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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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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.
This can help crush myths (and not-so-myths) about Hybrids being slow and laggy.
Though they are not built for speed, most people would like to know that their car can easily go 80. Further, Hybrid racing is an interesting idea. Virtually all types of races are about getting good speed under certain limiting conditions... what an interesting limit to be up against.
You are so brilliant. The grandparent was simply pointing out that it is not top speed that will define hybrid's success in the market place. This headline is worthless.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
100 degrees humidity? Sheesh...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
What, did it go off a cliff?
Unknown host pong.
I was quite impressed. (The car, on the other hand, was shaking like mad and generally not happy about things.)
The Prius has a slightly smaller engine (1500 cc vs. 1600 cc) but the Rabbit didn't have an electric motor to help. Also, the Rabbit wasn't modified for speed in any manner, though it _did_ have a `Turbo' button on the dash. (When one pressed it, I pushed on the gas harder, creating a `Turbo' effect of sorts. Great times!)
Where hybrid and pure electric cars really need to improve is the all important ability to get up to speed quickly and smoothly, and it doesn't appear that this car really addressed this critical issue.
_____
Thank you.
230,197.44 Football Fields per hour! Note - American Unit Football Fields (why won't they switch over to the world football standard!)
acceleration off the line of a Hybrid is much higher than that of a gas only car. the reason is that it is done using the electric motor and EMs have much higher torque which translates into higher rates of acceleration.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
yeah, but it is stil no Camero... ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The fantastic acceleration that in line wheel electric drive can potentialy deliver would make for some very exciting racing.
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
The car at the starting point, gas engine reved up and getting louder, charging up the electric system...
A slight yellow glow enveloping the car...
Rocks and dirt flying up in a whirlwind around it...
Driver screaming SUPER HYBRID SPEED WAVE!!! and darting off in a cloud of dust...
Um... this car was Japanese right?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
if you'd put it in neutral.
*ducks*
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
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...
Might I be so bold as to ask...what did the emissions and fuel consumption look like while driving at 130mph?
You seem to be forgetting a very basic marketting effect: look at rally racing cars in europe these days: most cars entered are mom-and-pop 4-door sedans, or bargain basement 2-door econoboxes that are strategically souped up and modified for racing by the manufacturers themselves (if not simply a racing chassis with a fake body of the model in question).
That way, mom and pop's teenage son fresh out of getting the driver's license, and young adults, associate the shite econobox with the powerful race cars they see on TV and they buy it.
So guess what? hybrid manufacturers are doing the same. The least thing they want is for their vehicles to be associated with being a mature person's choice for economy and savings. So they race hybrids, even if it makes no sense, to make them sexy to young male drivers. Plain and simple.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
130.794 mph should be more than enough for everybody.
(ooops....did I say that?)
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
Lol, if you think that everyone going to hybrid design is going to stop ricers then you're pretty naive.
But that's me.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
You should check these guys out...
The drag race pure electric cars/motorcycles...
http://www.nedra.com/
Ya, I imagine it could be better than a standard car.. I just wonder if it'd keep up with a decent muscle car.
This is my car. Well, mine is pewter, with the 5 spoke rims, and much stickier tires. Where people spin their wheels, I'm already accelerating away.. Woosh. Oh, and mine has some other tricks under the hood, but we'll keep those quiet til race day.
Now, if it can keep up, or even come close, I'd seriously consider trading my car in..
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Yeah, but what is a Camero, anyway?
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I thought the electric motor only kicked in when you didn't need much power.
A stock Honda Accord Hybrid with 3.0L engine (255 HP) would fucking eat that. They won't even have to remove the interior, raise the voltage, or lower it 5 inches.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I like the TransAm much better. My ex-girlfriend has the '00 Camaro SS. Stock, they were about the same to drive, except when we test drove hers, it still had stock tires, and I already had sticky tires..
The biggest differences were the fact that mine (The TransAm) has the Monsoon sound system. 10 speakers, and a nice radio. Hers had the traction control, but I turn that off as soon as I sit down. It seriously hurts the performance. Lovely for keeping you stuck to a wet road with stock tires, but terrible for hard acceleration.
Gotta love a cute girl that's into muscle cars. Damn, why am I not with her now??
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
In other news the new Toyota Priapus was the fastest sports car to pickup a chick.
The site http://www.mixedpower.com/ also has a similar story at http://www.mixedpower.com/modules.php?name=News&fi le=article&sid=279&mode=thread&order=1&thold=0 as well as additional information on hybrid vehicles.
It s worth looking around and checking out the forums as well.
acceleration off the line
I wonder what you mean by "off the line". The more powerfull gas engines are fully capable of spinning the tires for quite a distance down the road from a start. I don't think that a Hybrid is going to be able to beat a trans-am with a decent driver.
An electric car won't be able to accellerate any faster, as it's not the engine that's limiting acceleration, it's the tires.
I don't read AC A human right
When will you people learn? Italic type is Off-topic, Bold type is insightful!
-- Boycott Shell
I can see it now zipping across the salt flats, Dr. Banzai enables the overthruster and it's through the 8th dimension.
Make sure they check for Red Lectroids in the grill.
Does the marketing department have to defile everything an engineer creates?
I know I was certainly sold on the TL because of the power, and I could see going with a hybrid so long as the performance were there.
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
Actually, all the articles I've ever read say that the battery *pack* (~100-200 D sized rechargeables) and motor add between 600 and 1000 pounds, depending on which car you're talking about. Furthermore, they said that the electric motor is there specifically for assisting the tiny engine during hard accels. They casually mention that it's also for maintaining speed while cruising so the engine can operate at most efficient RPM, and for regen braking, but they don't make as big a deal about that stuff.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
I have a 2005 Prius. It's an astonishing car that's only made possible by an array of embedded processors. We're getting 55 MPG when the temps are above 50 and upper 40s otherwise. The technology is something that's available NOW, that works, and that could greatly mitigate our "need" for imported oil. In the USA at least we have an odd quest for performance that hardly matters. 0-60 in a nanosecond... only to hit the brakes and do 60-0 in the same time. The Prius accelerates better than we've ever needed, and I sort of wish for a smaller engine to get even better fuel economy. Even more important than the MPGs is the 1/10 emissions compared to a non-hybrid. 1/10 - think about it. It's a small planet. My kids are teenagers, and I worry for their future in a world where energy may be scarce and the beach laps at the shores of Kansas City. But I can't help but wonder what their MPGs were at 130 mpg... Jack
DO IT DO IT DO IT! What are ya waiting fer? Christmas?
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
The best day to day itmems in America are made overseas! Who of slashdotters has a monitor made in USA?
Answer: NONE
Except that Ecolectric's product is vaporware, and their web site is full of unsubstantiated claims about performance / efficiency gains.
The problem with racing hybrid vehicles is that those vehicles depend on assumptions for city driving to make their milage gains.
For highway driving, my standard gasoline engine actually gets better mpg than many hybrids. And it cost roughly 50% what a hybrid would of cost. Even at today's prices, that's alot of gas you have to save.
When you're racing, you're not doing stop and go. You might be able to make it work with a twisty enough track requiring large amounts of braking and making it tight enough on fuel that it becomes a conservation game.
But at high sustained speeds, direct gasoline power is more efficient.
I don't read AC A human right
The hybrids available today have acceleration times comparable to their class of vehicles they compete with.
I have one. I couldn't agree more. My first car was an old VW beetle. It was gutless. Driving in Maine was a challange. I would take a run at hills just to do the limit when I neared the top.
My old AMC Hornet was almost as bad, but with a bigger engine, it did better.
My last car was a 4 cyl Ford Mustang. (OK Mustang Wannabe) It could not keep speed up the hill to where I work a 6.5% grade.
My Toyota has the tightest regulated cruise control of any car I've owned. This applies to hills included. I drive to work with the cruise control set and it doesn't even slow down for the hill.
Passing on the freeway is no problem. If I'm doing 55 Mph and need to pass a truck, I just do it. If I'm not careful I'm pushing 70 in no time.
It's like haveing a second standby engine that kicks in when you need it.
The truth shall set you free!
I read another article about this, and they mentioned having to modify the computer settings so the engine would stay on with the brake pedal pressed at zero MPH. Why?
So they could hold the brake down to put it in regen mode and floor the gas to recharge the battery in a few minutes. This was because the battery was completely gone after each run. In fact, they had to put it in neutral and use a pusher car to get it up to speed (about 40, IIRC) so they could get decent top speed before the battery left.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
It's shocking that your Trans Am is able to go faster than the Toyota Prius. I mean, except for the engine(s), they're basically the same types of cars, intended for similar markets and similar uses, so-- oh wait. What? Huh? Oh, one is intended as a fake muscle car, and one is intended for city driving? Sorry, my mistake.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It would be physically impossible to manufacture enough Priuses to replace the entire fleet of existing cars, thus mitigating the need for oil imports. They don't even make a dent, since the number of cars on the road is increasing at a greater rate than the number of priuses on the road, so oil consumption is actually increasing!
Indeed, when you think the process through, the manufacture of Priuses including mining, refining, haulage and dealer delivery all uses a LOT of oil. How much do the trucks use just in that last stage alone delivering the new cars to dealerships across the country?
And where would the money come from? The people who drive crappy cars tend to be the ones that have no money to spend on good cars. That's not going to change even if they do become enlightened. Further, even if someone buys a prius, they are not going to consign their old car to scrap, they are going to sell it. Probably to someone poorer. So the old car will still be on the road polluting happily while the rich person now also has a new car also polluting, but slightly less.
And if people did decide to all scrap their old cars (in the cornucopian scenario), how many new rubbush dumps and so on would be required to dispose of so many old cars? And how much diesel will be required to haul around all that scrap if a scrap buyer decides to recycle part or all of the old car?
It has a 1500cc engine AND an electric motor, and it could only do 130? I've done 150 in a 1100cc car! No turbo or anything. 130 is pathetic.
Yea I know it has to carry all the extra weight of the electric motor / batteries, but these cars are supposed to be more efficient, right?
Not impressed.
...I'm sure this record will easily be crushed by the new Honda Accord hybrid. 240 hp 3.0L engine, plus electric motor, does 0-60 in under 7 seconds IIRC. With the speed limiter removed (and no other mods like ice cooling, ferchrissake), I'll bet it does 150 mph easy.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
which means no more bumblebee-like 4-banger revving at the red light
Funny you mention this. I have a Prius. I tested this. Guess what happens when you put it in nutral and floor the gas...
If the engine was idling, it continues idling. If it was off. It remains off. You can't blow it up by over-revving it at a light.
Having it in park and flooring it is more interesting. It does something. Over a period of about 15 seconds, the idle picks up to a fast idle. I guess you could use it to help the defroster.
If held at high idle very long then it shuts off when you take the foot off the gas. The engine is warm and the battery is topped off. It's ready for action. Silently slide it into drive and the ricer is about to get a suprise..
The truth shall set you free!
Welcome to dullsville.
Did I miss something? I have a Prius. It has a very low center of gravity. It's weight balanced front to rear with the engine in front and gas and batteries in back. It's the zippiest curvy road car I've ever owned. Sneaking up on people in a parking lot is just loads of fun. My last car was a Ford Mustang. I prefer the Prius. It's more fun.
I got the loaded one. I like the NAV system and traction control.
The truth shall set you free!
And with my 4 cylinder car, in the same scenario, if I'd likely be doing 90 before I'm past. It's a 1.8 liter DOHC engine. There's one hill in town that I have some trouble with, but it's no 6.5% grade, it's almost 30%. I just have to shift into fourth.
I don't read AC A human right
Hybrids aren't all about pure fuel economy. They're also about pollution. If you do a lot of city driving, you will pollute less. In your roommate's example, the 38 mpg city compares to between 55 and 60 mpg city. So for the driving that most people do(city driving) the Prius gets about 1.5 times the mpg and pollutes less as well. The EPA rates the Prius at 60 mpg. The 55 was from a blog.
The rest of your comments sound an awful lot like fud.
There may be odd side effects though: the riceboy scene may mutate.
Imagine the amount of neon you can light up with a Prius battery / generator & 500V inverter available...
Picture a "riced" hybrid, with dual battery cables snaking across the hood, to showcase it's awesome aftermarket Monster Cables for lownoise acceleration...
Envision the fires caused by "hotrodded" hybrids, when the auxilary batteries strapped to the roof (power in reserve!) burst into flame at a stoplight...
You just never know. Ricing may mutate, but not disappear. Heck, I've seen people with lowered / wide-wheel minivans!
One of the UK motoring programs (5th gear) did an economy test of various cars and it did not do that well. You only get the benefit of the electric motor when in stop start traffic. Once moving the batteries are being charged and the petrol engine is being used. Round town as a shopping cart it was good, as a commuting vehicle it sucked.
...For the rest of the world, who yes - do read slashdot, the speed achieved is roughly 209.2704km/h. (n * 1.6)
I ate your fish.
Actually, even with the V8, the recent Camaro/Firebird get decent mileage. Ours is a 2000 Camaro Z28 (not the SS), only 305HP. Daily mileage about 20-21MPG. Highway driving, gets 24-25, but in smooth, medium-speed driving, we've hit 26 (cruising behind a loaded U-Haul for a few hours at 65).
That's 305HP, 24-25MPG, with an automatic. In the convertible version (heavier than the hardtop). Drive conservatively in a hardtop, with the 6-speed manual, you can beat that. But I never can drive conservatively with the 6-speed cars...
By comparison: I drove a 1995 Pontiac Sunfire GT for several years. Half the horspower / torque, about 800-lbs less weight. It got slightly better mileage. Slightly. But the V8's way more fun.
Imagine how fast it would've been if the Prius had had a fart pipe, ridiculously oversized and useless fin, and Type-R sticker!
For everybody arguing over diesels vs. hybrids I'd suggest reading the frugalympics comparison test by Car and Driver. Jetta TDI vs. Prius vs. Civic Hybrid vs. Toyota Echo. Some interesting results there.
I will wait for the bus.
Peace.
"Of course, as a side note, the industry's approach to hybrid autos is flat out wrong."
I'll let them know at the next meeting.
The EPA rates the Prius at 60 mpg. The 55 was from a blog.
The EPA estimates have little to do with real-world mileage. While some people *do* achieve 55 MPG and higher (mostly be driving under 55 MPH everywhere they go), if you drive in real city conditions you will probably see a lot less. Of course it depends on the city. Every traffic light costs energy. If you are lucky to live in a city that has traffic light synchronization then you might see 50 to 60 MPG in the Prius. But forget about it in most Southern California cities, where you have a red light every quarter of a mile or so.
On a recent long trip our Prius got very close to the EPA highway estimate overall, and exceeded it on flat land (east Texas and Louisiana, e.g.). And we were going 75 to 80 MPH most of the time.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
It's funny because it's true.
The average US car drives 15000 miles per year, so, an SUV which gets 20 MPG would use 750 gallons of fuel per year. The Prius at 55 MPG would use 272 gallons a year, so it would take pretty much exactly 2 years or 30000 miles to save the entire manufacturing energy cost of the car, even with your unlikely assumption that the Prius was replacing a perfectly good vehicle that was being scrapped just to save energy. Replace a car which gets 35 MPG, it would take 6 years/90 000 miles to make a net energy advantage, which is still within its working lifetime, and obviously assumes that the car it replaces would last 6 years longer than it does.
But kind of gas mileage did you get at 130 mph.
You ever on ls1tech by any chance?
Someone mentioned the Accord.
How about the rumored hybrid Eclipse and NSX? If those happen any time soon...
Let's check some data. Honda civic hybrid curb weight: 2675 honda civic conv. curb weight: 2560 From http://automobiles.honda.com/models/specifications _full_specs.asp?ModelName=Civic+Hybrid#
Added weight is less than most passengers.
A hybrid configuration acts as a low-pass filter
on the driving cycle power demands.
- Bart
This one is 325hp stock, but it's the stick with T-Tops. I have a '98 TransAm (not WS6), with an auto, that does like yours..
:) It's hard to find enough road to hold over 150 for very long.. 150 is one mile every 24 seconds. Woosh! :) Lanes get very narrow, and stuff in the distance comes up very quickly.
The ragtop isn't quite as aerodynamic as T-tops or a hard top either, which hurts you in high speed, and a little in fuel effeciency. There's a difference between running with the tops down and the windows open, compared to with all the glass closed.
Generally, I expect 24mpg with a mix of city and highway driving. I get 26 on long trips. That's putting it up in 6th, setting the cruse to 85mph, and waiting for the next 4+ hours to pass..
You totally right on the fun part though. I was in 4th on the highway the other day, and needed to zip around some slow cars fairly quickly. I just nudged the gas, and the speed went up by 30mph without shifting. In any small car that I've driven (including a Sunfire GT), that doesn't happen. Hell, in the Mustang GT's I've driven, they don't even jump when told to.
Your Z28 will get some speed going. My '98 TransAm (not WS6), I got just over 150mph. I ran out of road before I got to see what it's real max speed was.. The '00 WS6, well, it's still accelerating hard when you get up there.
Here are my two cars.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Dude, just because you've never dated a girl in your life, and you just turned 40, doesn't mean everyone on here is just like you.
I've dated a wonderful variety of women, including my beautiful ex, who still drives her Camaro SS every day..
I'd offer up a picture of her with the car, but I don't want to give a lonely pervert like you any masturbation material. Damn, go get yourself a penthouse or something.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Dude, they're bragging up the amazing power of
I'm saying, I'm a consumer. If they're going to try to impress me with the power of it, they'd damned well impress me with the power of it.
Now, if you want to say the T/A is a fake muscle car, bring it out to the track buddy.. I've shown more than one person what's muscle and what's not.. I've eaten up Porsches, Corvettes, Mustangs, and just last week I embarassed the shit out of some guy in an Acura NSX. The only car I've riden in that could take me was a modified Z06. That was a fun car to ride in on the track.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I've driven one of these on a long drive, and I can attest to it's speed. I managed 170KPH on a steep uphill climb. Don't forget that an electric motor has FAR more torque than any gas engine, at least relative to the measured horsepower!
Actually, in a hybrid, you get *better* mileage in stop-and-go driving, because the brakes help to charge the battery.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I beg to argue. Well, obviously you've never driven a TransAm WS6 or a Camaro SS. They're much more nimble than even their lower namesakes. My car stops on a dime. I scared a guy one day, coming across the end of 1/4 at over 100 (can't remember exactly how fast, it's been a while), and making their first turnout, without the ABS kicking in.
I've danced around idiots who think they should have been in my lane suddenly. I've driven quite a few cars in my time. Like, if it's been made from the late 70's up, I've probably driven one.
I've also been in a few
A friend took the liberty of having an altercation with my '98 TransAm. 50mph into a parked SUV. She walked away with bruises. She didn't drive my cars after that.
Could you drive an Echo at 50mph into a parked car? Could you walk away? My car needed some body work, a new rim, and radiator.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
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.
Just once, I think.. Occasionally, I go looking for advice on what to modify next, but generally I already know.. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Good article... sorry I don't have points at the moment :(
Actually, you might get better mileage in stop-n-go but it has nothing to do with the charging of the battery from stop-n-go situations. The overall charge has no impact on how much the electric engine ends up being use, it's programmed to come on at certain points.
They tried setting a record with the Ford Escape Hybrid but it rolled over. The Insight mysteriously dissappeared after that incident, although a hunk of metal was discovered under the Escape.
This was in Car and Driver months ago. Although i must say it's definitely an interesting article, and anyone who doesn't subscribe to C/D probably wouldn't have heard of it. I dunno if it mentions it in THIS article, but the C/D article said they had that out of the 530+ classes of vehicle, they hadn't one for hybrids yet. it's stuff like "2 door pre 1949 coupe with ford flathead" and "2 door pre 1949 coupe with ford flathead, supercharged" are 2 different classes. :) The prius eventually got its own class though. Interesting anyhow :)
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
One of the things that always has me kinda scratching my head is why nobody's making a diesel hybrid.
It would seem that with diesel's natual tendancy towards lower engine RPMs (and with most diesel engines delivering peak torque around 2500 RPM), it would make a natural fit towards a design like Toyota's (generating power which is applied to the wheels by electric motors).
In fact, that is how railroad locomotives work.
Plus, there are all kinds of advantages to using a diesel engine, including the fact that the raw materials for diesel fuel need not just be petroleum.. diesel fuel has been engineered from coal and vegetable oil, and can theoretically (although I personally haven't seen practicle examples) be made from methane.
If VW can make a turbodiesel New Beetle that can average 40-50MPG out of just swapping the gasoline engine for a diesel one, what could they do if they engineered a smaller diesel + electric motor combo?
You're comparing diesel to petrol. Diesel has 18% more energy by unit volume than petrol, so MPG comparisons are useless. You might as well compare ethanol to uranium.
Though I think your post highlights a very important point. Has anybody else noticed a recent increase in the number of Luddites? It's as if some people are proud to be ignorant.
Firstly, I'd have to assume that should the batteries have no charge, the gasoline engine would kick in, defeating your "no impact" hypothesis. Similarly, I'd imagine that when you're out of gasoline, the electric would act as a failsafe. I haven't had the opportunity to test these out on a hybrid, but it certainly would make sense.
Secondly, using regenerative braking absolutely does improve milage. When you burn gas to move forward, that's energy spent. When you have to apply the real brakes, that's energy lost in friction. Regenerative braking, on the other hand, takes the kinetic energy of moving forward, and rather than simply throwing it away like a normal car, converts it into battery charge via the electric engine now acting as a generator. The important question is, how much energy from the gasoline is spent fighting air resistance, and how much is thrown away through braking? This quickly turns into a matter of distance per stop, with stop 'n' go traffic playing a larger role.
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Open Source Sysadmin
Do you know how much an F1 car weighs? About a half ton.
Do you know how much horsepower an F1 car has, from a few litres displacement V10? 900hp...or more. Why is such staggering performance possible? Because simply put, gasolene has one of the highest energy capacities known to man aside from nuclear fuel. A cup of gasolene contains enough energy to lift 1 ton 1,000 feet in one second, if mixed with air at the right ratio.
There isn't a vehicle in the world except a funnycar that can go as fast- and a funny car can only do it about...ONCE, maybe twice; it pushes so much fuel and air into the engine that if it misses one combustion cycle in any one cylinder, it will hydrolock and explode on the next compression cycle. An F1 engine tears itself apart too, but it lasts (hopefully) a few hundred hours tops.
Watching an electric "F1" would be about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Please help metamoderate.
You can think of the environment like an investment vehicle: The payback is in the order of magnitude of lifetimes and isn't strictly monetary in value.
The question becomes then: What are you 'saving' when you buy a car that pollutes more? Essentially, what are your priorities?
My decision has, unfortunately, been decided by safety more than anything else. Cars are dangerous, so I will rate safety over environmentalism, but environmentally safe cars over performance.
That means Volvos >> Toyotas >> Chevrolets for me.
Except Volvos AREN'T cheaper, so it's not about saving money. It's about saving my life.
And Toyotas aren't cheaper than Chevrolets. It's not about saving my money, but saving my lungs (asthma and allergies).
It's tough too, since necessarily better cars are more expensive cars.
GPL Deconstructed
You get 27.7 mpg with your Phaeton V10 Tdi.
If it were a hybrid diesel you'd get 45+mpg.
That's the frenzy.
So if you take a Japanese car that would normally get 30mpg and make it a hybrid, you now get a car that gets 55mpg.
GPL Deconstructed
Though I think your post highlights a very important point. Has anybody else noticed a recent increase in the number of Luddites? It's as if some people are proud to be ignorant.
:)
I often find myself in the role of Luddite, but it's not out of a desire to stay ignorant-- I like to be educated, and to be taught by those with more experience in the field under discussion, whatever it may be-- but rather, out of a sense of "do I really need that new technology/game/etc, or am I just finding new ways to blow my savings account & max out my credit cards?"
Because of this way of thinking, I didn't even own a PDA until about 8 months ago... and then I went & got a Blackberry. For that matter, until about a month before the Blackberry purchase, I didn't have a digital watch (yes, Arthur Dent, they really ARE a nifty idea). But around that time, I fell off my bicycle, injuring myself in several places & breaking my old Fossil analog watch at the same time. As a result, I now have a Timex Ironman DataLink watch.
Nifty toy, I kind of enjoy it to be honest. After all, how often do you get to tell someone "hold on, I think I have Joe's number in my watch, let me just look it up"?
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
LA or San Jose for example, "around town" can mean over 100 miles as the bay area or Los Angeles area are essentially one giant city with freeways interspersed.
It may not be like that in the UK, I wouldn't know, but commuting here means 11 miles in 35 minutes on a freeway (that's about 20 miles an hour, perfect for a hybrid) of stop and go traffic.
GPL Deconstructed
It's a big world, son, and the English spread their variant of the langauge to most of it first.
Well, we have the same car.. Mine is a '00 WS6 . This is a recent picture of them. The pewter is the '00 WS6. The green one is a '98 regular T/A (V8, automatic)
I bought the '00, because I wanted a stick. The dealership did a search, and it was the only stick available. Oohh, the pain. I have to suffer with the extra features.
I think my cruising milage was better than yours, because I was going faster.. It wasn't running hard at 80-85mph, and I was in 6th the whole time.. At the time, it was unmodified.
To get the most accurate mileage estimate, start with a full tank. Then write down every fuel stop, and the mileage. Use a much longer sample, to get the better estimate. My 26mpg estimate is based on driving 2500 miles, documenting everything. There were spots where I know I used more gas, like when I hit traffic, but overall it was 26mpg.
I still estimate my fuel consumption on every fuel stop. I reset my trip gauge, and use that to compare to the fuel purchased. Not as precise as a longer sample, but it's still good.
I still get 24 on a fairly regular basis. I can see there's a difference when I hit traffic, or start messing with people. It's really driving habits.
The '98, shown in the picture, passed 150mph on Gandy bridge in Tampa. It's perfectly flat, no tail wind, and a few miles of bridge before you have to slow down or risk getting busted for speeding. It only has 275hp stock. I've blown through 150 with the '00, but haven't had an opportunity to run it up to it's fastest. I'd like to video tape the gauges, so I can calculate my full speed based on the RPM's, or maybe let a GPS calculate it for me (or both)
In my '82 Firebird, with a transplanted '79 4 bolt main 350, I could get up to about 18mpg, because of the crap gearing, but if I was racing, I would get 6 gallons per mile. That was measured on a track.
The '82 had a top speed of 130, which was 6000 RPM in 4th gear.
What have you done to yours? Here's my short list:
Removed ram air dampers
removed MAF screen
replaced MAF -> throttle body tube
strut tower brace (not like that matters for efficency)
racing clutch (stock didn't survive because of NOS, which I list soon)
Hurst shifter. The original owner didn't order it, bastard.
Hypertech power programmer.
Bridgestone Potenza 275 40 ZR 17 tires. They may not sound like the greatest tire, but damn, these are the stickiest tires I've ever used.. AA traction rating, and they've lasted longer than the stock tires.
A few weeks ago, I went for California emissions, and had to pull my NOS system off. dry system, jetted for 150HP.. That's what blew out the stock clutch. I'm probably going to rig it up for quick disconnects, so I can put it on for racing, and take it off for street driving. A few people have warned me that if I'm caught with it on, on the streets, I'd lose my car, which I'm not willing to do.
I can feel a bit of body flex, so next I'm going for nice subframe connectors. The ones that go to front and back mount points, plus the tranny crossmember. They're on eBay for like $160.
Then I'm considering either doing heads and cam, or going all out and stroking it to 383. I know, strokers don't have the RPM's like a short throw does, but we're only turning 6k, not pushing 10k like other smallblocks I've worked on (strictly racing cars).
I can feel I have more power than stock, but I don't try to estimate that it's too much h
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
And i can confirm that in Colorado at least every other gas station has diesel.
I have to watch carefully because here diesel has a green pump handle and unleaded is black - opposite from the uk.
As was noted before, this story was in Car&Driver a while ago. Turns out they had to push the Prius to 60 or so MPH in order for the batteries to keep working through the measured mile at 130 MPH.
Which brings up another aspect of energy as relates to racing. 20 years ago the premier sports car racing class was called Group C, in which there were *NO* engine rules beyond being given a certain amount of fuel for each race.
At the time, Porsche was the big winner because of its turbocharged/intercooled cars. Now I imagine someone could make some headway with a hybrid approach that avoided throwing so much energy away as heat from braking.
If all you could store was the energy from a single 200-60 MPH deceleration, the advantage would be tremendous.
Slightly off topic, but since we're on the subject of hybrids: I'd like to understand why manufacturers keep coming out with hybrid SUV's, but not hybrid minivans.
I migth need a minivan in the coming future, shopped around for an hybrid one, but the only answer I get is "we don't have a minivan, but we're coming out with an SUV".
It seems to me that an hybrid minivan would make more sense, no ? People who buy SUV's buy a status ticket, they get a big car with a big engine that they can brag about, so why would they care about fuel economy. On the other hand, the only reason to buy a minivan is the practicalside of it, so adding better fuel economy to it would be a huge advantage over the other brands.
Am I confused here ??
Anything that can be done to a normal car to make it more efficient can be done to a hybrid to make it more efficient. Toyota make the some of the most efficient gasoline cars in the world---their Prius is right in line with their high standard of engineering (IIRC, Toyota has the highest number of cars/trucks with greater than 30mpg).
Comparing a Diesel car to a hybrid is slightly apples to oranges. (Diesel engies are more efficient that spark engines for various reasons, so yes, you're buddy's Jetta does fare reasonably well against a Prius, but that's only because the Prius is still running a spark engine). If VW went and designed a Diesel hybrid, it would smoke your buddy's Jetta for mileage. Here's why: a normal car with a reciprocating engine can only get at most 20% efficiency. A hybrid scheme allows you to design the engine to a lower power output and only run it at its optimum power output (to get more you run engine+motor, to get less you just run motor, you design the charger such that the engine runs at optimum power output). So, you can get 30% efficiency out of the reciprocating engine or a little more. So, a Diesel hybrid against a normal Diesel would get the better mileage.
Hybrid technology is not stupid. QED.
Jeff
I'm fairly certain a hybrid only fairs better than a traditional car under these conditions, and not better than it would if the conditions weren't present. If it got better overall gas mileage by braking a lot, why not just stop and go so much that you never use fuel? It makes no sense.
Beware blue cats moving at
I don't get it, what's the point?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
thats what everyone seems to care about. Unfortanetely, I'm only less safe in my tiny car because of those assholes in their larger ones. Of course, if everyone gets SUVs, then some assholes will get even larger vehicles and the bullshit will start again.
....for a certain value of 'truck', maybe.
I used to drive a seven and a half ton truck. It was 8 feet wide and thirteen feet tall and 'powered' by a six litre normally aspirated diesel. That thing had the drag factor of a parachute, 'cruising' was accomplished at 60mph on the flat with full throttle. It accelerated to about 20mph ok though.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I can hardly wait until there are more electric vehicles around and being crashed. Please god, let the manufacturers build the motors into the wheel hubs!
Why? Because then we can then power old(broken) cars with newer electric axles, running from car batteries when passing emissions inspections, and running from generators the rest of the time. When the generator dies it will be much easier to swap than a 'normal' car engine as it doesn't need to fit the transmission, have a fancy engine management system etc. Wiring is easier to do than gearcutting.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Everything I've read on slashdot will have you belive these hybrids are clean and green. And they are on the surface... But what your NOT told about is when it comes to disposing of those batteries and replacing them. It's bad enough seeing standard lead acid car batteries being illigally dumped, but can you imagine if everyone started driving hybrids?
e r11/jasperplots-124.html
Look folks, even if you could centrally recycle and administer these batteries, your still having to deal with the chemical pollution they cause themselves in regards to manufacturing and servicing. At this point, why not use bio-fuels such as diesel and E85? We all know that the Sun UV rays will break up these gassious compounds in the upper atmosphere and simple CO2 will reused by mother nature is some form and fassion. At the worst, will just get quicker growing plant life...as alreadying being recording.
Just to be fair though, I see studies reporting both positive and negitive impacts of high CO2 levels on plant life. So I guess the jury is still out on this one.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001938.html
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2002/decemb
Life is not for the lazy.
>Any car using internal combustion should be put under review and heavy environmental taxation these days.
You'll find the opposite is true. Light trucks more or less get a free pass on emissions and many Hummer buyers buy them under the name of their business thus making them something of a write-off.
Lucky bugger! A neighbour of mine has one of the new ones, and it is a very sweet looking motor.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I can see claiming that the public wants big cars and trucks. I can't see claiming that they want them to be gas guzzlers. If two vehicles are in all respects identical but one of them uses half the gas, people will flock to that one.
That's correct. I was comparing the parent's claim of 38 mpg city to the Prius's 55 mpg city. The Prius is clearly the more fuel efficient car for city driving (which most people do) thus it pollutes less, as you point out. Thus showing the parent's reliance on a bumper sticker for facts and opinions to be foolish fud.
;)
We'll assume that mpg is the only way of determining pollution. It isn't you can do many things to filter the exhaust and trap the air pollutants to keep them out of the atmosphere, along with a whole host of other things to minimize pollution regardless of pure mpg. But I'm not a big car guy, so I didn't want to get in to that. I thought it was enough that the parent was wrong on its face.
Yes, 20-21 MPG is good for a 300+HP convertible, that can perform well at a dragstrip, autocross course (hampered by the automatic & it's size), in highway driving, and climbing mountain roads (well, East Coast mountains, the Appalachians). The power/weight ratio was unbeatable at it's price. A few more vehicles now have that HP level, but most don't have the abundant low-end torque that means my wife can easily drive the car.
I've driven friend's hopped-up musclecars (late 60's / 70's). The recent LS1-engined cars have better performance, vastly better handling, run smoother / more reliably, and - produce very low emissions.
Consider it has a large V8, and gets mileage wihtin a hair of most 4-cylinder sporty cars. I'd never liked Camaros, but was looking for a sturdy car that would last, preferably with a torquey engine (less RPMs ~= longevity). I was impressed by the Camaro.
So yes, that's good mileage, for the type of performance it has. Feel free to point out another 4-passenger convertible with equal/better performance, and better mileage. Bad mileage for a Prius, but - I can pass a tractor-trailer with ease.
It was all in the interest of Science.
From, ahem, personal experience, I can attest that a normal Prius' maximum speed (on a relatively flat highway) is about 104 miles per hour. This was with the accelerator floored and the car given time enough time to accelerate to its maximum speed.
Now I've only done this once, but it was fun. And I routinely drive in the 75 - 90 mph range.
So the fact that they have somehow coaxed an extra 1/3 power out of the same drive train is exciting news (even if they did strip things down on the weight side.) Listen, every record was originally set by one contestant. I'm guessing this "record" is gonna get smashed faster than watermelon at a Gallagher concert.
And now here's a quick plug -- my Prius is awesome. I love it. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Acceleration isn't sports car quality, but it's better than the perfectly acceptable 1994 Mercury Sable I drove previously, which had better pick up than the beat up old hand-me-down minivan I drove prior to the Sable. I drive on the vicious highways and streets of Washington, DC and I have never had a problem with my Prius.
Am I the only one who finds this test completely useless? Ferrari and Porsche stopped fighting for the fastest car title becuase it turned out to be extremely expensive and it does not prove anything, except for the fact that a car can reach a certain speed. How many of you do go above 85 mph on a frequent basis? What about over 100mph? Even if your car can go 150mph, how many times do you go that fast? As far as I know, only several states in the United States have roads without speed limit...
If any car company wants to make a better hybrid vehicles, they should focus on things like:
Cost. Currently, Honda Civic Hybrids start at around $20K, while the Accord Hybrid is pushing $29K. Why bother buying that if you can get a Honda S2000 or a 350Z for less money. If you do not like sporty cars, you can still buy cheaper sedans and coupes. There are Subarus, regular Hondas and Toyotas that can do what hybrids do for much less. It is silly to market a $29K Accord Hybrid as a fast car. If had $29K to spend on a fast car, I would not look at Accords to begin with:)
Looks. My hats go off to Honda for this company managed to make a hybrid car without totally molesting its looks. Hybrid Civics and Accord look no different than their standard versions; that is a good thing because the standard models look nice for the money. I guess Ford can be in that league too because its hybrid SUV looks like a normal small SUV. On the other hand, Toyota engineers should stop drinking bong water because so far their hybrids looked like outtakes from bad cartoons. Small wheels, ugly fronts and rears combined with ridiculous ergonomics inside make me want to puke.... Now, this is just my personal opinion and yours may be different. However, if I spend $20K on a car, I expect it to look somewhat nice in and out.
Useful specs. I can care less about the top speed. As far as I know, in Massachusetts I can't go above 90mph without being arrested. I am more interested in 0-60, cornerning and stopping abilities along with certain safety features. So far, Honda Accord looks like a good choice for a faster sedan. However, the performance comes with a price tags: for $2K more, you can get a brand new Subaru WRX STi which in my opinion is a much better option for a performance oriented driver who wants a sedan. Although hybrids seem to catch up in this category, they are not truly there. If I lived in a region that required even more attention to the road -- think mountains or places with harsh conditions -- I would completely rule out hybrids for now.
More models and trims. As somebody who belives in alternatives to gas, I would get hybrid. However, it seems that no hybrid models are made in order to appeal to males in mid-20s. I went through all available hybrid models and so far I found none that I liked. Accord was the closest choice; however, it lacked manual transmission :( To be honest with you, I do not know who is the "audience" for hybrids nowadays... It is definitely not single moms or people with tight budgets or performance oriented freaks. The choices are limited in terms of models, trims and additional features. Despite whatever I say about Toyota Prius I think that it was a great idea to make a separate hybrid model. IMO, Toyota fucked it up, but nothing in this world is done without mistakes. I think that companies should make hybrid versions of existing cars along with introducing new hybrid-only models in order to bring more diversity and attract more buyers. I know that waiting lists for hybrid cars are long, but they can be much much longer!
Gas is still cheap. When I wanted to get a reliable gas sipper, I got a used Honda Civic. The car cost me $4K and it gets around 35mpg. I fill up once in two weeks on average and it costs me around $16 to do so. Wow! All that for $4K. I do admit, that I am thinking of getting a different car because this one is too slow. I talked to my friends who drive BMWs and watched forums
You can think of the environment like an investment vehicle: The payback is in the order of magnitude of lifetimes and isn't strictly monetary in value.
I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about the "average american". Add in that most people want a return on their investment in less than 30 years, more usually 10-15, and you can see why I made my statement.
And while the "average american" might not care much for the enviroment, safety is a definate concern.
Yes, I have allergies too. I'd love to see less pollution.
It's tough too, since necessarily better cars are more expensive cars.
Not necessarily true. It depends on how you define a "better car". You do have more options as your budget goes up, though.
Do you see where my statement that Hybrids won't take off with the middle class until it will save them money comes from? Until the sticker price comes close enough to that of the traditional option that a dealer can sit down with them an show them that they'll save money or break even with that option, it will be difficult to get the mainstream to adopt it.
I don't read AC A human right
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.
You can actually get that engine in the 45-state legal version of the Volkswage Touraeg SUV sold in the USA.
But let's see how long before someone designs a race car around this V-10 turbodiesel engine and takes the car to 350 km/h (217 mph). =)
The point about racing is to go faster than one's opponents where all participants adhere to a set of rules governing allowable technology. The general point about hybrid technology is to conserve fuel. Well, how about a racing circuit that combines these two concepts but allows the participants to use any technology, as long as it saves fuel?
This is exactly what F1 used to do about 10-15 years ago (I don't know when they dropped this rule, but I'm fairly certain it's not in place any more), where there was a set amount of fuel for each car on each race. Now, the quantities worked out to about 2-3mpg IIRC, but nonetheless, the teams had to develop technologies that allowed them to go fast without running out of fuel.
Well, why can't we have a racing circuit that severely limits the fuel one can use to complete the race, to a point where it could truly require the development of meaningful efficiencies. Perhaps there could be different classes, one that gives drivers one gallon for every ten miles of race distance, one that requires 20mpg, etc. Clearly, the average speeds would go down, but the excitement would be in the strategies each team employed. It would be very interesting to see how hybrid technology competes in this kind of racing, and if it truly beats out other types of fuel-saving technology. This would lead to the fulfillment of racing's often-stated justification (and the supposed reason that automobile companies spend so much on it) that racing drives technological improvements that end up in the cars we buy.
Why do we need to buy 300hp cars anyway? And why 350? The answer is that we've been convinced that because the other guy has a car that can do 0-60 in 4.6 sec, you need one that can do it in 4.5 sec! You know, back in the 80's, those numbers were more like 9 and 10 seconds, and people were just as happy (if you had the 9 sec car, that is). The point I'm making is that the market left to its own devices will give us more and more power at less and less efficiency, and condition us to think we need it. If the pre-eminent racing leagues in the world showcased speed AND efficiency, perhaps we'd return to a time when the car manufacturers would be bragging about mpg a little more and hp a little less, to the benefit of the whole world.
I don't think I agree that Hybrids won't take off with the middle class until it will save them money. The middle class buys lots of things that don't save them money.
:)
I do agree that hybrids will be more successful when the hybrid premium goes down close to a regular car, though. But that's just a case of sticker shock; all cars have more or less expensive prices and therefore different classes of consumers.
There's another point where hybrids will become more attractive to consumers: When the eletric motor is used to improve performance without sacrificing mileage. See the 30mpg Hybrid Accord, the electric motor is used to boost acceleration that would not normally be available.
When you start seeing Ford Mustangs with 20hp electric motors to give you 0-60 times of 4 seconds, then we'll see a boost in hybrids
GPL Deconstructed
He said hybrid. So you still can use hydrocarbons, and as you pointed out, hydrocarbons are where the fun is.
The problem I see is it'll be hard to get a bank of fuel cells that can convert hydrocarbons to 300-500kW of electricity AND be light AND compact AND take the stresses of a race.
But that could be a worthwhile and interesting engineering challenge...
Right now, the F1 organizers are already intentionally slowing down the F1 cars with new rules every now and then.
Maybe you'd prefer the statement "As currently marketed, hybrid cars won't take off until the price drops."
I doubt a 20hp electric would make much of a difference in a 300 hp mustang. The IMA of the honda civic shows an 8 HP boost, for an 85 HP engine. The accord, as best as I can tell, gives 15HP, out of 240.
I don't read AC A human right
Porsches and NSXes are not muscle cars. Sure, they are sexy and fast, but not muscle cars. I'm sure that whether you can beat them depends on the type of race.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
>Heck, I've seen people with lowered / wide-wheel minivans
I can top that. I've seen a couple of lowered dualy pickup trucks. (4 wheels on the back axle).
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Just wondering, how do people in other countries get their carload of groceries home? Do the stores let you take the grocery cart all the way home? Or do you just got to the store every single day and bring home only a bag or two of groceries?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Well, they're considered fast..
I blew off a built-up Chevelle like it was standing still, and we won't even go into the Mustangs.. I don't bother play with them, because it's not worth wasting the gas.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Well duh. I would swap all the engineering of driveshafts and constant velocity joints for increased unsprung mass any day. Put some balloon tires on to protect the motors and put up with the roll. Most drivers come to a virtual standstill to corner anyway, the racers like me will be laughing as we boing and slide around the bends.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
True. At least they left the rear wheels exposed unlike most of the earlier electric and hybrids. I'm sure it lowerd drag by some insignificant amount, but it's ugly and I can't imagine what changing a tire was like.
Maybe I should hug my 2nd gen RX-7 too?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
While it is possible over a 20 year period, you have to actually start mandating fuel efficiency standards to the point where people are buying efficient cars before the process even begins.
In Australia, it was made a requirement about two decades ago that all new cars run on Unleaded petrol (well, actually, Unleaded, LPG (Propane/Butane), Diesel, just about anything but Leaded). It took 17 years from the time they brought in the requirement before petrol stations stopped selling Super/Leaded.
Now, the US has had its CAFE standards for how long now? A quarter of a century or so?. And what, about a quarter to a third of the vehicles on the road are SUVs, right? And most of the rest are otherwise inefficient. Sounds pretty weak.
So basically, even if mass enlightenment occurred and every new car sold was a Prius, or even 1 in 2 cars, you're still looking at over a decade, perhaps two, before they outnumber other cars on teh road. And what are Prius sales now? A few percent of new car sales?
Also, what is the maximum output capacity of the factories that make Priuses? About what they are producing just now? I seem to recall there being a 9 month waiting list. Would it even be possible to ramp it up from that few percent to say 50% if mass enlightenment occurred?
It's all about where in the powerband that 20hp boost occurs.
If the 20hp is available (as it is in eletric motors) at the initial acceleration, that's the difference between 20hp at 0rpm vs 0hp at 0rpm.
But we shall see how the Hybrid Accord is received and if the Ricers have a field day with it's performance. Nothing is stopping them from plunking this IMA setup into a Civic!
GPL Deconstructed
I won't argue that we desparately need them, but we are definitely not pushing, more like a gentle, sporatic, resentful nudge. I'm not trying to sound paranoid (and not succeeding), but Big Oil and the Big Three don't want hydrocarbons to go away anytime soon, since it is death for Big Oil, and a big inconvience to the Big Three, since car costs can't go up too fast, and LiIon Bateries are expensive.
I read an article awhile back (a couple of months ago) about the Toyota people doing a motocross race treatment on a Prius. Once the thing is floored, the batteries last for about 2 miles, or one lap, then the thing relies on the wimpy gas engine alone. Hybreds will never be race cars, since they get their electric power from stopping, which one generally tries not to do in racing, and the batteries discharge when you accelerate, which you are always trying to do in racing.
You can get better mileage with the Prius because under ~35mph, it can only use the electric motor to move the auto instead of running the gasoline engine.
Say you just spent 50 gas units of energon to move the car, and you reclaimed 10 electric units of energon back from regenerative braking.
Moving the car next, you only need to expend 40 gas units of energon. The carry over of the 10 electric units of energon is where your mysterious 3rd source of energy is, compared to just the plain gas engine without regenerative braking.
This is ignoring how efficently the electric engine can convert the energons to motion compared to the gas engine.
Firstly, automotive engineers are paid to think about all possible cases, even ones that are unfavorable such as running out of gas or driving into a tree. Most engineers I know would consider it a design defect should a hybrid car refuse to turn on a gas motor when the batteries failed, reguardless of how likely that scenario is. But this is generally a moot point.
I think you misinterpreted my other statement. What I mean is that a significant amount of energy is spent fighting air resistance just to keep at the current speed. The faster you go, and the longer you maintain that speed, the more energy is spent moving air, which regenerative braking won't bring back. Regenerative braking only works on kinetic engergy that would otherwise be discarded. You might say that its about as useful as coasting to a stop, but does the job much quicker (and with a significant loss in efficinecy). There's also some minor gains from regenerating energy that came from regenerative braking already, but I can't tell if that's already factored into recovery statistics or not.
Of course, speed and accelleration will always play a significant factor in the performance of a system like this. My roommate was in shock over just how much more energy it would take to move their car up from 50 to 55 mph. I certainly wonder how the leadfooted driver would perform comparitively. After all, its not exactly going to help fuel efficiency in a normal car either.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I hate pollution more than the next guy, but you are wrong. It does not matter if you got 60 mog from being a hybrid or being an efficent regular gas car you produce the same amount of pollution.
Actually, that is not the case. The hybrid car will produce significantly less pollution than a conventional car even when they get the exact same MPG. This is because a conventional engine has to operate at many different speeds and loading to get the car moving and regulate its speed - a very inefficient way to do things as well as producing high emissions at low and high RPMs and at high loading. A hybrid engine runs constantly at its most efficient speed to charge batteries.
The scheme does indeed have drawbacks - like requiring a turbo/super-charger.
Where did you ever get the idea that diesel engines require turbochargers?
Already done my friend... Corvette with 6.2L diesel engine claimed to be getting 48 mpg.
http://www.thedieselpage.com/readers/vet.htm
My original question of 'mysterious energy sources' was rhetorical.
Beware blue cats moving at
I'm a Hybrid owner (Civic) and I just want a car that will get me around on as little gas as possible, looks good and has plenty of storage space. I don't normally care about how fast my car is able to go, but I always want to know that my car CAN get me somewhere fast if the need should arise. 130MPH is just a little over the top, but I've hit 90MPH before and I'm sure the car could handle another 10 which is more than enough speed for me.
They're now making diesel hybrids, anyway. As well as plug-in hybrids, allowing you to plug in and charge the battery overnight, which is not a big modification, and results in a car which can run almost always run on electric-only, for city use. Diesel hybrids can by modified to run on used kitchen grease, like the Google bus, so you'll get a used-kitchen-grease-hybrid-electric, which runs for nearly $0/mile, nearly no pollutants, and gets high mileage per gallon, to boot. I never had a car, at 38. At first for principle, but I really do prefer walking now, when possible. Living in in New York, or San Francisco, I used walk out of the subway and past the grocery anyway, and just buy whatever I wanted. Or just walk a block back and get it. Easier than driving, in fact! Here in Brazil, I do the same, but it's two blocks.
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The record means nothing to me, as there were so many things done to the Prius that it's not a Prius any more. Don't expect any Prius you buy to be capable of 210 km/h.
Is the Prius actually a hybrid car, anyway? Doesn't all the energy to drive it come from the petrol in the tank?
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Er, that's beside the point. All cars are penalized by red lights. Hybrids only less so. But we were talking about EPA tests that don't feature that kind of incessant stop-and-go; just as with any other car, a hybrid does best when it can keep moving continuously. And that is why real-world experience seldom matches the EPA numbers.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
That calculation leaves out several considerations, such as rolling resistance and drag during the acceleration. Empirically I'd say the Prius gets about 20 MPG during acceleration (as shown on the consumption display).
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
The conditions of a test are important. Some time back a rural artist developed some special engine modification that saved huge amounts of fuel, and was secretive about it in case someone would steal his idea. Eventually he let others look at it, and it certainly did save a lot of fuel - for an engine idling on a test bed under no load. It looked a lot like a spacer which allowed the fuel and air more time to mix before combustion, optimising the motor for low fuel consuption while idling. The moral of the story is the test has to match the conditions of operation - which often means under a variety of conditions.
A huge flywheel would work very well for incessant stop-and-go driving (tests in buses used in service have been promising), but once you get out on the highway it is just a lot of extra weight and space. The hybrid acts as an inefficient flywheel which takes up less space and is easier to control, as well as the transmission.