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.
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).
... 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
wob means wolfsburg, the city in germany where the factory is located. (german lisence plates start with the city/region where te car recieves it's license plates) as for l1... duh!
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein
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?
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.
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.
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.
The minimum speed on german Autobahnen is 60 km/h (slightly over 35 mph). There are no sections with a higher minimum speed, but there are sections with three or more lanes where the inner lanes have a minimum speed of 80 km/h (50 mph), whereas the outer lanes are standard german Autobahn. The recommended speed on a german autobahn is 130 km/h (80 mph), and there is no general speed limit (although many sections have speed limits and the sheer amount of traffic in germany very effectively limits speed even more).
The top speed of the Volkswagen 1L car was reported as 120 km/h (75 mph during its 230 km (140 mile) cruise.
Volkswagen offers a 3L TDi version of the Lupo right now, which uses standard Diesel fuel available at almost all gas stations in Europe.
You can bet that security was a top concern for the designers of the 1L Volkswagen as well as for the Volkwagen Lupo 3L. Germany is a country the size of Utah, but with 80 million people living in that area. Also, because there is no general speed limit, speed differences on german Autobahnen are extreme as there are only two lanes per direction and there is no cruising as in the US.
Instead vans and transports crowd the outer lanes at 100 to 120 km/h (60-75 mph), while the inner lanes are occupied by personal vehicles running from 160 to 250 km/h (100-150 mph). If you have been learning driving in Nevada or Utah, you might be in for quite an experience.
Germany requires you to have at least 12 hours of theory (attendance required) and 12 hours of practice before even allowing you to take the drivers exam. After the exam, you are on probation for two years, about any recorded offense within the probation will see you at a drivers retraining... The cost for the aquisition of a drivers license in Germany runs at about $1000 to $1200 at the moment.
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.
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.
Not anymore. For example, the TDI diesels from VW are so smooth that just about only time you know it's a diesel, is when you are refuelling it (that is, you put in diesel instead of gasoline)
I don't know how it is in US, but in Finland (and rest of Europe I guess) 100% of gas-stations sell diesel as well.
Fixed. Maybe they vibrate marginally more, but in reality they do not. Modern diesels are smooth
Ummm, this I don't know a thing about (Like I said, I don't drive diesel myself)
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't SUV's not part of the CAFE? Which (of course) means that car-makers can still push those gas-guzzling monstrosities and not worry one bit about fuel-economy.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
*** 4. You can't shut them off if they overheat (I think modern diesels have a fuel cutoff. If not, they should!)
Ummm, this I don't know a thing about (Like I said, I don't drive diesel myself)***
well, when they were all mechnanical, you didn't need electricity to run a diesel engine once started(no need for spark)).
this is more of a myth though.. at least been for the last 20 years.
the modern diesel engines use injectors to inject the diesel directly into the cylinder afaik.. these injectors work with electricity. the modern diesel engines are very nice to drive, especially those turbooed vw's, they're very much like normal 'gas' engines to drive when compared to 80's volvos for example. i don't think anyone would even consider a suv-sized car without diesel around here anyways(unless they've got shitloads of money to gas, i don't think they even sell a non-diesel starcraft van around here.. or any non diesel van that's big enough to be a real van).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You are completely mistaken. The problem with a diesel is that if too much oil vapour from the crankcase gets into the air intake, the engine will run on the vapour. The vapour is not being controlled in any way, so the engine will accellerate until it destroys itself.
A fuel cutoff will make no difference as the engine will still run on oil vapour. You have to stall it.
Please get your facts right before spouting scare stories.
-- PC architecture - what a mess.
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.
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.
Of course, well-tuned diesel engines are about as common as hips on a snake...
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.
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.
-- "Eat Bowl Futty"
Having said that... A quick read of the "article" indicates that they did a regression analysis of different light truck percentage use against number of fatalities. Of course, there were almost no light trucks at the beginning of the 80s and so many light trucks now.
Regression period 1994-1997.
The Cato article does state that other sources do show that light trucks increase the fatalities of other drivers in head-on and side-impact collisions, and that light trucks have an higher incidence of roll over. They seemly ignore this and suggest that the improvement in overall traffic fatalities is due to the stiffer construction, vehicle weight, more safety features of SUVs!
The study is doing what good studies do: present the counterarguments first. The confusing thing is that the study concludes that while both of the above statements are true, the increase in fatalities they contribute is outweighed by the decrease in fatalities due to the construction of SUV's:
The strong light truck effects in the case of single-vehicle fatalities imply that the stiffer frames and greater weights of light trucks are protective of life in collisions not involving other vehicles. Moreover, the light truck effects substantially offset any fatalities from increases in single-vehicle accidents associated with light truck use. The multiple-vehicle fatality equations imply that the protective effects of light trucks to their occupants outweigh any increase in fatalities associated with an increase in multiple vehicle accidents due to light truck use and any increase in fatalities to occupants of other vehicles.
They even suggests more SUVs! This ignores two decades of vehicle improvements (air bags, anti-lock brakes, side impact beams, superior crush zones, increased vehicular weight) and improvements in driver behavior (more DUI stops, seat belts, child safety seats, etc...). By concentrating on percent light truck versus traffic fatalities a really incorrect picture is drawn. Just crash various light-truck versus various cars and cars versus cars from the current years and look at the results - oh just wait the NHTSA and insurance institute equivalent have done that comparison and guess what they reported.
Once again, 1994-1997.
It's amazing that a think tank that does such a shoddy analysis can reject years of actual crash tests by governmental organizations and private insurace research groups. I'm not saying that my critique is perfect, but their methodology is pretty goofy. I tend to trust actual research.
Take a look at the controls in this study:
and a bunch more I'm too lazy to list. These are two Ph.D's in Economics at Rutgers; we're not talking community college here. You're saying we shouldn't trust academic research? I realize I didn't make it perfectly clear when I posted, but Regulation was simply the magazine that published the study.
Consider the study. What if it's right? If it's right, then opposing SUV's can cost lives. Of course, any choice that anyone makes can potentially "cost" lives; the point is, what public policy goals are we going to pursue, and do the choices we make further them?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
I hope you understand the environmental problems that will arise if "all those poor whining farmers" start growing fuel:
- monocropping (easy spread of pests and diseases)
- soil degradation
- destroying of unique biotopes
Brazil, the world's largest producer of sugarcane, uses the sugar mainly to produce alcohol which is used as fuel. This paper from the University of Sao Paolo discusses the problems that arise from the massive growing of sugarcane: mainly the destroying of large parts of the rain forest, soil degradation and erosion.Scientists from Australia (the third largest producer of sugarcane) also see problems with large-scale monocropping.
If oil runs out, fuel crops (or fuel cells) may well be the sole chance of keeping our current habits of driving. Nevertheless we will have to deal with the new problems that arise from monocropping and the massive cropping of fuel producing plants in general.
from the to-stupid-for-words dept.
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!