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Modded Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 MPG
artemis67 writes "Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel. Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car."
TFA talks about cars getting up to 250MPG, this dude has a car that gets around 80. Am I missing something, or do you have to overclock it to 7Ghz to get that kind of mileage?
thats some serious distance. how does it handle and take off? that is the main barrier stopping your average polluting american slob using them. that and price
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Plugging it in may seem to help, but you're still paying for the electricity. Electricity that's made in power plants burning fossil fuels, which are still polluting.
Build a better car that doesn't guzzle gas, and the oil industry will beat a path to your door, destroy the car, and kill you. Adios, Dude!
How ya like dat?
No where in the article does it state that he actually got 250MPG. It only alludes to the fact that "modders" can. What an awful skew of the facts.
HJ
This is a very cool mod, but with the turnaround time in the auto industry and the legal costs that acquiring the rights to use the guy's idea would entail, it may be decades before you see this in new hybrids...
-nick
I prefer the Quicktime format, myself.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
By this reasoning, I could build a car that has a little 1 horse power engine and a big bank of batteries which are charged by plugging it in at night. I could claim 1000 mpg, but that doesn't actually mean that my car is more efficient than any other car.
I agree that this may be useful, sort of more of a middle-ground between hybrids and electric cars, but really they should stop making mpg claims.
Although it gets 250 MPG, that's for the first 20 miles (in the case of Grebman). So he's only getting that killer mileage for short trips, and he's got to recharge in between trips.
It is not as if he's got something that gives him great mpg all the time.
But as the article points out, some have driving patterns like that.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Kind of bends the definition of "hybrid" a bit, at least as it's commonly used today in the commercial auto market.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
EDrive is the company making the LiIon plug-in Prius conversions.
Link
It's funny how that pesky electric car just won't die. Maybe because it really is a good solution for the majority of one's commuting. This one may still have an ICE in it, but it's only a matter of time before that is dispensed with.
And don't even talk about those "fool cells". Like nuclear fusion, fuel cell cars will always be 10 years away.
Not everyone that likes fast cars is a polluting slob.
I like the environment and do my best to contribute to it's preservation, but please don't ask me to drive an 18 sec pussymobile.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
He has a windmill mounted on the hood with a generator to charge the batteries. The batteries are made from lemons.
Modified Prius gets up to 180 Miles Per Gallon
The interesting thing about the new article is that there evidently now a company that will take your Prius, plus $12,000, and convert it into an all-electric car.
VW is selling 84 MPG vehicles since '99 http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/marev iew/mauto497.htm
The problem is not really making a high MPG car, it is that people, especially in the US, don't want to buy them. Not even the best technology can make an energy efficient car handle like a porsche or sound like a truck.
Where does he get the electricity to power the batteries?
Fairies?
Nevermind the fact that I could mod a Chevette to get 250 mpg as well, were I willing to make the compromises to do so.
It's all about compromises, not milage.
KFG
With the cost of oil rising, many Americans recently polled said that the price of gas is already or soon will cause them financial difficulties. I happen to be one of those people who has the unfortunate situation of driving 3000 miles per month to get back and forth from work. Even at 30MPG, that's 100 gallons x $2.50. $250 a month. Recently we were thinking about buying a new car to cut down on our gas bill, and found that there are very few choices when you want to get 45 MPG or better. In fact, there were a total of 3 cars, none of which appealed to us. 30 MPG is about the best you can get for a normal looking car in the $15,000 range. As more and more consumers begin to feel the crunch from rising gas prices, you will see demand skyrocket for vehicles that can go further on less. I expect guys like the one in this article have a great future ahead of them. The idiots who designed the Hummer H2, however, not so good.
LeoPolus Web Design: http://www.leopolus.com
Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away.
This is TOTAL bullshit. They could make something now, but they don't want to get their asses in gear to "capture" the new markets. They just stand to make more money the way things are now, which is doing nothing.
If one of them actually started doing it on a full-scale basis, you'd see everyone else jump into as well for fear of losing market share. Period.
I've built electric cars. (college solar car team).
... but he gets power from the wall, which had to come from somewhere.
This car does not get 80 mpg. It uses 1 gallon of gas for every 80 miles it travels
Although large power plants may be able to make electricity more efficiently, he has to deal with transmission losses, and then storage losses from the inefficiency of battery storage. And he has the extra weight of 18 more batteries.
The only advantage wall-plugs do on electric vehicles is move where they're poluting -- it moves to the power plant, instead of the point of use.
Billing any of these cars as '250mpg' unless gallons of gasoline is the only input to the system is a disservice to everyone.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Don't you know? Battery power is free -- get with it ok? Hydrogen too. Perfectly clean.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I suspect - but have no proof - that the plug in option reduces some of the pollution per mile. The reason why I suspect this is that you have reduced the engine size and carry less of your fuel (part of which is at the power plant) Additionally the power plant should be able to run cleaner per Watt produced - they should have better polution reduction equipment.
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no, it won't run OSX86 ... but it will run on 76
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
But I made the mistake of trying to patent my special water conversion carburator so a mole in the patent office turned me in.
I'm now in the Ford "dungeon" right now...I just got this 300 baud modem hacked up from paper clips and mouse droppings and the first site I got to was this "Slashdot"
Hey how are you all doing.... Frist Post?
I have heard all of my life of oil companies buying the rights to stuff like this to keep it off the market. I wonder if an "open source" type of atmosphere for inventions like this will help them actually see light of day? It is interesting to see things big money can't control.
It seems to me that if we had a choice between a car that never needed refueling and a car that used substance X, which just happened to be sold at the place that used to sell gas, the powers that be would push the latter, just because there needs to be these stores on the corner that sell something to make cars go. That's the way it has always been done, right?
Maybe someone will come up with MP3s for auto fuel and upset the way things are done. That's what needs to be done because the corps are only going to push technologies that have reoccurring revenue that benefits the system they thrive on.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
http://www.e-traction.com/TheWheel.htm
Put the motor in the hub. No drive train! AWD!
All I need is some big bucks to get a welding torch and put 4 in some old jalopy. (And some batteries..)
Anyone know what these things go for? They can use a lot of juice and put out a lot of power.
Cheers!
-b
You can make a hummer get better than 80 mpg. Not too far from my house is a hummer that gets better than 80 mpg, but it's also a hybrid.
It's a combination diesel-continental drift vehicle, and they fire it up maybe once in 10000 years.
Of course, if they power it up and use the vehicle to drive down the street, it's back down to 6 mpg.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The inevitable smart-ass question of "Oh, but that electricity has to come from somewhere!!".
Consider this:
Energy content of gasoline: ~45 MJ/kg
Density of gasoline: 737 kg/m3
1 cubic meter = 264.172051 gallons, equals 2.79 MJ/gallon.
Now 1 kWh is exactly 3.6 MJ. Electricity costs (let's exaggerate) 30 cents per kWh.
What do you pay for gas?
Now add to that the facts that:
1) It is easier to clean up a handfull of power-plants than a millions cars distributed over the whole country.
2) Electricity doesn't have to come from fossil fuel sources
3) Even if it does, power plants still produce energy more efficiently than an automobile engine.
This guy should build mod kits for cars to increase oil usage. Even with the expense, *someone* would by them and with volume would come reduced cost.
No, it won't run x86, but at least this article was
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
Bullshit.
In the article it doesn't show you the price (only alludes to the cost of the hybrid hardware inside it).
Hybrid cars are expensive and inconvient in areas that don't give you the ablity to easily recharge your battery.
This has nothing to do with the US either, so stop your bullshit America bashing. Does Europe suddenly only use hybrid cars?
You know, the suspension and the exhaust noise aren't really the reason that people turn away from energy efficient automobiles. It's the power
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
If these things catch on, people will start wanting to buy 100% electric cars that don't use any gasoline, and then what will our oil companies do???
-----------
mobile search - try it on your phone
Reporters trying to reach Ron Gremban for comment have had no success. Immediate family members report that Ron Gremban was last seen shortly after his comments and his family is concerned with his sudden dissapearance.
Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries.
And as the average American wants a big SUV and certainly isn't going to accept downgrading to something the size of a Prius and losing all of their trunk space to 18 brick sized batteries, it looks like the politicians and auto makers are correct.
In 1904 or whenever it was, two guys managed to invent a plane that, yes, technically could fly. A full hundred years later, why don't we all have our own planes or flying cars? Because, for the average person, they're totally impractical - they simply cost too much and have too many trade-offs for the benefits gained.
A Prius stacked full of batteries with no trunk space is exactly the same: Sure, you can do it. But that doesn't mean everyone in America is going to rush out and get one.
The theory is that it'll take years or decades to reach the point where it is practical for the masses. And that theory remains true.
I can get 250MPG.
Shift into neutral, and find a 250 mile stretch of downhill....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
What about the batteries? Aren't most batteries toxic as hell? Isn't the manufacture and disposal of batteries a colossal headache? Am I really doing anything productive at all, trading a few gallons of Saudi crude for a lithium/ion toxic waste site? Somebody, please, set me straight. What do they do with the batteries?
Oh, and what if you live in a place with real winters? Last I heard, batteries die a quick and silent death in subzero conditions.
... I love the prius, could have bought one, but I didn't want to add up anymore debt nor raid my savings account to own it outright. This isn't to say I think it's a rip, far from it, really love those cars. BUT...
You can pick up an early 90s sentra for around 1500 bucks in decent condition and for about 400 bucks in after market parts, get it to 40mpg. I did just that. Just posting this because I know other people probably don't have the money, don't want the debt, or like me simply can't bring themselves to spend that much on a depreciating assett(aka, I'm a cheap bastard).
this topic had been covered on slashdot previously. Its a major wonder how news sites ever stay in buisness when the stories are old.
Also, anyone who has seriously looked into electric vehicles (EV's) will note that in spite of the success of well built electric vehicles (GM EV1 and the electric Ford Ranger), the automakers are resistant to the idea of selling electric vehicles. When the contracts for the EV1 were complete, GM scrapped the vehicles. Many EV modles have suffered this fate. A few more recent success stories like the Ford Ranger EV have popped up. After intense ralleying by vehicle owners, Ford gave in and sold off their small fleet of Ranger EV's.
sorry, i'm ranting again. Yes, an electric car isn't for everyone. However, take a look at some electric vehicle conversions and what owners have to say before making up your mind.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
As someone else said, plugging it in doesn't count. That electricity may or may not come from environmentally friendly sources. Most likely, environmentally hostile sources like coal.
Furthermore, there's a lot more to it than simply sticking a bunch of batteries in the trunk. Some consumers use their trunks. Why do you think they put them in cars? Because they just happen to have a lot of extra room when they're done building the car?
Also, by adding all that weight, you're changing the dynamics of the car. For a dealer to sell a car modified like that, it now needs to go through safety tests.
There are a lot of people that think, "Oh geez, all the car manufacturers need to do is XYZ and we won't need gas anymore." I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a lot more complex a problem than most people make it out to be. You have to build a car that's safe and a car consumers want to buy. Those aren't always easy things to accomplish when the source of power isn't in question. When you're trying a new source of power, it's a big additional question.
Sure, everyone could rely on hydrogen, except we don't have enough hydrogen fuel pumps yet. Not to mention, hydrogen is pretty expensive to produce right now and certainly there isn't infrastructure to produce it in the quantities necessary for a mass market.
It's not a simple problem and there isn't a simple solution.
Most major metropolitan areas have light rail systems, trains that are powered from overhead electric lines. Many of them probably also have a similar system for buses (San Fran does).
So here's a question...why not rig a contraption like in Back to the Future to hook into the power and then have "zero emmission" vehicles today?
Adding overhead powerline infrastructure would cost very little, given that virtually every street in the US is lined with power poles. IT would be a simple matter to put out some rails and run an line for buses and electric cars.
The only thing that stopped this from happening before was the lack of electric cars. Buses are built in large quantities to order for cities, and unless a good percentage of consumers would be willing to do the same, there would be no way to make the infrastructure costs worthwhile.
BUT...now we have a large and growing segment of the population driving electric cars. Hybrid cars are electric, even if they have a gas engine to power their electric motors.
So, why not figure out a way to make some kind of retractable antenna like a bumper car that can feed off existing light rail or bus power, then the need for gas is essentially only for country driving where infrastructure would cost to much.
Of course, who pays for power? The cities should. intially. That will help speed adoption the same way tax breaks and other financial incentives work. I see a lot of places that offer free or low-cost charging ports to encourage people to drive electric cars. Down the road, when the amount of vehicles using the power starts to add up, introduce some kind of "power meter" and bill and a very reasonable rate.
Also, for all of those who complain that cars that are powered off the electric grid are producing just as much of an emmissions problem as gas powered cars...that may be true now, but think about the future: which will be easier to police and regulate: a handful of large power plants or a million vehicles. I would much rather have every car in America sucking off the power grid, even if that means more coal and yes oil being burned to fill demand. Because after the cars are gone, then all eyes will be on the power companies and there's a lot few of them and they are a lot easier to bully than millions of angry drivers.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
This was on fark at about 6:00 AM SATURDAY.
So it's not news, it's FARK'S.
"Even if it does, power plants still produce energy more efficiently than an automobile engine."
Everything except natural gas (which is running out and expensive) is stuck below about 35% efficient. Coal power plants a bit more efficient than an engine, but once you factor in transmission losses and storage losses it doesn't really look that good. That, and coal is a very dirty source of power (eg it releases lots of particulates some of them radioactive). The only viable large scale alternative is nuclear, and it's not exactly cheap.
Also, the transmission infrastructure can't take a significant number of people doing this.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
1 cubic meter = 264.17 gallons = 2.79 Kg or
125.5 MJ/gallon.
Just a *minor* math mistake, so 1 gallon is equal
to 34.7 kwh, so at 10cents/kwh that is $3.47,
which makes it about the same price as gasoline, when you remove the taxes from the gas and count
the inefficiency of a gas engine.
Let me tell you a secret, since you appear not to have travelled. In other countries, people drive much smaller cars than in the US. I thought the fact that USians like big cars was a given.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
30mpg in town, and 41 on the interstate.
An RV posted for sale on the bulletin board at work gets 2.5 miles per gallon. Also posted are lots of SUV's that get 10-12mpg in town and 18-20mpg on the interstate. That's why folks are dumping those gas hogs.
BUT, as the price of gasoline crosses $3.50 to 4.00/gal even my car will be too expensive to drive. I believe $3/gal will arrive before Christmas, and $4/gal by the next Christmas, if not sooner. Luckily, work is only 3.7 miles away and I have a nice bike.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
The main point is to get rid of the dependency of oil. Hybrids is a step in the right direction, and hopefully hydrogen cars will become reality in the future, so that hybrids can be replaced.
Assuming I had one of these cars, where would I plug it in? I park my car in a parking lot, not a private garage attached to a single-family house.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
let's hope you never intend to go back where you came from...
Electricity will be next to free within the next 10-30 years: Technological breakthrough article just a few days ago.
I'm suprised people aren't excited about this as I am. Solar panels never took off because the energy they produced didn't cover costs. This is more efficient and cheaper. They'll make money off their solar farms, then reinvest the money to create more solar farms, which allows them to reinvest even more money on even more solar farms. Its a cyclical process where somepeople are going to end up being in the top 100 richest people in the world. I'm so excited that I applied to their company and I'm trying to prototype out my own sterling engines. I figure that even if I can't be employed by them, nothing will stop me from running my own buisness.
God spoke to me.
Now is a good time to mention nuclear and solar power (solar power doesn't have to come from solar panels). And now come the "OMGZ NUKULAR POWER IS TEH EVULH!!!1121eleventyone" trolls.
Hmm.. Your math is wrong. Assuming your numbers are correct:
45 MJ * 737 kg / 254 gals = 125 MJ per gallon
125 MJ per gallon = 34 kWh per gallon
fuel economy is all well and fine.
just lemme know when they can pass bicycles on the road.We need some ft/lbs of torque here.
how bout them horses?
how bout a car people will WANT to drive on the highway? with accelleration and everything?like bigger than a breadbox so it can be seen by tractor trailer drivers.
good job on hacking the mileage tho.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Well Biodiesel, and any other concept we've came up with basically moves the problem around. "Bio" anything has to be grown, and that takes energy (not just sun energy either) and space. We can make it more or less efficient in terms of say using what ordinally would be either waste, or simply not very usable in it's present form. E.g alge farms feasting on waste, producing a light oil as a byproduct. There's the infrastructure, pumps, valves, energy to process into a usable form, etc, etc. In short there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Last I checked hybrid cars had a BIG drawback . That is that the batteries cost more to replace than the car is worth and in disposing of them you have created more permanent pollution than otherwise would have occured with gasoline . Also purely electric cars don't "ELIMINATE" pollution . They just outsource it . I hope all the eco awareness groups feel happy knowing that instead of burning that icky evil polluting gasoline they are instead charging their cars with "clean" electricity . I might add that close to 90% of all the electricity in the US is generated by burning fossil fuel and coal . This process is just a TAD dirtier than running your car on premium unleaded (sarcasm ) . We of course live in a "see no evil hear no evil " society . If you can't see that power plant putting all those extra cubic tons of greenhouse gases and carcinogens into the air then it doesn't exist . Oh now lets get to my favorite part . Does anyone here have any idea what this kind of run up on battery production will do to the enviroment ? No ? Well let me tell you that producing all those lead / cadium batteries is EXTREMELY toxic and we can expect the toxic waste output of those factories to rise exponetially . SO in essence instead of us filling up at the pump with fossil fuel the power plants will need it instead . Also now the battery manufacturers will be generating more toxic waste . Oh an lets not forget that some of these "eco-friendly" vehicles have a life spand that ends with the lease . Imagine that , A whole car you can just throw away . So basically america just wants to not see the pollution . Maybe our next plan should be to buy another un-popular country and turn it into our garbage dump .
And that doesn't produce pollution.
Sounds as if you didn't bother to read the article. Most of the issues you insinuate about are covered. Yes it's a trade off, but still to our advantage. [Everything but the battery replacement is discussed and this is not big an issue.]
The options are very much higher gasoline prices, and more wars. The next ones will require more bodies and cash from somewhere. Hence, are you of draft age? Are you ready to be part of our next noble adventures? Or do you have better things to do like talk politics, drive extravagent cars and chase the "good" life? Sounds nice, but there will be hell to pay for those outrageous indulgences.
Pay now or pay even more later.
I'm not sure where the problem is, but these two sources give the heat energy content of gasoline to be between 33 and 45 kWh per gallon.
The problem with batteries is that it takes roughly a thousand pounds of lead acid batteries to store the energy of one gallon of gasoline. More exotic batteries will only give incremental gains in storage capacity. Battery cars are a loser for all but the shortest trips.
It's not really the electricity that is the problem as others have just pointed out. The real problem is that batteries are a pretty nasty thing to dispose of. That needs to be factored in.
Ask for a refund on your high school education, as they failed to deliver.
737 kg/m3 divided by 264.17 is the number of kilograms per gallon of gasoline. Multiplying the 2.79kg that a gallon of gasoline weighs by the net energy content of 44 MJ/kg gives you 122 MJ per gallon of gasoline, or the equivalent of 34 kWh of electricity.
I pay about USD 20 cents per kWh of electricity with tax, so the electrical equivalent for a gallon of gasoline would be about USD 6.80. Or, I can buy gasoline at about USD 2.15.
The more interesting question is: For each of those joules combusted in the engine, how many of them make it to the rubber/road interface (according to one FAQ about 0.2) and for each of the joules my ersatz-electric car pulls out of the wall socket, how many of THEM make it into the rubber/road interface (according to another FAQ about 0.6). Of course regen braking lets me use some of those joules over and over again, how much of which is highly dependent on driving conditions.
So, it turns out that the utility-electric-sourced car is about $11.30 per mega-newton-meter/second at the road surface, while the gasoline car is at about $10.75 - although it would not take very much regeneration at ALL to push that to the other side of the equation.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
It only works when you get your power from non-renewable sources. If he also buys green power from his utility, he is indeed reducing pollution.
If they had hybrids that can store more electrical energy, and they can just be charged while they sit in the garage all night and be good for the next morning, I think that will be a 'good thing'.
"Electricity will be next to free within the next 10-30 years"
That's the funniest thing I've ever heard.
I'd like to say it's also the stupidest, but unfortunately you have some rather stiff competition on that front. Keep trying though.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Another way of saving gas with a hybrid is using the pulse and glide method. Not always practical (especially for a full freeway) but it shows that when you are able to change your driving style you may be able to save a few extra bucks.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
However some hybrid models take that battery power and add it to the gas power that is produced to give an increase in horsepower. No gas is saved, but you get a faster more peppy vehicle.
They even make a kick advertising it (as opposed to coal power generation). France comes to mind. So at 75%+ electricity generation is CERTAINLY less polluting if you count only ground+air type pollution. Even comparing radioactive pollution only it might win anyway (it is concentrated pollution in the case of a nuclear plant and not released widespread over earth, although it says there for a great deal longer time whereas other method like coal release a bit of radioactive element in atmosphere. A little bit albeit by the sheer tonnage of burned coal the little big get big...). In such country the vehicule shown is LESS polluting than your average car.
But then again this always comes down to the US not wanting to go away from their oil policy, isn't it ? By the way did you know than exxon announced the peak of oil for non-opec oil (60% world crude production)in 5 years ? This time this is not an ecological kook which announced it, but an oil company. Funny that nobody is reporting it that much in the press...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
hydrogen is not an alternative fuel.. it takes more energy to create hydrogen than you would gain from it's use in combustion engines.. often this is done with electricity.. which requires coal. Hemp, however, can be processed to produce 50% of it's mass in fuel. Maybe when the nation starts to plummet off the cliff of destitution because there is no oil, the politicians will FINALLY reclassify industrial hemp so it's not illegal.
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My Personal issue - is that most of the reviews of plugin hybrids state that you hve to use electricity coming from dirty power stations that still cause polution. I know in Aus that we have a choice where our power comes from - it just might cost a little more to get 100% green power. I think this is an important point that nobody seems to look at. just my 2c
Good luck on your inventing. I think I could make automotive AC that ran off the transmissions waste heat with a couple of stirling engines. Another thing I'll never get done.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Your calculations seem off.
That final figure of 34 kWh/gallon sounds about right, from memory.
Also electricity is rarely as expensive as 30c per kWh. It's closer to 10c (US) where I live.
Your argument is still correct. Electricity is far cheaper than gasoline to move a car, when all is considered.
2) Electricity doesn't have to come from fossil fuel sources
But the total energy consumed remains, at best, constant; and at the current demands for electricity we are already depending upon foreign oil and other fossil fuels to supply it.
I am pro electric car, but they are not a panacea.
KFG
You will notice that scooters, mopeds, and motorbikes are becoming popular too. The simple fact is that the only thing that most people haul around most of the time is themselves. Even obese America doesn't need an SUV to move that. :)
"BUT, as the price of gasoline crosses $3.50 to 4.00/gal even my car will be too expensive to drive."
Don't forget high gas prices will affect everybody. Even city buses will have to pay more. And even the cost of asphalt will go up (a byproduct of oil processing)
---
He, he. The "are you a script" word for today is regular. Tomorrows will be premium, and Mondays will be unleaded.
It's 6,08$ per gallon, stop complaining :)
"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight
<ghetto>Oh no, she di'un!</ghetto>
I'm sorry. But, "bling-bling" is not the phrase that comes to mind when I think of old school muscle cars.
"Nuclear might not be exaclty cheap but it is cheap enough for the French to build it and even export. Germany, where environmental freaks lobbied against nuclear power plants years ago, now import a lot of their power from France. I think storing nuclear waste in a mountain in Nevada is worth cutting down on the emissions and also on dependency on foreign oil, if according to many it slows down the melting of the ice caps - even better."
I'm not saying it's impractical (clearly that's not the case), just that it's more expensive than coal, and for the purposes of the US we can pretty much assume it's coal. Ultimately nuclear power will be the way to go. It's the only thing that can scale as high as we care to take it and last indeffinitely. I think the future of portable power will be dominated by hydrogen or hydrocarbons produced in nuclear power plants.
This is just getting started. For example, Exxon recently announced that natural gas production in North America has peaked. The tar sands in Alberta rely on natural gas to provide additional hydrogen (the existing hydrocarbons are too heavy), so various companies are looking at producing hydrogen in nuclear reactors so they can continue production as natural gas gets more expensive.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Why do no manufacturers offer nice cars with even near the above mpg rates?
Unlike the car in the article, this one doesn't need to be plugged into a battery charger, and it can refill at any diesel pump.
t m
It's not available for purchase, but it could be produced with existing technology, and if demand is sufficient, perhaps it will
be. Back in the 50s, the Isetta, FIAT 500, Kabinenroller, etc. used similar design to achieve fuel economy that made today's vehicles look like the obscene jokes they are.
http://www.seriouswheels.com/top-vw-1-liter-car.h
Electricity will be free
Please look up the term "capital costs", "amortize", "infrastructure", and "maintenance" before you comment on power ever again.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
The 1950's called, they want their delusions back.
More importantly, the 1960's-1980's called and want to know where the hell their cheap power is.
English is easier said than done.
Say if it costs more/less then $1 one of us performs a humorous forfit and posts pictures (I'll take >$1 in expendable supplies and electricity at $.12/KWh). Feel free to suggest other terms.
I just realized I suggested a 'gentleman's wager' on slashdot...to an AC...Doh!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A Honda civic can haul around a family of four, which is stil average, and the hatchback had at least as much room as the midsize SUV. Of couse the kids were not obese, and one had to have the physical fitness to get into the car. The SUV is ideal for the obese diabetic 12 year old who cannot seem to fit in a normal size vehicle.
Even now a mercedes E class can get almost 30 miles highway, which is twice as much a the midsize SUV, and has much more practical storage room than the small SUV that gets equal miliage.
The reason we are in the fix with oil is because the politicians and automakers found that selling big cars was the only way to compete, and once again brain washed the Americans into thinking that the US was so dangerous they needed the big cars. This conspiracy started when the politicians allowed the automakers to exempt large trucks from the rules, and continued as the politicains failed to close the loop hole that forces the average american taxpayer to subsidize 40% of the rich republicans bling ride.
I have a car that I run on 100% bio-diesel. No conversion necessary. No foreign oil needed. Bio-diesel and regular diesel can be mixed so you can use the existing infrastructure to distribute. Only issue is that very old diesels may have natural rubber components in the fuel line that will have to be replaced. Plus bio-diesel produces very little pollution. Last time I bought it I payed $2.40 a gallon.
Outside of stunts like recharging the battery from the wall and claiming this improves the gas mileage, what is the advantage of a hybrid over a normal internal combustion engine? If you don't introduce external electrical energy, the electric battery and motor are only a storage device. All the energy is ultimately derived from gasoline. So how does the electic motor improve the energy efficiency of the internal combustion engine?7 6015
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Valve-timing_20_22t hrottle_22
One of the main real benefits of hybrid cars in freeway driving is that they have reduced throttle losses.
Honda has designed an engine which cleverly reduces throttle losses in a much less expensive way.
http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=3
It's pretty easy to correct this article title:
Modded Hybrid Cars Get 250 Miles Per Gallon of Gasoline and Twenty Pounds of Coal
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
Cost is a relative term. If your energy costs are infinite, the cost of batteries is minuscule in comparison. These days we got used to the mentality that energy is dirt cheap, and the only cost is labor, human involvement, and the money spent on sales and promotion and R&D. A new reality is coming, where energy in itself will be worth something, unless we find a way to cheap energy, by, say, the guys playing at Cadarache get fusion to work somehow, and then we can go back to this idillic world where the cost of a product is the cost of the sales effort invested into it, because making it was dirt cheap, the robots worked for free. 80% retail markup? Try 99.98 to 99.99% markup. But ONLY if we find cheap energy.
...it's not worth it. You can get a non hybrid Civic for $14k that gets 32/38 milage. The hybrid Civic runs $6k more but gets 10mpg more. How many years does it take you to break even on the gas costs?
Without even doing any calculations, your result is obviously wrong.
First, if gasoline contains 45 MJ/kg then you would expect a gallon to contain MORE than 45 MJ, not LESS.
Second, if electric cars were really that cheap to run, you would expect them to be common. How many people do you know that have one?
If you work in science or engineering you should get in the habit of checking your results for plausibility. Every time.
-- Anonymous Pedant
I know there are tax deductions and such for hybrid cars. I think I can understand why the politicians want Hydrogen. By looking at this page: http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp these taxes are used for budgeting everything from road contruction to new projects. The politicians are worried where their sweet money is going to go if this caught on TOO FAST! They would have to get the money from somewhere else and this would mean increasing taxes to compensate the reduction of gas taxes. And Raising taxes does not get one re-elected! By having Hydrogen cars and refueling stations, they can still charge taxes on the refill and keep their current tax structure. This is the new age, you can never rely on only one thing such as this tax to keep everything balanced!
"Also, you were talking about `pollution per unit of energy' not efficiency, though in practice I suspect the two are just different ways of looking at the same thing -- after all, power plants will burn a given fuel in the same way that a car engine will, so the waste products will be the same. The power plant may be somewhat better maintained, however, and can have more things similar to a catalytic converters on a car."
Depends on the plant. A modern fluidic bed coal plant will burn a bit better than a car engine (suck-squeeze-bang-blow). A natural gas plant will do even better (gas turbines remember). Nuclear about the same to a bit better. And last a lot of plants aren't out in the middle of nowere. The city I'm in has one coal plant right next to downtown*, and the other is just outside city limits.
*Maybe years ago it would have been.
I have heard all my life of oil companies buying the rights to stuff like this
Is that before or after they murder the inventors and bribe politicians to keep the amazing world-changing secrets under wraps? After all, I'm applying for an "oil company hired gun" position, and want to know the process works.
I mean, after all, everyone knows that there are huge patent portfolios of incredible efficieny technology out there under oil industry control preventing hard working Americans from seing low costs and great efficiency. Hmm, perhaps I'd be better for the "USPTO-hacking-and-record-deleting" position that they're advertizing.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
http://www.theaircar.com/
Ofcourse, US has a president fighting for oil. Why would he help hybrid car market to grow. Hybrid cars are not expensive because of manufacturing alone. If more people buy it, it mitigates the production cost. Simple macroeconomics 101.
The major environmental problem with electric vehicles isn't that electricity isn't necessarily cleaner, but that battery technology isn't there yet.
So while an electric car will likely run more efficiently and may generate less pollution (certainly less pollution where it's being operated, if not less when the electricity source is factored in), those huge banks of batteries will eventually need to be disposed of, resulting in a massive amount of toxic heavy metals to deal with.
Until battery technology can improve, or we develop a mass market system of recycling all those massive batteries, we might need to keep looking at alternatives to battery operated electric vehicles.
Once environmentalism embraces nuclear power, perhaps electric vehicles might become a real factor in clean transportation.
I don't know that this is all that profitable a mod. Sure you don't spend a lot on gas, but you've just up-fronted a crapload of moolah to get there. How long until it pays for itself?
Let's say the car is 5 times more efficient on gas (250:50 is about right). So for every 1 gallon run though this super-hybrid, you would have run 5 through the stock Prius. $3000 = roughly 1200 gallons at $2.50/gallon, which is roughly what gas costs at the moment.
At 50 stock miles/gallon, you get 60,000 miles for 1200 gallons of gas. So, in 60,000 stock miles, you'll have caught up in gas savings with what you've spent in batteries. Which is only about half the useful life of the car... but this doesn't take into account the finite lifespan of the batteries, which will probably need to be reconditioned or replaced every 4-5 years. Assuming normal driving habits of 10-15,000 miles per year, you might get 60,000 miles out of those batteries, but you might come up 20,000 miles short.
And the fuel economy advantage of hybrid cars is at its best if you are running a lot of short trips in city traffic, which is not the way to put on a lot of miles on the car. People who drive 20,000 mi+ per year tend to put in a very large proportion of those miles on the highway. But driving fewer miles is the BEST way to conserve energy there is, so driving more is actually counter-productive.
All in all, it's not a very good trade-off just yet. But, if gasoline keeps getting more expensive, the picture starts looking rosier. If we see sustained gas prices of $3-$4/gallon, this guy will be saving a lot of money, especially if he doesn't drive all that much.
But if the entire car is filled with batteries, how useful is it as a vehicle for taking you AND cargo?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Saying these cars get 250 MPG is like saying a car towed to the top of a mountain and released is able to travel for miles without burning a drop of fuel.
Charging the batteries is the equivalent of hauling the car up a large hill. You've raised the potential energy of the system. No big secret there. To claim you are getting more MPG is disingenuous at best, and outright fraud at worst.
What I'd like to know is what would the fuel economy of this vehicle be if he stopped playing his parlor tricks. With all that extra weight, he is probably seriously decreasing the true fuel economy of the vehicle. He claims he still gets the Prius average of 45 MPG when the added charge runs out. Has he run the vehicle without the nightly top ups in order to show this, or is he just guessing?
I'd like to point out that my Jetta TDI averages 45 MPG without fancy batteries, and more importantly gets 50 MPG at full highway speeds, ie 65-75 MPH. Additionally, I've run it without fossil fuel at all. Has our intrepid experimenter run his vehicle more than 300 miles in a day without a drop of fossil fuel? I think not.
Yes, there is a use for plug-in hybrids, but let's not resort to hyperbole to promote them.
Hey, jerk. The referenced article names a diesel engine, not a hybrid. And it does give a price, $17,000.
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The financial times had an article on fuel cells where it claimed that the estimated reserves of Platinum ( an essential fuel cell catalyst ) would last a decade - so fuel cells are completely stupid and unsustainable.
The FT man - money paper don't lie.
And there is only so much hydroelectric power to go around. Out of the total US energy consumption, 2.6% is generated by hydroelectric. You can bet most places that are feasible, are already dammed, all around the world. We could dam the Grand Canyon for another 0.0001%. Also, damming does have its environmental drawbacks, even if it doesn't fall into the pollution category. Even nukular energy provides the US 8% of its energy needs, but the rest, well, the remaining 90% is all fossil. Kyoto treaty anyone? Yeah, way to undermine our comfort, our American way of life, and our 8 mpg Hummers. Other nations of Earth, you don't understand, I NEEED that Hummer, otherwise what will my neighbour think of me, how would I compensate for my small penis size??
In addition to the previous replies mentioning that alternative or more efficient power sources can be used to produce electricity...
If you start using electricity from the grid for short range driving, and gasoline only for longer range driving, you're going to open up a lot of possibilities. A small LP or ethanol or hydrogen or who knows what future engine would make their use more economical. Sure, you might not be the most powerful vehicle, but you'll get where you need. Hell, if I got 250mpg, I wouldn't care if I was paying 10 bucks a gallon for fuel. At least if the initial car cost was about the same, that is.
I wish my university was cool enough to do something like this when I was there. /electrical engineer
My solution is to put everyone on motorcycles.
70-80mpg+ and decent accelleration. Plus the more SUVs you replace with Motorcycles the safer for everybody.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Wht leads you to believe producing electricity from coal is dirty than producing gasoline from oil and then burning it cars - which by the way spew out their pollution in the middle of population centers instead of away from highly populated areas like power plants.
People arguing semantics on the whole "where does the energy come from?!?!LOloLo!!" are complete jackasses. Doesnt matter where the energy came from as long as it is providing clean power.
People fail to realize that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only converted.
The same idiots argue that having batteries in your trunk automatically were made by some "dirty" power source is causing just as much harm. Im guessing the ratio of cars to power plants in the US is around 1:7500000
Hybrid cars are a GREAT way to reduce pollution.
Maybe our next plan should be to buy another un-popular country and turn it into our garbage dump .
If Canada doesn't want in, we can always use one of the CAFTA countries.
Note that the car that got 250MPG was using Lithium-Ion batteries. I am not sure about clean-up differences between them and regular car batteries. I just know they're a bit more expensive than $3k
Some people want to modify their engines so that they burn the maximum amount of fuel possible in between eight and nine seconds...
Others want a vehicle that can make routine 3,000 mile trips.
Others want something practical for shopping and driving to an office job. Still others need a vehicle that can move a payload.
I'm really interested in the hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles. Haven't seen one yet that can take 8 adults and 400kg of gear from Tucson to Vancouver. Maybe that's a boundary case of requirements, but it doesn't seem uncommon in my world.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The 2004/2005 Toyota Prius is a mid-sized car and is _surprisingly_ large inside, seating 5 adults reasonably comfortably. We typically get 45-50 mpg, but the acceleration is good and the emissions are very low.
The hype about hybrids may be overblown, but in an apples-to-apples comparison, hybrid engines are seemingly better.
Just make the north half of the country uphill from east to west and the south half of the country downhill from east to west.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
When are these "environmentalists" going to realize that electricity costs money and isn't made from pixie dust? Charging batteries to make a car run used to work out to well over $3/gallon gasoline equivalent.
According to the DOE, in May of 2005 314.8 terawatthours of electricity was generated. Of this 50.7% came from coal, 19.9% came from nuclear, 16.4% came from natural gas, and 2.5% came from petroleum. So, I doubt this car is helping the environment.
Also, changing the definition of "MPG" is not the solution, either. When are the dumb-ass reporters going to realize that?
You do realize that that hybrid cars do not need to be recharged from an external source. They run on normal gasoline. And this certainly is an issue to do with the US. Your guys gasoline is artificially cheap due to government subsidizing ($3 a gallon is about 96 cents a litre in canada which is not cheap but it's not considered ridiculously expensive).
Third time in this article I've seen someone make this mistake. It's an epidemic.
The gasoline powered car is only 25% efficient so although you pay $2.15/gallon you only use a quarter of the energy. Electric motors are very efficient so you don't need 1:1 energy equivalent with gasoline. The "electrical equivalent for a gallon of gasoline" is actually closer to $1.50, using your figures.
Just like whatthe railroad industry did when they were threatened with new technology? And the harness and sattlemakers with the advent of the automobile? Please remove your tinfoil hat. And chew on it.
My blog
Plug in hybrids won't be a solution until the power grid isn't dependent on environmentally unsustainable power sources. Plug into solar/wind/etc yes, but plug into Coal/etc, nope.
"The reason the ICE efficiency is so low is that there is considerable wasted energy in the form of heat. A power plant burns fuel to boil water to drive a turbine, so heat is in fact desirable."
Not quite. A power plant obviously depends on a high temperature on the working side(2). The advantages(1) that a plant has that a car doesn't is multi-stage recovery. And once you've extracted what you can, then heat is a liability. That's why nuclear plants have large cooling towers outside.
(1) Better control over combustion is the other.
(2) This is why ceramic engines were all the rage a couple years back. One could burn fuel at a more efficient temperature. Unfortunate that also increased nitrous oxide emmisions.
OH BTW There's a Popular Scienc article about someone from either India or Pakistan that came up with the rough bore combustion engine that has a greater efficiency. I believe it was a 2005 issue.
I'm not sure if this is kosher on /. or not, but the OP brief is a direct ripoff of an MSN Money article of (almost) the same name. I know because I read the MSN article this morning.
Per mile costs with gasoline at $2.44 a gallon would be 3 cents. I could live with that.
Put it this way, my normal daily round-trip commute is 4.8 miles. This means I'd use only a gallon of fuel every 16.7 days, or a total of 15 gallons of gas a year, just to get back and forth to work. Even with gas at $3.00 a gallon it'd be a whopping $45.00 for the year.
With other travel my total bill would probably be $200 or less. Can't argue much with that.
And now I notice the "Associated Press" icon, and that the Yahoo story (didn't RTFA) is the same, and MSN was just running a syndicated column. Oops.
I am NOT AGAINST hybrid technology, but right now I am not interested in buying a car due to their price. I for one, like to work on my own vehicles, and with all the computers onboard a hybrid, God Almighty wouldn't be able to repair one. Second, they are way too expensive. A VERY GOOD ALTERNATIVE IS ENHANCING TRADITIONAL INTERNAL COMBUSTION JUST LIKE THE CIVIC HX, A MPG SUPER HERO DOES. IT GETS 44 MPG YET PUTS OUT A GOOD 117 HP, AND COSTS A MERE 13K NEW! I say keep working on this new lean burn technology w/ direct injection THAT is the way of the future (plus you can actually work on it yourself!).
Cambridge, Mass. had (1970) and may still have a system of electric busses powered by overhead wires. It's really funny to see the driver jump out and reconnect the bus to the wires every time the connection breaks.
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Why do you assume that "big money" is involved and that there's a conspiracy to keep ideas like this off the market? There could be many reasons not to push a technology like this, including:
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
The issue with these modded Priuses is that they ruin the batteries draining them in this fashion.
:)
Personally, in my garage I have a car that runs on straight used frying oil which I get free from local resturants. Much cheaper and if I run out of veg oil I can run on diesel
How much trunk space does the average American need? Is it close to infinity?
Pulling a number out of my ass, I'd guess that 70% of driving Americans use an automobile daily just to get to work and pick up groceries on the way home.
Oops, sorry, I forgot that we're talking about *Americans* here. To the average stereotypical American, an automobile represents freedom, virility, toughness and social status.
Old batteries will be (and are being) recycled. It is one area where recycling is actually economically practical.
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Don't forget... the main reasin for higher fuel efficiency is to reduce emissions, not just general consumption. Carburetors have one big strike... they cannot achieve the emissions of a fuel injected vehicle.
EFI accounts for changes in oxygen content of the incoming air, and changes the amount of fuel injected to achieve a perfect stoichiometric balance of hydrocarbons and oxygen. This reduces harmful emissions.
A carburetor only regulates the amount of gas with respect to incoming air flow, using the venturi effect.
Carburetors went out of fashion because of more stringent emissions ratings. A toyota Echo may only get 40 MPG to your 50+ Geo, but the emissions are probably orders of magnitude higher in the Geo. That's the real technological improvement.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
My business partner has a couple of pure-electric RAV4s. He has a special hookup with the LA DWP to charge his cars during non-peak hours, for around 5 cents per kWh. Anybody driving an electric car every day would do the same thing.
So, using your numbers (except for your high electricity price) the electric car gets four times the miles/dollar as the gas car. Of course, the electric RAV4 only gets 100 of those miles per charge. Based on a month's driving and his electricity bill, we calculated that the electric RAV4 cost about 1 cent/mile in electricity.
Of course, the car was very expensive, and the batteries will probably need to be replaced after (say) 80,000 miles at a cost of (say) $10,000, so that drives the cost/mile up considerably -- but battery technology is getting better, pretty fast.
But right now, at least, the cost of energy for getting vehicles down the road is significantly cheaper using electricity vs gasoline. It's probably an historical oddity that won't last -- as many forms of energy are fungible.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Good Idea,
A slightly more interesting way might be to embed coils in the roadway. Receiving coils would be placed in varius parts of your car.
When you drive over a coil, an alternating current would be switched on. A resulting alternating current will be generated in the cars coils. This would add charge to the battery.
Modding a car, sounds like a clear breach of anti-circumvention laws. He could be using that car to deliver pirated dvd's.
Not to mention useless in areas with long stretches of straight road. People seem to gloss over the fact that the electric part is really more of a performance assist than anything else. (I once heard the Prius described as a "4-cylinder car with 6-cylinder performance") The advantage of hybrids is twofold: regenerative braking and more efficient use of engine time - it can run at high RPM even at low speed because the KE isn't wasted it's stored in the battery.
i.e. hybrids are ideal in crowded areas with curvy roads - like Europe - and less useful in sparsly populated areas with straight high-speed roads like much of the US.
with one BIG caveat:
We live in an energy driven economy. More than anything else, the cost of fuel is factored into the cost of everything else. It is therefore not unreasonable to use price as a proxy for 'energy used in the production of.' It is useful to look at the amortized cost of the vehicles compared to similar performing non-hybrid vehicles. The more expensive one either took more fuel to make or uses more fuel to operate, but over the useful lifetime the more expensive one is also more "polluting." Right now, in the US, the hybrids are more expensive. The gap is closing as manufacturing improves, but it's not quite "there" yet.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
45 * 737 / 264.172051 == 2.79?
It fails the common sense as someone already pointed out.
Using ~125 as the answer and trusting the rest of your numbers for no apparent reason.
So a gallon of gas equivalent woud be: $3.50, at 10c/kWh which is less than I pay for electricity.
Last time I bought gas it was significantly cheaper than that.
Of course there's the efficiency of internal combustion engines versus that of power plants and batteries and electric motors, but that's a different issue.
That's a diesel car, which has more energy per gallon than gasoline, I don't recall if it's 30% or 60%.
It got 84 mpg only when driven in special conditions, not according to tests specifications. It's normal millage is 70mpg.
One of the things that makes a car economic its it weight. How lower is the mass of the car less energy you need to move it.
The car weight is related to the car size, the thickness of the stell used, to security features (stronger bars in specific locations) and acessories (air conditioning, power steering and extra doors).
Americans would refuse to buy small cars or cars with thinner materials, which may be viewed as lower quality material. Indeed, it's cheaper material, but if is damaged it's also cheaper to buy a replacement.
They also have more security needs, since trucks (read SUVs) driven like sport cars are everywhere in the US.
Other thing that saves fuel are small engines. Since they have smaller parts and most of the time the power of big a engine isn't needed, specially in stop-and-go traffic.
But americans want their cars fast on hills as they're on plane surface and to go 0-60 in 8 seconds.
Also small engines would require a light car, like the mentioned above.
That's why those cars aren't on the US market.
That also avoid new technology to be developed. Because many substitute technologies, like (ethanol) fuel cells, that could be applied to european (1.2liter 900kg) or brazilian (1.0 liter 800kg) cars aren't developed by american companies that have american cars in mind (at least 1.6liter 1100kg).
Stop referring to 'the honda hybrid' as if there is only 1. There is the Civic, the Accord (performance and fuel efficiency), and the first Hybrid sold in the US, the Honda Insight.
In my Insight, I get 65mpg, tooling around time or driving the highway. Many owners who have a lighter foot get even better mileage.
Don't be fooled to thinking that the Prius or Civic Hybrid are the forerunners of fuel efficiency.
And the damn Geo Metro can't get up a hill, hate to try and get that up Pike's Peak.
"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly" - Touchstone,Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
The wind turbine is debatable.
Has anyone seen an alternative engine or engines worth putting in older cars to save money on fuel?
I've got a 90 lincoln towncar that is in excellent shape other than the engine, and I'm toying with the idea of putting a new or rebuilt engine in it.
Now if I could somehow find a drop in replacement V-6 diesel that would be a reasonable compromise I might consider it. With a diesel engine you could use biodiesel I suppose, and as long as the v-6 wasn't too small should give adequate performance. I certainly wouldn't get 50MPG, but given the size of those cars that is no suprise. It should be more reasonable though, and maybe a sane alternative to a new car.
Of course changing from gas to diesel would be a mess, yet it might be an interesting project. I suppose the best bet is just to sell it and buy something smaller, but at 6'4" legroom is appreciated.
Why?
- Charging while driving during the day.
- Charging as long as car is parked in sun
- No need to plug car in for advantage.
- No fossil fuels are burned.
I'm willing to guess that some people who live in sunny locations and drive short distances could use little or no gas at all.The only problem might be the cost of a solar panel, and fitting it on the Prius in such a way that it doesn't generate drag.
Also, you have to keep the panel clean for best performance.
If I remember right, the big auto manufacturers killed off as many electric rails as they could. They used tactics that even Micosoft would envy. Even the big railroads were affected. Someone had developed an electric engine for long hauls of heavy loads. I believe Ford developed a deisel engine and then priced it so low that the electric engine manufacturer went out of business. This was all helped to some degree by some congress critters they had on a leash. Don't remember specific details much past that. I just remember that they killed the public transit system in LA so that the city would buy more of their deisel busses. Better for the stockholders and all that.
I'd imagine something simular would happen if you tried to do this on a big scale. One of the big manufacturers would cry, "Whoa is me" and someone in Government would step in and mandate some sort of open contract to evaluate the various technology. Low and behold, the big manufacturer has the advantage on price and gets the job. Sorry about electric concept guys, gotta serve the CEO...er....taxpayer and spend their money wisely.
When I'm feeling down, I like to whistle. It makes the neighbor's dog run to the end of his chain and gag himself.
A gallon of gas weighing 60-70 grams?
In this case there are roughtly 3 kilos of weight in a gallon of gas, and 45MJ a peice. equaling a startling 2.79 MJ total... Wait a frickin minute. Your looking for something in the 100-150 MJ range.
Now going conservative here. $3.00/gal 100 MJ= 33 MJ / dollar.. Then change the gas to power at 20% efficiency and you are looking at 7 MJ/ dollar. At you conservative estimate your looking about 12 MJ / dollar. So we're in a similar ballpark for money factor. We havent Talked about charging losses yet either, so there are some other losses on the electric side.
Devils advocate time:
1) The millions of batteries arent really all that fun to clean up.
2) The Electricity will be coming from COAL, unless your looking for a pebble bed (nuke) reactor in your back yard.
3) Production is efficient, but the distribution is where the power gets sucked down.
Still I think electric is great. We need good clean power, and hydrogen is still in the stupid phase right now. If we can get a good clean battery solution we'd be set.
Storm
What I don't get about hybrids is why anyone thinks that they solve a problem. Your still using the same fuel, at moderately similar rates of comparable standard engines (VW TDI, Honda Civic, etc..). It seems that it would make more sense to use the engine for power generation only, and rely on the electric motor for all movement. Running like this would allow the fuel engine be tweaked for optimal conditions, and possibly moved over to something LPG, or similar "clean" fuel. Till then, buy more Hummers and SUVs, because nothing is going to change until it has to.
--WooooHoooo--
Unless I've gone retarded, I recall my uncle owned 2 volkswagon diesel cars that were from the 70's that got 80mpg. People are focusing on getting gasoline to the 80mpg point where they should focus on getting an easier fuel source such as diesel or biodiesel working. If they could do it in the 70's in a mass produced car, why not now?
But I could just be retarded
I take it that means you've rejected my hypothesis?
Bummer. I was kinda looking forward to the Fairydust Economy. Just think happy, happy thoughts and yell, "Heeeeeeere Tink!"
KFG
It's not a reason, it's a FACT. In order for a car to be driven in the US, it must first meet strict safety regulations. If it doesn't, then you can't drive it on public roads (you can on a private racetrack however). The only way you can drive a car nowdays that does NOT meet the current safety guidelines is if you drive on older vehicle that has been "grandfathered" into the system.
Basically, when you buy a car a good percentage goes into the design of a car to make sure it meets these current safety guidelines. I'm not sure to the exact amount, but I've been told it's about 20% of the MSRP when you purchase the car. That ammount covers the R&D and certification requirement that the US government requires.
And remember....it's for the CHILDREN.....BLAHhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Life is not for the lazy.
But perhaps the best solution is getting your local government to support mixed use zoning. New Urbanism is a great start, but not if these end up as islands in a sea of suburbia -- you'd just end up driving to get to them, sort of like a Universal Studio's City Walk. Relaxation of zoning and land-use laws in suburban areas would help even more. The ability to open a cafe on the corner of your subdivision -- or even in your own house -- would be a great way to create more local services that obviate the need for driving.
I believe the correct phrase is "Woe is me". Google
" As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg"
lol
Also from the toyota website...
Eventually, the batteries will go to lithium hydride, but the price and the technology isn't there yet, but is coming soon. But don't let anyone bother you with actual information, it's just to controversial to leave information in amatuer handsIf you haven't noticed, that un-popular country that america is using as a garbage dump is china (with all that "wonderful" toxic used computer equipment that americans seem to be fond of using).
...about three guys driving a Toyota Prius non-stop for 48 hrs last weekend, in Pittsburgh, while trying to get 100 miles per gallon using one tank of gas. They used a gas-saving technique called pulse and glide, "a form of coasting that involves releasing the gas pedal, then pressing it slightly again to disengage the electric motors" according to this article.
They actually ended up doing better than they had hoped and got 110 MPG.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
Doesn't biodiesel come at least partially from petroleum? I'd like to see the OPs data showing what he really gets, not the digested data he's giving out.
Vancouver, BC up in Canada has an extensive system of overhead lines for the electric trolleys which have been in operation since 1948.
Trolley History
When I was a kid the diesel buses were always the "Stinky Buses".
I prefer the Jetta (and other VW) TDI diesels. They get about the same mileage, but work fine with biodiesel. That's hawt.
"$3 a gallon is about 96 cents a litre in canada which is not cheap but it's not considered ridiculously expensive"
Yes, 96 cents/litre is most certainly ridiculously expensive. I paid 92.3 this afternoon and am pissed off about it. Ten years ago it was 49.9 and I remember by dad complaining about that.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
i would love for us to reduce our foreign oil habit, and that includes nuclear energy. but we can't reduce greenhouse gasses as we're not the cause of them. there is much scientific debate, and kyoto, et al. are not based on anything but hyperbole and predetermined computer modeling. i'd find the google links but i'm a little lazy. it shouldn't be too hard to find. in fact, in today's wall street journal, the first Sec. Energy, James Schlesinger (a Carter appointee by the way), calls into question the whole movement. environmentalists take it as a religous tenet, when it is at best uncertain.
anything that helps us to stop sending dollars to the terrorist supporting regimes, i'm all for. but don't base your hopes on some psuedo-scientific nonsense to help with a non-existent problem.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I used to have a 1988 Citroën CX 25DTR, 2.5 litre turbodiesel - in no way an econobox. That used to easily get 50mpg, although if you were towing (used to haul dead Yank Tanks about on trailers with it) or went over about 90mph you could just as easily get it below 40mpg.
The phrase you want is "They get a kick out of it". Also your sig be "grammar". Hope that helps.
Interesting
For all you saps who bought into the hype. I don't believe they factored in the cost of replacing your drive system after 6 years, or the fact that your car will technologically obsolete in 3. (and don't even *try* to tell me my H1 is gonna obsolete in 20 years)
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
Frist Post?
/. fan.
Somehow I doubt the Senator is a
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
I would like to get something a little better on gas than my sports sedan but I don't want to purchace and license a 200 MPH, $9,000 motorcycle and I am not quite willing to peddle my trek 14mph to work every day. I am looking for a happy in between like a motorized, gear assist bicycle and I am willing to bet that such a 4 HP beast would put even the prius to shame and save me about $2,0000. I know the obvious answer is probably "scooter" but quite honestly the ones I have seen just don't look stable over 35 mph. They are all also about half as tall as my bicycle. There must be better options than welding an engine mount to my trek or going all out "motorcycle".
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 will probably be shaking my head at this one until the day I die. I've already shaken my head for 30 years, since the gas crisis of the 70s made me investigate alernate fuels. Why banter about gas vs. electricity when a very real answer is at hand: alcohol. Or methanol, if you'd rather. It's well known that the earliest internal combustion vehicles ran on a multitude of fuels, and alcohol was more common than gasoline. Rockefeller used political influence to "standardize" gas as the fuel of choice, but farmers still used alcohol extensively for their vehicles (some still do).
Imagine the US trading places with the Mideast as the world's energy provider. Imagine ending the government subsidies to farmers for NOT growing crops. Imagine no harmful byproducts of combustion. imagine an increased engine life since alcohol burns cleaner. Imagine the byproduct of production providing fertilizer, paper, and other useful items.
Now realize that vehicles that run on various fuels (called Flexible Fuel Vehicles, or FFV) are available today. These run on alcohol. Not some lightweight, expensive, cramped passenger cars, but full-size trucks (no surprise... remember the farmers). Vehicles like the 2005 Chevy Avalanche, Ford Sport Trac, and Dodge RAM.
A minimum of applied technology would result in 80 miles per gallon if the alcohol was pure enough to be vaporized (since it vaporizes at a relatively low temperature - lower than water, and vapor is much more volatile than the gasoline droplets created by today's carburetors and injectors).
Why has this not happened? Control. The major fuel companies don't want the competition that would arise from such a paradigm shift. That is the ONLY reason alcohol isn't investigated and promoted as an answer to our energy needs. It's beyond the common man to generate their own fuel, and those with the means for production and distribution would rather keep you in their grasp.
The crime of the century, in my opinion. But I'm just another anonymous coward.
Smart Cars ARE designed to meet current US safety guidlines! In fact, they WILL be selling them here in a year or so.
See, here's the funny thing: surprisingly enough, when they make these small cars they take that into account and make them safe despite it. I drive a Hyundai Accent, and the thing has so many safety features it's not even funny: front airbags, side airbags, crumple zones, side-impact door beams, etc.
I saw a thing a while back comparing a Mini to a F-150 by crashing them head-on into each other. Guess which driver would be less injured? The MINI driver! You know why? Because the passenger compartment of the Mini is designed to maintain its structural integrity in a crash. The front of the thing was completely flat, but the passenger compartment was completely intact. The driver of the truck, on the other hand, would have massive damage to his legs because the footwell crushed in completely. Incidentally, the Mini looked worse, but both vehicles were totaled (the truck was folded in half at the joint between the cab and the bed).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Cars sold in Europe are rated for safety using the Euro NCAP system. If you check out the tables you'll see that in terms of crash protection the Smart MCC scores the same as a 2002 Jeep Cherokee. In terms of what it does to a pedestrian when it hits it the Smart is safer.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
I used to have a 1988 Chevy Sprint (carbed 1.0L, 3 cylinder with automatic transmission). The car was dangerously underpowered (~50 hp), but if you gave it about a minute or two you could reach it's maximum speed of about 135 kph (83 mph). Obviously better accelleration could be had with a 5 speed, weight reduction and some engine tuning. Using something like a 30 shot of nitrous might not be a bad idea for easing merges onto freeways as well.
In the US the '87? - '88 (MK1 series) of the Chevy Sprint and Suzuki Forsa were briefly available with a fuel injected, turbocharged, 1.0L 3 cylinder engine. These vehicles stock, put out a much healthier 80 hp. These little cars can be frighteningly quick with some engine mods and the boost turned up.
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
Did you stop reading half way through his post? and Mods, did you read it either? he said the efficiency in his final calculation was .2 (hint, this is close to the 25% that the person on an ego trip is talking about)
Please read the whole thing BEFORE complaining about people's logic.
artificially cheap due to government subsidizing
It's more along the lines of 'not taxing as much' than subsidizing.
I don't read AC A human right
Sadly, the whole Stirling engine thing is going to fail. This plan is backed by the Bush administration and Governor Schwarzeneggar. They aren't exactly worried about the future. They are worried about the here and now of their constituents (read energy corporations) pocketbooks. The choice to go with the Stirling engine was made so that they could proclaim loudly to their subjects (that would be anyone who voted for them and those of us being dragged kicking and screaming), "Look! We care about the environment and alternative energy! We sunk a lot of money into our friend's, err... I mean these reputable Sitrling Engine making companies to make the world's largest solar collector!! So you environmentalist commie wackos can sit and spin"!!!!
After the world's largest solar collector fails to produce electricity in an economical manner and electric customers wind up paying the same rates they always have, future (five to ten years from now) repugnican/conservative juntas can then proclaim loudly, "See!!! Solar doesn't work!!! We need Nuke-u-lar reactors everywhere!!! It's the only way because everything else is drying up"!!! Then we wind up with a ton of poorly run, poorly maintained (Thanks to the likes of First Energy Corp) nuclear (BTW it's pronounced Nuke-Lee-Are) power plants waiting to Chernobyl us all to death. Welcome to the future Decimated States of America. What can I say? I'm PROUD TO BE UNAMERICAN!!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist
Apparently, he escaped from wherever it is that they put environmentalists.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
D'oh ... Nobody has called me on it yet, but in my last paragraph I made a braino in dimensional analysis and put MNm/S when I meant to say MNm.
As to the guy who got his flame on about the energy content analysis. Did you fail to read the very next paragraph before replying?
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
The cost to dig up and then bury the cables would be prohibitive. It wouldn't take a crew very long to attach something to poles and run a wire, but the idea of trenching asphault, then burying the wire, then grading and paving...that would shut down roads for days.
Plus. let's say the coil breaks, how hard will it be to find that break? To dig up and fix?
Sadly, it has to be above ground, and because it's live voltage it has to be waaaaay above ground. It's ugly and messy and stupid, but that's really the best way to get it done.
Ironically, most building codes require cables to be buried now, so this plan would actually backfire in newer housing tracks and planned developments. Thanksfully your batteries should hold out as you drive from downtown to your tract home.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Did you read the 2 paragraphs after the one you quoted?
Or did they not support your point?
Here's the calculation. to move a prius shaped car down the road at 55 MPH takes about 30 Horse power or about 22.4 kilowatts. In a realistic car with conversion losses more like 30Kilowatts is needed. If you are changing speed a lot then add even more.
30 kilowatts is 108 MegaJoules per hour. if you drove your car just four hours between filling stations that would be over 400 megajoules to replenish. if you wanted to fill that car up in less than a minute that would mean a power draw of 7.2 megawatts. You are not going to see that sort of power line going to filling stations around town.
Or to put it another way, if the typical filling station has more than a car a minute, regardless of how long it takes to fill it up then you need a power line bigger than that.
And if you want to argue that you would not drive four hours between fill=ups then all that changes in the calculation is that more people are doing more frequenty fill ups. the net demand is still the same.
So the only practical way to refill an electric car is overnight. but if the whole town is jsacked in overnight then a town the size of LA would be drawing peta-watts of power over the grid. Which is not going to happen.
If you did manage to delvier that there are going to be massive losses i the delivery process. So forget it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There's more to it than that. Anyone remember Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption? The basic idea, for those who haven't, is that when unnecessary overconsumption is socially sanctioned -- that is, when it becomes fashionable -- then the normal laws of supply and demands are, if not suspended altogether, then greatly modified.
There is no consumer pressure to make fuel-efficient cars because the very inefficiency and extravagance of the modern SUV is what is really being purchased by design. People want wasteful, expensive vehicles because they are fashion statements. They say, "Look at me! I have assloads of discretionary income." An Armani suit is manifestly inferior to jeans and a denim work shirt in purely practical terms, but no one buys Armani because it's practical. A twenty-dollar digital watch is a functionally better watch than a fancy Rolex, but people aren't buying Rolexes because of their chronographic accuracy.
If you want to reduce the waste of resources, you have two options: make efficiency hipper than waste, or require efficiency through regulation. To wait for simple market forces to correct the situation is to wait in vain: viewed through a purely economic lens, the market is working correctly. It is delivering what people want, which is waste.
Energy-efficiency is primarily a social problem, and only secondarily a technological or economic problem. Oh sure, in the long term, energy-efficiency is a survival problem for the human race, but humans are not very good at long-term decision-making.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I just bought a Lexus RX 400h (yes, its an SUV). It gives me: a) Mileage of my other small car (28mpg) b) Spaciousness of an SUV c) Is loaded with toys and safety features including knee air bags d) Has acceleration of a sports car (0-60mph under 7 secs) e) Doesn't need charging from an electric outlet f) Is rated SULEV (super ultra light emission vehicle) I don't think any non-hybrid vehicle can do all of the above! And forget about gas mileage. For nothing else, just for the fact that the gasoline engine is completely turned off when stopped at a traffic light or when braking or whenever the foot is off the accelerator...means this car pollutes about 20% less than a conventional vehicle for my driving conditions and reason enough for me to buy it.
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in an election.
Flame? That wasn't a flame.
Afraid so. Compilation aborts at the first error.
1. I didn't get my license until I was 23, and then it was because my evil Evil EVIL ex-wife demanded that I learn how to drive. So I bludgered about in her POS Mercury Bobcat and got my license. The Bobcat (mercifully) self-destructed a few years later. So: first: DON'T DRIVE unless you have some psycho harpy bitch chewing you a new final voluntary sphincter (cuz it feels good, at first... nemmind...)
2. I didn't own a car of my own until I was 27. A 1972 Chevy Nova. Got horrible mileage, but no one fucked with me over a parking space. It was olive green and nicknamed the Urban Assault Vehicle. After I put it into a guard rail doing about 95 dodging a fucking DEER in Pennsylvania (long story) I sold the parts for what I paid for the car - $425.
3. I moved across the country after that and didn't own another car of my own for almost 5 years. When I did get one, it was an old Honda Civic wagon I bought for $800. I sold it a few years later to my sister for $700.
4. In 1999 I bought my present vehicle, a 1991 Toyota Corolla. It gets about 27 mpg on the highway and about 19 in the city. It's old and dying and there is NO way it's going to pass Smog next month, so the State will take it off my hands for $1000.
After that, I won't own a car, and I hope to never have to own another. If I DO buy another car, it will likely be an old used Geo Metro or an old Rabbit Diesel so I can run it on vegetable oil.
If you REALLY want to do the Earth a BIG FAT FAVOUR DON'T buy a car. And if you do, buy a gas sipping used car. Why?
1. The energy that went into making the car (which is about equal to the amount of energy the damn thing will consume) has already been spent.
2. Buying a new car means that at your behest and convenience a lot of energy was spent making this energy sucking device.
3. NOT using a car at all, or renting them when you need them, means that you have organised your life in such a way that they are no longer of use to you. And THAT is a good thing - I am convinced that Suburbia will prove to be the single most wasteful expense of resources the human species has ever endured.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. So LIVE THE FUTURE NOW. Get rid of your car. Move to a small (or even not so small) city that has decent public transport and RIDE A FUCKING BICYCLE. It rains where you live? Well, DRESS FOR IT or TAKE A TRAIN. In the town where you live, agitate for light rail, trolleys and suchlike.
Make it happen. Hybrids are NOT a solution - they are just a less (and not very less) heinous face on a cancerous blight. The solution is energy curtailment and population reduction. I say, "Live it, or live with it.
It's a bit like having bees live inside your head, but it's a really good BUZZ.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
They'll want to buy them when gas hits $5 a gallon.
No, thats when people will switch to smaller cars again (like station wagons).
At $10, people start to shift to smaller cars still and even a few consider motorcycles.
At $15 people think about possibly not living a hour or two drive away from work.
At $20 the average US Consumer will possibly, just possibly, begin to consider a diesel vehicle - but won't tell anyone what they bought.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the article:
Notice any similarity between the two? This is plagiarism. If you're a regular reader of
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
"I don't believe in an oil-based transportation system!
:P
I don't believe in an oil-based transportation system!
I don't believe..."
Darn, too many oil company execs clapping their hands.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
for my wind powered car pantent to go through.
Basically the idea is you strap on a big windmill to the roof of the car, and as the car moves, electricity is produced, thus moving the car.
The added bonus is that you get free meals from all the birds that get caught up.
Care to sample some Pigeon Pie anyone?
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
More like just "demand."
It has been shown that people will pay the current prices for electricity. Will it go down from that just because costs go down? Highly unlikely. Only in competitive markets do prices go down with costs. The energy market is not competitive.
see the thing is our internal combustion engine is an extremely inefficent piece of tech. (if you can call it that) by making most of the inefficiency and pollution gather at one place (the power plant) you can better control it and reduce it.
Calm down people, its a religion not an operating system.
That's expensive? Fuck. I'm paying $1.21/lt here in Melbourne, Australia.. and only a good 6 or so years ago do I remember it being 60-70c/lt. Sucks.
I drive a 1995 Honda Nighthawk 750, which gets ~50mpg. Why drag around all that extra weight when you don't have too? The problem in America is that everybody seems to need to "validate" themselves with 8mpg SUVs. Go ahead and drive one of those, I'll laugh at you when I'm getting 250 miles from 5 gallons of gas and you can't even get from one gas station to the next before burning that much.
On longer drives when I'm really riding the guages, I've managed to average slightly over 80mpg over more than an hour in my 2000 Honda Insight. And that's this year, not when it was new. I'll admit that's way better than 'city' driving, when it drops down to 55-60 mpg when I'm going up hills, stopping, going down hills, stopping, and never getting to keep any decent kinetic energy. Still, this didn't require any overnight charging or multi-grand modifications.
This is a BIG point that a lot of "environmentalist" people seem to miss, it takes ~20 years to recoop the investment in energy it takes to produce these solar panels, not including the cleanup of waste materials produced... Possibly in the future when the actual eff. numbers rise above the ~20-something percent of crystaline SiO2 (which is the hardest, and most expensive, to make) panels, especially with the possibilities nanomaterials are presenting will these be a true alternative
drunk chemists
Or, if that's too much exercise, how about an electric scooter? Top speed 30mph, range of maybe 30 miles, costs you 15 cents to recharge from flat.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I don't disagree with the spirit of your idea, but I think line powered electric passenger cars are bit unfeasable. I think a better implementation would be to have some kind of ground based, inductive charging system to extend the range of battery powered electric vehicles. This could be implemented a few ways:
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
Sounds like what you need to do is realize that the way your cities are constructed is untenable. The current modus operandi for personal transportation (not transportation of a group of people, or a set of materials) is broken.
"80 mpg for the first 20 miles is great for the stay at home mom that drive to the store or around a little bit. the majority of the american public lives more than that from work."
Shit. I live 2.5 miles from where I work. The entire city fits within a 20 mile radius, and this is a city of 300,000 people. What is wrong with your cities that they are so big and sprawly? Why are residential zones kept so far away from commercial zones (rather than mingled) to discourage alternative transportation?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
TDI diesel hybrids? This seems like a logical next step, and yet no one seems to be talking about them. WTF?
+++ATH0
...just wait 'til I get my flubber recipe perfected...
http://www.brittijn.nl/
Saxonette Luxus: A normal bike with a small 30cc engine (2 ci). Up to 200 mpg. A bit slow though, only 24 kph (15 mph). But still faster than most cars in city driving.
Or http://www.madass.nl/
MaddAss 125cc: Scary, fast, fun
For over 10 years Amory Lovins has done insightful, creative, comprehensive, and sound technical analysis on how to redesign cars from a systems point of view in order to dramatically increase their efficiency, performance, and safety at a reasonable cost.
The problem is that the whole automotive transportation industry (the big auto companies plus thousands of smaller suppliers plus the fuel distribution system) needs to change. Some say it is too expensive to make the change, but when gasoline hits $10 a gallon the drag will multiply across the entire economy and system-wide, revolutionary change will look pretty good.
ULEV cars are cleaner than any coal plant. Clean internal combustion engines are a solved problem. Even in "problem cities", emissions from 2-stroke engines (lawnmowers mostly) actually contribute more to air pollution problems than passenger cars. Too bad about the minor safety issue with electric lawnmowers, but gas lawnmowers haven't even gone after the low-hanging fruit as far as emissions.
There's really no point in trying to make cleaner car prototypes, as you can already buy a car fom most manufacturers that's amazingly clean. Other internal combustion engines, however, don't even do the simplest things to reduce emissions.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm guessing by that price you are either in Alberta or Southern Ontario. Most provinces are already over 96 cents and several are selling at over a dollar.
You get a nice tax break every year for owning a new one.
Hybrid cars are a GREAT way to reduce pollution
Compared to what? A ULEV car produces less pollution than the equivalent electrical power from my wall, and that's ignoring the pollution associated with the extra batteries in TFA.
Take a look at the pollution from lawnmowers and other 2-stroke engines. Cars are amazingly clean these days, but lawnmowers are as bad as they were in the 60s. There are better places to focus your attention.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
While hybrids are a step in the right direction, there is something that every owner of a gasoline powered vehicle can do to reduce their fuel costs, and reduce the emissions their car produces.
Convert your vehicle to propane. Propane is currently half the cost of gasoline, and when combusted, produces dramatically few emissions than gasoline or diesel. People may argue that propane has slightly less energy than gasoline, while this is true, the higher octane rating of propane (110) allows you to compensate for this by advancing your engine's timing, increasing it's compression ratio, or upping the boost (if turbocharged). Because propane is clean burning, your oil stays cleaner longer, and your engine will have a longer lifespan as well. Most conversion are dual-fuel, which switch back to gasoline, should the propane run out. Propane conversion is becoming popular in Europe, and there are a number of modern propane systems on the market that work with today's fuel injected engines.
Propane is a byproduct of the refining of methane and natural gas. In many parts of the petroleum industry, propane is regarded as a nuisance to be flared rather than harvested. Currently more propane is generated that there is demand for it, causing it's price to be proportionally lower than other fuels. As much of the methane and natural gas refining is done in North America, consumption of propane over gasoline keeps more money out of the hands of foreign oil producers that are known for sponsoring terrorism.
Although propane is still a fossil fuel, and won't end our dependancy on oil, propane is widely available commercially (unlike pie-in-the-sky fuelcell or hydrogen schemes), and nearly all gasoline engines can be converted to run on it right now. Most people recover the cost of conversion with the first few monts of use. Also most propane vehicles fetch a higher price when sold on the used market.
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
...Maybe someone will come up with MP3s for auto fuel and upset the way things are done...
People are already being charged with evading road tax in the UK if they're caught powering their diesel cars with vegetable oil or homebrew biodiesel.
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
SUV's occupy a public space. Surely you can't be such a complete, selfish ass as to consider the public roads and our atmosphere to be "your business."
One of my first cars was a geo spectrum and i got 40-45 mpg when i first got it, I had it for 10 years and drove it into the ground, I didn't take care of it (oil changes, what's that? ;), and in the end i was still getting 30-35 mpg. I too only purchased the cheapest gas.
So yes the geo metro's get 58 mpg if all highway and well maintained. Its not bs.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Did you know that Henry Ford designed car that was working on and made of products created out of cannabis, but his experimental plantations grown for several years were destoryed
I don't know about veggie oil, but I'd consider it a great improvement if we could get our fuel from plants (probably genetically modified) that we grew in the US, Europe, China, India...basically anyplace other than the Middle East.
Burning such fuel would, of course, put CO2 into the atmosphere, but only the the CO2 that had been pulled out of the atmosphere to grow the plant to begin with.
But the best part would be making the Middle East less "strategic".
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
For the rest of the world,
250 miles per gallon = 0.94 liters par 100km.
That needed to be said.
The Drudge or the Slashdot.....
Hybrids will only deliver the economy of their base engine in motorway driving. They are not a long term solution to reducing fuel consumption, since the electric motor derives its power from the base engine.
Hybrids make sense in cities, where there is a lot of stop/start driving, and energy from deceleration can be recovered by using the motor as an electrical generator to recharge the batteries.
In the UK, where fuel is taxed at a more sustainable level (fuel price is about £0.94-0.96/l or about $6.60/US gallon at current exchange rates), there is actually some incentive to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle. Fuel prices worldwide will likely increase by over 50% in the next few years, and probably at least double over the next decade, as oil production falls further short of demand. Also, in the United States, tax on fuel will need to at least triple in the short term to start to reduce the thirst for oil, and the consumption of the US vehicle fleet, before supply becomes a serious issue.
The future, at least in the short term, is probably diesel. Diesel engines offer similar or better performance to petrol engines in most vehicle application, but typically offer 30-40% better fuel economy, with only a slight price premium (which will soon be further negated as more petrol engines get direct injection and turbocharging is standard). Bio-fuels are now becoming economic with high oil prices, and it is easy to run an unmodified diesel engine on biodiesel, which cuts emmissions, and effectively reduces net carbon output to zero (since the production of biofuel absorbs nearly as much carbon as it outputs)
Presently, US fuel prices are so low that there is little incentive to buy a vehicle that delivers good fuel economy, and many of the vehicles designed for the US market are large SUVs or pickups that attract the tax breaks introduced by The Idiot President for being even less efficient. America as the biggest consumer, and the largest pollutor has the most work to do, and will be hit worst by increasing oil prices. The incompetent and greed driven energy policies of the Bush administration are only storing up problems for the future. Of course, the US economy may simply collapse soon, as the total debt burden held by the United States clearly now exceeds the ability of national income to service the interest on that debt (including all consumer debt, federal debt, and the debt held by individual states), and inevitably, sooner or later, their will be economic collapse, leading to significant reductions in oil consumption.
why wait 10 years for the oil to get too pricy? heighten the taxes on gas to a European level and people will be forced to drive smaller cars/electrical cars etc right now.
Damn right. You pretty much captured the whole SUV trend in one post. I salute you.
You missed one small point though. A lot of people, myself included, like SUVs because driving one is an excellent way to tell all liberal treehuggers to go fuck themselves. Yes, my car gets 15 MPG and I don't care. I can afford the gas. No family member or friend of mine is in the army, so I don't care if we need couple of wars to get the oil. Yes, I am a bastard (and a coward) but I can afford to be one.
I think the main problem with this is that the power generated by a solar panel the size of a Prius roof would be on the order of milliwatts. The main battery of a Prius would take far more 'oomph' to charge than the panel could provide.
wtf, why is this idiotic headline on slashdot. it's not really true, since the car draws power from an electrical socket. cmdrtaco, have you no shame?
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/gridable-hybri ds/
I remember seeing a documentary stating that Lawn mowers are a major contributor to greenhouse gasses, as they are (as stated) using outdated 2 stroke engines, don't include polution control. There was some guy at university who made a solar powered lawn mower u leave outside it charges, then you can mow the lawn... much better imho. I would really like to see this as a commercial product. No petrol for me!
Just fill your tank with methanol or ethanol. No need for foreign oil. Those batteries wont last forever, you know..
Is there a reason your family needs to be so large? How about something more earth friendly like, 4? You know, replace yourself and then stop? 4 fit very nicely in any eco-box auto - been there and done that and it works.
Every human added to the world uses resources - your family is a case in point. You have 7 in the group so your house must be bigger and you need a monster SUV to take everyone for trips. Fewer folks = less demand on the environment = good.
Do you REALLY need to haul around a boat to have fun? Boats are uber-gas hogs so now you're driving a monster truck and hauling a gas guzzling , pollution (air and noise) spewing recreational vehicle out into the wilderness where peace and quiet should be what we seek. How about a couple of canoes/kayaks and a couple of tents - might that work? Might you not have some fun doing that also and teach your kids it's possible to have fun without making quite such a big footprint?
Sorry, big car is 'valid' for your case just isn't working out for me.
Having said that, it is certainly your right to have as large a family as you want, buy whatever toys you need, and live your life by your definitions. Eventually, resources will dry up and we'll be forced to make hard decisions where hard isn't what to pay for gas.
You misspelled "fuck" and "you". Do try to expand your vocabulary. Also it's "if it weren't" not "if it wasn't" - it's called the subjunctive mood, you gormless pinhead. (Now do you see the advantage of a decent vocabulary, you slack-jawed pizza-faced puddle of putrescence?)
Kids today... tsk... can't even flame worth a fart anymore... what they teach them in schools today, I don't know...
Sounds like that vehicle will go as far on a full tank, as it does on a completely empty tank. Amazing!
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Just a curiousity, as I've been discussion this with various people...
How many times a year do you go on vacation, and for how long? Do you save more in being able to move more people over the cost of gas... or would you do better to have an efficient vehicle that moves your family in normal instances, and rent an SUV on the 2-3 weeks of holidays per year (this is assuming 2-3 weeks of holidays, although with relatives I'd be lucky to start sane for one).
Lots of things have valid, practical reasons for their existance... but that doesn't mean the majority of people are using them for said practical reasons.
You're right, motorcycles aren't for carrying several people at once, but during weekday mornings, how many vehicles only have one person in them?
Motorcycles are no good in the rain/snow and certain terrain.
I've only had my motorcycle for a month or so now but I can tell you that I am much more aware of bikers on the road. Also in many ways riding a bike is safer than a car in the sense that you are much more aware of everything around you. Goofing off is a great way to lose control and lose your life and you'll always have to worry about other drivers unfortunately.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I use "100 km", litres, and divide the latter by the former, you insensitive clod.
80 MPG for the first 20 miles, until the battery assist runs down? This is crap, the car doesn't really get 80 MPG at all. The guy has to charge it up from wall power, necessitating the consumption of fossil fuels elsewhere to send him the electricity (OK not all electric power is fossil, but the point is still valid). If you add up the energy created elsewhere to charge his batteries, as you should, you'll see that it requires *more* energy than if he had just burned gas in his engine instead. Perhaps that's why the article states it's not yet cost efficient. As soon as we have an extremely low-cost and ubiquitous source of electric power, then this "invention" will be meaningful. But then you can just rip out the gas engine and tank run on electricity and make this whole bunch of BS moot.
What a stupid article.
I was recently involved in an accident with a semi-truck at 70 mph. I was driving a 1995 Honda Civic and it handled like a pro. My wife and I walked away without a scratch, and I was even able to drive the car up the exit ramp so that it could be towed away.
My wife and I feel that if we had been driving an SUV, it most likely would have rolled over when we went down the median. Of course, this is pure conjecture.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Nonsense - you can EASILY get Diesel engines over 50% efficient, and the best designs can beat 60%.
That was classic intercourse!
http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/clean_energy_payb ack.html
But what would they know?
As someone else said, plugging it in doesn't count. That electricity may or may not come from environmentally friendly sources. Most likely, environmentally hostile sources like coal.
-1 Overrated
Some consumers use their trunks. Why do you think they put them in cars? Because they just happen to have a lot of extra room when they're done building the car?
+1 Funny
Also, by adding all that weight, you're changing the dynamics of the car. For a dealer to sell a car modified like that, it now needs to go through safety tests.
-1 Overrated
Sure, everyone could rely on hydrogen, except we don't have enough hydrogen fuel pumps yet. Not to mention, hydrogen is pretty expensive to produce right now and certainly there isn't infrastructure to produce it in the quantities necessary for a mass market.
+1 Informative
This service has been brought to you in conjunction with my2c enterprises.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I feel the article (at least the slashdot blurb) is a bit misleading. The Prius batteries store energy, they don't create energy. And every bit of energy they store comes from the gasoline engine -- yes, even the regenerative braking is just capturing energy that originally came from gasoline. The aparent gain with the Prius is that some of this energy is wasted in a conventional car. That, combined with other basic efficiency features (light, low drag tires, aerodynamic, etc) are why it gets good mileage.
Increasing the battery size only makes sense if under normal usage the Prius runs out of storage room for capturing energy. But it doesn't. Only very rarely have I seen my Prius battery be totally full. On those very rare occasions, then yes, a larger battery would have allowed me to capture a little more energy. But I would imagine the weight of the batteries would offset this small, rare gain.
I think the main thing to realize about Hybrids, which is why their EPA ratings are so inaccurately high, is that they can achieve incredibly high mileage for short periods of time. My meter only goes up to 100 mpg, but I've achieved that for five minute stretches (and not just going down hill). Still, my lifetime average is ~42mpg.
Think of it like this: it's a gasoline car with an energy cache system. Like any caching system you can get amazing performance when you have a cache hit -- but in the real world you don't always have a cache hit, so you have to test it in a way that will simulate the real-world challenges, causing hits and misses.
Specifically in this article, he talks about getting 80 MPG for shorter trips. The 250 number is from an unrelated concept car for which they give no details... I'll believe that when I can buy it. He gets this 80 MPG average by plugging into the wall and thus relying more on the electrical side for the first 20 miles or so until that boost wears out.
Yes, that will work, except that now you're powering the car with coal most likely, and wasting energy as it is lost in the transmission lines and whatnot. I haven't done a formal study but this has to be even worse than gasoline for polution?
(If you're electricity comes from nuclear, solar, or wind, well, then that might be cool.)
People need to learn the difference between energy sources (fossil fuel, nuclear, solar.) and energy storage mediums (batteries, hydrogen, etc).
Speaking of which, has anyone determined which one biodiesel is?
Anyways, just my thoughts. I love my Prius and recommend it as a great car that gets excellent mileage. But it is not the savior of the world.
Cheers.
Doesn't using electrical charges from the wall actually burn more greenhouse gases, due to lossage of power at various steps (lines, during charging, electrical motor) before it is turned into motion? While a power plant could emit less pollutants, reducing CO2, etc. isn't one of them as it is the primary product of the combustion.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
On the other hand, it would be simple as hell to embed eighteen bricks in the chassis of any SUV you care to name. Nobody would notice the difference--except that you have to plug your SUV in every night.
Thermodynamic efficiency of the Prius engine maxes out at 37%, and is above 30% for its entire operating range.
What's the overall efficiency of electricity delivered from coal at the power station to the wall socket? Ain't 30%.
I noticed this quote from TFA:
"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."
The spokeswoman has been talking to marketing too much and engineering too little. IIRC, the hot rodders of yesterday didn't use the term "bling-bling"... maybe Toyota needs to stop hiring their spokespersons directly from hip-hop internships.
Besides, I rather hear from the companies actual engineers saying something like, "(we) are the people who want to get in there and see what (we) can do about increasing fuel economy."
I8-D
FC question: How many hydrogen refilling stations currently exist?
EV question: How many wall outlets currently exist?
Though not a car obviously, there's also the ENV1 bike ( http://www.envbike.com/ )reported here before, using hydrogen fuel cells, emitting water and electricity. there are still environmental issues over the hydrogen production in the first place but it still seems much better than oil. I hadn't untill just the other day heard about the GM EN1 also (though I beleive this was just electric)? "Even today's superclean hybrid cars are still polluters--their electric batteries are recharged by small gas engines. But up until 2003, you could lease a true zero-emission electric car from General Motors: the EV1. It was a science-fiction car of the first order, and it looked it--all swoopy lines and space-egg aerodynamics. None were made available for sale. When the leases on the EV1s expired, GM recalled the cars, over the ardent objections of many of the lessees, who protested, begged, and lobbied GM to let them buy their vehicles. GM would not relent, and, citing concerns over liability and parts availability, even took to crushing some of these high-tech marvels to keep them off the road." source: cnet's top 10 things we miss http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6259955-1.html?ta g=txt
However, the 4 stroke engines found on mowers and other outdoor power equipment are a major offender. As you say they "haven't even gone after the low-hanging fruit" for emissions.
All that said...my 15hp tractor eats my whole yard in about a half hour, allowing me to do it more often, so the grass clippings are smaller and easier for the lawn to be fertilized by, so I don't have to dump chemicals on it for it to look good, and the chemicals run off and pollute the pretty lake I see out my front windows. Well, in theory -- I just got the tractor, and I mostly wouldn't bother with the chemicals for a nice lawn...just too damned lazy.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
What risk is there in US $.05 coins? They don't contain nickel--if they did, melting them down would get you more than $.05. Moreover, they'd be magnetic, like iron and cobalt. Try sticking a nickel to a magnet--it doesn't work.
As you patently can't do the maths, given a brick is about 3x4x9 inches, eighteen bricks is 3.2.2.3.3.3.3.2 inches = 2^3.3^5 = 6.cuberoot(9) inches cubed. That's a little over a cubic foot.
Hardly a trunk full, even in a Prius!
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Seems to me Opel uses a simpler solution Eco speedster
instead of weighting the car down with batteries try to make it as light as possible and use a very efficient diesel engine.30 on the freeway, and never less than 20 when I'm hard on it...
This thing does 175mph and at 90 it's still doing 27mpg
Considering these are US gallons, and I'm used to larger UK gallons, I don't feel hard done too. Combine that with the almost free gas here in the US and it's just a great ride. $3.00 a gallon is half price for me.
Brace yourself for $6.00 / gallon folks, that would bring you inline with the rest of the world. It's coming !
I had one of these with the 1.4L 84PS petrol K series engine. Never had less than 40MPG, max was 48, average 44. 0-60 12s, easily gets to illegal speeds. http://www3.mg-rover.com/rover_GB_en/static/rover_ 25.html
0 _spec.html
I'm wondering why I sold it now..? Oh yeah, got one of these: http://www3.mg-rover.com/mg_GB_en/static/mg_zs_18
(33-39MPG so far)
I'm not sure what my point is.
They talk about charging the batteries of the regular electricity network.. I think this has mpg savings value but no environmental value. As the electricity is pulled of a network fed by coles or other enviromentally unfriendly carbon based fuel.
Quote some numbers please. "Doesn't really look that good" is meaningless.
Then look up coal gasification on Google.
Deleted
"Third time in this article I've seen someone make this mistake. It's an epidemic."
It's not an epidemic. It's denial.
I keep hearing people overestimate the efficiency of your typical car. 15% is more realistic for a good one, you might just get 25% efficiency out of a Diesel VW Lupo or Smart Car while traveling at a constant speed below 50mph on a motorway without traffic. Well... you know how likely that is.
Deleted
Nuclear energy suffers another problem besides the waste storage. There's only a limited amount of uranium fuel left and it will last for about 50 to 100 years. So fission energy can only be short term solution, though I agree that it's a better one than fossil energy.
:w!q
With gas set to break through $ 3.00 a gallon by end of year, and $ 5.52 likely for next summer - it would break even for me in about 42 weeks, buying between 20 to 30 gallons a week.
That's It, I'm not buying these expensive English Units anymore!
Metric Liters of Petrol are almost half the price!
Did the person who submitted this item write the article? The blurb makes it sound as if they did.
Do the editors even look at the articles before linking to them? Or do they simply trust the submissions are not completely ripped from the first two paragraphs of the article? Or do they just not give a *%!$?
Come on editors, every such instance makes Slashdot look totally bush-league.
Personally ever since I was like 12 and drove past my first oil refinery where they were 'flaring-off' all of those 'waste gases' I had wondered why cng and propane powered vehicles aren't more popular? A few years ago ford and chevy both had bi-fuel vehicles and considering the cost of gas these days, I just don't get why they aren't still moving down this path path of a dual-fuel concept (or is it just easier to continue to waste this additional source of fuel?).
For the once or twice per year you actually use a suburban to transport seven people, rent one. For the other 364 days that you commute in it alone, drive something more responsible. You will save a lot of money.
Perhaps SlashDot could avoid a whole heapin steamin barrel of embarrasment if they'd just not blindly go with whatever some journalist has written . Most journalists don't have a clue about anything scientific. Why spread the misconceptions even further afield?
You don't necessarily have to get oil from dead dinosaurs.
:)
There are efforts going on to advance the technology of Thermal Depolymerization.
That's a ten dollar word for "oil from pretty much any biological waste" including turkey offal and medical waste (what they're using now.)
Doesn't do anything for greenhouse gasses or global warming, mind you, but as a solution to Foreign Oil Dependency, it sounds like an interesting concept.
And you can make the case that perhaps the car companies need to be getting behind this technology in order to make sure that there's a device that will consume all this lovely thermally depolymerized chicken crap.
But what do I know?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Toyota should offer higher milage options at the dealer. The tradeoff obviously is a smaller truck or say no back seat. BTW, gas in Atlanta is at $2.70 for regular now. My next car will definitely be a hybrid.
http://www.askthevoid.com
couldnt help noticing that you are a fucktard. you must therefore be an american.
In all these discussions about fuel efficiency, it seems as though people are erroneously assuming cars are necessary.
You know what? All that bullshit about being decades away from some magic technology that will enable us to be ecologically sustainable is just that - bullshit. We have many forms of public transit, small fuel efficient cars and god forbid, our own two feet for getting around. We also know how to make homes that are passively heated and cooled, we have energy efficient heat pumps, we have wind turbines and solar for electricity, we have lots of knowledge and technology to make energy usage more efficient, we have white LEDs for lighting, etc, etc. Hell, I'd like to see how much power would be saved just by turning out lights that aren't really needed.
You know what the biggest cause of environmental destruction of all types is? Suburbs. Live in a suburb, need more fuel to heat (stand-alone buildings lose way more heat than multi-dwelling units), need a car to get around AND, for a topper, let's pave over all the wilderness areas to make them. They're also WAY more expensive to service with municipal services like garbage collection, power, water, sewer, school bussing, snow plowing, etc, etc.
I would love to see a calculation somewhere that factors in all of these true costs of living in a subdivision, plus the average $7000/year it cost to own a car (typically two per household. Then, with that number, I'd like to see what kind of public transit system could service everybody in the nice new community that could be created.
Oh wait, I know why that won't work now - there's so many guns and so much violence around that people are too scared to be in actual physical proximity to each other, so everyone has to drive their own personal tank. Not to mention that there's a growing lack of respect for other humans, so people are increasingly obnoxious and less desirable to live in close proximity to anyway.
Until the North American love affair with the suburb ends, environmental sustainability is not even within sight.
And just a question for thought - do you think the world would be a better place if the 100billion US (or whatever it was) spent on weapons and bombs, the 26559 iraqi civilans killed, 1846 US soldiers killed and 13877 injured so far, and the medical costs associated with them that the war in Iraq has cost had been spent towards making infrastructure improvements, efficiencies and education instead of securing foreign oil? But that's a different issue, I guess... no wait - it isn't, is it?
That hybrid civic gets a heck of alot more built in features than the 14k regular civic. You can really compare then equally. You have to at least go to the LX model with front side airbags to draw a comparison. Which is around $16k. The EX, which the hybrid share some features with runs about $18k. Certainly the hybrid is still more expensive, but comparing to other models with similar features make s it more reasonable.
As far as the over-active sense of entitlement, I think that's the parents who can't stomach the idea of driving a station wagon. Hate to tell ya, folks, but most SUVs these days have 8" ground clearance and soft-ass suspensions and probably can't deal well with potholes. You're not fooling anyone, it's as pathetic as a combover. Embrace the inner soccer mom - after you spit out the 7th puppy, that's what you are.
Current research is looking into other methods using either polycrystalline silicon or nanocrystalline TiO2, the latter being sensitized by dyes that capture visible light. These materials are getting a lot closer to prime time, and being much less energy intensive to make, will have a much shorter energy break-even. Efficiency is significantly lower, though.
So, why don't you rent the SUV/Minivan for the once a year vacation instead of wasting gas for the entire year? Oh, you have to carpool 7 kids around? Buy two cars...and you and your wife can split the morning car routine. Assuming that your not driving a *real* truck, like a Ford F150, your whole SUV argument is bunk, in my book. And if you really do need a heavy-duty truck to tow your boat around...you've got more $$$ than I got. I find it interesting that interest in hybrid vehicles has only increased since gas has gotten to be $2.50 a gallon...just wait till its $4 or $5 ...thanks G.W.B.!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
matts: bikes go faster than cars...a bike at 60 mph is a lot faster than a car at 60 mph kritical: um no... matts: um yes my sisters sport car at 60 mph goes faster than my dads explorer at 60 mph a bike at 60 mph will blow by a car at 60 mph
http://slashdot.su/
.
A Jetson's sound module that changes pitch with accel/decel.
If I could come up with an onomatopoeia for the Jetson's car noise, I'd put it here.
is also a Civic - specifically, the hybrid. Just to bring all of this back "on topic". :)
It also occurs to me that some people might point out that the driver of the semi-truck not only managed to escape unharmed, but her truck was also in relatively good condition as well. My response to that would be that if we both had been driving semi-trucks, this would most likely not have been the case.
Oh, and in this case, the driver of the semi also wandered into my lane, and another driver (who was a witness) says he saw her on a cell phone. What's sad/amusing to me, is that in this picture that my wife took of the car, you can see another (smaller) truck driver on his cell phone, rubber-necking at our accident, while towing stuff behind him!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
We'll see who's fucking themselves when gas costs $5/gallon, family members start getting drafted into the army or killed due to increased terrorist attacks on american soil.
Then there are the thorium reserves, which outstrip uranium.
Fission power would be enough for hundreds, possibly thousands of years of consumption, if properly developed.
Unless my math has an error, it sounds as if it could already be cost competitive.
First of all, I assume that electricity costs anywhere from 2-15 cents per kilowatt hour.
A 25mpg car running for one hour at 50 mph goes 50 miles and therefore uses up 2 gallons of fuel, which at roughly $3 a gallon costs $6.
Assume that the 25mpg car needs 50 horsepower to keep the car moving at 50 mph. Using the units command supplied standard with Linux I find that 50 horsepower is 37.285 kilowatt. So if 37kW were needed to do the same thing for an hour using an electric, the electricity would cost you:
37kW*.15 = $5.55 in a place where electricity costs 15 cents per kW*h.
37kW*.10 = $3.70 in a place where electricity costs 10 cents per kW*h.
37kW*.05 = $1.86 in a place where electricity costs 5c/kW*h.
37kW*.02 = $0.75 in a place where electricity costs 2c/kW*h (probably off-peak, and that's approximately the cost of wind-generated power IIRC.)
All of those sound attractive compared to $6 for two gallons (and rising).
Of course, for this to be a real comparison, a lot of other things would have to be taken into consideration, such as engine efficiency, battery efficiency, electric motor efficiency, transmission line versus fuel transport efficiency, weight considerations, the need to make separate trips to gas/petrol stations whereas electrics charge at home, regenerated braking energy, spills and evaporation, etc...
Rationing in the US will have very little effect on prices. The fact is that when I buy a gallon of gas, I'm taking from the same supply pool as my next-door-neighbor, the chinese military and truck drivers in europe.
In any event, it's just the wrong thing to do -- when prices go up, the people who use the gas will be the ones who value it the most: a man who needs the gas to go to the hospital will pay more for it than the man who needs it to go water-skiing.
I see no evidence for your assertion that high prices bankrupt gas stations, but have seen several articles that say that gas stations are doing very well.
You can't compare the WWII situation to today's: the world market was completely different than it is today. The gas rationing of the 1970s has been shown to do more harm than good -- because of the rationing, people topped off their cars whenever they got a chance, creating an enormous "rolling reserve" of gas: before, the average tank was 1/2 full; during rationing it was 3/4 full -- multiply the 2-3 gallons by 30 million cars, and that's a lot of gas.
Stations should not run out of gas if you let the market set the price for gas -- when they do, that means that the price is too low.
Funny you should mention that. As I read this, your indicated troll sits above you :P
I tend to agree - what the world needs is more manufacturers that listen to what consumers want but i reckon calling people who argue on where energy comes from jackasses is tad harsh... regardless that energy is only converted, where it converted FROM is important! HYBRIDS rock - now PLEASE CAN WE HAVE SOME MORE! Toyota is doing a great job... but can't keep up with demand here in aus, and not all toyota dealers can even show you a prius, only selected "prius dealers" - or so i was told by my local one.
My 1980ish VW Rabbit 1.8L deisel got 50-60mpg. It had an extended fuel tank, that allowed me to go over 1 month between fillups (and that was while doing DELIVERY jobs in high school)!
The ironic part about the prius story is that it requires electicity from the utility company to charge, and that is being generated by burnig fuel oil, or even worse coal in the majority of the county. So the owner is probably causing more environmental damage with his prius than if he just had a biodeisel, solar or hydrogen card. (oops, hydrogen takes massive energy inputs to produce...more coal and oil).
When world production falls by a few percent, American gasoline prices will jump to European levels and stay there. At that point the hybrid will pay off much faster (even ignoring lower maintenance and less time wasted at filling stations) and the resale value will make the owners look very shrewd.
What do you mean, doesn't do anything worth a damn? Whatever he charges those batteries with, it's going to use only a trivial amount of oil (maybe hauling coal to a powerplant, or wind-turbine parts to a wind farm). He could charge them with a solar panel if he wanted to.The batteries he used were lead-acid units sold for electric bicycles. If you look at the price of batteries, it seems likely that a unit built in volume might cost only about $200 to $300 (quite a bit less than the NiMH battery which comes with the car). Lead-acid batteries do wear out, but they are the most-recycled product in the USA. If you can get off-peak rates for charging at night, you'll pay a small fraction of what gasoline would cost for the same driving and replace most of the first few mile's worth of gas with coal, natural gas, hydro, wind and nuclear. Natural gas is getting scarce, but the rest are 100% domestic and not about to go away.
Hybrids are just smart. The plug-in hybrid is insurance.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Hybrid cars are an illusion much like the slight of hand used by a magician to trick you to look somewhere else.
/
Look at the new cars on the market. We are looking at buying a Mazda as an example.
Mazda 3 - economy car 34 mpg
Mazda 6 - family car 30 mpg
RX-8 - sports 24 mpg
Miata - sports 28 mpg
Or look here
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/gasmileage
for a list of he highest gas mileage cars for 2004.
Other than a few cars (and very pricey ones at that for the car itself) this is just pathetic. What is keeping the car companies from producing higher mpg's on the economy car line? Or any line for that matter?
The car world has been stuck at 30 and the mid 30's for the last 35 years or longer. That is the real crime here.
You always see stories of people with cars getting 80, 100 or more mpg. Why this will never become reality has nothing to do with technology or trying to be environmentally responsible.
We are all being duped. The governments (and automobile industrys) hand is truly quicker than the eye.
Damn right. If you look at the statistics you'll see that minivans have more cargo space than SUVs, as well as being safer and more fuel efficient.
The in-laws have a minivan; the sister-in-law has a Ford Expedition. When we're visiting and we need to haul six people plus luggage, we sure as hell don't try to do it in the SUV.
Sheesh, the level of denial of SUV drivers is amazing.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The negative environmental impact of the batteries is never discussed. Current battery technology is miserable at best. The hybrid cars are just a way for the manufacturers to get some free ink and avoid the wrath of the fossil-fuel industry for promoting alternative, cleaner-burning fuels.
Gas for cars is produced as an integrated part of oil refining. The oil companies have invested billions and billions of dollars in distillation equipment and infrastructure that relies on gasoline being refined out of crude oil and sold. As long as we use oil for heating, lubrication and countless other things, gasoline will be part of process. If you mess with the supply and demand aspect of gasoline all other oil-based products will fluctuate madly. The refiners rely on revenues from gasoline to help pay for the process. The carbon chains that you burn on the way to work still have to be removed from crude to produce yet higher grades of petroleum products. Consider what happens if you turn those carbon chains into manufacturing waste or other less profitable products. All those plastic parts on your hybrid (including the battery cases) will shoot up in price.
Making a claim such as "80 mpg" with a "plug-in" Prius is somewhat disingenuous. How many Kilowatt hours are you using to charge the battery and how much is that costing you? Electric cars are definitely less expensive to "fuel" but part of that comes from not having to pay the gasoliene tax.
Assuming I use 15 gallons a week now driving 52 miles round-trip to and from work, that's about $150.00 a month. I'd have to drive the same route for five years to break even. If gas prices went up another dollar a gallon, that cuts the payback to three and half years. If I lived in LA the math would be different.
And that's assuming the car doesn't need any other maintenance. New batteries, a clutch, transmission, or brakes.
I'm going to wait until next summer, let the hybrid technology improve a little more and get a Honda hybrid. Cash in on the subsidy and when the warranty expires toss a plug-in kit in there.
Assuming gas prices don't go down or keep trending up, over the lifetime of the car the payback will be worth it.
My ideal car would be a hybrid diesel. A plug-in package and grease car kit and you could tell the Saudis to cram their oil right up their hairy hind end.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
For arguments sake, say you average 25 MPG in your non-SUV and travel 12,000 miles per year, spending USD 1,200 here and USD 2,880 in the GB. If electric costs USD 1.50/Gal (USD 720/yr), and you kept the car for four years, you'd only save USD 480 here and USD 2,160 in the GB.
Clearly, the savings of going electric here in the US aren't great enough for most people to sacrifice driving range, performance and convenience yet. So, while I would like to feel good about doing my part to reduce energy consumption, I don't see that out-weighing the pleasure of driving an S4.
From TFA: "The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb"
I guess golf carts get infinite miles to the gallon.
But can it play Doom3?
Considering the Prius is about a third the weight of the average SUV, I think you mean closer to 50 bricks. Also, you might be better off embedding them in the windows instead.
"Quote some numbers please. "Doesn't really look that good" is meaningless."
Coal generation is about 35% efficient, transmission losses can be up to about 20% or so, battery storage is around 60% efficient, electric motors are around 66% efficient, so 0.35 * 0.80 * 0.60 * 0.66 = 0.11.
Cars are what, about 25% efficient at converting the energy into work?
"Then look up coal gasification on Google."
Coal gassification doesn't make up a majority of the electricity generated in the US. When we're talking about electricity generation, traditional coal can be taken to be the majority.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
So will the price of electricity go up if everyone buys a hybrid? Where will the next gouge come from?
I'm 38 years old and have owned at least a dozen lawnmowers from cheap residential push mowers to a 62" commercial zero turn mower. I have never seen a two stroke mower are these common in Europe? Two stroke engines do not have to be big polluters, new 2 stroke outboards are actually cleaner than their four stroke counter parts. Four stroke outboards and weed eaters are catching on for their quiet operation and use of use (no mixing).
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
These people with the "plug in" so called envionmentaly friendly autos kill me. Just cause they cant see the thick black smoke coming from their tailpipe they think they are saving the spotted whatevers, but they fail to understand how 99+% of electricity is generated, coal and other fossil fuel.
$ whatis msft msft: nothing appropriate
Nothing as far as I know. However, I regularly plug my vehicles in from ~Dec 1 until ~March 31 every winter (using block heater for those cold nights make the engine SOOOO much happier).
Or at least, not any time soon.
... why won't solar cars ever come into real use? They're not strong enough to pass crash safety tests. They draw at most 2kW. That results in major weight stripping -- they weigh at most 700lbs with a driver in them. They also reduce the cross section ... maybe 0.5 to 1 m^2 ... which means it has about the visibility of a motorcycle (worse, as they're so low to the ground).
One of the most feasible design for a solar car that I've seen was the TNE III, from Team New England. The folks who run Sunrayce (GM) specifically changed the rules after 1995, to make sure that the design, or anything resembling it, wasn't allowed again.
What was different about their design? They didn't keep the solar panels in a charging configuration while the vehicle was in motion. They would charge up, pack up the array, then race for the finish line. If they ran out of power, they'd have to stop, unpack the array, then sit and charge for a while.
Besides that their car was one of the only ones with trunk space (although, it was filled with the solar array), their design gave more space to the driver compartment. Provided it's used for simple commuting (office, home, charge, repeat), their design makes perfect sense.
Now
Combined with a Suburban or a semi, whose driver isn't paying attention, and it's a death trap on wheels.
The only way that I see fully electric vehicles really coming into their own is in a controled environment where they're not mixing with larger vehicles. (planned cities, golf courses, etc.)
I'm personally for planned cities -- visit a town like Venice, and you'll see that it's perfectly possible to get around without owning a vehicle, so long as they're a little bit of public transit Think about how much cleaner New York could be if people couldn't bring vehicles in from outside, and there were only delivery vehicles, mass transit, and taxis.
I would actually expect alternative fuels, most likely oil, but not necessarily petroleum based, to be the most likely candidate for the next generation -- biodiesel, or byproducts from trash digestion or biomass recycling.
I'd say that the car companies realize that people are willing to pay a premium for more environmentally friendly cars (just like they used to be able to sell 'agressive' looking cars, more comfortable rides, 'luxury', or carrying capacity), but they have to weigh that against making sure it's reliable. They could go bankrupt from lemon laws if they don't make sure they're rock solid, and aren't hazardous to their passengers.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
For those of us who live in the City, and commute to the suburban industrial parks (that are so increasingly popular), I don't have a garage, and as a consequence, no outlet to plug-in such a vehicle. While I'd love to not be spending $35 every week to fill the tanks of my 26.7mpg Subaru Outback Sport, this is unfortunately not a solution for me!
I would think that a turbine/electric hybrid would be the most useful in my case -- where are they? It's such a simple concept. I don't need a hybrid SUV , I need a practical and safe commuter vehicle, that handles my dumpster-diving habit, and the occasional day-long trips across states.
I seriously sometimes hate being outside the sales demographic, it makes TV, food, music, movies, and cars always a puzzle!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The work this fellow has done on his car does nothing to improve the fuel efficiency of his car. He is simply drawing more of the energy to drive the car from his houshold electrical supply. That electricity still had to be produced somewhere, and has its own set of inefficiencies associated with production. A typical 100 HP engine will consume 1 gallon of gas in 1/2 hour. 1 HP is roughly 800 watts. That means that one gallon of gas is roughly 40 killowatt hours. Todays electric prices ( here where I live ) are roughly $0.07 / killowatt hour. That means that for every gallon of gas he saves by using his house power, it would cost him $2.80 here in my town. Not much of a savings since gas costs about $2.60 / gallon...
The real advantage is that as the price of gas increases, the cost of electricity does not really change much. Also, in an oil crisis, countries that do not rely on oil for electricity (france) would still be able to operate their cars without interruption. So the real advantage this guy has is that when the next oil scare happens and you have to stand in line for three hours for each gallon of gas, he will be laughing as he spends his sundays relaxing instead of standing in line.
-=geoskd
www.geoskd.com
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
The biggest failure here, is that we have a bunch of partially informed people arguing over what the best way to help the environment. Why, if this is a question that affects every American, is there not a well-publicized government clearing-house for this information?
Let's see Ron leave the balmy clime of Corte Madera, California, and drive his batteried-up Prius and head north and east this winter. The problems with standard electrics remains-- as the temperature drops, so does the range of the vehicle. At 32F, the range is cut by 90%. At 0F, the battery is depleted after 10 minutes. This is why the GM/Saturn electric was never offered outside of SoCal. This is also why Hybrids are succeding in North Eastern US cities--and Canada.
I also hope that Mr. Gremban doesn't have an inadvertant crash test of his haxored Prius, with all those extra batteries in the trunk. My favorite experimental car battery design was molten sulfur--it did solve the low-ambient temp problem, but would have been a disaster to deal with after a smashup on the interstate.
And while Gremban isn't a total moron, Wolsey and Gaffney (quoted in the article as endorsing the concept) most certainly are.
---
For those not in "The land of the metric free", 250 MPG is about 1L/100km.
...I want to see gas at $12 a gallon.
There are no legitimate reasons to have them as commuter vehicles, unless you're a careless asshole. Like you said, they just don't care about other people on the road -- their car is big, and that's it.
I am not sure of what to do about assholeism on the highway. As a commuter in a Subaru, I see these people as accidents waiting to happen -- no turn signal, not paying attention to the lines in the road, not paying attention to the existance of other vehicles in their paths.
These people just don't care -- but how do we stop them? I think mandatory driving tests every couple of years may work. You must drive for an hour or two with your friend, and an instructor in the back seat, and have your license yanked for a period of time for each violation.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
This is all true in theory. But in practice its a whole different ballgame, unless you live in alaska or something. The efficiency of engines drop a lot due to things like knocking etc. the theoretical efficiency is supposed to be 35% or thereabouts, but in reality one only gets anywhere from 15%-30% depending on how modern the car is/where it runs/how its run etc. I was talking about the ICE in a car btw.
Calm down people, its a religion not an operating system.
Wikipedia: Tragedy of the Commons
So if a libertarian truly believes the limits of personal freedom end at when you affect other's freedoms, then they should be rabid environmentalists. The reality is that libertarianism is embodied in many regulations designed to preserve personal freedoms. However, there are plenty of regulations that do the opposite.
he/she/it writes wise words.
On thing that is also rarely mentioned is that a conventional houses electrical systems are nowhere near adequate enough to meet this power demand. Say I want to dump 10 gallons worth of petrol in the form of electricity into my car's batteries. At the above energy densities that is 340kWh! In the UK, a standard plug will only be rated to supply 13amps at 240V = ~3kW. It would take about 4.5 days to charge at this capacity. For the sake of simplicity, I've ignored all the losses incurred along the way. Beat me down if you wish.
As you point out, the buses have no storage. This is the same for San Fran and it seems like a terrible oversight in design. Even having just five minutes worth of power storage would give the driver enough time to make it to the next stop and then reconnect the poles. Instead, I can't count the times that buses jumped the lines turning a corner, fouling traffic in two directions for several minutes while the driver frantically tried to reconnect them. Stupid stupid design.
Cars don't have that problem. All electric cars are battery based (unlike bumper cars at amusement parks). So, it really wouldn't be a problem for an electric vehicle to not maintain a permanent connection. A car with a pole could make an attempt to connect to the power, and if the car needed to break away to pass another car, or pull into a driveway or go somewhere the lines aren't, no problem. Should the vehicle run out of charge "off the lines" then if it was a hybrid, gas would fill in.
The point is that while driving around in the city, a car would probably be able to tap in on all of the major routes, and stretch a poor battery capacity enough to make it work. Batteries would be most likely charged a lot faster than they are discharged, so it's possible that just brushing a line for a couple minutes or while stopped at a light would be enough to give the car another 20-30 minutes of driving, especially if the battery was low and "hungry" for charging.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
5 kids?
Its good to know that the religious ideology of hundreds of years ago still lives on!!!
Proctor and Gamble must LOVE you!
You are right however, doing the calculations based on the energy content of the gasoline is the wrong way to do it. You want to do the calculations based on the energy *output* of each type of motor, but even that is not quite accurate, since a well designed electric system does not require a transmission
It is no accident that the worlds faster RC (read as toy ) car is an electric car. With no transmission, this toy car was able to reach a top speed of 104 MPH and had sufficient low end acceleration to handle well on the race track as well. ICE's require a transmission because at low RPM they have almost no torque, and at high RPM they explode. This means that they have only a very narrow effective operational range. To extend this, transmissions are added to vehicles that use them. An electric motor however has a similar torque at almost all speeds of operation. like the ICE, electrics will fail at high RPM, but unlike the ICE that speed is much much higher for an electric motor. ICE's typically die at around 6500 RPM (10,000 RPM for race vehicles). Electric motors range anywhere from 20,000 RPM to 100,000 RPM before failure.
-=geoskd
www.geoskd.com
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Sure you can do this. You just need electricty. This has to come from somewhere - so if you build 1000 nukes - about 1GWe (GW equivalent) - then you can eliminate all coal, all oil and all alternatives and produce 100% of the USA energy needs - all from Uranium.
And while you are at it maybe you want to revist the Integral Fast Reactor that Clinton shut down - designed by Argonne labs by 1994 because then there is 6000 years of fuel already mined and processed and sitting around and its called "spent" uranium and "depleted" uranium. Oh... and what of all the Thorium?
But - how many years for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve? Decades is my guess.
I'm getting 250mph out of my SUV for the first few feet as well. Every morning, I get out and push to get the car rolling, then hop in and coast as long as possible until I start the engine.
Of course, I realize that I'm just displacing the energy consumption from the gasoline fired ICE to the metabolic unit in my gut, but it feels more efficient and I've been eating my Wheaties every morning so...
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
2-stroke or 4-stroke, lawnmowers (and leaf blower and etc) have no pollution controls at all. Per dollar spent, you'd get about 1000 times as much result going after lawn care eqipment as cars.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
All "that extra safety shit" also protects the lives of the family in the other vehicle that you just crashed into.
The "safety tax" not only contributes to your safety; it helps keep me safe too should our two vehicles collide. You don't have the right to endanger me unnecessarily by driving a large, unsafe vehicle on public roads.
Although I'd probably qualify them as more hippie than geek, there's Arcosanti, Arizona, not to mention most European cities that have been in existance since before automobiles were invented. I'm personally partial to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
One of the big things to remember in city living is that space is at a premium -- give up the 4 bedroom houses and 3 bathrooms. When you carry most of the things you buy, rather than just drop them in the back of your SUV, you're not likely to do as much impulse buying. And changing out your furniture every year is more difficult when you also have to consider both delivery of the new stuff, and disposal of what you currently have.
It may have other benefits, by providing extra incentives to select items that will last, as opposed to whatever's cheapest.
Starting from scratch is the easiest way to reduce the dependancy on automobiles, but some places are trying to implement disincentives (London w/ a toll for entering the city, Athens w/ restrictions on which cars can enter the town based on their license places). Unfortunately, some don't have the intended results -- in Greece, people would just get a second car, so they had one w/ and odd licenses, and one even.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Oh, wow. Sarcasm. And a whiff of troll. But I'll bite.
I have young children. We drive a car, it gets better mileage than a minivan. The children, my wife, and the stroller do not all fit in the cabin. The stroller goes in the trunk. If we're going shopping, that's where whatever groceries we buy go.
Just cause your single and have not a care in the world doesn't mean the rest of us don't need our trunks. The rest of us are trying to balance the family and being socially/environmentally responsible, but at this stage hybrids like this AREN'T the answer. I'd need a SUV size vehicle to accomodate my family, and that would ruin the cost savings. I'll stick to my 30+ MPG saturn, thanks.
-everphilski-
There's something else to consider here. Most cars, all mass market ones I'm aware of, use mechanical transmission. No, I'm not confusing manual vs automatic. The have been significant improvements in electrical drive systems. According to a few Discovery Channel shows, apparently a large percentage of the really big trucks us electrical generation by diesal generators, and then have independent electrical motors to drive the wheels. I believe the Navy is/was more or less proposing the same thing on the DD-21 class of destroyers. I also read recently that Bose, yes the same guys who make the speakers, are making an electrical(technically electro-mechanical) shock asorbers to replace the hydrolic ones we all use now. Okay so what's my point? My point is that these mechanical transmission systems while effective are heavier than they need to be. We could replace them in cars with the electrical systems that the heavy equipment manufacturers have already done; as I believe the technology has matured enough to reach the smaller sizes that cars require. Even in the big ugly SUV that so many folks hate, it would be a significant improvment. I'm not sure here, but I think it would help.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Let's have him charge his batteries overnight using a gasoline generator that's rigged to automatically shut off when the batteries are fully charged. Then we can measure how much gasoline he's using to keep the thing running and get a _real_ number.
That's the byline: "Written by Advertising". Don't believe everything you read, especially if it comes from a web site with an obvious axe to grind.
It doesn't pass the sniff test to me. Death threats against the inventor won't work: information wants to be free and they can't kill everybody who comes up with the idea.
More to the point, compressed air isn't an energy source, it's just a fuel medium, like hydrogen or electricity. The energy still comes from somewhere. His car is energy-efficient only if the means of producing compressed air are efficient, and I'm not convinced of the energy budget here. Compressing air evolves a lot of waste heat, which is currently just discarded. And unless you're planning to compress it at a factory and sent out tubes of compressed air, it's going to be hard to use that waste heat at a local level.
Maybe this is ultimately brilliant, but it sounds to me more like a man trying to attract attention with spurious "death threats" than somebody who's really improved the state of the art. I could be wrong. If he's right, we'll find out some day, even if they kill him. If he's wrong... well, all we'll have is people who read press releases claiming that he's being suppressed.
The isotope of Uranium currently used in commercial reactors is U-235, which constitutes about 0.7% of all naturally occuring Uranium. Other types of reactors can use the remaining 99.3% of Uranium or the much more common Thorium as fuel.
Integral fast reactors produce much less waste because they burn the fuel more completely. They're not even close to waste-free, but their waste isotopes are shorter lived, and the long-term radioactive waste produced (reactor structure etc) is much smaller in quantity. Pebble bed reactors produce their waste contained in nigh-indestructible (usually silicon carbide?) pebbles that are easier to dispose of safely.
There's thousands of years of fuel, even at substantially increased demand.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
This stuff about hybrids etc. is all nice and dandy, but is the oil really running out?
I remember as a kid they said all the oil would be gone by 2000, but like it's 2005 and there still seems to be lots of oil about. Well, now they say 2010-2020. Guess by 2010 they'll be saying 2030-2040
The Chinese are importing lots and lots of oil so the worlds output is increasing all the time, yet the price has not gone proportionally up in comparison...
Car companies are selling car with worse and worse fuel usage figures, i.e. SUVs. Western governments are adding lots of "safety" regulations that make cars so much heavier, again using more fuel. Western governments have invented new taxes for CO2 usage; governments only ever seem to tax rising trends, so they expect that to increase. People have to work and hence consume more to pay for these increased taxes.
If the fuel was really running out would our rulers do stuff to actually increase consumption?
Oil running out? Nah, doesn't stack up.
threadeds blog
Look, the biggest factor to "wearing out the roads faster" has practically nothing to do with people driving around SUVs, and MUCH more to do with big 18-wheelers and the ones with double trailers attached. If a vehicle the size of a Suburban or even a Cadillac Escalade can do physical damage to our paved roads and highways, then we're really in trouble when the UPS or FedEx guy comes around, aren't we?
(Maybe you better stop ordering anything mail order, huh?)
At least here in the midwest, the REAL culprit for wearing out roads is ice and snow, and the rock salt they put down to combat it each winter..... but I digress.
The real point is, all of this SUV hatred is completely misplaced, and completely ignores people's rights to purchase and use whichever product they'd prefer to own. If you use an SUV and it gets poor gas mileage, then you purchase more gas - which is taxed at quite a high rate, so you *do* contribute more than others to funding govt. programs. Since SUVs generally aren't especially cheap vehicles, you ALSO get socked wtih high "personal property taxes" for the life of ownership in some states.
As for myself, I actually still have a 1985 Pontiac station wagon, which was a hand-me-down from my folks, who only used it for a few vacation trips and kept it garaged all the time. It's still in excellent shape. But my other vehicle is a Mitsubishi Montero Sport SUV, and you know what? That wagon gets FAR worse gas mileage than the SUV does. My friend used to drive around a small van that got worse gas mileage than my SUV does, too. Yet these environmentalist assholes who run around dumping paint on people's SUVs and so forth seem to think a station wagon or van is "more accpetable".
Whatever.... In any case, the trend is moving away from buying SUVs anyway. The problem is, whenever a vehicle is discovered as very useful for taking kids around to school and such, it eventually gets labeled a "soccer mom" vehicle and becomes "uncool" to own. That's why you saw everyone go from station wagons to minivans, and from minivans to SUVs. Now, SUVs are "uncool" - so I don't know what's next? Chrysler is trying to bring back the station wagon in a re-invented form, so maybe it's coming full circle?
I was wrong about the isotopes of Uranium used. Forget about that part...
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Why not form a stirling engine to the engine and exhaust system to the alternator to get more electrical juice out of this sucker??? http://www.lunarstudio.com/
Architectural Renderings
4 yr payoff for solar cells that can have a 10+yr lifespan is pretty good IMHO.
The main thing is the final net payout. Solar is >1 today. It is practical. The next step is whether it is sufficiently desirable. As the net payout number continues to rise, solar and solar/wind setups will begin to dominate over combustion based generation.
Wind is already >1 net payout, but the cost is biased to more maintenance over time which is a problem for many deployments.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
Having to truck around offspring is another matter. I know from experience.
It's misleading when you talk about mileage when the car gets plugged in because it doesn't take the enegery form the electricity grid in calculating the mpg.
Have you seen this thing? Its a friggin' golf cart. There are a few of them in my neighbourhood, every time I park next to one I have this urge to tip the bloody thing over.
Rolling coffin. A motorcycle would be safer. At least on a bike you can usually jump off before you hit.
...we could just stomp you for being an annoying whiner and keep your share for ourselves.
Free country,Greenie boy You don't get to pick what I drive, wear or eat.
That would be unnecessarily pesimistic but still far more honest than his claims.
A decent solar panel will also set you back anywhere between $50k and $500k.
In yen, maybe. You can get a decent panel for a couple hundred bucks.
*sigh* back to work...
have you looked in the mirror?
/. is packet to the gills with jealous little losers. People who are so bound up in class envy that they turn it into vile hatred of anyone who obviously doesn't live like they do.
I see hatred, class envy, and general jealousy.
New trucks have for some time had their bumpers lowered so that the impact zone will be more survivable for non-SUVs.
I think the part that offends me the most is your view that their family size is not warranted? Should we just invoke an enviro-fascist state and invoke rules stating how many kids you can have, what you can drive, how much you can drive, how much you can use your homes AC, what foodstuffs you can buy, or where you can live?
It is vindictive hate mongers like you that are far worse for society than someone driving a suburban. Your post is only insightful as
If your so damned worried about Mr. Suburban then I suggest you move close to where you work so you don't have to see them on the road. After all you want to do your part to protect the environment and have a safer existance, right?
Your the type who will rail on this guy one moment and then rail on someone else who happens to meet the solutions for the first. In other words, no one elses actions are ever going to be good enough for you unless they have less that you.
Whatever, just get off your "I'm the center of the fucking universe" soapbox and join the real world.
Karma to BURN.... damn this place isn't full of insightful ideas, it is full of selfish inane ideas.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I get even better mileage in my plug-in hybrid!
I force mine to run purely on battery until the batteries run down, then switch to the regular gas/hybrid system.
I only drive it a couple miles per day, never running down the batteries!
I get INFINITE MPG!
The only draw back is having to drain out the stale gas once per year or so.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
I owned a Ford Crown Vic Police Cruiser. The trunk space in that beat all other cars (the only thing even close to it was an SUV).
As for the car's gas mileage - City driving sucked, but for any distance driving (highway), I was getting great gas milage in 5th gear. (25-30 mpg).
The Prius and Insight are parallel hybirds. The engine driveshaft directly drives the wheels. In a serial hybrid, only the electric motor drives the wheels. This way, the engine can be specifically engineered to run the generator in its most fuel efficient part of its operation envelope.
First they brought you poor spelling. . .
Then they brought you poor grammar. . .
And no, prepare yourselves for -
*drumroll*
A POOR GRASP OF BASIC THERMODYNAMICS!
Ethanol is a great gasoline additive to reduce emissions, but if you crunch the numbers head to head against biodiesel as a supplemental or replacement fuel, at least in this country where we can't grow sugar cane, biodiesel wins.
0 .html
As stricter sulfur limits phase in for fossil diesel over the next few years, you'll see the SULEV/PZEV manufacturing market respond with diesel/electric hybrids... one of the reasons why Toyota's 2004 and later hybrid drivetrain was made to be interchangible. Current levels of sulfur prevent this by making emissions control technology too expensive.
At that point biodiesel will experience a surge since most of the factors that make diesels unpopular in the "clean burning" crowd will no longer be valid -- and most any diesel will take biodiesel straight or mixed with fossil diesel without any mods or adjustments. The whole market is just waiting and gearing up for the time when those diesel sulfur limits take effect in the U.S.
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,66949,0
Someone had to do it.
I'd really like to see how it performs w/o being plugged in overnight. After all, when you plug into an outlet, that power has to be created by some form of burning fossil fuels. Storing that power just so you can say you get higher fuel economy is cheating.
If I filled an 18-wheeler chock full of batteries. Then, charged them to capacity, I bet I could easily clear 1000 MPG for a short distance, but what would that prove (besides quintupling my electric bill)
Jesus freaking christ (or any other mythological creature of your choice), just rent an SUV for your trips. Fewer would have to be manufactured, reducing the polution caused in building your gas hogs.
A couple of sedans will get your family to dinner if you want all 7 together. Worst case, a minivan for the around town use by the family and a fuel efficient work car for whoever has to drive further for their job.
It's how my wife and I move a family of 8 around. If we want dinner out, there are plenty of nice places between my work and home, so we meet there after I get off work to have enough room to move the family about. For our occassional date out alone (relatives provide the babysitting), we just use my car.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You laugh, but a family member, who grew up in Nicaragua, had a similar experience. There was a certain town in the mountains where to get there from any other place was ALL uphill and to get out of there and go somewhere else it was ALL downhill. No stops, no big intersections, just road.
r get it features where it has what I can only describe as a MPG-ometer, showing you gas usage right underneath the tachometer (8 MPG to 40 MPG), as well as an onboard computer that calculates overall mileage (I'm at about 23 MPG since I last reset it years ago). Well, when it was new, it was always nice to play around and try to get the most miles out of the tank. Currently I get maybe 300 mi. per fillup. I once used the devices above to get about 400 mi. for the fillup, and I was doing the same kind of work-commute, odd-weekend-chores roundabouts. Too bad for me, since I am irresponsible and love to accelerate quickly, so I got tired of it after the first time of having a half week of constant observation of dials and doodas to make sure I got my money's worth.
Some of the taxi drivers during that time (mid-70's, think high gas prices), after getting past the town limits and sections with traffic, would turn off the car, put it in neutral, and coast the rest of the way. It wasn't quite 250 miles (maybe 20-30), but they went a good stretch without using gas, so their mileage was X/0 MPG.
My car has one of those really-cool-when-it's-new-but-later-you-mostly-fo
Now I work from home so I fill up once every 10 days or so.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I just don't trust other people on the road enough to have my primary mode of transportation not have me surrounded by steel. I know quite a few people killed on cycles by the "other guy", either backing out without looking or blowing stop signs etc.
I know what you mean. Almost 9 years ago while riding my bike, pedal power, I was hit by someone driving one of those appartment mover vans and while I was in a coma the docs told my family it'd be a miracle if I lived. NOT!!! Now I'm a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury suvivor. Witnesses to the accident said the driver who hit me was weaving all over the road and didn't stop when he hit, that some had to chase him down the road and force him to stop. He was a diabetic and supposely had a seizer while driving. Come to find out that he fled one state because the state issued an arrest warrant for him and that he had caused two similar accidents previously as well as had been hospitalised twice.
At the tyme of the accident I typically rode my bike about 100 miles a week but would put in 200+ during a week every few weeks. I rode it to school, work, shopping, and recreation. In the nine years since I don't know if I rode as much as 200 miles altogether.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I hope my daughters have 100% battery type powered vehicles, do not use nearly any foreign oil petroleum, it is about our only hope of not destroying the entire world (& sacrificing the entire graduating class of 2011 to war to access petroleum).
More power to this guy & any others who have the cajones & brains to attempt it & any other experiments/improvements to do what the manufactuers will not.
I hope the fat old dumb white men who run these companies choke on their fourth martini at lunch when they learn of this.
See How Much Cleaner than a Gasoline Car is a PHEV Charged from the Dirty (Coal) Grid?
In addition, the ULEV rating does not take into account all the costs associated with getting the gasoline into the ULEV car.
Has anyone tried putting some solar panels on the roof of a hybrid to increase the mileage?
A decent solar panel will also set you back anywhere between $50k and $500k. And even with a $500k panel, one gets only 3-4kW out of it under best circumstances, barely enough to sustain an effort in the 4-5HP area.
I don't know where you got those numbers but solar panels are a lot cheaper than that. Doing a real quick google I found this:
Isofoton 150W 24 volt 25 amp solar panels for $675.00 each or 4 for $2,600.00. Using $2,600 for four panels 20 panels wired in series will generate 3kw for $13,000.
That's nowhere near $50k you said for one panel. Having said that, it's cheaper and easier to conserve. One way to conserve is by changing light bulbs to CFL, compact floresent lights, they use 1/4 of what "regular" incandecent lights do and provide just as much lighting. That's what I use, 12 and 15 watt CFLs that illuminate as much as 60 and 75 watt incandecent light bulbs. LED light bulbs use even less energy. There are LED light bulbs that use less than 10% of the energy an incandecent and still provide as much light.
FalconShould there be a Law?
One thing that people seem to forget with Batteries. THEY ARE TOXIC WASTE!! From Car Batteries down to your everyday AA battery. A quote from http://www.cawrecycles.org/ "Virtually all household batteries, including rechargeable and one-time use (alkaline) batteries, contain hazardous materials and their disposal in landfill is prohibited. As many as 300 million batteries are landfilled in California each year."
Yeap! My injury, a TBI, is permanent. That is until neurology makes significant advanced, which is one reason I support stem cell research. You recall those antidrug commercials with eggs, showing scrambled eggs or eggs in a frying pan a commentator says "This is your brain on drug"? Well my brain are those scrambled and fried eggs. I suffer from bad memory amoung other things. At the tyme of the accident I was in college majoring in Computer Engineering. If I were to continue with that I'd have to retake a lot of classes and learning is a lot harder now. I used to tutor but now I need tutors. However while I'm back in school I don't want continue with CE, at least just CE. Instead I want to get work on a multidisiplinary degree where I can combine different fields of study.
FalconShould there be a Law?
amen!
thanks for saying what needed saying. shit, i can't believe everyone doesn't think the way you do. sorry state of minds.
there are government subsidy programs for hybrids I believe.
Yeap, the energy bill that ended up on Bush's desk contains tax credits to consumers who buy hydrids. These credits range from $1,700 to $3,000. And I think some states offer tax credits as well.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You breed like bunnies, then insist on driving a packed Suburban and a boat into the wilderness, which you walk all over and... and... aaaaiiiieeee! Your sense of entitlement doesn't fit through the door, really.
Please do us all a favor, sell the vehicles, stay out of the woods, and take up family bike rides. And wrap that rascal.
At last a comment in this thread that makes a modicum of sense. Of cours, we are probably all suffering from "class envy" like Shivetya, right?
if it's feasible, i think you should seriously consider taking the time to do a little work on your driveway. i've lived in a few spots in rural, hill-country vermont, i've lived way off the road in south texas, and i currently live way way out in the bush in alaska...
yeah, some people have trucks, and when you're really "out in the country" those people tend to need them for one reason or another. but there are also plenty of people driving honda civics, etc., "out in the country". you'd be surprised where a decent car can go on a daily basis without sustaining damage. part of it is learning to drive sensibly. the other really important part is gravel.
part of the reason the geo is "unsafe": other people's choices. (it's definitely not the best car out there, those things have some problems.) but just think about this: it *shouldn't* be that unsafe to drive a vehicle that's optimal on a pvaed road on that same paved road, right? i don't want my purchasing decisions to be informed by an arms race with my neighbors, and i refuse to let that happen even if it means taking my life in my hands. i want the *freedom* that making decisions for myself gives me, that's what we all want. the issue is that some people's decisions affect more people rather than less, and so those decisions should be subject to greater scrutiny and greater criticism. make sense?
so you might fall into the minority of truck owners that actually need the truck. just try to step back from the argument if that's the case, nobody's going to take away your vehicle. you might take shit for it that you don't deserve - and in that case, i suggest you take a stand against the people who do deserve it. if you do that, even with just a bumper sticker, i think you'll find that most (if not all) of the people giving you shit before are now more likely to give you a pat on the back.
it's just that there are so many idiot-sheep out there, it's easy to lose track of the fact that some hummer drivers might not be. it's especially easy when your car goes home to the backcountry and their hummer goes home to a big house in the burbs.
it's all about appropriate technology.
[|]
Don't forget hydroelectric. I pay about 4.6 cents per kWh (or about $0.061/kWh this month if you count taxes and fees) thanks to Grand Coulee Dam. It rearranges the landscape a little, but it doesn't pollute, and it's renewable as long as water keeps obeying the laws of physics.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Oh, and see if you can downgrade to a smaller sized garbage can for pickup, that IS the advantage of recycle, if it wasn't for recycle my family would have well over 3 huge trash cans every other week of garbage to throw out.
But does it save you money by reducing the amount of trash you have? Do you pay the same no matter how much trash you have or do you pay by weight or volumn? Do you pay or do you get paid for recycling? Personally I prefer and try to recycle as much as I can, after I reduce what I can, but I don't believe I should have to pay to recycle. If anything I should be paid to recycle. I recall as a kid I used to walk along the sides of roads collecting trash and recyclables, the trash I'd throwaway and the glass, cans, and such I'd take down to a recycling place and get paid by weight. I see no reason I should have to pay to recycle.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Any act not done for money is an act of voluntarily enslaving yourself
What, you don't have any hobbies you don't get paid for? I guess you get paid for /.ing then.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hydro is one of the alternatives that works now, but conditions have to be good for it to work. Most of the places where conditions are good are already in use.
It helps, but it won't scale much higher than it is and it's not even a majority now.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
If everyone who already owns a car got rid of it and replaced it with a hybrid car, the cars would cost $100,000, China would consume all the world's oil and fill the atmosphere with sulfur making the new cars, and Japan would invent something better than hybrid cars, leaving u.s. in prehistory again.
Most of the cost in a hybrid car is the petroleum and coal required to mine the iron, lithium, manganese, copper, aluminum, cast the iron, weld the steel, melt the plastics, synthesize the battery dielectrics, and paint it. Then in 5 years the Lithium Manganese battery has to be replaced.
So when you junk your current car and pay China $20,000 to build a hybrid car, you're consuming $20,000 of oil and coal and saying you're not because you're buying a finished product.
Unfortunately, despite the parallel universe over at ap.org, China counts just as much on the energy scoreboard as u.s.. whether you burn oil h.e.r.e. or pay China to burn it there.
Then you're in favor of adding a "consumption" tax to account for the real cost of products. Add on a tax per pound for garbage, but allow free drop off of recyclables. Add on extra gas taxes. Add on disposal taxes on sale of anything that poses specific problems (e.g. CRTs).
Yeap! I'm very much in favor of a consumption tax (sales tax on nonessential items) and user fees. And pollution taxes. Get rid of income taxes!!! Well except maybe for those who make 100, 1000, or maybe 10,000 tyme what the lowest paid fulltime worker in a business makes. But at least in the USA if government were to follow the limits put on it by the USA Constitution then there wouldn't be this perceived need for high taxes.
The free market won't do it, but those are real costs that a "rational" person would pay (unless it is voluntary, thus allowing freeloaders).
A true free market would do it, however there isn't a true free market. What exists today is the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of and which Adam Smith and Thomas Paine would of railed against.
FalconShould there be a Law?
4 years isn't long in power generation. Coal powerstations probably don't pay off for 10 years, and they have a much more energy dense fuel, and they usually get it for free.
:)
The fastest pay off is probably wind, and that is still 6 months. The problem is people who want everything now (or at least within 3 years). A bit of future planning goes a long way
The problem with telling people to wait until a better tech comes along is that it is always going to be better in the future. I presume you haven't bought a computer yet either...
(Yes, I am quite aware of TiDye panels - I was at the first presentation of the technology, developed in Canberra)
I'm not going to try to argue that people have "no right to be angry" about practically anything. That's patently ridiculous, since emotions are a basic part of being human.
But "nobody is seeking to ban SUVs"? Are you sure about that? I'd call the environmentalist actions of the folks on the west coast who were smearing human feces on the door handles of every SUV they found parked in a lot, or dumping cans of paint on them pretty darn close. Groups like Greenpeace have continually battled with auto-makers to try to convince them to stop building SUVs too. They've done their best to bad-mouth them and get a boycott going on their purchase.
Who are these people to profess to know better than I as an SUV owner what *my* needs are for a vehicle? And not only that, but the people getting "offended" by seeing SUVs in service probably need to educate themselves a little bit more on the "big picture".
At least the typical SUV driver is doing something useful with his/her vehicle when you see him/her driving around. Meanwhile, we have literally hundreds of auto races held each year with cars much less fuel eficient than any SUV, not to mention burning through brakes, tires, and everything else at an incredibly fast rate - and you don't see anyone picketing out in front of the Indy or NASCAR races, do you? This is, technically, a needless waste of precious resources for nothing more than entertainment purposes.
My point is, it's all relative.... And if someone gets enough enjoyment and perceived usefulness out of driving their SUV that only gets >18 MPG, well - so be it. As I said before, they're being taxed proportionally higher than anyone driving a more fuel efficient car or truck anyway.
"People" do not want underpowered small and annoying hybrid cars.
Hybrid cars enter the fast lane
By Holly Hubbard Preston International Herald Tribune
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2005
Mark Cappellano, a vintner in the Napa Valley of northern California, waited eight months for his new car, a 2004 Toyota Prius. After he took delivery of the car, which runs on a hybrid system incorporating a gas engine and an electric motor, Cappellano drove it to Los Angeles and back - a round trip of more than 800 miles, or 1,280 kilometers.
Gas Prices Soar; Drivers Look For Alternatives
Hybrid Cars Are Not Only Solution
...
The Prius still has a waiting list, and the newest Toyota hybrid, the Highlander SUV, is catching on, too.
...
Even though the hybrids are getting a lot of press, drivers are getting more interested in conventional cars that get good gas mileage.
Toyota plans 10 new hybrid vehicles; sets long-term 1 mln-unit sales target
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (AFX) - Toyota Motor Co said it is developing on 10 new hybrid vehicles, after the segment saw strong sales in the US market.
Two years after it was introduced, Toyota's hugely successful Prius still has a waiting list and some buyers are waiting more than six months for delivery.
These are just some of the results I got when I news googled hybrids sales "waiting list". There are people lining up to have their names added to waiting lists for hybrids. While not every one is looking at hybrid some are also looking at convential cars that get good mileage.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Long term, single-crystal silicon probably isn't a winner.
(Yes, I am quite aware of TiDye panels - I was at the first presentation of the technology, developed in Canberra)
Hate to tell you, they didn't come up with the idea of dye-sensitized TiO2 solar cells.
nmb: having reread my response to you I think I owe you an apology for making a personal attack, especially with regard to your kids. I could've said everything of substance I wanted to say without being so mean spirited, especially since your post in no way deserved such a response. So, while I disagree with what you said, I really shouldn't have said it the way I did and I'm sorry.
Some people say "wear a helmet". Well almost all of the paramedics I know basically call those "brain buckets".
All of the docs and therapists I saw that said anything about wearing a helmet said one wouldn't of had helped me at all as I wasn't even hit in the head. I had just left campus after class and was wearing my backpack, and the side view mirror of the van hit my backpack which sent me flying. The injury to my brain was caused by the sudden force of being hit then hitting the ground which caused the brain to move violently as well as swell much like shaking a soda or beer bottle or can.
Do I want to be a vegetable the rest of my life? Hell no. So I will keep the majority of my biking offroad
My sister told me that after I came out of the coma I screamed at everyone to just let me die. And I still wish they had, almost 9 years later. I love liberty, being active, and intelligence so much and would rather be dead than loose them. Though I love being off road, having loved scuba diving (and cliff diving), camping and hiking, and rock clinbing I wasn't into offroad bike riding. I was more into road racing and touring.
By the way, good luck with your pursuit of a degree and it is amazing to me that you are a TBI survivor and are accomplishing your goals you have mentioned. I wish you the best of luck.
Thanks. I'm a bit stubborn, which is why I lived according to my therapists and can't see living if I don't have goals and strive to achieve them. It's been a real struggle to keep going though. I've been put on probation and was almost suspended in college, not because my gpa wasn't high enough but because I audited and repeated too many classes. When I was put on suspension my counselor helped me with an appeal. Though I don't know why it was accepted it may of been because I had one more class to take to finish the degree at the community college I was attending, Java II which I took this spring. Knowing I was going to need help for it I talked to my counselor and she sent me to another counselor in the tutoring office before classes started. He spent several weeks trying to get a tutor for me but wasn't able to find one. I also talked to the professor the first day of class and though he tried to help he couldn't find anyone either. The professor never gave us our grades for assignments, quizs, or tests so I didn't know how I was doing in class and I didn't get my grade after the finals though he sent me email saying because I didn't meet all the requirements for the final he gave me 50% on it. It required someone using a webpage to submit a form then for the server to access an MS Acess database and generate a webpage based on the data, it was for a marina business to keep track of boats, customers, docks, services, and slips. Because I don't have Access or had access to it I couldn't test my programs to make sure they worked.
Now I'm planning on transfering to a local university and want to meet handicapped as well as other counselors before I apply for admission. Because I'm concerned about being admitted I want to get my application as good as I can, I'm concerned about being on probation and having to appeal suspension.
Falcon
Quality of life is more important than quantity of life.
Should there be a Law?
You forgot to mention all the environmental evils inherent in large scale cattle ranching. Each deer hunted that prevents a beef purchase makes you that much more of a treehugging longhair.
Hunting, yes. Bravo! However you sterotype doesn't always fit. Though it's not as long as I'd like it others say my hair is long and I've been called a hippy, been known to hug a tree and care about the environment. However I also love hunting, especially venison, wild boar, and gator tail.
Shush, don't let my secret out.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A Spectrum is actually made by Isuzu like the later Storm. Isuzu cars have a very good reputation for gas mileage.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
I'd love to see the refs for that.
In Australia the 4 stroke mower is the exception rather than the norm. Are there studies showing the opposite elsewhere?
Wolja Future Tombstone: Shit happened then I died
This is insightful and informative. Kindly moderate UP. Up your ass you anoynmus corwad. Signed, Zonk
That said, for most people the path you have taken is the better one and I thought hard about just getting a corolla instead. In the end the coolness factor of the hybrid won out for me.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
But where does the electricity come from? If it is solar powered or perhaps nuclear (with its attendant risks) then maybe there could be a reduction in greenhouse gas emission. If the power is coal/oil generated then the source of the emission is just somewhere else. It just becomes a zero sum game but the politicians can sell it as a environmentally friendly solution.
Great, so he's "saving fuel" by having all those batteries in there... NOT.
Batteries ARE NO DIFFERENT than petroleum: they're stored chemical potential energy, which is released when you react it.
In the case of petroleum, when you react - burn - it, its byproducts are just gone as vapor and you have to fill up the tank with more of the stuff to keep driving. In the case of batteries, when you react them they can be "recharged" by using energy from another source to reverse the chemical reaction and "reset" the potential stored energy. However, the energy required to recharge them is MORE than you get back out when you react them again, and that energy has to come from SOMEWHERE. That somewhere is an electrical generation plant burning fossil fuel to create electricity!
In short, he's in fact using MORE fuel now with those batteries to drive his car the same distance, rather than less, because recharging batteries takes more energy than it returns and that energy is coming from even more fossil fuels being burned elsewhere. The only difference is that he's not burning it all directly himself now, and so foolishly thinks he's doing productive.
What a short-sighted idiot.
If you REALLY want to do the Earth a BIG FAT FAVOUR go and recycle your body by disposing of yourself using a tree branch and a piece of rope made of natural, recyclable fibers. And, for Gaia's sake, don't procreate before you do!
Past 4 years? Every system I know of is older than 4 years, and gives good service (I know lots of people in the bush with RAPS).
:)
re TiDye, AFAIK sta were the first to market. There is a difference between a prototype and a commercial product. Anyway, whoever invented or makes money, I don't care, I just want them to be ubiquitous
The more reason to just cover our houses with solar panels. One, it will eliminate the need for a paint job every so many years. And two, coupled with conservation, it should do the job.
I would really like one that got a 0-62 of say 8 seconds. This should be do-able with a nice powerful electric motor and allowing it to drain more power in the acceleration phase, one up to speed it should be able to cruise using a comparable amount of energy.
Bio-fuels would seem to be the way forwards as they are virtualy carbon nutral (alowing for processing). On a side note NPower in the UK is running an experiment where they pay farmers to grow willow which is made into a fule that can be burnt in an existing coal fire station.
Finaly is it me or are many (not all but especialy batter-only)of the eco-consept cars so gay looking even gay people would not drive them due to it looking too overtly gay.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
smart cars are available in US from ZAP: http://zapworld.com/
An (electrical) engine for each wheel? Less weight but, what if one of them fails in a highway? Not necessary a big failure, just a wire that is not ok.
1) Hybrids are designed to get better mileage in CITY driving...highway averages are not much better than a regular gas powered car (basically because on the highway a hybrid IS a regular cas powered car). 2) I love how all these "committed environmentalists" think that electric cars are the answer to everything...most of our electricity is still produced by burning coal, which is worse for the environment than nearly anything. Of course, well engineered hybrids don't pull power from the mains, but for the time being they don't produce enough juice to recharge a large battery.
The best way to beat the terroist threat yet, without a shot fired. No money, no guns. Need to start a grassroots letter writing campaign to Detroit and let them know that the next car you buy will be a plug-in hybrid and you hope it will be American. If they receive enough e-mails they will not be able to ignore.
It seems everyone is speaking about electric cars, but what about alcohol instead of gas? Less toxic (water+CO2), renewable and (maybe) as cheap as gas or electricity. It doesn't need to be "scotch quality" ;-) just as pure as needed. And it can be any kind of alcohol.
Is there some problem with this engines?
cajones = drawers
Maybe you wanted to say cOjones.
That's a good question, and I have a couple of points to address it. First of all, they use these things in on industrial size trucks and equipment, so they must have addressed that issue already. Secondly, we're talking about torque. Currently, most cars already have a limited slip differential. You know the saying, "moving power from the wheels that slip to the wheels that grip." This would be the same thing, and the "dead" motor would simply coast. Certainly, they would not make the wires in question easily broken. Currently, there is a ton of wiring in cars that don't fail easily. Hydrolics have been replaced in aircraft since the late 70s with the F-16, and the success there has been folowed in other aircraft. Another point is that the power brakes on your car, all cars, use a fairly fragile hose that one leak will make useless. One nick in the hose, and no brakes in the whole system; hence the emergency break, which is a steel cable backup for the hydrolics. My last point is that the electric cars like the EV-1 by GM, I think, have used this exact design. The big three have already addressed this issue. Having all 4 wheels have the motor would prevent the failure of one to cause a catastrophy. Even then, the loss of the electric load that one dead motor would represent would be noticible by the system, and then a smart designer could design the system to react to it.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Technology won't get anywhere with more fuel efficient cars until taxes for road maintenance are collected differently. Even a simple doubling of fuel economy cuts the revenue in half for road maintenance.
A couple of years back I purchased a 1979 Full-Size Bronco with a 400M-block engine (400ci, or 6.6L) - the thing sucks gas down like there is no tommorow, you can watch the gauge drop as you drive. I suppose when it was made, this wasn't a big issue. It has a 25 gallon tank on it, gets maybe 10-12mpg on a good day. The thing runs solid - I bought it for the four-wheel drive capability. I sit here wondering if I am going to be able to get the rest of it fixed and actually do some four-wheelin' (it needs a ton of suspension work, plus some steering issues need to be corrected, before I am willing to take it out on a trail) - or whether by the time I do get it done, it will cost me over $100.00 to fill the tank up...
Even if it does, I bought it for occasional off-road fun only, so gas would have to get up to about $8.00 a gallon before I would really be jittery on fueling it up...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You have a 5-minute commute, and you drive? That's just sick.
Had a Storm, myself. Well, actually my wife had it before we met. We had two carseats in the back of that thing (pop the hatchback to buckle the kids in!).
To the point: Seems like average gas mileage was about 30 in that thing, but we certainly didn't drive with an aim to conserve gas.
A great little car. Would've taken us all out in an accident, but it was a great little car.
Still have one (for better or for worse). Actually, the worst thing about it is the price of dealer parts for it. It's too bad GM stopped selling the Storm. I heard a conspiracy theory once that stated GM's reason for discontinuing the Storm as that it was outselling all of GM's domestic coupes combined during the years it was offered. It'd be really sad if that were true.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
We've got to get over the payback-versus-the-extra-cost mentality. Oil is a finite resource, and we are currently in a real war in which real people are being blown to pieces over control of oil.
The objective of hybrids, or any other alternatives including better ICEs, is therefore to reduce consumption. Period. Even if gas was ten-cents-a-gallon, but wars were still being fought over it, then it makes sense to dramatically reduce our consumption. AFAIC it doesn't matter if there is never a payback on the extra cost of a hybrid/alternative if it can put an end to our reliance on foreign oil and the wars that stem from that. I will consider it money well spent.
I drive a "3-door" '91 Civic. It's a decent balance between cargo/passenger space and fuel economy. I easily average over 30mpg for the driving I do, and conservatively estimate my daily highway mileage at around 37mpg. Considering this 15-year-old car's performance, it seems a bit odd that there aren't very many cars that get better than 30mpg.
Here's something for conspiracy theorists to mull over - this is supposed to have occurred sometime before I was born, which was in '82.
A relative of mine had a friend who claimed his car got about 70mpg. Within a month of sharing this information with people, the car was repossessed. I don't remember what model the car was, but it used a generic four-stroke internal combustion engine and a carburetor - and it was built by one of the major American auto manufacturers.
To my thinking, even if this car was comparable to a Geo Metro, 70mpg over 23 years ago was quite an accomplishment!
I'm responding mostly to keep track of this post. Thank you for posting this, very informative!
All of the enginewow links are on this page: http://www.newpath4.com/a2_environmentalclimateeng inecarbodydesigndoesnotusegasolinedieselcrudeoilhy drogenbanksofheavypoisonousbatteriesahenryfordkind ofnopollutionengine.htm and my Challenge to the Nations is here: http://www.newpath4.com/opec_crude_oil_dilemma_or_ opportunity.htm . But in a nutshell, my challenge is for various countries, companies, nations, corporate execs, to figure ways to make money on the new ecological/environmentally friendly inventions we now have... which is meant to include the thought also... that inventors shouldn't be snubbed or "locked out" just because they don't work under a company logo. The United States Patent and Trademark people should have something set up for lower fees to encourage and help the independent, non-grant$ inventor. I guess the GOVERNMENT shouldn't really want to be GUILTY OF DISCRIMINATION, especially since discrimination hurts everyone. The USPTO needs to widen the doors, put up some wheelchair ramps so someone besides Philip Morris can apply for a patent. Well, anyway, it sounded real good when I wrote it. Thanks for checking my links.