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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."
here is the funny part. I have an econo box from 1986 that kills the Prius and Honda hybrid gas mileage.
Geo metro 50Mpg average, when I drive all highway I get 58mpg
why does a "hybrid" get much less gas mileage than my old technology simple internal combustion engine with a CARBERATOR? something is very wrong with these hybrids.
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. Granted in cities where during rush hour you spend a majority of that time at under 10mph or stopped and these hybrids make great use of that time. but having to buy a $25,000.00 hybrid plud add 80 hours of my time tinkering and voiding the warrenty so I can add another $3000.00 worth of parts to it to finally get a MPG rating that a hybrid should have already had really bothers me.
How about the fricking SMART CAR already availabe in canada and get's 60Mpg on it's own?
Hybrids are crap, utter crap until they get on their worst day 50mpg. Let's force the US to allow the importing of the smartcar.
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Unfortunately, assuming 36 kWh per gallon of gasoline, and $.12 per kWh of electricity,
Wow, is it really that bad elsewhere in the country? On my last electric bill here in Maryland, I was paying $0.0585/kWh for electricity, and $0.0263/kWh for delivery... That's less than $0.08/kWh
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 question I have is why nobody has come up with a diesel hybrid. You have all these arguments that hybrids are no better than old-style diesels, which is true. The diesel engine is just a whole lot more efficient.
So, why not just make a diesel hybrid? Best of both worlds, and if you only need to tank up every 800 miles don't tell me you can't find find a gas station that sells it...
I'm an American living in Ireland and a proud owner of a Smart Fortwo convertible. While it's true that the scourge of the SUV fad hasnt hit here yet, mainly due to how they tax and insure vehicles here (by engine displacement), there's still no shortage of large vehicles with which I share the road. Yet I feel quite safe inside of it, it has better safety features as standard than most irish cars on the road.
And the gas mileage is sweeeeet. I drive it on my commute every day and I only need to fill up every 2.5 weeks, yes, weeks. And even though gas costs about $4.00 a gallon here (you Americans think you have it bad, hahahaha...) I still spend less on gas per month on that car than I do when I visit the USA with other cars. I was in New York City and Boston in the past few weeks and was disgusted by how many Hummer H2's were driving around. A Smart is the PERFECT city vehicle, and it's just ignorance to dismiss it because of it's sensible size.
Yup...
I imagine that your fuel efficiency is comparatively pretty good, because even though you're getting ~15mpg, you're moving 7 people (versus 2 cars with more mpg, but more stops if they have smaller gas tanks and more confusion, and also more traffic).
However, the problem isn't your family going on trips in an SUV. Most (relatively rational) people would agree that in your case, for that situation, it makes sense. What about when you aren't on trips, who uses it? Does someone use it to drive to the market every day, run errands, etc? That's where it starts to bother people.
Sig!
Those hummers should not even be street legal. Look at where the bumper level will hit a normal car. I would rather get hit by a semi then a hummer. The semi is more likely to push you since the bumper is designed to hit as low as possible while the hummer is going to just run over you.
I also don't know why but some of the most dangerous driving I have seen was done in the largest suvs. Things like the hummer and those suburban things. I watched someone yesterday on the freeway change lanes right into one a smaller car was already occupying. The person swerved very quickly and avoided the accident but there is no reason it should have happened. The car would not have been in their blind spot it just seemed like they did not see it. My guess is that people in those larger vehicles are only looking at vehicles that they see as a threat, ie the same size or larger and so they are a far more serious threat to other vehicles on the road.
I know there are some legitimate reasons to have them. The mountain rescue service around here has hummers that they use for rescues but they should not be used for regular driving around.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!