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UBC Engineers Reach Mileage Of Over 3000 MPG
The New Revelation writes "Physorg reports that engineers at UBC have developed a single occupancy vehicle that achieves a ridiculous 3145 MPG! From the article: 'The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Supermileage Competition took place June 9 in Marshall, Michigan. Forty teams from Canada, the U.S. and India competed in designing and building the most fuel-efficient vehicle... The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 liters/100 km) -- equivalent of Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon (3.79 liters) of gas -- costing less than $5 at the pump.'"
First a CPU that can go 500 Ghz?
Then a car that can go 3145 MPG?
What's next, a lawyer for your hair?
I'll believe it when I'm driving down the road lying down and the computer's trying to kill me 2001 Kubrick style.
Scientists and reporters live in Cartoon World.
While an interesting study for academia, how does this help an automobile industry where the average car is a four door sedan? What technologies used in this exercise translate to real cars? Building the body out of light weight materials definitely cuts down on fuel usage, but is it impact resistant in a crash? If contests are going to be sponsored for improving fuel efficiency, they should be targeted towards the cars that most of us drive, not theoretical, completely impractical academic-mobiles that will have absolutely no use on the road.
This vehicle looks just as unrealistic as the solar cars they race in Australia, the main difference being that the Solar cars use no fuel at all! Whats the point? This stuff will never be used on a massive scale.
Its time these challenges insert ergonomic requirements into their competitions. Start with requiring the cabin to have a certain size, with reasonble seats,leg room, and storage. In this way they can start tackling the real issues with fuel consumption.
Can *you* go 3,145 miles on a bicycle and drink only a gallon?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
How does a comment like this get bumped up to a 3? Sheesh.
$60 in 2006 dollars is less money than $60 in any previous year since the 70's, so even if you regard your '73 ride as equivalent to your Jaaaaaaagwiiiire, you're still way ahead.
You could try trading in your Jaguar for something vaguely fuel efficient, like a Ford Escort. You know, just a thought...
Not a direct hit but close enough.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.a
There are too many automobile companies.
There are too many motorcycle companies.
There are too many lawnmower companies.
There are too many gasoline engine makers... in the world... for your story to be credible.
In addition, I offer other anti-super fuel efficiency arguments:
Is it plausable that this technology was supressed during World War II, when the outcome of major battles depended on gasoline more than once and there was massive rationing in the states (ration coupons for gasoline, etc.)
Is it plausible that perhaps companies composing a fraction of 1% of the economy could suppress this information from the rest of the economy which would make so much money off it (every major trucking company, every taxi company, every delivery company, etc.).
I think the other companies have too much to looossee* for them to let such an invention be supressed.
---
* I have given up trying to oppose the increasingly popular misuse of "loose" as "lose" so now I will join with them.. but of course I am way behind on having the proper number of extra letters by the new contemporary spelling of loooose so I'll be putting in even more extra o's to catch up.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
..of power to weight ratios. A bigger vehicle with a small engine will not be as efficient as with a mid-size engine. On the other hand, same small engine will be more efficient in a smaller vehicle. If you follow that trend to a vehicle size of a skateboard, you get some "incredible efficiencies," but they are unrealistic as they cannot be applied to a modern day concept of vehicles. Having said that, it's important to recognize that there are better and worse engine designs out there; it is not just a simple matter of weight and power ratios when it comes to the consumer.
This headline is wishful thinking. I suddenly got reminded of the "500 ghz chip" news story from earlier this week. Most people started drooling over that headline thinking a new CPU speed barrier has been reached, when in actuality the speed referred to a single switching transistor running at ridiculously controlled conditions.
Of course, the 100 mile per gallon carb lives in every last romantic one of us.
Great! So my lawnmower can get 3000mpg. While better efficiency is always a laudable goal, I think that representing this story as being about car fuel economy is misleading in the extreme.
I'm just not sure I get how any of this will be useful. I'm sure they learned things about aerodynamics and so on, but they are so far away from an actual car that I doubt much or any of it will actually translate. As a reference point, my car has over 95 times as much power (at 4300 more revs). With the added increase in power and top speed, the car needs to be designed completely differently. A low-power lightweight vehicle wants to minimize downforce, since downforce increases drag and saps power; but at speed you need it to keep from taking flight. You also need bigger brakes and, to keep the brakes from failing due to heat, aerodynamic work to keep air flowing over them. Plus, a bigger, more powerful engine produces more waste heat, usually enough that, despite 34 years of engineering, you need a radiator.
I guess the real answer is in the link you gave: "students." This is an opportunity for newbie engineers to get some firsthand experience in a competition. So while cool, and definitely for nerds, I don't think it meets the "news" criterion.
Also, why such a severe restriction on the engine? According to the rules they must use a specific 4-cylinder engine produced by Briggs & Stratton. Seems to cramp creativity a bit (although I guess it gives them a sponser).
This guy has the common misconception that having a US patent is evidence that your invention actually works. Or even exists.
A US patent simply means that you were able to confuse an undertrained patents clerk.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
One: As you said, it's advertising for one of their biggest sponsers, Briggs & Stratton.
Two: Limiting all teams to a standard engine focuses the contest on designing a super efficient body. It gives a somewhat scientific control to the "experiment" of the race you could say.
Three: It may (possibly) be a deterrent for the teams to not cop out and buy a super duper-efficient experimental engine from some no-name company and call it as their own.
It doesn't matter much if your carburetor burns fumes because the fumes are just molecules of gasoline. There are only a certain number of molecules of gasoline in a gallon. Each molecule of gas releases a certain amount of energy when it is burned whether it's in fumes or liquid. Thus running on fumes doesn't make your gallon of gas last any longer if you want to get the same power out. Actually vaporizing the gas into fumes does increase its energy content slightly, but not much. It may allow the fuel to be burned a little more completely, but again, regular engines do pretty well already.
There are several ways to know that our engines haven't been detuned. One is to put a car on a dynonometer and measure it's power output and fuel consumption at the same time. Another is to determine the aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance, and use that along with the gas mileage to determine the efficiency. Aeronautical engineers do extensive calculations and tests to extract efficiency from their aircraft. They would surely know if their engines weren't doing their best or car engines were doing much less than aircraft engines.
Car engines convert gasoline energy to crankshaft energy with something like 25% efficiency. That only leaves about a possible four fold increase in gas mileage even if these carburetors and engines could achieve 100% efficiency. Not that four times better gas mileage wouldn't be great, but any claim of a larger increase based only on engine or carburetor improvements is immediately suspect. What's more, the laws of thermodynamics limit piston engines to much less than 100% efficiency.
Many of the above super mileage claims are probably scams. Some are mistakes. Some are misinterpretations or misquotes. Many are probably impractical circumstances like ultra light, ultra low drag, low power vehicles under constant, low speed, flat ground conditions.
There are too many engineers that could and would EASILY expose a cover up if one existed. Not just a few engineers like have been cited above but LOTS of them. In fact most engineers could easily uncover such a conspiracy. Every town would have multiple engineers that could and would uncover such a conspiracy. So what's a better explanation for these ultra mileage claims? That they are impractical, mistakes, scams, and such, or most of the engineers in the world have been duped by the oil companies? There are plenty of real conspiracies in the world. This one is pretty easy to dismiss.
I know of a single-occupancy vehicle design that gets an infinite number of miles to the gallon of petrol -- it's called a bicycle.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The parent post is a little ruder about it than is called for, but people need to stop using "begs the question" to mean "raises the question". Most of us won't say anything, but if you misuse that phrase in real life, some people will think less of you.
Unfortunately there are more factors you need to consider than just raw fuel efficiency. The pulse and glide technique is only practical if you are alone on the road. Consider a situation with normal traffic, and every car using pulse and glide. It wouldn't work. The Prius marathoners you linked to also ran into problems with this, being pulled over by a cop for driving too slow.
The traditional technique (planning ahead and avoiding sudden changes in speed) brings not only decent fuel ecenomy, but also increased safety and ride comfort.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
What's so ridiculous about it? I think the MPG of the bigger SUVs is a lot more ridiculous..
... but people need to get real about these competitions they have every year.
Every year American auto makers fund for a pittance several of these types of competitions. The results are always the same: some college kids design a vehicle that weighs practically nothing, runs on solar or such, and is totally impractical. Usually little more than a bicycle or go-cart. This has been going on much the same for decades.
And every time the results are the same:
1) US automakers get their names associated with some supposedly high-tech, innovative, and efficient technology as part of a low cost PR campaign in the form of a tiny grant to students.
2) The media is obligated to cover it as part feel good fluff: see, we're still leading the world in useless technology despite everything being made overseas! Aren't our students bright?!
3) Said automakers recruit off the various campuses engineers who then proceed to design SUV having absolutely nothing to do with afore mentioned efficient technology.
4) US makers continue declining.
S.O.S.
Wouldn't it be great if these students for once asked "how about granting us money to make something f'ing useful or hiring us to build what we made for a change?"
These things are shams for PR and recruiting and nothing more. It's all BS. They considered the US Automaker funded competition to "Design a bigger gas guzzling SUV that's built cheaper and less safe" but realized it didn't have the same PR and recruiting value. So, we get a new solar powered go-cart every year, then those students go on to design the next SUV and pickup for GM or Ford.
Same thing could be said of Israeli tanks and planes. They were attacked many times, and they didnt drag out the 200MPG carburetors either.
So let's just retire the 200MPG stories, okay?
Whats the point?
This is a sport. I do not believe it needs a point. Blame slashdot if you thought it was anything other than a fun game of engineering challenges.
You know there's a word for someone who looks at a new technology and sees that it doesn't have direct application to his life and therefore talks it down.
....
Seriously this is research, they are pushing the limits as far in one direction as they possibly can with the assumption that if you research at the extreme then you'll learn things that can be applied to more mundane situations.
What next? IBM issue a press release about new transistors based on nanotubes that go 1000X faster and you complain that because there won't be a processor available based on them available any time soon that they are wasting their time?
Watching Karma burn in 5, 4, 3, 2
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Firstly, it's not a bicyle since it has an engine and no pedals. Secondly, check out what Peugeot's hdi engine did back in 2000. Yes, that's 80 MPG under normal extra-urban driving conditions, or about 4 times the mileage of your average gringo gas-guzzler or yank-tank.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
"Three: It may (possibly) be a deterrent for the teams to not cop out and buy a super duper-efficient experimental engine from some no-name company and call it as their own. "
And what's wrong with that? If a team wins using some start-up company's new experimental engine, the company with the engine gets advertising and investment, and the team gets a win. Not to mention the team winners will likely have a great shot at getting a job with that company.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
By using the phrase "begs the question" ignorantly, people are depriving the language of a term that has few other real synonyms, if any, that can be used in the same way-- unlike the "popular" use of "begs the question" which is perfectly adequately served by "raises the question," "poses the question," and myriad other variations.
It's like the word "disinterested" which specifically means that one is not invested in an issue in a monetary sense, as opposed to "uninterested" which basically means that one doesn't care. People using "disinterested" to mean "uninterested" are stripping the language of a word that has few synonyms, if any.
However, in this case the OP was using a phrase incorrectly when there was a perfectly correct alternative that is no more difficult to say.
From a scientific point of view, it's the equivalent of the guys who attach jet engines to their cars. It's cool and all - but it isn't research and it doesn't prove anything.
True, it isn't research.
But it does point something out worth considering: The barriers to fuel efficiency aren't technological.
Consider a lone person communting into the city in a Cadillac Escalade. You are moving a 200 lb payload in a 7100 lb vehicle; 7300 lb is being moved in and out of the city. The same person commuting in a Toyota Celica is moving 2700 lb in and out of the city, considerably less than half.
The "ridiculous" gas mileage figure of 3,145 mpg come from the fact that the vehicle weighs less than the passenger. Technologically, it's easy, you throw out any weight that is not involved with getting from point A to point B. You don't have to go very far in that direction. Taking just a few steps down that path would have a much greater effect than going hybrid or developing advanced engines, much faster.
Suppose, for example, we set a goal of having no more than 1000 lbs of vehicle weight (rounded to the nearest 1000) per passenger. You're fine in your Celica if you take two passengers; your Escalade would have to take six passengers in addition to the driver, which is exactly its seating capacity. A soccer mom driving a Honda Oddysey would be have to have three kids.
How would you do this? Well, you could make a law, but rather why not simply set up toll booths where underpopulated vehicles have to pay, say, $10 per passenger under the limit to go into the city or any other congested center. If you did it electronically, you could cap this amount so it's only paid once per day. The solo commuter in his Escalade would pay $60 for the privilege of generating the congestion, pollution and parking problems.
But -- people don't like to car pool. So they'd spend a huge amount of money commuting in their large vehicles. Maybe. If we round to the nearest thousand, companies would produce solo commuting vehicles weighing just under 1500 pounds. The lightest production car ever -- the Isetta, weighed less than half that, carried two passengers, and that was in the 1950s without the benefit of advanced materials and unibody construction. Surely we could make a two passenger car with the same weight, but much greater comfort and safety. Given twice the weight budget, it could be quite posh.
Without a single new technology, you could raise the average fuel economy from something close to 35 gallons per passenger mile to over 100. The US imports ten million barrels per day of petroleum; since it currently consumes well over 320 million gallons of gasoline per day, and a barrel of oil makes about 20 gallons of gasoline, a threefold increase in fuel economy -- achieveable with today's technology -- would by itself almost exactly achieve the figure we'd need for complete energy independence.
Of course, economics being what it is, we'd still be importing quite a bit of oil, but at much lower prices; if we simply stopped importing oil, we'd be paying about what we are today for a gallon of gas.
We're supposedly at war these days. Well, consider rationing in WW2; the public sacrificed it's access to gasoline, to rubber, to canned tomatoes, in order to win that war. We could win this one with no practical sacrifice. Nobody would have to ask "is this trip really necessary?" You'd just have to change the car you buy. Even that's not much of a sacrifice. One thing the Mini (Cooper and of cours Mac) have shown is you can create perceived value in a small package.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Being very generous, we can assume 3145mpg is accurate to +-0.5mpg, it's probably neared +-2.5mpg.
I travel at 120km/h on the motorway. That's 75mph, not 74.564543mph.
It's been a few years since chem class, but isn't the first example one of accuracy, as you claim, and the second example one of precision?
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Not to defend them, but Monty Python and Red Dwarf are both British. The British folks I know insist that they aren't European. AFAIK, the British "get" our American humor, but just don't think it's very sophisticated (I'm not sure I disagree). The continental Europeans just don't seem to get it at all, except maybe the Germans, who think it's funny but refuse to laugh.
Oh, I'm feeling quite finger-pointy this morning, aren't I?
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
The guy is reporting exactly what Google told him, and used that fact (the fact that google told him somthing), to infere that they are 1337. When you want to nitpick on people, at least make the effort to find someone who said something wrong.
1. I am not - nor was I - ridiculing anybody.
2. To say that a phrase is correct simply if enough people say so is problematic.
Do you really know that more than 50% of people use "question begging" incorrectly? Does it take a majority? How about if 30% of people use it wrong - is that enough to establish an alternate meaning? If so where are you going to draw the line? If I say "question begging" means "eating pineapple" who are you to say I'm wrong? That's what it means to me.
The point is that language only works in so far as it is communal. In that sense, allowing alternate meanings to phrases that already have specific meanings corrupts language. If we all know that X means X, then X has meaning. If, over time, we all decide that X really means Y, then X still has meaning and there's no confusion.
But if some people say X means X1 and others that it means X2 then we have issues. And if we know that when X was invented it meant X1, and all the people that really care about X a whole lot and study it know it means X1, and the only reason any one thinks it means X2 is that they didn't understand X1 - they it's foolish to say "X2 is also correct".
Your counter-example of "surf the net" is inapt. In the first place, this isn't a confusion of what "surf" means - it's a metaphor. To follow your logic we'd have to get rid of all metaphors from our language. But the fact is that metaphors work precisely because there's no ambiguity about what the word in question means. It's the same with any colloqialism. We all know what "beat a dead horse means", so there's no problem using it in a non-literal sense where there's no beating and no horse.
But if there's uncertaintly about what a phrase means, than you can't use it as effectively for anything. Everytime I say "begging the question" in an online argument I cringe because I know some people (30%? 50%? 70%?) are going to misunderstand me because they don't know what I'm saying. In my philosophy classes or talking with philosophy professors I use the term without ambiguity, but thanks to people who don't know what it means (aided and abetted by people who don't think carefully about language and meaning) the phrase is less useful both for those who know what it means and those who get it wrong.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Remember kids, when competitions involve expensive robotic cars or even more expensive space launches, it's COOL and WICKED and you get +5 insightful for saying how COOL and WICKED it is, but when the competition involves something that doesn't cost millions to enter and draws attention to the concept of fuel economy, it is "academic" or "ivory tower" and you get +5 Insightful by calling it useless.
Looks like anti-intellectualism wins again on Slashdot! Hurrah!
Better link: http://www.musclecars.faketrix.com/car-crashes-aut o-accidents-wrecks-picture-4.htm
The vehicle in that picture is a HMMWV-type like the Army (and Ahnold) uses, not one of these 'H2' luxury tanks. I've always had the (unfounded) understanding that there's a big difference. Certainly there is if the HMMWV in question is the armored sort.
The GP suggested that image searching would show that H2s are not as "accident-friendly" as some would say. After trying various keywords on GIS, I'm finding perhaps a dozen pictures of bad H2 accidents, but honestly I don't see any where the H2 is more smashed up than I would expect.
Of course in the bigger vehicle you have a certain advantage... unless you end up in a bad situation because of top-heaviness, lack of maneauverability, and poor visability. Personally, I'll stick with my little $12k four-door five-speed sedan and my 35-45mpg, thank you very much.
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful