Slashdot Mirror
239 MPG Car
Kozmik writes "VW/Audi has a history of being a leader in creating super fuel efficient
vehicles. They currently sell the most fuel efficient car in the world, 3L
Lupo and the
Audi A2,
and the most fuel efficient station wagon (Jetta
TDI Wagon). Now VW is experimenting with something along the lines of the
Honda Insight ( a 2 person vehicle ). The
1L VW concept car
can achieve .89L/100kms or 239MPG. With
Biodiesel and
Ultra low
sulfur diesel becoming available, hopefully more of these vehicles will come
to North America. These fuels are already available in Europe and combined with
the new catalyst technology they use, these new engines produce very low
emissions." It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
don't think its a coincidence that this was posted immediately after "Ask Slashdot: What Makes Great Science Fiction?"
Its allllll one big conspiracy..
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Well the rest of the world is chasing dreams of perfect cars VW has done a lot of work on creating practical cars that are also enviromentally friendly for the meantime. Note that they are also working on ideas that are not yet practical.
It's called supply and demand. If no-one is driving the cars, why would they stock the fuel?
It's exactly the same problem that faced unleaded petrol.
Why did unleaded take off? Well, in the UK a government mandate was passed forcing all cars sold after 1st April 1989 to run on unleaded. An EU directive, 98/70/EC, made selling leaded leaded petrol in the UK after January 2000 illegal.
Until goverments give manufacturers and fuel suppliers a swift kick, errr, benefit to promote new fuels, no-one will bother. (Cue the usual comment about oil companies owning the US goernment here).
I sure wish that the slashdot editors treaded a little more lightly with their end comments to a story. Just figured I'd point out that, unless I'm misreading the article, the car in question is in fact uses standard diseal fuel, unlike what the end comment implies. Although I can understand the impulse for editors to toss out their little two-cents at the end of the story, why isn't it set-up so that, unless further explainations is required, the editor comments only appear when we click the read-more button (and thus are interested in seeing what other people think about the story). Just my two-cents. (or for that matter don't include them at all).
Isn't 0.89 l/100km around 264mpg? Or am I screwing up the whole US versus imperial gallon thing?
So why are the lights off then?
"The 'one-liter car' is powered by a single-cylinder diesel engine "
The reason why I am a big fan of VW's attempts to reduce fuel consuption is because of their attention to creating cars that will fit into the infastructure. Although it may not be as good as a hydrogen fueled fuel cell vehicle, if 10,000 high mileage diesel engine VW's are sold for every 100 of the more ideal but far less practical cars the enviromental improvment made by VW will beat those other efforts.
Yeah.
What a good feeling to have something before the US does!!!!!!
We got EcoDiesel (call it whatever you like diesel) here for almost a year at most gas stations nationwide
BTW We finally got broadband (ADSL) in South Africa 3 months ago.
It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
And you're probably not going to any time soon. You've got a government hell-bent on keeping the flow of cheap petroleum open at all costs. The US simply isn't interested in this type of stuff...typically you're probably 20 years behind where Europe is with this type of thinking and technology. Enjoy your dumb Detroit 5.0 litre pushrod V8 engines while you can...
At the risk of being cynical, when did MPG become a consideration in the US? Gas prices are so cheap compared with Europe, so where's the incentive?
The backseat only holds one person. If this car becomes the norm, will the human race ever conceive children again?
... Diesel an 'alternative fuel' - cracks me up that.
:)
seriously though it's all about *encouraging* uptake - over here in Europe where we practically get taxed in body parts for our fuel, Diesel's been readily available on forecourts for decades and these beauties are overtaking conventional petrol engined cars in terms of sales because you get much more out of them both in terms of economy and (certainly in the case of my JTD Fiat) driving pleasure
commuting 30 miles to and from work each day is *so* much more fun when you get to do the clear stretches at 80mph and still turn in 55-60mpg
No we don't nead to because the world is over crowded and we all are going to starve to death if we don't die from pollution first remember?
I would *LOVE* to own such a car. Small, fuel efficient (to an extreme, in this case), stylish. Everything you could ask for in a car for commuting, cross-country touring, or just a toy for the typical DINK family.
However, I have *VERY* serious doubts that it will ever make it to the US in its current form.
*Perhaps* a version modified to seat 4. With an extra 300lbs of "safety" features that arguably cause more injuries than they prevent. And after all the wonderful emmissions control features (that don't apply to things like SUVs and pickups because they apparently don't make pollution at 10mpg), perhaps a "really good but not amazing" efficiency of 60-70mpg.
Hell, if I could have gotten one in the US, for my last car I would have bought a Mini. Good luck finding and registering one, though.
This is seriously old news. I immediately knew I had seen this before, but I just can't remember exactly where I found the link. Anyways, if you check that page, you'll realize that it was last edited in April.
... I worry it might tip over if I lean against it! How fast does that thing go, 32 mph?
That said, this is seriously awesome technology. Except that it looks so fragile
Am I a hipster-doofus?
Jon.
...here we come! It's look like this ultra-streamlined style of car is starting to catch on with car manufacturers. I guess this would be similar to the transition from boxy kinds of cars to the smoother, more aerodynamic ones we are used to today. Was the change gradual enough to where people really didn't think anything of it?
the number plate reads WOBL1 - wobbly....
... but it is at least as ugly.
Is this a comment on its stability? Though I do notice it at least has more wheels than the Sinclair C-5
the oil industry lobby would never allow such a level of efficiency to be mass produced for the us. lets step back into reality; bush is in office. look at his "strides" twoards furthering enviornmental causes... now put two and two together... sigh.
at the price of fuel in europe, those cars are not only friendly to the environment, but also to your budget. In belgium, prices for unleaded fuel float around 1 euro PER LITER.
When I went on a trip to the US 2 years ago, I remember everyone freaking out at prices that were less than half of what we pay here...
My current car (an opel Tigra) uses approx 10litres/100km (I do a lot of city traffic plus the car had heart surgery 5 months ago and never fully recovered in terms of fuel usage) making me refill for 40euro every week or so. I could save 36Euro per week, or 420 per year.
Assuming fuel prices will go up in the future (anyone remember anything else ?) I think I can safely say that such a car can save me 5000Euro in 10 years. That's Half a VW Lupo.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
The thing is, that the car has good figures due to being very very light, kilogram wise. This is done by molding the car in lightweight aluminium, which unfortunatly is very expensive compared to steel. Therefor my guess will be, that the car will be expensive, so much that the econmics are in favor for a normal car + normal gasoline.
As for the environment, the new gasoline is a good thing, but if my memory serves me right, aluminium is not!! Therefor it might be better for the environment just to make ordinary cars.
Thomas S. Iversen
no gas stations selling cleaner fuel because you live in America. The rest of the world is complying with new Regulations (often brought out by Americans) while America only thinks about themselves and whats good for their pockets.
Take the Irak thing for example: America feels like war (somehow good for their Economy) and decides that Saddam is the best target economically (they have oil) while there are currently worse villains out there (Mugabe or any of the dictators/rebel leaders in Central/West africa). They leave the others alone, because they don't have resources America wants top control.
Small wonder so many countries produce terrorists that hate America/Israel....
Well, this will not help and the fuel efficiency of cars is not really a factor in US, because the cost of having a car is far higher than the cost of operating it. I didn't know this, until I came here and bought a car. I pay $300 a month in auto loan payments, $250 a month to insurance company (mostly for not having US drivers license for over 3 years) and under $50 for gas a month. Now that is 1/6 of the monthly cost of me having a car and driving daily. Honestly, I really really don't care, if I pay $580 or $620 instead. The difference is negligible.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I can tell you just how far I can get on a tank full of ( Low sulpher diesel ) fuel - 450 miles. And how much it costs me - £25 , but I couldnt hope to tell you the MPG figures for it. Especially since fuel is sold in litres these days and not gallons.
Most people I know judge fuel consumption on the same basis. Cost, not MPG. We buy fuel by price, not volume.
Does anyone actually use MPG figures as an every day referance anymore?
At 220 MPG the european community can pay the same effective price for gas that we do in the US with our SUV's!
It's good to hear about new alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles, but what we really need is a uniform (non-gasoline) fuel type for all mass market autos. It's going to be hard enough to make hydrogen (or biodiesel, or methanol, or ultra low sulfur diesel) pumps common enough to get people thinking seriously about alternative fuels, but the competition between these schemes is hurting adoption of environmentally friendly vehicles like the competition between desktop environments is hurting adoption of GNU/Linux. People want (and are comfortable with) uniformity. Asking Joe Average to make "the switch" is a big request, but when he has to ask "To which alternative?" the battle is pretty much over. When he learns it's all going to be different at his friend's house and at work, your chances are already dead, buried, reincarnated as a racoon, and run over by a semi (fueled by conventional diesel and running a Microsoft-powered cockpit GPS navigator).
<asbestos_suit>I suppose I'm just begging for flames by making the GNU/Linux analogy, but I think it's the best one considering the situation and the audience.</asbestos_suit>
Why 239 mpg cars when there are 239 mph cars?! Check out Koenigsegg CC!!!
Fuel tank capacity: 6.5L (1.7 gal)
:)
Fuel efficiency: 100lm/l (235 mi/gal)
Top speed: 120km/h (74.5 mi/h)
Weight: 290kg (639lb)
Trunk capacity: 80L (2.82 cubic ft) (err, i think i converted this one right)
this is an effin cool car
no side mirrors--uses cameras and twin dash-mounted displays. it has a flywheel too.
my only question (besides when can i get one in the u.s. and for how much) was about the use of magnesium for various components (including the fuel tank i believe). i thought magnesium was highly flammable or something... clearly i haven't retained anything from chem.
I thought it was called greed?
There are plenty of alternative fuels and engines, and with this comes a loss of profit for oil companys.
How do you think G.Bush got in?
The guy behind the counter at the local Sunoco sells crystal meth, does that count?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Being a texan and living near a lot of energy companies I can tell you with 99% assuredness that the only difference between bio-diesel and regular diesel is the amount of emissions (ie bio-diesel is less). I am reasonably sure they both can run in the same cars. Which is why bio-diesel is such an attractive fuel, if you stick it in a normal diesel engine it works just the same but puts out less damaging by products.
Diesels have gotten better fuel economy for years anyway, my 1st car was an old early eighties VW rabbit Diesel. It got around 50-60 mpg. It was manufactured twenty years ago too!!!
There's a small article about it here, and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung has both this picture and this article (with more pictures). The car ran on diesel (not any alternative fuel) at an average speed of 75km/h, or about 46mph. Some sections of Autobahn have a minimum speed of 80km/h (50mph).
This was a concept car which isn't much more than a motorcycle on three wheels with a cockpit rather than a fairing. However, VW is a big name in fuel efficiency. The Lupo, a production car, needs less than 5l/100km, or close to 50mpg, and that with a top speed of 199km/h or about 120mph. In Europe, with fuel about three times the cost of the US (for many reasons including taxes and ecological concerns), this is important.
Bio-diesel is gaining acceptance and outlets in Germany, as is LNG (liquid natural gas), but this car wasn't using them. DaimlerChrysler is still working on hydrogen power, a much more sensible fuel.
Is it really "News" in December when this car ran in April?
woof.
This page talks about an abundant source of biodiesel. Esp nice for countries which have warm climates.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I would imagine the survivability aspects of a collision with this vehicle and any mid-sized vehicle would be very low. Yes, I read the article -- something about GT-class protection -- but the mere lack of weight would be the first mark against you in a collision (something about conservation of mass and energy come to mind). And although top speed is somewhere in the vicinity of 70 mph, it will take a long time to get there -- which means a lot of time spent at a great speed differential to other traffic. Again, not exactly a formula for survival in a collision scenario.
Let's face it -- the average rolling tonnage of vehicles in the US is greater than that in Europe. What works there doesn't necessarily mean it will work here. What is really needed is a rolling steel cage, truly indestructible, with lots of energy-absorbing panels. I can't imagine trading away personal safety for environmental conservation.
Try to get some leaded fuel here in the US. You can't, it's illeagal here, too.
And pick a country. If you want to complain about the government in the IK, then do that. If you want to complain about the government in the US then do that. But don't complain about things in the UK and then blame the US.
Michael, please point your browser here. It's got both a station locator, and a route mapper (trip planner) so you can plan stops to refuel on long trips.
Get off my launchpad!
VW Jetta might be most fuel efficient now, but it's not as good as some cars in the past have been.
Rover (Austin previously) used to make an estate car (station wagon) which was the same size as the Jetta, called the Montego. The diesel version had a 2.0litre Direct Injection Turbo diesel engine, made by Perkins.
These used to return 75mpg at 56mph and 55mpg at 75mph. They were light years head of anything else at the time - at a cost of increased engine noise because of the direct injection.
At the time, Ford, Vauxhall, Peugeot were all churning out indirect injection diesels which were at least 10mpg worse, and generally slower. The Ford Escort / Sierra diesels were crap.
The Montego Diesel came out around 1988. Now of course they all use direct injection, but are still only nipping at the heels of the Montego in terms of economy. Somewhat ahead of its time.
Shame we make retrograde steps. A bit like the latest windows feature is in fact old hat for any other OS.
-- PC architecture - what a mess.
We as a nation are ready.e lingsites/default.shtm
These are locations that are registered as selling biodisel:
http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/retailfu
Now, the big question is: Are we as CONSUMERS ready? We americans love our big 12mpg SUV's...
What is interesting is that Diesel for these cars is available in Europe at each and every gas station. 28% of all german cars are diesel cars, with the Volkswagen TDi's being one of the most popular. 3-4 l/100 km are common fuel usages with these, if you are driving sensibly.
Kristian
PC vendors are afraid to stock alternative operating systems because Microsoft will cut them off. And they will go into chapter 11. Its the same with the damn fuel companys, they will just cut the gas stations off! And they wont sell normal fuel anymore.
What's it cost?
What's the fuel consumption at a REAL highway speed (note the speed of 47mph in the article)?
What's the fuel consumption with the air conditioning and radio on? No AC? What kind of effeciency hit does it take to roll the windows down? Can you roll those windows down?
Where's the spare tire?
80 liters of cargo capacity? My duffel bag won't fit in this car.
You wanna impress me, make something the size of a Honda Civic that gets 100mpg at practical speeds with a reasonable carrying capacity on fuel I can buy at the local Kwik-e-mart.
Ohyeah, and make it affordable.
An exotic one-off with an unlimited budget that can't carry a family-sized load of groceries or keep up with traffic on the highway just doesn't really impress me all that much.
-l
Maybe Michael should RTFarticle...
The 'one-liter car' is powered by a single-cylinder diesel engine...
So how many places in the world is it impossible to get diesel? Given that this is the fuel *all* (bar none!) trucks use. The story poster had it right - there's new diesel fuels around which are less polluting, which makes this even better. But it'll still run just fine on plain old diesel.
The only trouble is selling diesel cars to the US market. Or in fact selling *any* fuel-efficient car to the US market.
Grab.
I believe the exhause was made of titanium, and so is the chassis. btw have you SEEN how small the passenger compartment (there is no trunk) is?
I mean... for the same trouble and inconvenience, not mentioning the cost for all the exotic materials and their manufacturing (sorry but steel is about two hundred thirty eight times easier to work with compared to titanium), I would much rather bank on something that sparks the imagination.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
ok... IMHO the only way that people in the US are going to use anything besides unleaded gasoline or diesel is if fuel cells come around. And I'm not talking about the kind that you just have to fill up w/ hydrogen... I'm talking about the ones that'll leach it from the atmosphere... imagine... having to grease your wheel bearings every several thousand miles and that's it.
this is all, of course, presuming that the oil companys don't find a way to squash the research.
Jeremy Logan's Website.
I've already got way more than 239 MPEGs.
Free as in mason.
had a 1979 Rabbit, Diesel (the kind with the round headlights... they went to square ones in 1980).
Their diesels always got good gas mileage... It was the perfect car for a high-school kid (which I was at the time... I realize that I'm dating myself here), got around 40-50mpg, damned good for that time. I could afford to be magnanimous and not bug my friends for gas money... it was nice.
I hope they have solved the problems with diesels, at least from the consumer perspective.
1. They are noisy, and dirty.
2. Finding fuel used to be a pain in the ass
3. You are constantly tightening things (diesels vibrate like nobody's business)
4. You can't shut them off if they overheat (I think modern diesels have a fuel cutoff. If not, they should!)
If the numbers are accurate, That's one amazing little commuter vehicle. Good for VW... might have to put them back on my "vehicles to buy" list.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
What is annoying me after reading the posts so far is the number of people saying "Why is this so great, fuel is cheap over here - I don't care."
/. readers taking this "it doesn't affect my money, so I don't care" attitude.
This is the trouble mainly with the American ayn-rand-inspired viewpoint. I bought an audi A2 not because it would save me money, but because the much smaller fuel consumption is good for the environment.
The car market (and other markets) in America (and other places to a lesser extent) is getting ridiculous. People don't care at all about their effect on the environment, just how much they can consume. I mainly blame this on the government for relentlessly refusing to push "green" alternatives due to their control by the oil companies, however I am always disappointed to see
This should be good news because it will save the ecosphere, not because it will save you money.
It's below hood level of other cars on the road, so the driver will have a hard time seeing much of anything in traffic. The back seat passenger's knees in the photo are wrapped around the driver's seat, and it's not clear that the passenger could even comfortably read a book while riding. It makes airliner seats look spacious. I guess that it will be an OK car for short anorexic models who aren't schlepping anything.
239 mpg = 101 km per liter
eenk
A friend[1] of mine has been driving one for the past few months, and the thing
is about to fall apart. First of all, the acceleration sucks, it is almost like a
bicycle: I gave it a few rounds around town and the cars behind me constantly honked
at me because the thing wouldn't speedup whenever the speed limit changes (but it sure
can brake.)
Also, the body totally sucks; the rubber alignment around the inside of the doors started
to crack, but the their credit, Honda has an excellent customer service and most of the
vehicle is warranted for quite some time.
If you want a fuel efficient car, the Civic, which is the biggest bang for the buck out
there, just keep it real and DON'T even try to make it look sporty.
--
[1] The "friend" is actually my girlfriend, but you know hateful slashmods.
diesel is crap.... ;)
When I purchased my diesel Beetle, someone suggested I look into BioDiesel. As far as I can tell, the only way I would be able to use BioDiesel in my car would be to purchase the stuff in bulk and store it somewhere. I don't think I can legally do that in my condominium. And at $1.90 to $3.00 a gallon, I don't think I can afford it compared to the $1.55 a gallon (or so) that I will generally pay for standard diesel.
I work in the DC area, so reducing emissions would seem to be a priority here. Except that someone apparently removed funding for BioDiesel. Someone who, I think, currently lives in the White House. Someone who, I think, has more of an interest in preserving oil company interests (being something of an oil man himself) than protecting even his own health.
Anyway, here's a couple of useful links:
BioDiesel.Org
US Government's Alternative Fuels Data Center Homepage
The last link is particularly nice. While I will fault the US government for doing anything substantive, they at least have provided a lot of interesting research on the topic.
And so it goes.
Then you will not get the VW Passat V6 TDI or the VW Touareg V10 TDI engines.... You then need no more a Ferrari or a Porsche. Those things scream, and with a torque like they have, you leave every sportscar beside you at every traffic light in the dust.
Diesel has come a long way recently and I hated having to go back to petrol with my latest car (but it was a good deal). I am used to 60 mpg and no break downs. The analagy with OSs has already been made but to take it further...
Diesels are cheaper to run, not just because the mpg but also because they break down less often. The stories about vibration are old hat, that is like saying Linux only works from the command prompt. If you try a VW TDi you would not know you were in a diesel, they are as fast and as smooth as a petrol car. You can hear the difference from out side but I tend to sit inside my car. Most car breakdowns are caused by engine electrics and diesels do not have that.
Also, if biodiesel gets off the ground all those poor whining farmers can grow fuel instead of having to survive on subsidies. It is corn oil based so we can grow our own and forget the middle east !!! That is ecologically and economically sound.
So it is cheaper, more reliable and gets us away from the reliance on the current monopoly...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Yeah, sure. And poltergeists will ensure the high-pressure nozzles still get the 2000 bar-loaded fuel AND open at the right time once the timing calculator received the order to stop.
Modern European (VW, PSA, even Fiat) diesel has nothing in common with whatever VW could have imported in the US during the late seventies.
In fact, you'd be amazed what the (shipping in massive quantities today) 1.4L HDi PSA/Ford block can do.
It's Iraq not Irakl. And a couple of things about Saddam:
1. He has weapons, we know, we sold them to him
2. He has has oil, aka money.
What does Mugabe or any of the other Central/West African brutes have? No money, no weapons, no reason to invade.
do they run Linux?
I knew several people who bought diesel cars during the last fuel crunch. They liked the mileage but were unhappy with the high incidence of mechanical problems and the difficulty with finding diesel pumps at gas stations. They switched back to gasoline for their subsequent cars.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Another fact, Europe likes to trumpet their use of diesel over the U.S., but recent studies have shown that while diesel reduces CO2, it increases soot Science Daily. The net effect is at no real change, and more likely it actually make global warming worse.
Oh, I forgot this is Slashdot, Europe is enlightened, the U.S. is the bumbling oaf.
Have a look at this: review 1, review 2
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
The more environmental preservationalists that take to the road in their tiny, super-efficient cars, the more of them I run over with my SUV.
The car uses a 0.3 liter, single cylinder, naturally aspirated diesel engine, that produces around 8.5 BHPs at 4000 RPM. The subframe and chassis are made of costly, but light alloy, same goes for the "tub" which is nothing less "technologically sophisticated" than a McLaren F1 roadcar tub.
The way I look at it, my 98CC petrol four stroke bike that weighs around 107KGs all by itself without fuel gives something like 80 KPL easily when loaded with two people, and i'm talking two fat ones. Put that same bike on three wheels, smaller ones, put a modded go-kart chassis with shock-absorbers that i can find easily at our local track, a canopy with a plexiglass window over it to prevent rain from coming in, and the whole thing, after a bit of mod, would take two people, weigh around 170 KGs with 10 KG fuel, and would average around 60 KPL easy, and reach around 75 KPH speeds.
All this can be done for less than Rs. 1,20,000 here in India (around US$2300). And trust me, a poor engineering college student in sriperambudur, chennai, India, has done this.
What did VW achieve that anybody with "little technical resources" and a desire to make fuel-efficient stuff, not hotrods, would achieve.
Remember, Diesels are anyday more efficient than petrol engines, run cleaner, and can offer more torque for the "cubic capacity" because of higher compression ratios.
VW/Audi has a history of being a leader in creating super fuel efficient vehicles.
Since fuel costs 1.10 euro a liter here they definately have an incentive! 3.78 liters in a Gallon, 1 dollar is 0.98 euro... That's roughly $4.25 a gallon. Hellyah, I'd want some fuel efficient friggin' cars!
[signature]
Kudos to Albina Fuel.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase
you live in a country that uses the metric system. obviously you aren't going to be thinking in 'miles per gallon'. that doesn't mean no one else is either.
what a fucking waste of time and space you are.
"The suspension uses light-alloy components and the car runs on 16-inch low-friction tires optimized to keep rolling resistance to a minimum."
The friction can come in handy when you want to stop.
Screw the gas mileage. Screw the pumps too. Sure put some sort of alternative fuel at every gas station.
I couldn't care less about the environment or gas mileage. What I care about is this, can my mechanic fix the damn thing?
Not an unreasonable request mind you.
To all you people here that drive some sort of 'green' car, wether it is electric or hybrid or whatever (excluding diesel, I have seen the exhaust of those things, yeah that get good gas mileage but I simply do not believe they pollute less then my car) how many of you get your cars serviced anywhere but a dealer?
I got me a mechanic, searched long and hard for him too, he is reliable, honest and affordable. He appreciates that I come to his station whenever I have a problem and treats me well.
Have you ever seen the service at dealers? How about the bills?
Just the difference between what I would pay at a dealer to get my car serviced and my mechanic will blow away 3 to 6 months of my fuel savings for driving one of them 'green' machines.
This could hurt G. Bush's oil profits! Therefore it'll never be available in the U.S. When will everyone learn? If it hurts investors it will not succeed in the U.S. It's as simple as that. This is a free market. There's a big demand for oil. Thank God there's nice companies willing to go out of their way and fulfill that demand. Maybe I should buy an S.U.V. I might really need to go 4-wheel-drivin' on Hwy. 101. Especially with all the potholes.
:-)
[That's sarcasm, by the way.]
-- Jessica
The mutant geek grrl from Hell.
> It's nice to talk about alternative fuels,
> but I have yet to see a gas station selling
> one of them.
In Italy we already have gas station selling
low sulfur diesel, I have yet to see a customer buying it, because it's more expensive.
The parent link is goatse! Dont do it! Think of the children!
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Dear moderators,
If you disagree with what I've written (I have no problem with that), why don't you reply to my post instead of giving a "-1, Overrated" right from the start? Too bad "Overrated" mods are not caught in M2, I consider this to be serious shortcoming of the Slashdot moderation system.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
American are number driven consumers. Trying to sell a highway vehicle here with 8 horsepower? Never happen. We have lawnmowers with more HP. You guys know it is the same with computers with the megahertz myth.
People do not understand power to weight ratios or torque. I can not tell you how many people thought there were faster than my 500 LBS 1.1 liter Honda CBR. I would say things like, "Look 500 pounds and 160 HP. Let me get you a calculator. I do not care if your car has 400 HP, I will cream you."
Now if you were to market the car as the "The 0-60 in 8 seconds / 200 MPG car" then you would have something! But you could never advertise 1 liter - 8 HP. No no.
Diesel is more fuel-efficient, but it's also burned less clean than gasoline. Diesel motors release particles into the air which are higly carcinogenic. Only very recently have there been trends to install filters in the cars which accumulate these particles and destroy them every so often. Some car manufacturers refuse to install them since the filters, in turn, decrease fuel efficience - but just by about 0.1l/100km, so that shouldn't be that big a deal. Anyway, without these filters, Diesel engines are not that great, environmentally.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Think you should be able to put some more mpg's into a car. What you got there, layer 1's?
Hey, apparently no one went to Biodiesel.org -- there is a list of fuel stations that sell biodiesel. There are a whole bunch of 'em, nationwide.
As for ethanol, since CA has to use it now (no more MTBE), I expect to see demand jump up for that too. I know all the midwestern states have required it to be blended into the gasoline sold there.
This is exactly the sort of attitude that's caused the vehicle size arms race in North America. SUVs for example don't make you safer, they only make you feel safer. If an SUV runs into a mid-sized vehicle the chances of the occupants of said vehicle dying increase by a lot. SUVs also tend to roll over, causing fatalities that could easily have been avoided. A New York Times writer put together a book on this. I don't have a link handy but I'm sure you can find it if you look.
Environmentally, driving an SUV or Light Truck instead of a midsized sedan releases about five times the pollution. And maybe it's just me but I'm tailgated or cut off by an idiot in an SUV much much more frequently than by an idiot in a car.
As long as people keep buying them, though, the auto makers will keep making them. I wish people would take a look at what their "safety" is costing everyone.
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
The magnesium space frame surprized me, too - it it does catch fire, it'll make for some very impressive pyrotechnics. But while you can ignite thin foil of pure magnesium with a match, it would take a blowtorch to get a solid structural member burning. Also, they probably used a much less flammable alloy - pure magnesium is far too soft for such uses.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
As a matter of fact, several taxi companies in Europe (Germany, Austria) have modified their cars to run on regular household oil.
In order to fill up your car, you take it to next CostCo or whatever and get one of those big cans of regular oil that use to fry your Schnitzel.
this is not a joke, this is real!
It's impressive, at first since the weight was around 640lbs and it was a single cylinder engines, I thought it was basically a motorcycle with an aerodynamic shell. It basically looks like a Messerschmitt car from the 1950s in design.
But then going on google, it's noteworthy to compare that Harley Davidsons get around 50mpg, and Mopeds around 120mpg.
And it can even fit two people, looks like a definitely good city car to me, but have to ask, once you put weight in that thing, how far will mpg drop, because this baby only has a 1.7 gallon fuel tank!
...can call diesel alternative fuel.
I'd switch in an instant if I just could afford a modern diesel car. Here diesel is cheaper than gasoline and even bigger diesel cars have a good mileage, getting it _up_ to 5l/100km takes effort with even an older jetta.
Also the newest diesel engines from wv are just sweet. They have a torque compairable to tracktors making driving very easy and flexible. Personally I rather take 300nm of torque at a wide rpm range than 300hp of power at 50000rpm.
Or what am I missing...*whoops*
Stefan
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
It was well reported In Australia (at least i've seen it several times) that one person in melbourne turned heaps and heaps of FAT, taken from corner takeaway shops into Biodiesele and runs it in his unmodified diesele engine. I believe he now sells this stuff around melbourne some where.
Today Tonights website, on which the story was reported has the following link to the Australian Biodiesel Consultancy site.
Just going by the main page there is a biodiesel brocher, a trial program in progress and more detailed information.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
At least in the UK the government started diesel at a lower tax rate (around $3/gallon in 1990 - as a rough guess) and slowly crept it up to match regular gasoline.
Now they are doing the same with LPG which you can now get in quite a lot of gas stations - maybe 1 in 10 (and more in cities) and most public service vehical fleets have already been converted.
but recent studies have shown that while diesel reduces CO2, it increases soot
May be true for older diesels, but not the newer ones. The latest common rail diesels from PSA (Peugeot/Citroen) have particle collectors that periodically burn the particles at very high temperatures.
Nevertheless, simple physics seems to dictate that if you were in a head-on collision with an Escalade, well, I think I'd rather be driving an Escalade myself than one of these 150 lb hybrid tupperware-mobiles.
Speed limits going up, car weight and size going down. There's all of 4 inches between your forehead and the windshield in an Insight. Eeek. Are you okay with your 16 year old daughter in a tinfoil 2 seater doing 75 on the interstate just to be the only person in your town to save some gas?
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Biodiesel probably won't show up at 'consumer' pumps any time soon. After all, when was the last time (outside of a truck stop) have you seen a diesel pump?
Biodiesel will have great success in a fleet situations. Where all the busses or delivery trucks at a central garage fuel up at the same place. Later, when it becomes more affordable and/or more popular, you'll see it at truck stops.
85% Ethanol Gasoline is appearing in large cities. Not a lot, but I've seen one or two in Chicago (and I haven't been looking). Look for more pumps, particularly in the Midwest Corn belt, where the states are pushing Ethanol as a market for excess corn.
Of course, the Hybrids are the most immediate 'wave of the future'. They use gas, the reduce gas emissions, and they get better gas mileage. Sure they're more expensive, but I think I read somewhere that the big three are planning on reducing that cost through mass production. I'm guessing by 2008 we'll have more hybrids on the road than you might think.
Hybrid vehicles, using gasoline, are safer than fuel cell vehicles using Hydrogen. I've seen those vehicles, and the precautions needed for hydrogen fueling are crazy: Hydrogen burns almost invisibly in daylight, so if you're not careful, you can walk right into merry little hydrogen fire.
My father is a blogger.
it'll only use a tenth of a gallon before being squashed like a bug on the highway! Seriously, I value my life too much to trust it to something as comical as this thing. Maybe for commuting around tiny little streets in Europe, but not for driving 5 hours to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.
It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
That's funny, cause I see them all over the place, and I don't even live in a big city. I especially see Natural Gas quite frequently. Perhaps you just aren't paying any attention.
You might also want to check out his other article on alternative fuels which covers solaris, geothermal, wind, fusion, tides, fission, and solar satellites.
I'm not saying he's 100% correct, but he definitely brings up some points that need to be considered when having an intelligent conversation about alternative fuels.
-- null
A company in the UK has been developing a diesel bike. The company is called Hayes Diversified Technologies. They developed the bike for the US marines. At the present all bikes are petrol only,but the rest of the vehicles are diesel. The new bikes have a Kawasaki based engine and it does a 140mpg! According to HDS they can get 12% more power out of a litre of diesel than petrol.
The alternatives to war are 1) maintain sanctions that have killed thousands and thousands of children since 1991, 2) remove sanctions and give free reign to a regime to threaten millions with nuclear or germ-war death, including you in Europe, a regime that has a proven track record of willingness to use chemical weapons, 3) hope that "Cowboy Bush's" threats of war will get Iraq to cooperate with UNMOVIC and avoid war.
You all in Europe need Middle Eastern oil more than the U.S. does -- your policy, however, is appeasement.
Of course, VW would never make a hybrid because it's not in the business of building "halo" cars at the expense of an well-intentioned but inadequately informed public -- (hybrids are presently a sham -- compare a Jetta TDI to any hybrid in any category including overall mpg, acceleration, room, price, handling, TDI wins them all, especially when you consider how much gas engine emissions deteriorate constantly and rapidly with age). The VW simply represents the state of the art in a technology the narrow-minded and uninformed American car buying public is behind on by about 7 years as usual -- direct injection, s fuel rail, super intelligent cpu-controlled, turbo-diesels. We deserve hybrids.
All this whining that biodiesel isn't available -- burn used grease of which there is a HUGE supply: Greasecar.
This is now the third time I've posted about Greasecar (not affiliated in any way, but plan to implement a kit in the the next year or so).
Heard a radio story or two recently about diesel and soot. As clean as they can be (nowadays) from a carbon standpoint they have another bad thing about them: soot. Even if the carbon is reduced the soot is sunlight blocking / reflecting and thus weather affecting (kind of like those contrails) -- so much so that even the diesel-guzzling Europeans are beginning to take notice of the problem. I am not sure if the soot issue is resolved at all with biodiesels or grease cars. Still reseraching that one...
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Sure, take a VW Bug - old model, around a 1300cc model and take out the back seat, windshield, backwindow, bumpers and anything else that just adds weight. Drive it like an old lady, goose it all the time and coast wherever possible. Get 60mpg+
looooooser...looooooooooooooser
BWAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAA!!
score 2 informative...?!?!
more sore looooooooooosers
BWHAHAHAHAAA!!!
Car in Brazil
VW Concept Car
Grin, I always thought that car in Brazil was cool. We're all in it together.
Congratulations to VW, this is a very cool thing, despite the smart-ass remarks above.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I clearly remember reading about this car a looong time ago.. . Look at the last edited date:
"04.16.02 - 01:00". This ain't news!
It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
Why would you want gas stations to sell you alternative fuels? With biodiesel, every fast food outlet becomes a potential gas station. I'd rather just see the regular gas stations put out of business.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Well if we knew where you lived we might be able to fly some airbuses into yours.
While it is true that with a car like this there may be problems finding fuel at your local gas station that shouldn't be much of a problem. With a car that gets such good gas mileage you could probably find a way to order a 50 gallon drum or something and put it in your garage and it would last you for nearly 12000 miles. Not too bad if you ask me. Just a thought. In the end it could end up doing away with the need to take trips to the local gas station.
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
> It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
Here in London (UK) just about every gas station sells LPG (making them really "Gas" stations). Not so common outside London thought.
Here in Orlando, Fl. we have a couple of Natural Gas stations specifically for cars that support natural gas (fords for example) and our power company has a few totally electric ford rangers. They are not that high is avilability yet, however there was a thing on the news a couple of weeks ago, about how they are pushing for incentives to go with natural gas cars here. Interesting
This car looks like an update to the classic Messerschmitt KR200 to me. You can see one here .
Bubble cars like this one are fun, and in the post world war II developing Europe, they made sense. From a resource point of view they still do, but a magnesium frame has me nervous, and what do GT car safety standards mean? The entire car is designed to be destroyed around you while you are kept safe. That's nice, but will a fender bender render the car totalled?
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
> because we drive *every*fuckingwhere in our *own* cars. especially in cities like los angeles. no one walks even a block or two. you get in your car, and you drive. that's the standard mentality.
I can well believe this. I was stopped twice by police in Milwaukee for walking near the outskirts of the city. They wanted to know where my car was. I had to explain that
a. I was a visitor from the UK doing some consultancy.
b. I didn't have a car
c. I was walking to try and throw off the effects of jet lag.
That little car looks pretty slick.
Too bad my girlfriend said she'll never get in one, for fear of getting clobbered by a Ford Excursion.
Why stick up for big business?
VW has done more than anyone to bring the vehicles from the Ray Bradbury book into reality.
That's why you get a Ford F-250 king cab diesel or any other big diesel thing and convert it to run on french fry grease. That is exactly my plan in the next year or so -- get a used Ford (why Ford? they are common in my neck of the woods (I hate to wait for parts) and my brother-in-law is a Ford mechanic) and do the mods for used grease (my wife works at a culinary school!). ANY diesel vehicle (even BIG OLD CHEVY SUBURBANS if you want to feel tank-like) will do. Mercedes are nice and safe. Escalade schmescalade - get a diesel EXCURSION!!
Considering that used grease is usually free, the $1000 install of the kit should pay for iself in short order -- at a minimum I go 40 miles a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. At $1.50 a gallon of something (and 15 mpg, though that is optimistic for a big thing) it will pay for the kit in ONE YEAR.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Thats actually not true. Diesel engines don't spill any more junk that petro engines do its just that the pieces are larger so they are more visible. This is actually a environmental plus as they fall to the ground while petro exaust doesn't and hangs out in the air for a long time.
here It is going to be a looooong day
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
It's amazing how fuel-efficent a vehicle is when you are being pushed....
tourettes
While soot contributes significantly to global warming, unlike CO2, its contribution is short-lived because the particulate matter is removed from the atmosphere quickly (of the order of 1y). From the point of view of global warming, switching to efficient diesel engines is a very good choice. Furthermore, for widespread adoption of diesel the soot would to get removed anyway because it would be unhealthy.
Oh, I forgot this is Slashdot, Europe is enlightened, the U.S. is the bumbling oaf.
Maybe that's because a larger fraction of the people on Slashdot actually have a basis for comparison, compared to your average American.
Imaging the power, Captain! Slam two overweight, in-bred rednecks in that and there will be no place for their beer, let alone their brood. >
Tyro,
:-)
Let me address your concerns one by one.
1. The engine being noisy and dirty are things of the past. Modern computer design has improved diesel engines to the point that the clattering sound you hear from old-style engines no longer exists on a 2002-manufactured diesel engine. As for the air pollution problem, the use of modern fuel-delivery systems and modern particulate traps/exhaust catalysts will eliminate the unhealthy exhaust of diesel engines of the past. The only reason why diesels aren't common in the USA is the fact Diesel #2 fuel sold in most of the USA has sulfur compound levels of around 2,000 parts per million, which will quickly corrode fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems on European market diesel cars in very short order. Fortunately, with the EPA mandating low-sulfur diesel fuels very soon, we will see clean-burning diesel engines in the US market in a few years.
2. Finding diesel fuel pumping stations is fortunately not as bad as it used to be, thanks to the fact diesel engines are very popular for pickup trucks.
3. Because modern diesel engines don't have the vibrations of older-style engines, you don't have to worry about engine vibration causing long-term structural damage to the car. The current 90 bhp TDI engine on the VW Golf/Jetta is quiet enough that you really for the most part can't tell if it's a gasoline or diesel engine. I can't wait for VW to bring over the PD 130 diesel engine with its 130 bhp output and massive initial starting torque.
4. Modern diesel engines have pretty much cured the problem of not being able to shut them off on high temperature conditions, thanks to modern fuel delivery systems that have automatic cutoff.
I for one want to see Toyota build a Prius with a 1.0-liter turbodiesel engine instead of the 1.3-liter gasoline engine. Instead of getting fuel mileage around 50 miles per US gallon try getting fuel mileage in the range of 70 miles per US gallon!
Um, the American people voted, and he received more electoral votes than his competitors?
With a diesel engine, you have the possibility of using biodiesel, that is carburant made from plants. the carbon released by the engine is then carbon that was just fixed by plants, not carbon fixed millions of year ago like in petrol.
Using biodiesel, you stabilize CO2 level in atmosphere.
With gazoline, you increase it.
Good thing the car goes 75 km/h, since you're going to need it to outrun the hordes of laughing children yelling "Fag!" as you drive by.
There is no way the 1L car will enter U.S mainstream. Have you seen the size of that car? It looks like a toy car. Seeing how most of us here are obsessed with big size and more power, even an almost normal looking car is hard to sell (i.e Civic hybrid, Toyota Prius...). I can't even imagine how this will compete in the U.S. Now Europe and other countries is a whole other matter.
...from waste McDonald's french fry oil. Details can be found here.
;->
BTW - BioDiesel can be run in *any* diesel engine, unmodified...I'm running it in my VW Jetta TDI. My neighbors think I'm nuts, until they realize it actually works.
The editorial comments are often pretty dumb and uninformed, but in this case we're dealing with Michael, who doesn't know a damn thing about anything. I wonder if he's ever read a newspaper more complex than USA Today. Probably not. All those big words and funny names, and no good stories about anime and hobbits.
The best examples of a powerful and efficient modern diesel engine are Volkswagen's amazing PD 130 and PD 150 turbodiesel engines.
They offer surprisingly amounts of performance and still get 40 to 45 miles per US gallon fuel mileage even with a lot of hard driving. Small wonder why VW's and SEAT's powered by these two engines are extremely popular in Europe.
So, after reading all the comments, I have come to the following conclusion:
The poster's personal comment was exclusively for US readers.
Everyone else posting to this forum from around the world (from Iceland to India) has access to a far greater number of environmentally-friendly fuels than citizens of the good ol' US of A.
Soes this tell you something, ladies and gentlemen?
-Nano.
There are now diesel catalytic converter retrofits available. These replace the existing muffler so that modification of the exhaust system is not necessary. However, right now I only know of them being available for buses and trucks; although that's a good start since they're the ones with the most road mileage here in the U.S. Many cities are retrofitting their buses with these or deploying CNG vehicles (all of Philly's small buses are CNG).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
Open your eyes, do a little research - I know of a gas station just down the street that sells natural gas (for cars), and the Insight don't need no stinkin' special fuel - it's just efficient.
- passion
I live in the Ann Arbor area, and several stations I normally go to have LNG (Liquified Natural Gas). There's a hydrogen pump listed in the UCS web site but it turns out that it's at the Chrysler proving grounds and not accessible to the public. I think there's a hydrogen pump at a gas station about 40 miles north/east of here but I've never gone to check it out.
Of course, we're in the midst of liberal city AND very near Motown, so it's not too surprising this stuff is around here. However, it does show that there's willingness to put in the pumps if there's demand. The LNG station is at a Meijer's (large supermarket/we sell everything chain).
I've been the proud owner of a Golf TDI for about 4 months now and I absolutely love it.
I get 45-50 mpg and the thing is great to drive. In fact, most mornings it's my main motivation for going to work! (This morning being no exception)
For those who aren't so interested in fuel economy though, I think this model is pretty cool. A V10 diesel in an SUV!
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
can it play Ogg Vorbis?
This helped a bit:
b ri efing.htm
p ?I nd=E01&Cycle=2000&recipdetail=A&Mem=N&sortorde r=U
http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/energy
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.as
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Are you sure that was more votes?
You will all bow down to the power of the Beasty Diesel
is what you see when they do documentaries on the kalahari desert etc. With supplies and stuff in the back.
it's funny that the car with the lowest emissions (I think at least in the U.S) in 1995 was the Porsche 911 twin turbo. Since the 2 turbos use up all the exhaust to give the car extra hp, there is hardly any emission. When you consider this car's 400+ hp, it seems to me to be a cool way to be environmentally friendly (although the car barely makes 20 mpg)
The story poster had it right - there's new diesel fuels around which are less polluting, which makes this even better. But it'll still run just fine on plain old diesel.
Ummm... No.
The newest generation od diesel engines (common-rail turbo diesels) actually demand new environment-friendly fuel. Regular diesel has too much sulphur which damages the engine. But, they manage to squeeze ~80BHP from 1.5 liter engines, with ~5l/100km consumption. No wonder they sell like hot cakes in Europe.
This car is an interesting idea, but it fails to address something that would really improve fuel efficiency; the automobile industry needs to stop making cars from metal. There are plenty of modern polymers stronger and lighter than the steel used in cars, and ceramic engines wear less and weigh less than steel. Such cars would have a much longer lifespan than the cars we have now, and would not need nearly as many expensive replacement parts as the cars being produced now. This would hurt the automotive industry's flawed business model that revolves around products guaranteed to degrade and lose value. Ick.
The USA gets 25% of its oil from the Middle East. Over the past few years it has been dropping by a percentage or two. We've been making deals with Russia lately to produce more oil as we slowly sever our ties with the Middle East. Iraq has nothing the USA wants other than an evil dictator that needs to have his ass booted out of power. USA is more dependent on Canada and Mexico for oil than it is from the Middle East. I wish this stupid urban myth that USA gets all its oil from the Middle East would just die. In 10 years from now we'll be getting around 5-10% of our total oil from there, less if possible.
Lovely 2 star unfavorable VW reviews compared to the rave 4 star BMW reviews.
The latest common rail diesels from PSA (Peugeot/Citroen) have particle collectors that periodically burn the particles at very high temperatures.
He just talked like a Peugeot was a superior vehicle. I started laughing uncontrollably. Please let me modify his original statement for clarity of point:
The latest common rail diesels from PSA (Peugeot/Citroen) have particle collectors that periodically burn the particles at very high temperatures... then for no apparent reason they explode in a fit of uncontrollable European engineering ennui*.
*Footnote: Germany Excluded.
Or else he wouldn't have won.
Unless you are suggesting that he won because they were better votes? I suppose one could make that argument. ;)
Or were you confusing electoral votes (cast by Electors) with votes cast by citizens for a slate of Electors? If you were, perhaps you should consider educating yourself.
There are 2 CAFE standards, and yes, even SUVs fall under CAFE. There is one standard for general cars, another (lower) for trucks/SUVs. Perhaps some of the reasons SUVs sell like crazy are: small cars are too small for many family purposes, and the lower fuel-economy requirement allows for some perkiness when loaded. Make SUVs that get 50MPG, and no-one will buy them. They'll go back to full-size cars that get below-CAFE-average mileage. As an example: my wife & I, and my three children, won't fit into a 4-passenger car. Preferably I'd have an extra seat left, for an additional friend or relative. That narrows down vehicle choices a bit.
I'd like to point out that while gas is cheaper in the US, it's not as much cheaper as people seem to think.
Most prices listed for the US are for 'standard' 85-87 octane unleaded. The lowest level of octane available in many parts of europe is mid-90s -- here in Ireland I can choose between 92 and 97 octane unleaded -- which means that comparisons should be between European standard prices and US premium prices.
At 0.87 euro / L and roughly 3.7 L/gallon, that works out to approximately $3.14 for a gallon of premium gasoline. Don't get me wrong, it's still undeniably more expensive here, but when the average for 87 octane gas in parts of the US is reaching $1.90, with premium prices correspondingly higher, it suddenly doesn't seem as big a gap as people tout.
In particular, when gas prices were higher in the US, lower here, and the exchange rate was more dollar-favorable, gas prices were within a few cents of each other. That's not the case at the moment, but it's not unheard of.
For all the folks there who are griping about Americans saying ' its not practicacl' etc.
:P] Nottingham central (the castle, the reston square hotel, etc) was approximatly 7 miles from my home. [which I shared with 3 flatmates, 1 english and 2 japanese guys.]
.. anyone who has ever lived abroad will appreciate the horror in which I say that.) and was constantly taking pot shots at how americans are spoiled .. driving their huge SUV's everywhere on cheap cheap gas (it was 1.65 per litre (pounds not dollars) when i was over there thats roughly 14 lbs a gallon . or about $20 a gallon with the exchange rate).
.. and Nottingham is roughly 1/2 way up the island. This is considered a Weekend Trip by most folks I associated with over there. .. 'Are you sure you want to go there ? thats almost 20 miles away.' was what she said. Again. Distance. My grocery store ( a safeway mind you .. was .8 miles from my house .. my work was .6 miles ) Once when i flew in from the US .. and took a train to nottingham, I wanted to save the $$ on cab faire [and couldnt decipher the bus schedule] I walked from nottingham to Lenton carrying my luggage .. 7 miles .. i was declaired a health nut for months after that. Now back to the story.
.. he thought I was just 'taking the piss'. This argument continued on, until the company sent him to the US offices in Baltimore MD.
:P)
.. as these eruopean folks start saying how wasteful we are .. and all that. Take this into consideration:
I take this oppurtunity to remind you about the difference in our country size. [Which, many europeans etc don't seem to understand until they come 'across the pond' so to speak.]
I lived in Nottingham U.K. for a year and a half or so when I worked for Games-Workshop. [technically I lived in Lenton for all you nit pickers
My english flatmate was VERY english (just, as I suppose, most americans are VERY american
Before I go on with this next bit, I want to give the homefront Americans a bit of information about the U.K. so they can understand this part. The drive from Heathrow airport to Nottingham is about an 1.5 - 2 hours time. 5 hours if the m-6 is ANYWHERE in your route. Its probally about 100 miles between the two
Nottingham Castle is about 25 miles from Sherwood Forest (or whats left of it) I learned that on the day I proposed to my wife, and the gas station attendant was HORRIFIED that we were going to DRIVE there
I kept trying to explain to him how distance was a factor in daily American life, but he just didn't understand. When I explained my daily commute to work was just about the distance to London from our house
Totally ignoring my advice that he wouldnt be able to visit BOTH New York and Orlando in the same weekend, He hopped a plane to Baltimore. {and never got out of Maryland
Coming back he was a changed man.
Before his trip to the US. He simply could not fathom the amount of land that our nation covers. [Something most Americans don't stop to realise either.] Just like I simply couldn't see how me walking 7 miles home from Nottingham was a big deal.
SO
You can drive from Nottingham England to Italy faster that you can drive from Connecticut to Florida.
And for you Euro folks, when the americans say '239 mpg ? thats not enough' or 'that looks so uncomfortable' please consider that the distance between Baltimore Maryland and New York City could require a fill-up of that car. And that many folks make commutes of that distance *daily* for work.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Of course, well-tuned diesel engines are about as common as hips on a snake...
I wouldn't get in this thing in my backyard much less on an American highway. This thing looks like a tricycle. It's so tiny a bicycle collision could total it out. Can you imagine what a small import would do to this in a collision much less a freaking Lincoln Navigator or a Hummer H2? And no I don't currently drive a huge SUV...I drive an Audi A4 but still that is a bit small.
I do occasionally drive a VW with a diesel engine. From the perspective of performance, one cannot any more sense the difference to normal engines. It's just that diesel smells different from other fuels and that you have to be careful to use the diesel pump instead of the gasoline pump. Nowadays, people in Europe prefer diesel cars because the fuel is generally less expensive.
As for the 1L VW, it is not just a concept car, it really works. The former big boss of VW drove it quite a large distance when he welcomed his successor.
where's all that Karma?
The diesel fuel formulation is different in the U.S. It does pollute much more than the fuel used in Europe, and always will. Reformulation to make a cleaner burning fuel would get the truckers' unions in an uproar as it would cost about 10-20 cents more per gallon. In the U.S. our fuel is subsidised by the government, prices are kept artificially low to encourage high usage of vehicles, thus keeping our automakers in business. Okay, maybe not, but it sounds right. Gas should cost $3/gal...
you mean after being rigged, major exclusions of certain cross sections of the public, numerous recountings and admissions of inaccuracies, a public too illiterate to understand voting. Umm - the George Bush vote was a farce in the worlds eyes... You mean some Americans actually thought he got in fair and square?
Anyway- this is almost off topic, except to state that George Bush has some very well known and reasonably advertised links with the Oil Industry (understating). Remember how Ford bought the EV1 and shelved it. Before people troll about how useless it was to have to leave it plugged in those eight hours a day you are sleeping and dont use it, or those eight hours a day you are working and dont use it - it might not be for everyone but for some of us it was a great alternative.
There are two main reasons that petrol is the most widely used vehical fuel: 1) The oil/petrochemical companies are the richest economy in the world - yes even more than Bill Gates. There are economies that would collapse if a safe, clean, cheap and efficient alternative presented itself overnight. These peole's livelyhoods and entire reputations are at stake. Why would it seem so odd that they would go to extreme lengths to preserve their legacy.. As much as I am an idealist- if I was in that position i would probably do the same - who wants to have to go back down....
2) The American public. Yes call me what you like but they drive the biggest cars, the move the least on environmental issues. The American nation decided to ignore, abstain or even counteract many environmental treaties while the whole world - even China - signed them. The British public have slightly better attitudes, and drive smaller cars which are slightly more fuel efficient. The germans have some excellent concerns. In fact on my short stay (coding contract) almmost everything in the four companies I was visiting was recycled. Stinking petrol cars- I dont think so. Most people either cycled, or grouped together in deisel cars. Public transport was much cleaner and safer than any I have seen with a notable security presence and much more efficient trains. Even on a friday night at rush hour in city locations in munich you could get on a train without being force to placce your cheek in a fat guys armpits. I am sorry- but on environmental issues - Americans embaress the rest of the world.... George W most of all...
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
I recently dumped my domestic chevy for a honda and boy am I glad. My parents love domestic cars and have purchased chevy, buicks and cadillacs. I can't remember any of them going for more than 1 year without needing some minor repair and no more than 2-3 yrs for moderate repair. I consider repairs over 200.00 moderate. Oil changes don't count, but gaskets, seals, carbs and other repairs over 200. I used to spend on average 30.00 a week on gas. Now I spend 12.00 a week on gas. That adds up over a month very quickly. 239mpg sounds like a great idea and would save me quite a bit. Now if only SUV's could get 50mpg that would go a long way.
As for Iraq, you forgot 4) continue with weapons inspections, and if they fail, 5) seek approval for an attack from the U.N., following the charter that we developed and signed. As well, perhaps there should be U.N. inspection teams in Israel and the U.S. to ensure there are no chemical weapons. We could also pretend to be moving towards nuclear disarmament as we agreed.
Saddam is certainly a brutal tyrant, but if we neglect international law in dealing with him, that encourages law-breaking on all sides. As well, most people forget that he was most brutal when he had U.S. support, using chemical weapons internally agains the Kurds and externally against Iran (whom we were funding simultaneously). This was before the invasion of Kuwait, and the U.S. State Department happily mailed the checks and sent the military equipment and chemicals for producing weapons.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
"Enjoy your dumb Detroit 5.0 litre pushrod V8 engines while you can..."
I'll have you know that many of the V8 engines made in the USA today have OverHead Cams, not pushrods. And GM is preparing to rollout a camless V8. So HA. We are actually quite advanced in our stupidity.
The only place that embraces freedom of choice and yet judges those of us who choose to drive SUV's. Or does freedom of choice only apply to operating systems?
Karma: amraK
Most people don't need their cars to go 100 km/h on a regular basis. Driving in the city is often a stop and go affair, never breaking 60 km/h. This car, depending on how it drives, could be very suitable for that kind of driving.
_khl
SUVs, pickups and other light trucks are not part of the car CAFE regulations. They have their own, more forgiving fuel economy requirements. This made sense when uncool trucks stayed on the farm and one drove one's nice car into town. Now that trucks are commonly used as commuter vehicles (sigh) or fashion accessories (double sigh) there is a push for light truck regs to match passenger car regs or at least to raise CAFE numbers for both. Given the number of single-passenger SUVs and pickups I see on my commute -- almost 50% -- I'm all for equal CAFE regs for (non-commercial) light trucks and cars.
to quote another section of the article.
It's part of new familly of cars. It's designed to show off the tech, not the final desgin of the car.
this thing must be like a lawnmower without the blade.
Kind of reminds me of my Neon - Lawnmower with extra body panels and airbags.
The two phrases in that sentence are unrelated. The American people voted. He received more electoral votes. The two were only loosely related. A more accurate sentence would have been:
Um, the Supreme Court voted, and he received more electoral votes than his competitors?
Here is a list of retail diesel pumps that provide Biodiesel. Here is a good forum discussing the Volkswagen TDI vehicles.
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a Muslim?"
You fucking Yanks haven't learned a thing since McCarthy, never mind even considering why 9/11 happened, preferring to bury your heads in the sands of "It's not my fault!" It's never your fault is it now!
You are saying because current, in-use diesel engines aren't environment, the new, completely-redesigned bio-diesel engines are necessary non-environmental. Man, are you dumb.
(You know, it's a no-win situation. We own a single vehicle which does everything we require, but it sucks in fuel efficiency. Yet, if we get a second, more efficient car, we'd be acused of being the typical glutonous American family.)
I'd like to get a better car, though, for commuting. One to optimize my tax burden (which, for me means any car over 12 years of age) and fuel efficiency (obviouly better than 20mpg, say 30-50mpg).
Diesel is an option, as I live in a farm town and it's readily available.
So... let's hear some sugegstions! I just hope the VW Rabbit isn't the only matching car. :)
Method of processing duck feet
There's a gas station in cambridge massachusetts that sells biodiesel...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
an ad for vw here yet?
VW Phaeton link 1
VW Phaeton link 2
VW Phaeton link 2
*g*
That's a lot of Alias. But wouldn't a hard-disk be easier to fit in the living room?
The average person may get caught in this trap, but a slashdot person? This is sad.
Say you don't get in a head on with a smaller car, say your Escalade hits an embankment. Now how happy are you about all that extra energy? Now your enormous amount of energy is dissapating through your too-stiff frame rails and delivering a hell of a shock to you (unlike a crumple zone space frame car). How about that tail way behind you? Where is it going to put all of its energy? Well, it's either going to swing sideways or upwards. Neither seems like a lot of fun, does it?
And what about the increased rollover incidence? What about the reduced likelihood you will get in a wreck in a manuverable car? Which wreck is more survivable, the one you were in in a large car or the one you avoided completely in a manuverable car?
Stop buying vehicles as kinetic energy weapons!
Head on accidents are so few. For all you know the increased risk of skin cancer because you have to spend more time in the sun fueling the vehicle more than makes up for your chance of using your better physics in a head on collision.
With this presumably expensive car, and a weight of only 640 pounds, coupled with its size, what is preventing people from lifting (literally) this car off the road and taking it away? Should the car be equiped with a bike chain as well? Aside from that, sign me up, I want it.
yep. It only takes a few clicks to get a different (non-US) view of the news from just about whatever 'national' viewpoint you like (pick out the facts from the propaganda).
'The Rest of the World' won't put up with it. It's up to US citizens to turn around to Mush... sorry , BUSH, and demonstrate that they won't tolerate it.
You don't drive that far to work then. Most people take the Freeways to work. That usally requires 100km/hr plus speeds.
It's nice to see that such a huge car company (VW is the largest car manufacturer in Europe, and 3rd largest in the world) is bucking the trend of the gas-guzzeling overpriced, low-tech, piece of crap, SUV's.
I have a 1985 VW Jetta turbo diesel with over 260k miles on it. It gets roughly 42 miles per gallon. w00t!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
From the Popular Science article:
The engine produces a thundering 8.5 horsepower and weighs only 57 pounds.
I think my lawn mower has more power.
Hell, my bicycle has more horse power.(with me pedeling)
There is no way a 8.5 horse power engine could power a road worthy vehicle.
You shouldnt be able to call it a car if you cant drive it on a highway.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Almost 640lbs, and a 300cc engine... What a road hog. Messerschmitt made a passenger car with a 173 cc engine* (the KR175). It initially had no reverse because the car was light enough to just walk it backwards even up an incline. Of course it got a miserable 80 to 100 miles per gallon, but that was back in the mid 50s.
For a modern passenger vehicle of that style, 250 miles per gallon is about right; not "certainly almost unbelievable" as the article says. Doubting comments like "claims that such a technological feat was impossible" must have come from the writer's friends and family, as automotive experts working on fuel efficiency would hardly consider VW's 239 mpg "impossible" when Combidrive's Mouse ( http://www.3wheelers.com/combidrive.html & http://www.trinity-school.org/summer02.pdf ) has already attained over 255 mpg, with a presumably stripped down Mouse claiming 568 mpg at the Shell Milage Marathon in 1996. (201.1km/litre) So VW's claims of being the most economical car are not as "cut and dried" as they would have you believe. The VW does have 4 wheels to the Mouse's (and many other micro's) 3, so they may be trying to differentiate it from its trike competitiors by saying "car" rather than "vehicle" and then using a strict definition of "car". Still, the point is that 239mpg at 46mph is not that surprising for a purpose built non-production vehicle (with things like a magnesium space frame, I doubt they really plan to put this into production any time soon). This is a publicity stunt, not a technological breakthrough.
*Even the ME KR175 was huge compared to the 1964 Peel P50 (49cc engine, 132 lbs., http://www.3wheelers.com/peel.html ).
It doesn't matter how finely you tune the engine, you will never get CO2 and water and nothing else. No chemical reaction is ever "pure." There are always side reactions and incomplete reactions going on. This is particularly true when you are using air for your oxygen source. Only 20% of air is oxygen. Most of the rest is Nitrogen, which will also react with the Oxygen, and the various diesel organics in side reactions.
If you look at cato funding alot of it comes big business such as car and oil companies. They have never come out on the side of the consumer or the environment. Check your sources
You are quite obviously diluted and misinformed when it comes to automotive safety.
Your low-tech, oversized SUV has a ladder frame chassis. This does not compress when in an accident. A car with crumple zones (invented by VW, BTW) will absorb a huge amount of the collision impact leaving only a minimum amount for the human occupants to absorb. Whereas your BODY will absorb this force in an SUV collision.
Guess what is the leading cause of high speed collision deaths? Nope.. not intrusion into the passenger cabin - Its your internal organs coliding with your skeletal system - This force is magnified several times when in a ladder-frame SUV, so you guessed it - your dead, while your buddy who is driving a CAR in the same accident would survive. Food for thought.
Also consider the government warnings on the sun visor of your new SUV? Yes, they are true - your SUV *WILL* flip over (and probably kill you from being crushed) if you make sudden turns or collide with a curb. Again, in the SUV - your dead. In a car, your alive.
An SUV derives all it's structural integrity from that antique ladder from chassis, while a car gets it's strength from the design of the unibody shell. With newer supercomputers working to design more rigid monocoque car bodies, it's no wonder a car is so much safer in an accident than an SUV.
And lets not forget that 50% of safety is *AVOIDING* the accident to begin with. Who do you think can avoid an accident better? An SUV with very antique primitive suspension, and therefore awful handling (and prone to flipping over) and brakes that are not very effective because they have to stop such a large mass, and huge blind spots that prevent you from seeing smaller cars around you -or- a car with a modern suspension so it can handle well, brakes that can stop it in a shorter distance, and good visibility in all directions? Sorry buddy, you lose again. In an SUV, your dead, in a car you'll live.
Not safety related, but any self respecting slashdot geek should appreciate modern technology. An SUV does not deliver in that department either folks. That live rear axle was invented around the year 1900, while that leaf spring suspension came unchanged, from the covered wagons of the 1860's. It's like paying $25,000 for a 286, 8 Mhz, with 160 KB of RAM! Guess all those shoddy american car makers must have much better marketing departments than engineering departments. Probably why the Germans have always been 30 years ahead of the Americans in automotive technoloy...
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
How do I smoke in this thing? Do I pull over and pop the top every time I wanna light up?
Well, just to clarify the post. Audi/VW is not really any type of "leader" when it comes to mpg. If you don't believe me take a look for yourself. nhtsa.dot.gov Fuel Econ Study
I drive a 1987 Golf diesel and for a while I have been only using biodiesel. The car runs much better on biodiesel than on the filthy oil-diesel.
... the horrible diesel motor noise is a result of the horrible fuel (which is a waste product of "gasoline").
... http://www.veggievan.org
Biodiesel is much better for the environment, the motor itself and for the public health of all. And the motor makes much less noise
Biodiesel can cut pollution up to eighty percent compated to oil-diesel. We mustn't forget that Dr. Rudolph Diesel designed the diesel motor to run on vegetable oil and not on filthy oil products.
In German and Austria there are already 2000 service stations which sell biodiesel (www.biodiesel.de and www.biodiesel.at). Germany and Austria are serious about cutting CO2 levels.
Sadly, in the Netherlands where I live, the government and even the Dutch Green Party could care less about biodiesel.
Good biodiesel site/book
m.
The diesel engine is very efficient for a cheap engine. Dr. Diesel designed his motor to run on salad oil, not on the filthy oil-diesel. Thus, the diesel motor is fine. it's the filthy oil-diesel which is not fine. I use biodiesel in the 1987 Golf Diesel. With biodiesel you can cut pollution by up to 80 percent.
Once again, the future of the human race is held hostage by a bunch of people who got too little schooling, and too much American beer.
We are doomed.
The cynics amongst us will claim that this is an artifact of the Smoke-Filled Room Conspiracy "manufacturing" enemies to feed the military-industrial complex or distract the populace. There is something to that.
But don't forget that the enemy du jour is always terribly sincere. The Communists certainly battled the US/the-free-world for world domination on a number of fronts. The militant muslims chanting "Death to America" in the streets aren't just kidding around either. Historically, someone always steps up. If nobody seems to be volunteering, Germany is always good for another round.
So here's the question... who's next? Are these guys already sharpening knives, or will they not bother to hate (what boils down to) the West until militant Islam is "dealt with"?
This is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but...
I am not a "the earth can recover from anything we throw at it" person. I believe that we should be conserving fuel. However, this car, and the others like it, are not at all practical in the US for the following basic reasons:
1) Although a 1 or 2 seat car might make sense while commuting to and from work, owning a $10k car just to commute to work is impractical. I would need another car if I wanted to drive my friends and family anywhere, or if I wanted to buy anything larger than a toaster oven. Until gasoline costs $1000/gallon, owning two cars, one for commuting, one for other usage, isn't economically realistic.
2) With all the SUVs and 18-wheel trucks on the highways, it would be suicide to drive one of these cars. I doubt that insurers would even insure them because they would be a fatality magnet in an accident.
3) What do you do if you're not 100% in shape, and weigh more than 150 lbs. as a male adult, or are just plain claustrophobic? Driving this car would be worse than a 10-hour coach plane trip in a middle seat between two football players.
I think that if you gave me this car for free, I wouldn't drive it, because of the safety/comfort issues. Add on a price tag surely over $8k, and it's a no-brainer -- only the most environmentally fanatical of people will buy cars like this. And that doesn't add up to enough money for it to be worth the carmakers' effort.
Essentially, gas prices higher than about a buck a gallon is the government discouraging use. $3/gallon (or whatever it costs) in the Socialist States of Europe are due to socialistic tendencies in those countries, not because gas should cost $3.
Reality check.
is not as great as it seems. on our campus we have a biodiesel truck that drives around occasionaly. I have been told by some of the ME's who work on it that its sorta a joke, because the damn thing will only do 100k miles on biodiesel, then it has to run the regular stuff. apparently biodiesel still has some longterm issues it needs to workout.
Diesel engines are actually simpler in a mechanical sense as they have no ignition, these combust by compression. I think your friends just had some bad luck or bad manufactorers.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
But here in the midwest (MN, SD, IA, ND at least) we have alternative fuels (ethanol, biodeisel) cause they get tax breaks for using the corn that is grown so much around here. Ethanol blended gas is usually at least 5-10 cents cheaper than regular (unblended)unleaded Biodiesel just came out in the last year or so and ethanol's been around for at least 10 years (that's how long i've lived here). Although I do remember campaigns against ethanol when I lived on the east coast. Seems people were against sticking corn in their gas tanks for some reason.
"SUVs for example don't make you safer, they only make you feel safer"
Based on the deaths per million registered vehicles, one is more likely to die in an SUV than in a car, and pickups are even worse. As you said, SUVs do fare better than cars in multi-vehicle crashes by killing the people in the other vehicle, but they are still less safe. Further data inspection reveals that a truck's tendency to kill people in cars is a result of the design, not the mass as is usually assumed.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Is I would figure that A: There isn't much of a market for that stuff yet, and B: Big oil is probably trying to shut them down wherever they crop up.
If you want to see such stations... come to live in Europe.
Por si alguno no lo había notado, USA NO es el centro del mundo.
"but recent studies have shown that while diesel reduces CO2, it increases soot Science Daily [sciencedaily.com]. The net effect is at no real change, and more likely it actually make global warming worse."
As long as the net effect is "no real change" per gallon, diesel fuel is still better. Diesel engines tend to put out more power with less fuel. For example, a Dodge Ram 1500 with a 6-cylinder Cummings turbo diesel gets more horsepower and torque with around 22 MPG of diesel fuel than the same truck with a V-8 getting around 18 MPG of gasoline.
The Diesel cycle can get much better efficiency than an Otto cycle because you can get compression ratios you simply can't get if you're using sparkplugs. That's why trucks and ships have diesel engines.
http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Transportatio n/44/
Learn to make your own. You can make your own fuel for a bit less than petroleum diesel, get the same power and reduced emmissions.
Plus, the exhaust smells like whatever was cooked in it. My old diesel suburban smells like Krispy Kremes.
"Socialist States of Europe"? Reality check, indeed.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I'll have 3 cups of that super-clean bio-deisel. Got a long drive ahead you know! Oh yeah, check the air on my 200,000mile tires while you're at it.
It's nice to talk about alternative fuels, but I have yet to see a gas station selling one of them.
Whaaa? Here in Denver I've seen natural gas pumps right alongside the regular gas pumps.
The US is actually very interested in fuel economy: Corporate Average Fuel Economy [doc.gov] is very much responsible for pushing manufacturers to increase fuel economy.
That used to be the case, however Bush and Cheney are both from the oil industry. Cheney had secret meetings with energy company exectives when drafting the administration's energy policy. Bush/Cheney have resisted raising the CAFE MPG limits, closing the light truck loophole, and have downplayed the importance of fuel efficiency, instead concentrating on oil drilling. They have even gone so far as to push for extensive drilling on public lands, include wildlife refuges -- a giveaway that would allow oil companies to take oil from public lands and then sell it on the world market to the highest bidder. (There is no requirement that the oil be sold in the U.S. or that it be discounted for the benefit of U.S. consumers.)
I agree that the US has interests in keeping oil petroleum prices down, just as every other country in the world, but Europe has chosen to tax their fuel very heavily, making non-gasoline options more attractive.
It is *NOT* in U.S. interests to keep petroleum prices down. Having prices that are so low is why we have people commuting alone to work in 11MPG SUVs. It's why soccer moms are driving Chevy Suburbans rather than station wagons. The best thing that could happen would be for gasoline (and diesel) prices to rise to about $3/gallon over the next few years. We need something to make U.S. consumers pay attention to fuel economy when selecting a vehicle. I'm tired of the U.S. kissing Saudi Arabian ass while the Saudis fund anti-American terrorists. I'm sick of pretending the Iran is our friend and of defending the ungrateful bastards in Kuwait. Drilling in Alaska is no answer -- we will see no significant production from such an effort for about a decade and, even under the most optimistic estimates, it will cut oil imports by only a tiny percentage.
Low prices = higher consumption = reliance on foreign oil = depletion of world oil reserves.
Yeah, it is pretty difficult to get leaded gas in the US. Why, I'd have to drive a whole two miles to the Citgo to get some 110 Leaded, or if they were out, 4 miles to Fleet Farm.
Finally, a car even my Corvette can crush!
(which gets 28 MPG)
I wonder how well they deal with the vibration from a one cylinder engine? And how do you keep the kids from tipping it over (or rolling it down a hill) when you go into the store?
It looks like a very expensive concept car due to the lightweight materials.
-- "Eat Bowl Futty"
It CUMMINS! There's no "G". Why does everyone call it Cummings?
My truck is designed to take E-85 (85% ethanol; 15% gasoline). It is my understanding that this is available in the midwest. In my area it doesn't get more than 10%. Can anyone confirm availability of E85 anywhere?
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
In Canada, you can only buy ultra-low-sulphur diesel. Well, at least at Shell stations, so I assume it's probably a government-mandated thing. Is this not the same in the US? I have no plans to travel to the USA, but should I be concerned about fuel quality for my VW in the USA?
This would be no problem if people in here in the US realize they don't really need a giant SUV, or even a full-sized car.
Seriously, it is beyond me why anyone would want to drive one of those huge SUVs as their regular vehicle. The gas costs for those things must be completely insane, not to mention the fact that some of them can't even fit in a parking space properly.
Truthfully, it would be better for the USA and the world if we downsized. It would be wonderful if the majority of people here switched to cars no bigger than a Civic.
I believe that if the US at large switched to compact cars, things would be a lot better for us.
1) Less gas consumption. This means cheaper prices at the pumps, cleaner air, and a supply that will last longer.
2) Less congestion. Bigger vehicles take up more space on the road. This will also allow for more parking spaces on the side of the road, in parking lots, and more room in your garage.
3) Safer roads. This might be a personal bias, but it seems that those who drive SUVs and larger cars have a false sense of security, and thus drive less cautiously. It seems as if SUV drivers where I live use their size as a "weapon," forcing everyone to look out for them rather than driving defensively. Additionally, an impact between two light cars will be less destructive than an impact between an SUV and a light car.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
1) Yes pat ourselves on the back: "UNICEF estimated that about 500,000 children younger than 5 have died in Iraq since sanctions were imposed." Silly Europeans should let us go to war so we can stop killing children (and start killing adults)!
2) For what its worth, the only nation with a proven track record of using weapons of mass destruction (chemical or nuclear) is the United States of America.
3) Indeed: because setting the precedent for justifying preemptive unilateral attack to stop terrorism, topple unfriendly regimes or whatever ambiguous issue-de-jour sounds like a recipe for prolonged peace!
You can get Biodiesel in Seattle. I've got friends who use it and love it.
Check out Biodiesel
Yes, we really are funny. I am an American and I recently purchased a 2002 New Beetle TDI for 16,700 complete with power everything, heated seats, and heated mirrors. The real kicker is that I consistently get 50 MPGs in mixed city/highway driving. Oh yeah, I can also spank 99% of the cars on the road in cornering and braking and most of them from 0-30 mph (gotta love that diesel torque). The reason we're funny is that I don't understand why MORE people don't drive these cars. There's even 3 models available : Jetta, Golf and New Beetle. Another funny thing is that I have a 55 gallon drum of biodiesel that I use sitting in my garage that I purchased for $1.25/gallon !! Granted, that price has gone up recently to around $2.25/gallon, but the point is that me, an average consumer, was able to purchase biodiesel fuel without a lot of hassle at a cheap price. Biodiesel burns cleaner, is better for the engine, is a domestically produced product, is renewable, and contributes much less CO2 to the atmosphere than regular diesel does. My funny sense of humor often turns to anger and frustration when I see 30-40% of solo commuters driving 15 MPG SUVs at non-optimal speeds. Don't people understand that their $50/week fuel habit only contributes to many of our foreign relation problems, Saddam's Hussein's wallet, and to Al Qaeda ? There are few ways to be more UNpatriotic than driving a vehicle that gets 2-3 times WORSE fuel economy than a suitable alternative vehicle.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
Na, I usually take the highway to the expressway to the turnpike. After that its only a short hop on the parkway and I'm there.
But seriously, how many people commute using highways in dense contries like the UK and china or Japan?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
"Why does everyone call it Cummings?"
Probably for the same reason everybody misspells "Skylarov."
Many of us that do use the freeway still don't commute faster than 60 km/h...
You don't drive on a freeway at rush hour then. Very few freeways in large cities go anywhere near the speed limit in busy traffic.
I was referring to the 2000 election and the Florida vote-counting debacle, which is still a bit of a running joke here in the UK. Sorry you didn't get it.
Anyway, thanks for the Electoral College article. A good read.
Actually thats a wrong conception. I used to work for Ultramar Canada, also known as Valero Energy Corp. in the US. And when I worked there, I had asked the question to a few engineers, and all of them told me Diesel fuel is cleaner for the environment. So I asked why do trucks stink and shoot off so much smoke. I forgot what the answer was, but they did give me an answer which made sense at the time, and one of those engineers was my father.
Unfortunately, I don't have any URL to support my argument, so maybe some chemist or engineer can support me. But from my experience I know diesel produces less polution than regular gasoline. That's one of the reasons why most European cars run on diesel. In Europe, laws on car manufacturer and polution are a lot tougher than in America.
That's really a nasty habit you should try to break out of, and maybe find yourself a girlfriend instead...
While these concept cars are great and present a nice vision for the future, the only way they'll ever catch on here in Cowboy America is if they look, feel, accelerate, etc. just like the old gas guzzling, smog producing vehicles.
My god, they're already selling for $50,000... how much higher can they get?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
how would it perform if I swapped out
that anemic 1-cylinder engine and shoe
horned in a chevy small block V8.
350hp in a 630lb car... yeah.
here was my submission:
2002-05-06 01:42:36 285mpg Volkswagen (articles,tech) (rejected)
Just one time I'd like someone to listen to me. Is that really too much to ask?
Hello?
Hello?
Anyone?
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
(14:16:12) E: http://www.vwvortex.com/news/04_02/04_17/piech2.jp g
(14:16:18) E: would YOU drive in that back seat?
(14:17:31) Rachel: lol
(14:17:33) Rachel: hell no
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Aside from the Cummins -vs- Cummings problem, you can't get a diesel in a 1500. You have to go to the 2500 series to get a diesel.
Isn't hydrogen burn "pure"? Just plain water.
Well, if you have no plans to travel there...then no, you shouldn't be concerned.
Build me a cool-looking affordable one and I'll be the first person to buy the damn thing.
Magius_AR
Gas is not subsidized by the government, it is taxed
Read this article. Gas is most certainly subsidised, only it's through the virtually free use of public lands. Of course, then there are the wars we start to protect our cheap source of gas...
... but he does have some comments on the issue.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
I do, my last car got about 35 mpg, and a full size school bus I rode in for a time got about 6 mpg. Of course, this is the U$A.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Of course one would have to know what the real commodity price is, the price the government wants to set, the rules for setting price, and the current going price that they they base their payments on. This info wasn't given so I'm not going to assume anything based purly on compain contribution numbers.
Here in the US, many gas stations sell a so-called "alternative fuel".
It's known as PROPANE, or LP GAS.
And of course the VW uses DIESEL, which is also commonly available.
"A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest."
The way modern diesel engines get their great performance AND fuel economy at the same time, is through a fuel delivery system called common rail. I'm no expert in this area, but it supposedly means direct injection of diesel fuel at a pressure of ~1500 bar. Now that's a whole lot of pressure, so it depends on a steady supply of high quality diesel to function. So DON'T allow a common railer to run out of gas - it can seriously damage the engine. Apparently small fragments of metal gets torn of the common rail system, and sucked into the engine itself, creating a world of problems to moving parts in there.
These days, all car manufacturer serious about selling cars in Europe have some variant of common rail diesel engines in their product lines. These babies sell like hot cakes and quite deservedly so, IMHO.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
I will attempt to respond to each of your points.
My New Beetle is a little noisier at idle than a gasoline-powered version, but is actually quieter on the highway. My car also emits no visible smoke. Therefor, I would not consider it "dirty". In fact, by burning biodiesel, my car actually emits less pollution than a comparably equipped gasoline-powered car.
It is true that finding diesel is more difficult than finding gasoline. However, remember that trucks of all sorts run on diesel. So, as long as you can find a highway, you can find diesel.
My diesel vibrates less than my 1995 Mazda Miata.
I haven't heard of this one. However, I do know that fuel delivery in my TDI is computer-controlled and the computer also monitors the temperature. I have never heard of a TDI overheating nor have I heard of one unable to shut-off. If you have more information about this than I do, please share.
As far as modern diesels go, I had no idea what an amazing car this little TDI is until I actually test-drove one.
-50mpg @ 75mph
-able to out-corner and out-brake 95% of the cars on the road, including "sports cars"
-able to out-accellerate most cars from 0-30 due its fantastic torque
-comes with impressive standard equipment for less than $17,000
Disclaimer : I'm not a VW saleperson or in any way affiliated with VW. I'm just a software engineer who hates spending money at the pump for financial, environmental, and political reasons. I also get a kick out of owning and driving a rather rare and friendly car. I'm planning on getting a 50mpg Jetta Wagon TDI next to replace the 25mpg Mazda Miata. It has great interior room and, equipped with a roof rack, can haul enough 4'x8' sheets of whatever to satisfy the "Home Depot run" requirement. SUVs can kiss my shiny diesel ass :)
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
Not sure I can give you a complete answer here but here goes: in reverse order
:)
2) the difference between Diesel and UL Petrol/Gasolene - as I understand it, diesel is a completely different petroleum derivative, a different fraction of crude oil, which comes from a different refining process (perhaps there's someone out there whose knowledge here goes further than mine) a quick scan of everything2 suggests that the difference lies in gasolene (Petrol in the UK) being primarily composed of Octane which has eight carbon atoms per molecule while Diesel is primarily composed of Cetane, which has sixteen carbons to the molecule, my cehemistry is far too rusty to explain this any further but it does explain why UK registration docs refer to diesel burners as fueled on 'heavy oil' - since the extra carbon makes diesel heavier
1) why the EPA emission ratings for diesels are consistently poor - I'm guessing here but the *potential* for higher particulate carbon emissions would seem the likely culprit - I don't know what the EPA's standards are so I'm a little in the dark but Diesel's naturally tend toward a higher soot content in the exhaust - probably what you're smelling, though it's equally possible that you're reacting to the sulphur dioxide (? - rotten egg) that gasolene fueled cars with catalytic converters produce when it's cold and damp (as it so often is here!) in which case the different exhaust smell has nothing to do with the diesels... stab in the dark here: EPA guidelines are wieghted against vehicles with higher particulate carbon output (soot) and not other, arguably more dangerous compound pollutants such as Sulphur Monoxide, Carbon Monoxide etc.
it's worth noting that modern diesels use higher pressure compression than their forebears (through direct injection and/or common rail techniques) and that this renders the carbon particles emitted much smaller than would normally be considered 'soot' by you or I...
hope this helps
Patrick
The EV1 could only drive an hour or so before having to be recharged. As a vehicle, it was useless. As an economic venture on Ford's part, it was even more useless. (Yes, believe it or not, Ford is in the business of making money.)
The Kyoto treaty (which I'm assuming you're referring to, because it's the only instance your rash generalization would be true) was ludiciously unfair to the US. The Senate voted against it unanimously- and there are at least a few staunch environmentalists in the Senate. No American environmentalist group who read the treaty and actually understood it supported it. The US voted against it not because we don't particularly care about the environment but because it basically amounted to economic sanctions against the US.
People in Europe, as a whole, drive more fuel efficient cars not because they care about the environment but because fuel is far more expensive in Europe than in the US. There is also more pressure to drive smaller cars because the lanes in most of Europe, in my experience, are several feet narrower.
Again, the US is lagging behind not because of environmental friendliness, but because of practicality. Los Angeles is simply too large and too spread out, geographically, for a subway system to work. It's just not dense enough. It wouldn't work in San Francisco because of all the hills. San Francisco tried, with BART and MUNI but it just doesn't work effectively- as a result, people drive their cars. New York and Chicago tried, but they couldn't bury the trains and built mostly elevated trains instead of subways, which are loud and most of the local residents hate them as a result. Then there the whole issue of the American subway's image of being unsafe. (By unsafe I don't mean your train crashes, I mean you get on the train late one night and get mugged)
Basically, don't try to stereotype an American. It just doesn't work. Saying Americans don't care about the environment is like saying Europeans have are arrogant bastards who drive like lunatics and have bad teeth.
Does anybody else think it looks vaguely like the messchershmit (sp) car (seen in Brazil and also Giant robo?)
Who knows, it could be a omen to a darker future, where people can actually go outside and breath without having to worry about wearing layers of sunscreen or getting lung cancer.... Wow, scary, eh?
I mean, just think of all the money the sunscreen companies would lose!
Cool! A new car with built-in porn. 239 MPGs? That should keep anyone spanking their monkey for a while.
You guys jumping down the editor's throat don't have all your facts.
Yes, this car will run on regular diesel, just like a car will run on regular (leaded) gas. Both are Bad Things.
"Regular" diesel releases huge amounts of sulfer dixoide. That's bad for lots of things, for instance, life. It's also a fossil fuel so it increases the amount of CO2 in the air.
Un-sulfered diesel was set to be the standard in a year. But even though the 18-wheeler truck industry had 20 years to prepare for this, they convinced (read "bought") Bush that they needed more time and Bush pushed the date back a few years.
Biodiesel is renewable and sulpher free. It als ocosts about twice what regular diesel costs.
jesus christ, you guys couldn't even figure out the metric system. pure capitalism only works in the states because the majority of the population are stupid and fat. i refer you to your tv and fast-food culture if you need further convincing... but wait! you're probably too stupid to even realise it! people only pretend to like the US because you have the most bombs (now *that's* what i call a civilised society!).
ps: i don't hate you, i hate your ignorance.
I'm in an Engineering and Society program and just recently finished a course on sustainability. One of the topics of inquiry that we focused on was transportation and there are (Canadian) Government statistics that I believe came from the Drive Clean program (which attempts to reduce harmful vehicle emissions) that were pretty damning against SUVs. That's where the 5x the pollution statistic in my original post came from.
If the pollution statistics are accurate, it seems completely irresponsible for people to be driving SUVs because they're hurting everyone in the long run including themselves, most especially if they are riding alone and not hauling cargo.
I did a count on a busy road one day while I was waiting for the bus. Of the 50 or so vehicles I counted, less than 5 had more than one occupant and more than half were obscenely large SUVs or pickups.
Regarding structural strength and decreased mass, it's not the body of the vehicle that makes the difference safety-wise, it's the safety cage - the frame, the crumple zones, etc.. If you decrease the mass of the body of the vehicle such as by replacing steel body panels with plastic (like a Saturn, say) then you've made the vehicle safer for the poor sap that gets smashed into without changing the safety of the passengers inside the SUV. That SUVs are actually any safer for those inside them is a point that I still disagree with you completely about but for the purposes of this line of reasoning it's irrelevant.
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
Maybe the wanker-in-an-SUV problem is just in Canada.
This reminds me of a story my friend whose father is a Police officer was telling me. It was about an incident with a woman driving down the road in a Jeep while talking on a cell phone.
Apparently she was completely oblivious because she drove right over a line of flares, through an accident scene and over a second line of flares without even noticing. That's bad enough but it gets worse.
Not only did she not notice the accident scene, she also failed to notice multiple police cars following her down the highway with lights and sirens on trying to get her to pull over. Brace yourself, it gets worse.
While she was on her merry romp through the accident scene she had managed to run over the body of someone who had died in the crash. The body caught on the undercarriage of the vehicle and she dragged this poor person down the road for almost twenty minutes before she noticed the flashing lights and sirens and hung up her phone. Her comment when she finally pulled over and the police asked her what the hell she was doing?
"Did I do something wrong, officer?"
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
I found the following passage from the article to be quite amusing:
"The 'one-liter' car has a number of highly practical, almost luxurious details...reversing is aided by a rearview camera..."
The rearview camera is being marketed as a luxury feature, when in fact it is there because the minimalist, aerodynamical profile of the car means there's no rear window to see out of!
Nothing man, whats going on with you?
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Interestingly, CNN just posted a review on a book today regarding Why the Metric system is wrong. While I don't feel like getting into a debate regarding the merits of any measurement system, the fact that anyone uses the metric system is as much a testament to marketing strategy as it is to any underlying scientific reason to use the metric system.
Although making it completely decimal-based does make it easy enough for every idiot that has 10 fingers to be able to use it. :)
pure capitalism only works in the states because the majority of the population are stupid and fat.
First of all, we don't have "pure" capitalism in the United States. And even if we did, I don't think it would work as a result of anybody's weight or lack of intelligence.
i refer you to your tv and fast-food culture if you need further convincing...
That is one ASPECT of our culture (or two if you want to count them separately). Our culture is large enough that by touching on those two aspects you've still left out most of what our culture is. You've stereotyped us nicely, though. Good work.
people only pretend to like the US because you have the most bombs
Hmm. Yeah, right. No-one pretends to like us. Everyone professes to hate us, yet readily listens to our music, eats lunch at our fast-food restauraunts, and consumes our movies. No amount of U.S. bombs can force that to happen. A large amout of hypocrisy around the world can, though.
i don't hate you, i hate your ignorance.
Hmmm. I was modded as "flamebait" presumably for calling European countries socialist. Take a look at the "total" tax rates and see for yourself.
You, on the other hand, have said nothing that remotely makes sense except for those that love to rip on Americans based on absurd stereotypes.
Having owned a diesel (81 Dasher SW) I can tell you that in the US, diesel is harder to come by than you would think. Travelling along the highway it's not too difficult, since that's where the trucks refuel, but in a small town it's damned near impossible to find. There was one public station in my town (out of the way of course) where I could fill up, and it wasn't a 24 hour place. Nearest diesel after 10pm was a 30 mile drive.
Especially when you're unfamiliar with the area, I was nearly stranded in rural Georgia once, couldnt find a gas station with diesel (I suspected all the farmers had some, so I wasn't -too- worried, but they use a lower grade for their tractors).
Also remember that trucks hold something like a hundred gallons of fuel, they have a longer range than a car.
I knew one person that had a fleet diesel subscription for their Rabbit, where they had an account and used a key to fill up whenever they liked, but only at that one station.
Synopsis: Diesel is very available near an interstate, and -not- available elsewhere.
...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
"Given that this is the fuel that *all* (bar none!) trucks use,..." Oops! Sorry, Grab, but having driven many trucks of various sizes, shapes and functions, I can assure you that many of them have gasoline engines. However, your point is otherwise quite valid; diesel fuel is available anywhere. And I suppose we could always add a little chicken fat to it, if we had some around...
...I assume it's probably a government-mandated thing. Is this not the same in the US? I have no plans to travel to the USA, but should I be concerned about fuel quality for my VW in the USA?
:-)
Well, I live in Croatia, so I can only tell you the situation here. Yes, sulphur content in diesel fuel is a government-mandated thing. And, until recently, allowed level was significantly higher than the modern diesel engines require. Consequently, owners of new cars, including tourists, have had problems with their engines due to sub-par fuel. Which gave way to a minor public unrest, which gave way to new government mandates regarding the quality of the fuel.
I don't know the situation in the US, but I hope the gas stations will have both kinds of diesel (here it's Diesel and EuroDiesel, the new, improved kind). Otherwise, you _could_ damage your engine.
Chunky White,
:-) I am here for
You are a complete idiot.
Based on your statements, semi-trucks are so fragile they can't pull a load up a hill! Where
do you get this information or are you just a Volks PR representative out to spread FUD about
American cars? Mr. White, you may ask me anything about SUV safety.
you. I've been in many accidents and the only serious injuries I've absorbed is head and body
trauma from rolling ontop of that other idiot family of five and they were lucky enough that my
SUV was so well built that their car wasn't smooshed. After the accident, I forgave them of
their sins, scolded them to repent and to buy American, and I was so kind to let them wheel
me down to the local park and feed me apple-sauce. Maybe if they're really nice, I'll let their
son and daughter draw a murial of "ForD Tough" on my full-body cast. You would think you
weak Europeans would learn to design a better (upholstered) passenger car with nice
Firestone Tires, but NOOOOOOO! You gotta... I must go, nice talking with you, the nurse is
holding a catheter and a bed pan for me...
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Oh, wait, doesn't the catalytic convertor take care of that crap??
I am in Ireland (the Republic of), hence the "here in Ireland" part of my previous post. ;)
Here is a table that shows the October 2002 averages of petrol prices in European countries and in the US as a whole.
The US Department of Energy breaks the US average down by region, and also includes information on tax percentages (33% of the pump price is tax in the US, compared to approximately 75% in the UK and Europe).
Again, UK prices are undeniably higher on average than US ones, but European prices aren't always.
It's also notable that California uses the "cleanest-burning gasoline in the world", according to the Western States Petroleum Association. I am trying to find comparison data between CARB Phase II gasoline and European diesel quality, as I know there are some who will say diesel is still cleaner. [Whether that's true or not in the case of the diesel used in Europe, I don't know. I do know that ARCO themselves admit diesel-fueled vehicles in California are 2% of vehicles on the road, but emit 30% of the nitrogen oxides present, which doesn't sound cleaner to me, at least not by that measure.]
Apologies for the jumble -- I didn't put in any
tags to delineate my paragraphs. That will teach me to rely on whitespace!
I have not seen many diesel engines that uses injectors driven by electriciy. Diesel injectors are normally pressure based devices driven from a very precise injection pump. This pump is driven from either a cambelt or chain. The only electronic controls I have seen thus far (that is cars in for regular service) that have electronic controls are stepper motors fixed to the side of the injection pump to adjust engine timing and emissions.
The five cylinder Range-Rover diesel engine (designed by BMW) uses electronic injectors, this can not run without electricity, but I have not had the chance to get my hands on one yet. They are still all within their warrantys!
You are wrong about most diesels requiring electricity to run. Diesels with electronic control have only recently started appearing (in europe anyway over the last couple of years, Not twenty!), and most commercial vehicles are still based upon the mechanical injection pump for fuel injection / sequencing.
Pledge of Allegiance: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...
Proposed Bush ammendments to the Pledge of Allegiance: One nation at war, under me, invisible, with liberty and justice for some.
*snif* It's sooo beautiful!
I get laughed at for having a 1.9 liter 4 cylinder engine.
Nobody laughs at my 1.8L inline 4 for long. It's in a really small car. It's NOT slow. I drive a Mazda Miata.
The 1.8L inline 4 in my previous car performed well too. It was an Acura Integra.
Didja notice that neither of these were made by FORD -- actually Ford owns Mazda, but my car was built in Hiroshima. Ford is no good at making small fuel efficient engines.
ENDYN had (has?) a 1.5L SOHC I4 that gets over 400hp now. It also gets 3mpg more than it did as a stock Honda Civic DX engine.
I won't buy an American car until there is one that is fun to drive, environmentally friendly, and not too expensive to purchase and keep up.
t'nera semordnilap
The 1500lb Smart gets as good a score as the much heavier Ford Escort. Many SUVs achieve this same score.
The 2000lb Audi A2 gets as good a score as a 2250lb Honda Civic. The rest of the SUVs fall into this rating.
Source
To maintain high speed, most of your horsepower goes into overcoming air resistance. What's the drag coefficient on this thing, .05?
TROLL?
I'm reporting what I actually did realted to this piece and you call me a troll? Stop huffing the highlighters people and stop taking yourselves so seriously.
Ignoring the fact that diesel is a fossil fuel, and therefore nasty outright. Diesel (including biodisel) is not the answer. While they do produce 6% less CO2 and can produce 80% less NOX, they produce 25 to 400x more soot (See recent issue of New Scientist). Soot also causes global warming (although it has a shorter lifespan than CO2). It also has severe direct impacts upon human health.
Were that I say, pancakes?
An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize
winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that
over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the
open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not
let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh,
"Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck,
do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --"
Bohr chuckled.
"I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am
scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told
that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...