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.
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).
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...
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
Jon.
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 ?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 i'm not sure where that came from - by my calculations you get:
264.34 miles per US Gallon
317.46 miles per UK Gallon
but either way that's pretty good
*** 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.
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.
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.
Did you have a problem with the data, or the analysis of the data?
Oh, I'm sorry, that was an ad hominem attack. Okay, well then...
Of course Cato gets funding from car and oil companies. Cato lists as the title on its home page The Cato Institute: Public Policy Analysis, Limited Government, Free Markets. If they're engaged in a shadow conspiracy with the oil companies, they're not covering it up very well.
So...let's hear some criticism of the actual report. What? You can't tell a regression analysis from a Subway sandwich? Color me surprised.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.