've got to be on your toes if they merge in front of you.
I guess I could just never make the performance sacrifice for mileage.
True, those aren't mind-blowing numbers, but my lil silver bullet isn't any worse off than all the SUVs, vans, and econo-boxes on the road. Hell, I'm better off than most SUVs.
/56 highway (it's about 20 miles along I-65 and I-264 to and from work). It's all in the driving style.
.25 Coefficient of drag (lowest of any mass produced vehicle), continuously variable transmission, integrated motor assist, SULEV certified, great gas mileage, what-the-hell-is-that styling (as opposed to the just-another-boring-econobox styling of the prius), and a sub $20,000 price tag. And I'll beat that SUV in a sprint for the last parking spot at the mall. They were too big to fit in there anyways.
In my opinion, the real thing that keeps you from nailing the gas in the Insight isn't it's lack of power... it's that damn fuel display on the dash. It gets to the point where it's almost like playing a video game: I'm constantly trying to beat my "high score" with a better mpg rating in between fill-ups. After driving the Insight for a while, you find yourself driving slower, brakeing sooner, accelerating smoothly, refusing to "creep" at traffic lights (if you do, the gas engine will kick back on), driving on a hot summer day with the widows up & air conditioner off, etc.
Currently, I'm getting 65.8mpg over the last 500 or so miles. That's with the CVT transmission rated at 57 city
Well, that and the weather. It definitely does better in a hot climate. My mileage went straight to hell when I took it on a new years trip from Louisville to Seattle & back. I probably averaged about 48mpg on the trip, average speed being about 70mph. And yes, it went through Snoqualmie & Lookout passes in winter without a problem. Without chains.
Aluminum alloy monocoque frame,
Just my $0.02 here.
The reason many Americans are so sensitive is that we get tired of hearing that we are all rotten people who sit around all evening being violent while the cultured Europeans save the earth.
That being said, I know what you meant in your message. And you are correct that many people are hypersensitive, but in multi-national forums I have frequently been attacked...posters saying things like "as an American, you know nothing about x", where x has been everything from the history of World War I to computer technology.
I get really tired of being told that all Americans are lazy, stupid, uneducated, fat and rich. I work hard, I have degrees in Electrical Engineering, Anthropology, Computer Engineering and a minor in Chemistry. I know about history and I don't like Football of any sort. I don't like violent action films, I know my wines and can have an intelligent conversation about the history of Bath, if required.
So that's the nerve even a well-intentioned poster like you can hit. Remember though the problem of text-only postings where people can't tell your comment may have been some ironic humor...and many of the people flaming you are the "14 year old slashdotters" who have chased many of us from this forum...I only rarely post now.
BUT, that being said there is a tendancy that anytime there is a case where a European country does something better (or different) than the US, there seems to be a flurry of slashdot posts along the lines of "What do you expect from a stupid American anyway".
This post is pointless, 'cause nobody will read it. But I fell better anyway.
So why's an oil company doing something like this except for PR for dummies?
:)
I mean, when you think about it.. the more they sell, the better off they are. They've got nice dealies going with auto-makers and such, y'know?
Or is it that they're actually worried about oil reserves, but still want to stay in business before fuel-cell/electric cars take off?
Sport Utility Test Vehicle pulled an ultralight trailer with a teeny boat on it.
[grin]
Did you see how tiny these silly things are?
If I had one of these things kicking around the garage, I'd probably accidentally end up using it as a tire chock for my 1976 Dodge Ram.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Heh. What I liked most was how in a lot of the pictures, you see someone following on a bike. You'd think that that would be a better way to get gas milage.
:)
More interesting, is that none of the cyclists are wearing helmets, but the drivers are. At 30 mph, even if you hit a brick wall in one of these things, you're just going to bump a knee, really. It looks like they would save on gas milage if they ditched the 5lb helmets.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The Insight, they tell me, needs premium gas. Don't know about the Hybrid Civic
In other words, you guys are talking about a fairly typical diesel-electric hybrid scheme. The Prius and Insight are essentially the same idea only using gasoline (aka petrol). Gas is more readily available in many parts of the United States.