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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.'"
Wonder what speed it travels for it's optimal fuel consumtion
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
I read TFA, and it made no mention of speed, distance or any other aspect of the contest. The driver lies down, but how? On the stomache, or the back (with a periscope?). Were they inside to avoid being blown about (aboot?) by the wind?
I'm assuming they didn't drive it across Canada.
Sheesh.
http://www.paccar.ethz.ch/news/index These guys got 5385 km/l (that's 12,666 MPG !) in 2005.
There's got to be a way to calculate the maximum amount traveled per gallon of gasoline cumbusted by looking at the maximum theoretical energy released by that process, and given a minimum reasonable drag/friction, and the requirement to initially get a minimum reasonable mass up to a speed reasonable to calculate the MPG.
I'm not particularly capable of determining the inputs, nor do I know the calculation to apply, but it'd be interesting to see what an ideal might be, to measure percent efficiency attained.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
At least they wouldn't be if the oil companies didn't havev their way.
1. Some folks at Shell Oil Co. wrote "Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine" (ISBN 0-470-99132-1); it was published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, in 1977. On page 42 Shell Oil quotes the President of General Motors, he, in 1929, predicted 80 MPG by 1939. Between pages 221 and 223 Shell writes of their achievements: 49.73 MPG around 1939; 149.95 MPG with a 1947 Studebaker in 1949; 244.35 MPG with a 1959 Fiat 600 in 1968; 376.59 MPG with a 1959 Opel in 1973. The Library of Congress (LOC), in September 1990, did not have a copy of this book. It was missing from the files. I bought my copy from Maryland Book Exchange around 1980 after a professor informed me that it was used as an engineering text at the University of West Virginia.]
VPI published a paper, March 1979, concerning maximum achievable fuel economy. This paper has several charts illustrating achievable and impossible fuel economy. About 1980 I contacted the author concerning conflicts between the paper and documented achieved "impossible" mpg. The author said, "I will get back to you.". I am still waiting for his response.
2. The book "Secrets of the 200 MPG Carburetor" is by Allan Wallace and was available, about 198(?), from Premier Distributing, 1775 Broadway, NY, NY, 10019. Page 18 has photocopies of three 1936 tests by the Ford Motor Co. (Canada) of the Pogue carburetor (U.S. Patent # 2,026,798). The worst case test achieved about 171 MP(US)G. I can not provide any other publishing information because the book is among the material stolen from me in 1986. My copy of page 18 is very poor.] (3/08/04. I am grateful to Lee Winslett for a copy of this book and the article from Colliers.)
Collier's magazine, in 1929, published an article "300 Miles to the gallon.
3. Argosy Magazine, August 1977, has a five-page article (Text copy here.) about Tom Ogle and the media witnessed test of the "Oglemobile". Tom Ogle, on that test run, achieved more than 100 MPG in a 4,600 pound 1970 Ford Galaxie. When I attempted to find a copy of that Argosy Magazine, it was missing from LOC files in 1980. Argosy ceased publication, I was informed, a short time after the Ogle article was published. I could not find a copy of that Argosy issue at any library within 200 miles of my home. An Editor at the company that purchased Argosy found and mailed a copy to me. While attempting to verify statements in the article, I spoke with Doug Lenzini (SP?) with the EL Paso Times. Mr. Lenzini informed me that he knew Tom Ogle, and the Oglemobile achieved more than 200 MPG. When I contacted the El Paso NBC affiliate that filmed the test run described in the Argosy article, I was informed that the person who had filmed the test had left the station and taken all the records with him.]
A. The Ogle U.S. Patent, #4,177,779, has this statement "I have been able to obtain extremely high gas mileages with the system of the present invention installed on a V-8 engine of a conventional 1971 American made automobile. In fact, mileage rates in excess of one hundred miles per gallon have been achieved with the present invention." According to the Argosy article, a Shell Oil Co. representative asked Ogle what he would do if someone offered him $25 Million for the system. Ogle responded "I would not be interested" He later said, "I've always wanted to be rich, and I suspect I will be when this system gets into distribution. But I'm not going to have my system bought up and put on the shelf. I'm going to see this thing through--that I promise." According to an article in The Washington Post Parade Magazine, March 4, 1984, Tom Ogle died of a drug and alcohol overdose in 1981. Other articles concerning Tom Ogle can be found in the El Paso Journal, January 16, 1980, and also, The Hamilton Spectator, June 24, 1978.
B. The Oglemobile, in simplification, ran on fumes extracted from a heated tank in the trunk (See the Ogle patent.) A very simple method of extracting gasoline fumes is described in a
>>Sig under construction
When you look at the race results a few things stand out:
Seastead this.
Ivy Tech? What the heck? I live in Indiana, and Ivy Tech is a low-budget state college. Where are all of the Purdue and IUPUI physicists and engineers?
Because I ride a bicycle to work I can accuse people who run the same distance of "wasting energy". Perhaps in the future radical motorists will direct the same accusation at me when they do the 10km commute on 1Kj (or whatever).
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You mean something like this V.W. that uses .89 liters to go a hundred kilometers. For U.S.ians that's 235 miles per gallon for a non hybrid diesel that is legally drivable, not too bad.
. php&carnum=1316
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.php?file=car
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
By my calculations the fuel consumed equals gobbling a cylindrical thread of fuel 0.6 thousandths of an inch in diameter, about 1/5 that of a human hair.
> a ridiculous 3145 MPG!
That's ridiculous indeed, as the world record is held by the Microjoule team with 10,705 miles per gallon...
A similar competition was recently held in Europe, contested by student teams:
r athon-en
o ads/sem_press/Nogaro%20May%202006/press_release_se m_210506.pdf
http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=eco-ma
The winning entry ran on biofuel (Ethanol) and achieved 2885 km/liter, which should correspond to about 6800 miles/gallon:
(Warning: PDF file)
http://www.shell.com/static/eco-marathon-en/downl
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Surpressed during World War II? If developed by Americans and after a certain point in time during the war, hell yes! Fuel was a problem for everyone, but only Jerry was running out to the point of leaving armored divisions laying about in the streets. Small group of people know about magic fuel device (MFD) = contained. The press knowing about MFD = Jerry knows, figures it out quickly (German scientists weren't stupid, y'know), suddenly there's a nice big armored problem in Europe.
:p
Now, in terms of a small fraction of the economy keeping it under wraps these days, I'll believe pretty much anything at this point. There's no end to what you can do when you buy the right senators. There's no end to what you can hide when people dismiss everything as a conspiracy theory. (Thanks conspiracy theorists!) And there's no end to the not-giving-a-shit of the average American.
I'd consider it possible. I'd also consider it unlikely, however - magic fuel devices are here today. The problem is, nobody wants to drive 3000 miles at 15 miles per hour.
For the UBC to be at a paltry third of the efficiency of European cars is not terribly impressive in itself, unless the burdens placed by the rules are substantially more severe.
On a side-note, it occured to me some time back that very often, students living in a University city need something a little more solid than a bicycle and a lot cheaper to maintain than a full car. These vehicles would sorta fit into this category. The idea I have is for nearly-disposable cars, where it has sufficient fuel and oil to last a year or more of typical student usage. The student rents it for an academic year for next to nothing, needs to perform zero maintenance for the whole time, and then returns it. This eliminates any fuel price issues, the risk of running out of fuel when going to lectures or dates, etc.
Minis filled this role OK, but they're a pain to maintain and are relatively expensive on fuel. The biggest drawbacks are that the fuel efficient cars are incapable of carrying any significant weight (so forget carrying the books for a day - those would weigh more than the car!) and that you can't exactly carpool with them. The lack of creash resistance is a non-issue, as minis have a habit of exploding on impact. I'd swear that the scriptwriters for the A-Team must have owned minis.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It is a bit misleading using an MPG rating, in such an unrealistic situation; as well as a bit senational to say "Vancouver to Halifax". I somewhat doubt these specialized units would have the ability to climb the grades to, say, cross the rockies, much less an average hill in Nova Scotia. (They'd probably do well on the prairies, though.)
Impressive technology, nonetheless. I would like to see a similar competition where certain torque requirements were met, to carry a certain weight up a certain grade, during parts of the competition. As the mileage differences between small cars and trucks/SUV's attests, potential power comes at a great cost in mileage, even when that power isn't being utilized.
This is why hybrids can do well; they switch to a mode with less power (batteries/electric) for casual driving, and flip to a more expensive means (gas), when more power is required. The UBC unit sounds a bit similar but on a much less powerful scale; the gas engine comes on now and then when a bit of power is required, and then it flips to its other mode, inertia, for as long as it can.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
That's not even near the real World Champions.
o ads/sem_results/Nogaro_May_2006/Race_classificatio n.pdf
o ads/sem_events/nogaro/rules/rules_2006_revised.pdf
See the latest Shell Eco-Marathon results:
http://www.shell.com/static/eco-marathon-en/downl
And please note the column "Best test / Meilleur essai" is in the kilometers/litre.
Thus the winners result 2885 km/litre eguals about 6834 miles/gallon !
(Gallon=3,79 litre, mile=1,6km)
Rules: http://www.shell.com/static/eco-marathon-en/downl
Current vehicle engines have this strange quirk.
The engine isn't running at its most efficient conversion of gas to energy unless it's operating within its most efficient point in its powerband - a HP plateau between certain RPM markers. Check it out on a dyno. So yes, it would be more efficient to accelerate harder from a stop with the RPMs within the powerband, coast, then rinse-n-repeat.
It's called Pulse-n-Glide by the Prius marathoners, and also on Wikipedia.
Constant speed isn't the most efficient way to use a internal combustion engine (ICE), although it certainly is the easiest.
Of gasoline? Damn straight. In fact I prefer not to. I express my fuel use in mpb (miles per banana; about 3. Thus not as inexpensive as you might think).
Can these vehicles even cover 3,145 miles?
Shit no. They'd fall apart.
Can I cover 3,145 miles on a bicycle? Shit yeah, and neither I nor it would fall apart, but, ummmmmmmmmm, I might need a van to follow me, to carry all those damned bananas.
KFG
Have there ever been any real 'here is a gallon of gas how far can you go' races? It would add an interesting extra dimentions to the challange... routefinding would be critical.
There's no good reason to change. Dividing by 10 is not all it's cracked up to be. I'd much rather use a system of measurement that simplifies calculations I actually want to do: travel time in minutes at 60mph, thirds and quarters of a foot, and so on.
While I realize that 'begging the question' is supposed to be a logical fallacy, I have never heard it used any other way than to mean 'raises the question.' And while I realize that my experiences and its use on TV and in movies are not the gold standard of the English language, at some point the language evolves.
Just think of all those English teachers in school that railed against ending sentences with prepositions. This particular 'grammatical error' was actually common to some of English's greatest writers, then went out of fashion in the 17th century, only to become accepted again more recently. Some people make it a point of pride to be uber-conscious of grammar, and cling to these little arbitrary rules to make themselves feel cultured or intelligent or something, but the point of language is to communicate something. If the person understands a phrase to mean X, and everyone generally understands that phrase to mean X as well, then the phrase means X. The fact that you understood 'begs the question' to mean what the submitter intended just shows what it really has come to mean. You can pretend that you are part of an exclusive group in the know ("Most of us won't say anything"), but the fact is that you are wasting valuable time nitpicking a grammatical non-issue to demonstrate your supposed superior intellect instead of doing something useful like selling your WoW character or compiling something for Gentoo.
For those that are curious, you can read more about ending your sentences with prepositions here and here. Also, a very interesting compilation of english grammatical issues can be found here.
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/research/competi tions/futuretruck/2004_futuretruck_results.html
These take stock vehicles and modify them. The 2004 competition used a Ford Explorer as the baseline and the vehicles competed on vehicle safety, fuel efficiency, emissions, off-road performance and towing performance performance (2,000lb trailer on 7% grade). The winning team reached 25mpg (yeah, still crappy but a 33% improvement), passed all the tests, and the emissions were below the Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) requirements.
Those high schoolers from the "unrealistic" project move on to colleges that take part in Future Truck and eventually become the next round of automotive engineers. They need motivation, the opportunity to get their hands dirty and to see some results. Anyone who competed came up with a very high efficiency vehicle and some real skills to be proud of, skills that benefit us tomorrow, if not today.
FYI, China produces roughly 2 million one-cylinder diesel rural vehicles each year. They have a max speed of 50km/hr, max payload of 500kg and use 12-15 hp engines (many of them look like ATVs). They are also pollution machines that are environmental nightmares. If you want something more real-world, sponsor a project to design a low-emission, fuel-efficient, small diesel vehicle.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
Since this concept car is useless, I'd like to bring up another fuel efficient concept car - the Volkswagen 1 liter car
from the wikipedia page:
3145 miles works out to 1,246,666 VW Beetles (13.32 feet long) parked end to end.. (conincidentally, 1,300,000 Beetles was the amount produced annually at production peak).
.13 cubic feet (1 cubic foot = 7.4 gallons). The VW beetle glove box was about 1 foot wide by 6 inches high and 6 inches deep, or .25 cubic feet, so fuel consumed was roughly half a VW Beetle glove box.
The fuel (hypothetically) consumed occupied
I was unable to find any useful size information on the Library of Congress beyond total pages.
Well, the linguistic snobs have certainly applied for the job. Truthfully, they have a point: clear, precise language is an aid to clear, precise thought. All of those people you mentioned who can't recognize logical fallacies are unable to do so because no one ever taught them to make distinctions in thought -- and those distinctions are taught via language at an early age.
Saying "Language is as it is used" is fallacious because the speaker assumes that all language use is equally valid and helpful. But that's clearly false: just look at the good and bad posts on /., or compare Blair's speeches to Bush's. Better yet, try teaching chemistry to a bunch of high-schoolers and see which ones have the most trouble. The slow students will be the linguistically challenged, 9 times out of 10.
Good language helps the speaker clarify his thoughts, points the listener unambiguously in the direction of the speaker's thoughts, and is persuasive as a side-effect. New phrases, grammatical constructions, and meanings of old words that accomplish those goals can genuinely be said to be linguistic innovation. All of the rest is just linguistic flotsam.
So: "Language is as it is used *well*"
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.