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New Speed Record For Hybrid Cars
prostoalex writes "According to CarPages, Toyota Prius set a new world record for hybrid vehicles. It 'set the mark at 130.794 mph on the three-mile short course using a standard Hybrid Synergy Drive power-train - a mixture of 1.5 litre petrol engine and an electric motor.'"
actually, it's the only hybrid ever entered. In fact, they had to convince the people to open a new category in order to allow the vehicle, because it has more than one 'engine'. IIRC, it may also have been because the other 'engine' (elec. motor) doesn't 'use conventional fuel'.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
This car was not exactly "standard", as the summary claims.
"An engineering group from Toyota Motorsport in the USA prepared the car by changing the gear ratios (4.32:1 to 3.2:1) and increasing the inverter voltage from 500 to 550 volts. A transmission cooling system was added to decrease the temperature of the inverter and electric motor to maximise efficiency. Ambient temperature on the salt flats was nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit with nearly 100 degrees humidity. Ice was added between runs to keep the system cool.
The interior of the car was stripped to save weight, a roll cage added for safety and the whole car lowered by five inches to improve the aerodynamics for this highly specialised record attempt. Even the 26 in front and 25 in rear tyres were made especially by Goodyear."
With that in mind, hybrids have a long way to go.
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Let's face it, cool car ideas come from people who love cars the way most /.ers love processor overclocking, water-cooling, and case mods. Convincing a wider audience that tweaking a hybrid will make it jump up and dance is never a bad idea.
Of course, as a side note, the industry's approach to hybrid autos is flat out wrong. Railroad trains are very efficient, well-proven hybrid designs: their diesel engines are always running at the most efficient level, and their momentum is provided entirely by electric motors. Tres spiffy.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
...will probably not have a problem meeting or beating this record when it hits the streets. Its got a 255hp V6 that gets 37/29 mpg (highway/city). 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid info
Actually, that myth will likely be futher crushed with the release of a retrofittable hybrid electric vehicle kit, such as the one being developed by Ecolectric Technology (www.ecolectrictechnology.com). Then, you can take any vehicle, retrofit it to be hybrid electric, race it, and claim a new world record. The inherent increase in low-end torque (and thus acceleration) will probably make it as desirable a modification as turbochargers or superchargers on any performance vehicle.
A hybrid McLaren might be pretty nice if you as me...
You should check these guys out...
The drag race pure electric cars/motorcycles...
http://www.nedra.com/
No, but a steam powered vehicle did hit 127.66 mph in 1906.
Besides, Model-T's weren't speed machines, they were consumer machines that opened up the market to sectors who had never before been able to afford a car. A model-T modified for racing could reach 100 mph
I don't read AC A human right
For Honda's hybrid systems, yes.
For Toyota's, no.
1. The powertrain is more efficient, and lighter, than a normal cars. (No complex transmission, just a simple Planetary gear.)
2. I know when I'm going down the freeway, I'm not going a perfectly constant 55 mph, nor am I travelling on a perfectly level road. (Only if your power load NEVER changes does the battery system not matter.) Quite often, I'm running on battery power alone, in fact, even at 60+ mph. (My record is going down a very slight incline, I accelerated from 61 to 63 mph on battery power alone. In my gas-only car, 'coasting' in neutral on the exact same stretch, the car settles at 56 mph.)
3. The entire 'hybrid' system adds less than 100 pounds of weight to the car, and from what I've read, the simpler transmission and engine (no alternator, no starter) actually saves about 100 pounds, so it ends up even.
I agree that setting a speed record in a hybrid is silly. But the hybrid components don't cause HARM, either.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
If you still think diesels stink, think again. In my country, even BMW sales are over 80% diesel.
A nice example of modern Diesel engineering is the VW Phaeton V10 Tdi. It has 313 HP and, while officially electronically limited to 250 kph (155 mph), was tested at over 290 kph (180 mph) when it was released one year ago. It does 0-100 kph (0-62 mph) in 6.9 seconds (not too shabby for a 3 metric ton car). And yet, it still gets 27.7 mpg.
To put it in a nutshell, I don't quite get what this hybrid frenzy is about. Soot emissions used to be a problem, but the latest cars get a soot filter that tackles it. On the other hand, batteries are an additional weight, and once at the end of their lives, are an environmental nightmare.
Or could it be all about oil companies being too lazy to invest into cleaner gas-oil (like they sell in Europe)?
If you're an American looking for a new car, I strongly suggest you gave the few imported diesel VWs, Audis or Mercedeses a try before you go the gasoline route.
My Insight can go 115 mph. And this is stock without being stripped, having a roll cage, or any other modifications.
It has a 995 cc 3 cylinder gas engine putting out about 63 hp. In series it has a 13 hp electric engine. Because the 2 engines have different hp/rpm curves, it puts out 68 hp. But it only weighs 1850 pounds.
The car goes 0-60 in 10.5 seconds, has really good handling, and drives kind of like a go kart. The only real bad thing is there isn't much sound insulation, so there is a fair amount of road noise.
But even going 90 mph, it can still click off about 50 mpg. At 45 mph, you can get it into 'lean burn' mode and get a bit over 100 mpg.
It's a really good commuter car, has a lifetime mileage of 56 mpg (would be a lot higher if I drove a bit more conservatively and didn't live in a hilly area).
Also, there are some electric cars that go 0-60 in 3.6 seconds IIRC.
As for the amount of energy to dispose of a car, my previous citation says
The 120 GJ for manufacture includes all manufacturing costs. I'd say that implictly includes delivery to the customer. In the case of the 800kg car I drive most frequently, it was shipped by sea about 8 or 10 000 miles and then delivered by vehicle transporter about 200 miles. I'd say that's pretty negligible (sea transport uses orders of magnitude less energy per mile than road transport).I stand by my original observation that it's wrong to say that it costs more energy to replace a light truck with a hybrid car than it saves in using a hybrid car, but would still point out that that seems to me to be a straw man. In terms of actual choice when replacing a vehicle, then from an energy efficiency point of view, the hybrid wins. Whether it wins as compared to a high efficiency diesel is a moot point. As 9 million cars are replaced each year, along with 8 million trucks (SUVs & minivans are counted in this category), it seems that concentrating on halving the energy emissions of approximately 1/13th of the fleet would make a significant impact, along with encouraging end of life cars to be taken out of the economy slightly faster. When you consider that new cars are likely to be driven much higher mileages, then the figures look better still.
In short, it's not a magic bullet, but it's a good start.