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Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybrids
Gordonjcp writes "A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains. In this article on the BBC News website, Professor Gordon Murray explains that a weight saving of 10% in a normal car would make more difference than switching to a hybrid engine and motor combination. Could this be the next nail in the SUV's coffin?"
Because they're afraid they'll be crushed to a fine pulp when they get hit by a big honking SUV.
People are still buying SUVs, and really, I still prefer the idea of an SUV than a minivan or station wagon to try and haul people/stuff around. Maybe I'd feel different if I had a few children to get in and out, but I don't see the SUV going away anytime soon. Plus why not just make a lighter SUV?
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
... but how many coconuts can an SUV carry?
Cars need to be lighter and more aerodynamic. The drag on a standard automobile is just ridiculous. Rear ends today are typically vertically flat! Who are these designers that aren't familiar with the teardrop shape?
Developers: We can use your help.
"If it can be made out of black plastic, make it out of black plastic!"
(I had a crack in my radiator - sure enough, part of the manifold for the radiator was made out of black plastic as well. Surprised the engine block itself isn't black plastic, at times.)
Weight and cost savings. Nothing new (my car is a '97 Saturn; alive and well with 160k miles and between 30-40 MPG city).
I'm just saying...
It might be helpful.
So aerodynamics and weight make a difference when trying to propel an object?!
This is going to revolutionize everything!
Maybe if we drove cars in space we wouldn't have those pesky problems.
I have spoken'eth.
What's wrong with the idea of making cars lighter AND looking for alternative (and cheaper) fuels? Is there a reason for either/or, or can't we just build lightweight hybrids?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I like bigger autos. I'm 6'3" with a family history of back problems. I DON'T want a car, I want a fuel-efficient pickup/SUV/Crossover that doesn't bounce around like a jeep and I don't have to deal with the up-and-down motion of getting in and out of. I like hauling crap around. I like being able to see OVER traffic.
GM is on the right path with the Hybrid Silverado they are making, but I would like to see something a little smaller, along the lines of a Ranger or S-10/Sonoma (I LOVED the 1994 Sonoma I drove through college). Americans are going to buy small cars in the near future, but the REAL money will be made when we can drive larger SUV's and trucks that get 30+ MPG's.
Who bought SUV a coffin? That's pre-mature.
Sure, mod me down. I'm just pointing out that SUVs are popular, and there was never any indication otherwise.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
I suggest everybody start riding motorcycles. For one, it would improve their gas mileage tremendously, and secondly, I wouldn't have to worry anymore about morons in their SUVs changing lanes without so much as looking or setting their turn signal, and almost running over me when I'm on mine.
Hey, just an idea. And Darwin will take care of the idiots, something that SUVs are currently preventing.
... like the DeLorean... it runs with fuel or with garbage (with the optional MrFussionTM attached), and is so light that even floats.
Ok, wasnt so hybrid, the garbage only was used for time travel, and the floating part somewhat dont work in the far west... but at least with it you can load fuel when it was dirty cheap on gas stations.
Lighter cars use less gas? What's next? Telling people that they shouldn't live 200 miles from where they work? I heard a kind of a funny fact this morning on BBC, average energy consumption per capita in North America is double that in Europe. It's not like the standard of living or climate is that much different, it's all about the culture.
One could hope that the coming oil problem and the focus on energy use will spill over to the general public's energy use. We have up to know, had almost unlimited energy and we've thrived in that environment. But now that we see a huge energy resource shortage in the oil markets we're starting to rethink this policy of unabated energy use. Hopefully in the coming years there will be more focus on energy efficiency in all aspects of life.
Bearded Dragon
What is really surprising is that despite the common consensus, SUV's are NOT safer than small cars.
Even a tiny car vs. an SUV you are just as likely to walk away in the small car as the SUV.
Now, tiny car vs Mack truck, Mack truck wins everytime...Mack truck vs SUV and guess what, Mack truck wins every time.
It is true that you are more likely to TOTAL a small car but if it is safety you are after than ANYTHING that passes crash testing is more than safe for everyone but professional racers. Wear your seat belt, check your tires and breaks and DON'T cut people off with 36 inches to spare at 80+ MPH!
The SUV safety myth was created by marketing pure and simple.
The original Lotus Elise got almost 30 mpg with 1.8l, 120 hp, and it was a high-performance car.
Put a little 1 liter, 60 horsepower engine in there and it'll probably get 50 mpg, but have regular car performance.
The secret? Weighing only about 1,650 lbs.
I sick of hearing that X technology is more efficient then Y and there are merits to Z technology - I want a vehicle with X, Y and Z technology. Combine them all and make something decent.
Yes a light car will be mashed by a truck or SUV - but I think you'll find in the vast majority of cases it will make sod all difference and in any case SUVs are a dying breed. Ken Livingstone coined the phrase "chelsea tractors" for Londoners who collected their offspring from school in vast 4x4 vehicles.
Private cars will never be a substitute for a decent, affordable mass transit system. My preferred future has public transpot the norm with shared cars available on demand for subscribers (think the ZipCar model) for when a train is inconvenient.
http://www.zipcar.com/
And yes, I know I am in fantasy land here.
How about this. You force people to walk more, and you solve two problems at the same time :)
This isn't in the least bit a new approach. The 1970's solution to it's energy crisis was compact cars. We do have a leg up on almost 40 years ago though, materials technology is a quantum level up from where it was.
As soon as women stop screwing men in big fast cars, and men stop buying big fast cars to get laid ... we'll have no problem. As if that will ever happen. It's no the tech, it's the human.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Because basically a long time ago, someone discovered that you can cut off the tail of that teardrop, and the air flow will still be largely the same. Only this time without the added mass and drag of that teardrop tail.
And especially if you read the RTFA, weight is a big problem. Increasing the car's weight with a useless tail would negate any aerodynamic benefits anyway. If you save, say, 0.5 litre per 100 km in aerodynamic drag with a tail, but pay 1 litre per 100 km to move that extra weight, it's not worth it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Hybrids get their benefits in two ways: reclaiming power that would otherwise be lost during braking, and the fact that electric motors have a flat torque band. You generally can't do either that with an internal combustion engine alone.
However, there are a few ways to do both the above without an electric motor. One way is to have a flywheel connected to a CVT on the drive shaft. When you hit the brakes, the flywheel spins up. You can then release that power again when you accelerate. The flywheel will also act as a gyroscope, so you need to have some way of tilting it so you can go through corners with it spun up (which has the side effect of increasing handling). This method is being put on F1 cars soon.
The other way is to have an air compressor, which again is run off the drive shaft when you hit the brakes. On acceleration, the compressed air could either run the drive shaft, be dumped into the intake to increase boost, or dumped into the exhaust manifold to eliminate turbo lag. This is probably easier to design than a tilting-flywheel system, though it won't make handling better.
The compressor could also run off turbines using inlets around the car's body that are opened when braking. This particular use is probably illegal for F1 and other types of race cars (which often ban variable body shape systems), but could easily be used in road cars.
Both the above don't require any particularly exotic materials (though carbon fiber or nanotubes would be nice for the flywheel), and shouldn't be as heavy as an electric motor/battery system.
Not a typewriter
A lighter car means a smaller and lighter engine, which works on two factors to reduce energy consumption.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
The majority of "SUVs" are light pickup trucks, and they are the lifeblood of the working class. Landscapers, yard cutters, painters, plumbers, etc etc all require pickups.
How about 10% weight saving of the driver and each passenger?
One of the larger issues is that we all use one or max two cars to fulfill our various transport needs. In essence we buy the largest car we need/can afford.
I think Switzerland has an interesting model. They tax and insure cars through the license plate to operate it. That way you can own that SUV for the trips to your back country house, but drive in a slick SMART to work in the city and save gasoline, road space and parking space.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
A truncated teardrop with a flat back (like the Prius or the Insight) is actually more aerodynamic than the teardrop. It's called a Kammback, and it's named for the gentleman who noticed that if you chop off the back of the teardrop, the air keeps flowing the same way, except without the drag of sliding along the surface of the parts of the teardrop you just chopped off.
I feel like I'm re-living the past. I am old enough to remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, and how that quadrupled the cost of fuel. For a short time, it was all windmills, car pooling, public transportation, and econo-box cars, then it was right back to the guzzlers.
I also remember fuel prices dropping, very briefly, in early 2006. The sales of SUVs spiked right along with the fuel cost drop. If fuel prices drop during the election, the same thing will probably happen again.
Those who don't remember the past, yadda yadda.
From the article... "If you could take 10% off the weight of every car on the planet overnight, it would make so much more difference than all the new engine technologies and fuel technologies that people are talking about." He said that taking 10% weight off of all the cars makes more difference than all the alternative technologies out there. That's because the alternative technologies out there have little market penetration so far, not because taking 10% weight off will make a car have hybrid-like efficiency. Consider... a compact car might weigh around 1200 kg. 10% is two light passengers. If you get decent gas mileage carrying two friends around, do you suddenly get hybrid-like milage when you throw out the friends?
I bike commute to work, and the only close shave I've had is with the new Gillette Fusion(r) Power razor. Truly, the best a man can get.
Honda adopted the "racing car" model when it designed the Insight. This was the first hybrid to hit to US market (2000-2006) and it was both very lightweight (1900 lbs) and aerodynamic (drag coef of 0.25). I own a 2000 model and get about 60-70 mpg on the highway (depending on speed and prevailing wind). The hybrid electric system gives virtually no benefit during highway cruising so that awesome MPG rating could presumably be acheived by a lower-cost reincarnation of the vehicle that lacked the expensive hybrid mechanics. Of course, part of the car's premium pricetag (~$21k) was due to the use of higher-priced aluminum instead of steel in many components.
10% reduction in the driver's seat is only a 1% reduction in total car mass. And more work to do, too.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
Maybe the major car makers don't want 40+ mpg econo-boxes to compete with their hybrids?
The engineers started with a truck and made it lighter and marginally better at handling so I can't understand how SUVs aren't a step in the right direction.
Please, moderate as funnyOh, do you mean SUVs are cars?
This is why '93 Civics are more efficient than modern hybrids in the US. They no longer sell light cars in the US.
The SUV thing is mostly just congress being stupid.
it's called a Motorcycle.. Get over it. word..
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
in my experience, cars and drivers don't have accidents, the collisions are due to negligence. the only times there are accidents are the times that entirely unforeseen things happen. an accident is definitionally unpreventable; almost every collision that i've witnessed (the act or the wreckage) has been something that could have been avoided.
And put in place a momentum limit.
It is a common fact, internal combustion engines waste most of the energy they ignite. The only thing that piston engines use is the expanding gases of combustion, not the more abundant heat.
In fact, we have a whole process for removing this bothersome product.
The piston concept is quite efficient, look at steam engines. Reasonable/manageable speed fantastic torque. Gas engines have the speed and the torque of the steam engine, but none of the efficiency.
hybrids are a joke. The only benefit is regenerative braking, short of that, batteries are terribly inefficient.
We need to add a couple dimensions on to our view of the way we use fuel. If we could use BOTH the expanding gas AND the heat of gasoline, we could probably double the current efficiency. An SUV that gets 25MPG highway, should be able to get 50MPG. (all things being equal)
We can use exhaust gas (EGR) to slow combustion on low RPM, we could use extra oxygen or NO2 to speed combustion on high RPM. Use water vapor pressure generated by the heat to create even more torque.
Don't even get me started about home appliances.
- One that I only drive to and from work, maybe grab a 12-pak of Diet Dr Pepper®
- One that has ONE seat, maybe 2 in tandem for carpooling, thus a narrower front for lower drag coefficient, maybe a tripod
- One that gets a55-load MPG, on regular gas
- One that is enclosed against rain, maybe even snow.
- save weight by removing the automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, Bose Stereo, the GPS, the air bags, spare tire. Make the tank small enough to weigh little and still get me through the work week without refilling
- Actually, remove ALL safety features except the brakes and the brake lights! Save weight. no OnStar, no Lojack, no side curtains.
- Cut us some slack on emissions. Yes, commuters are the bulk of the problem, but not if we are burning half of the fuel that we would have been.
- it has to be CHEAP! Like $2000. Cheap to insure. Cheap to replace panels if we bump each other. Easy to park.
- if you want to get REALLY froggy, give us tax breaks, or our own LANE on the freeway. Watch people buy em like hotcakes.
Ok, so I just described a 1982 Suzuki, full face helmet and a rain suit, except for the 3-wheel stance.My point is really this. We need a small, commuter-only vehicle, unfettered from the legal burdens that add weight and reduce gas mileage. And yet still capable of highway speed and 200 mile range. Take an F1 car, make it 3-wheeled with a Jet cockpit. End of problem. It's not rocket science...
What we really need is a car that siphons our fat out with a liposuction machine and then runs off of that... ... anything to not exercise ...
we'd kill two birds with one stone then: efficiency and obesity... not to mention a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fuel.
I don't know, but I sure do. Gimme a light off-road electric vehicle to replace my porky 4800 pound Liberty and I'll be happy.
I own a second hand Ford Escort that was previously owned by a kid addicted to his car looking hot and making the quarter mile legal races at Portland International Raceway.
I put standard tires on it, but left in the high powered engine. While it's not so good for city driving (in fact, downright horrid, about 20 MPG) whenever I take it on a trip where the majority of my driving is 65MPH for miles and miles and miles nice and steady, and I shift low enough so that the engine is almost idling and skip 2nd and 4th gear, I can get 40-50 MPG out of it.
Even with 1/4th the tank being city driving, a recent trip from Beaverton to Eugene with stops in Silverton got 38MPG. I'm a 'gonie (from Oregon) if you haven't guessed.
What about not driving absolutely everywhere? I see a lot of people drive from my apartment complex to the convenience store next to it. Total time to walk is about 2 minutes. When you add up going to the underground parking, starting your car, exiting the underground parking, waiting for traffic to turn onto the main road, drive down 30 feet of road, and then wait for traffic again as you drive into the parking lot of the store. It takes more time to just get to the store than if you walk. Sure that short drive isn't going to cost too much in gas, or cause too much harm to the environment, but the whole attitude of having to drive absolute everywhere is just terrible.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I never understood the whole hybrid thing, or at least the way it's done in automobiles. Simply replace the drive motor with an electric motor, add a battery bank, charging circuitry and a small 2 cylinder engine to run at optimal efficiency to charge the packs. Trains have done that for years.
If racing is to be used as a testbed for automotive technology, we need to put more emphasis on fuel efficiency. F1 using hybrid cars is a nice idea, but everyone will have the same setup. We need more competition.
I propose that one of the major racing leagues starts implementing fuel caps on each race. A good starting point is the average fuel currently burned by each car in a given race. By making this the cap, next years competitors have roughly a 50% chance of winning the race unless they improve their vehicle to be more fuel efficient. Each year the previous year's average fuel consumption will be used to determine the amount of fuel alloted.
The average will go down because no team can use more than the previous year's average (they will run out of gas). By eliminating things like restrictor plates or downforce restrictions the teams are free to be creative at how they accomplish these goals.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
It's simply waiting for more ingenuity. People keep saying that cars will get smaller and SUVs will cease to exist.
First off, SUVs are usually purchased for one of three reasons:
1. Job requires it for towing, cargo, etc. (Qualified vehicles include: Truck, Van, SUV)
2. Large family (Qualified vehicles include: Van, Mini-van, SUV, and the no longer made full sized station wagon.)
3. Luxury / Status symbol.
Of the first two requirements, only two vehicles meet the need. A van or an SUV, with SUVs being the predominant choice for many.
The third class tend to either buy large Cadillacs and crossover SUVs. The latter, are probably the most useless vehicles on the planet. While they get better mileage than your work-horses. Few get mileage comparable to a sedan. Yet, the passenger seating is very similar in most case. FYI, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is NOT a true SUV. It has very little rear-axle towing capability. It is really more a SUV-stylized mini-van.
***
So where will the future lead? I believe it will lead to both smaller commuter vehicles and much larger vehicles.
Eventually, the fuel hurdle will be resolved. Probably with a combination of technologies, electric drive trains, and algae based bio-fuel generators & fuel cells. We will see quick, light , efficient commuter vehicles. But we will also see much larger vehicles.
However, the bigger trigger for these larger vehicles are technological advances yet to come.
a) alternative fuel methods
b) self-driving vehicles.
The latter will be the big driving factor in larger vehicles. In 15-25 yrs you will see mobile living rooms. If your vehicle can drive for you. Then that trip to visit the relatives over the weekend becomes easier. Instead of driving 5 hours each way and having a day and 1/2 to spend with family. You now let your car drive Friday night. Wake up an enjoy your Saturday & Sunday. Then go to bed and your vehicle drives you home over Sunday night. And you wake up Monday morning for work.
That is the future...
Smaller commuter vehicles, and much larger mobile living rooms.
Come live in Europe. Americans pay on average $4 for a gallon of gas. That comes to about 2.5. In Europe we pay 6 for the same amount. No wonder you're all driving SUV's. At least in the states you can afford it.
What are you driving that the driver losing weight would have a 10% drop in the total weight of the vehicle?
taking me out of my car completely would not drop the total vehicle weight by 10%.
me dropping 60lbs would give less than 2% weight savings.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
But then they would have to actually burn calories from their fat asses. Won't you think of the asses!?!?!
this is something most of the posts I see have missed. Not only is he an F1 designer - he's a *good* one. This guy understands perfectly well all the crash dynamics that dozens of posts here are complaining about. Carbon fibres or even the engineered cellulose in an article below this one should be looked at.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Several documentaries on automotive advancements and traffic suggest that lighter single passenger cars could be made to fit 2 per normal lane, doubling the capacity of highways for commuters.
The only thing necessary would be the designation of a "sub-lane" marker system and the willingness of commuters to purchase those cars.
It would not be as hard as you think to market such a vehicle. It would feel much more fun than your standard car because, despite its much higher fuel economy, the power to weight ratio will be higher. The small form factor would also seat the driver closer to the ground, giving a greater illusion of speed.
Driving a small car like this to work every day would be a visceral experience.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
why not just make a lighter SUV?
Done. I bought a Daihatsu Terios in 1999 and it still works fine today. 1.3 litre engine, weighs under a tonne, 40 MPG. 165,000 miles driven so far and no hassle. Permanent 4x4 system, you just point the steering wheel at a muddy field and it clambers over it - it won't climb Everest but it has taken me through floods here in the Tewkesbury area with no problems.
Also consider the Suzuki Jimny.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I've been thinking this for years. Except it's not just the weight that makes a difference. My 1997 Dodge Neon, with a curb weight of a little less than a ton with me not in it, gets right around 40MPG after a few tweaks to the engine and computer.
The game.
First he gives no estimates of gas saving by reducing the weight of a car versus moving to alternative systems like hybrids.
Also he comes from the world of F1 racing that uses carbon fiber for most parts. Carbon fiber is way to expensive to use for passenger cars. But idea for political and environmental reasons is to reduce our use of oil. Assuming he is talking about reducing weight by using more plastic isn't that just trading off use of oil for gas and moving it to making more plastics. Yes, using plastic is a long term use of oil versus gas, but combining lighter cars with alternate power seems like the big win.
More important is changing how automobile companies market cars. Its marketing that keeps the fuel guzzling vehicles popular with the masses more than anything. Maybe now with $5 a gallon gas everyones life automobile companies will start making and marketing fuel efficient vehicles, so people will move away from gas guzzlers unless they have a real need for one for work or towing. IMO no reason a car can't look/be cool and fuel efficient. Its all perception the media plants in peoples minds.
Not at all - but when the person purchased that 5000lb SUV, did they realize the impact this would have - on them and potentially others - should they have such a tire blowout? I'd imagine they should be, so why shouldn't they be held to a higher standard?
So, what's the difference between the 5000lb SUV and the 4000lb Pontiac GTO Coupe?
This is my sig.
I'm *willing* to drive without clothing or shoes, but I'm not sure that's a good idea for everyone else.
Invenio via vel creo
its about removing dependency on oil and moving to a renewable, non polluting source of energy so world will be free to produce and use as much as it wants. we dont want very efficient petroleum based cars. we want efficient renewable energy cars.
Read radical news here
Saturn indicated in 2007 that they would be phasing out plastic body parts "because metal allows more precise body panel fits"
Every mechanical engineer who has taken a class on automotives knows that the biggest inefficiency on a car today is the tires. Yes, weight is an issue (less mass = less momentum = less force to start and stop), but a better tire is a must to transmit the forces to the pavement.
If you want to give up weight in cars.
a) get rid of the catalytic converter
b) shorten the tailpipe and shrink the muffler
c) get rid of airbags
d) get rid of power heated super seats
e) get rid of side impact safety beams
that right there gets you some good weight savings.
This is my sig.
Riding with passengers can easily add 600lb to the weight of the car. Cutting down on passengers, and providing special lanes for single-occupancy vehicles will do wonders for our mileage.
Oh, it's more than just body panels... pop open the hood of the car or pop off the body panels and take a looksy sometime ... I kid you not, everything is black plastic.
because aluminum, titanium and carbon fibers cost a hell of a lot more than steal
Honda insight, had a minimal hybrid setup in a light weight aerodynamic body. It got the best mileages I have ever seen. Averaging over 50mpg in the real world. Getting 70mpg on the highway.
I ride a 2006 Vino 125 (scooter). It goes around 55 mph, accelerates a lot faster than ~80% of cars out there, and I get 80 mpg.
The new ones supposedly get 96 mpg.
Renewable energy sources will never replace the efficiency of burning eons worth of decomposed carbon materiel. We might as use it up while we have it. In fact, we should have a policy to use more of what's left than anyone else does. High fuel prices mean we use less fuel and serve as a drag on economic growth by making everything more expensive. That's why the Chinese gov't subsidizes gasoline prices to $2.50/gal.
More people buy cars. They feel satisfied.
They get crushed to a fine pulp by SUV's. SUV drivers feel satisfied.
SUV spins out of control and hits tree. Tree feels satisfied.
Everyone is happy;)
"A closed mind is a good thing to lose"
Main Website: http://waterpoweredcar.com/
Videos:
Genius US Inventor (water car): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZOsOB3z3IE
From Australia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXzK-zrWDgI&feature=related
Water Car Inventor Murdered -news channel report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yRn4IAsrU&feature=related
Ford Conversion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-piMEZ2WcQU&feature=related
From Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1OWDcWoXHs&feature=related
Company selling water cars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4mz7MPSquU&feature=related
WAKE UP AMERICA, your government lies to you! Well, ok, so does every other government, but this particular issue (water car) is worth fighting for.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Just like for trucks - make heavy cars/SUVs/whatever have slower speed limits on all roads, and fine heavily for going over it. That way, when people "need" to use their SUVs they can still use them- in the snow, hauling furniture, etc. Average Joe who uses his SUV for a commuter car in Los Angeles, will not want to use it since he can only go 50 MPH, and everyone else will be passing him. Obviously there are better examples than L.A, since average traffic speed is about 12 MPH.
..........FULL STOP.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!!!
Gordon Murray is using this interview to promote his T25 car design which is a sort of MCC Smart city car but with the "innovative use of materials" which I guess based on his background may include the use of composites. Still it will get better gas milage than his last road car
But unless we find an extremely cheap means of mass desalinization, water engines will only add to the reduction of local water tables and the consumption of fresh water. There are parts of the world that are already facing extreme water shortages, and the southwestern region of the United States is not far behind. I surmise that, in a few years, we will have more wars over water than we do now over oil.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
One thing that will have to be worked around will be how susceptible lightweight vehicles are to wind gusts. I used to own a very small, light Honda Civic hatchback. Loved the car, but it was dangerous driving it at interstate speeds in high wind. More than once I was blown into the lane next to me before I could react.
SUV are much, much worse at avoiding collisions, and are more likely to be involved in accidents per driver miles.
..........FULL STOP.
As a motorcyclist none of this story is in the slightest bit surprising. My bike can do 0-60 in 2.9s AND it gets nearly 50mpg (fully loaded 2007 BMW K12R Sport) on average, so I've been playing around with this idea for a while now: why don't we have easily modular cars?
Think about it, how much weight could you save by taking out the back seat if you don't ever need it? What about the AC in the winter? Motor for the power mirrors or retractable antenna? All of these things are usefull at some point or another but are _usually_ dead weight. I could easily cut 10% of the weight out of my already lightweight honda coupe if things were just easier to remove and re-add (when needed). Minivans have removable back seats, why can't sports cars?
Thanks for getting that damn song stuck in my head again for the rest of the day now... :-P
Move all sig!
What they really should be looking at are the cars that have been _banned_ from racing due to being too fast and efficient. Specifically: rotary engines.
"Small car safety: While small cars are safer now than before, so are large cars. In every category of passenger vehicle (car, SUV, or pickup truck), the risk death is higher in crashes of smaller, lighter models. For vehicles 1-3 years old during 2006, minicars experienced 106 driver deaths per million registered vehicles compared with 69 driver deaths in large cars.
People often choose very light cars for fuel economy, but "you don't have buy the smallest, lightest car to get one that's easy on fuel consumption," Lund points out. "The Toyota Prius, for example, earns good front and side crash test ratings. It gets better fuel economy than a microcar, but it's bigger and weighs more so we would expect it would be more protective in serious crashes.""
I heard recently (in the Skeptoid podcast) about an engine with extra pistons that captures the heat generated from the normal pistons and uses that heat to get another stroke or two. This uses the waste heat so that heavy radiators and cooling systems aren't required and also gives you a bit of extra energy for the same amount of fuel. That is the kind of thing we should be considering. All that engine heat is just wasted energy. There has to be ways to recoup that energy. Using a radiator just seems wrong.
I remember reading an article where this came up. Basically, they interviewed a bunch of people on why they wanted a big SUV-type vehicle. In addition to the space, the tough guys wanted a "tough car", and the soccer-mom types wanted something that would be more resilient in an accident.
However, when they tested things out, it was found that the SUV's did fare better in front/rear collisions, but in many cases were more likely to flip or roll in the case of a side impact. Handling in many cases was also worse, meaning that they were more likely to actually become involved in an accident.
So yes, the SUV might not get crushed, but it will happily roll over and flip into a ditch or off a cliff in cases where a smaller vehicle might now.
Whenever my wife tells me to take the golf clubs out of my car for better mileage, I ask her why she doesnt just call me a fat slob. There are several places that 20 pounds can be removed from my car, but it isnt so correct to tell everyone to get off their fat asses to save fuel (unless your an airline)
This just in: Cars with two engines in them aren't the best for fuel efficiency.
How the hell did hybrids take off in the first place? (that said, I have never seen one here in the UK)
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
If a large mass impacts a small mass, the small mass accelerates more than the large mass. Roll a big marble at a little marble. What happens? The little marble takes off at high speed, the big marble deflects slightly.
What kills passengers is delta-a, i.e. change in acceleration, as well as the acceleration itself. You can't live after your organs have been turned into scrambled eggs, like Lady Di's.
If you are riding in the big marble, you get accelerated (and delta-a'd) slightly. You live. If you are riding in the little marble, you get accelerated (and delta a'd) a lot. You die.
The Dymaxion Car was *very* space efficient, and it had a teardrop shape. (Seated 11)
The Dymaxion Car plan would be great for a skateboard chassis like GM was planning.
If you applied carbon fiber construction to such a "skateboard," combined with wheel hub motors, you could probably get beyond 100 miles range with just Lead Acid batteries. (Simply because the shape could be optimized for strength without compromises for doors, and you could use the entire bed for batteries, as in the Red Beastie)
Actually look at the study. It actually correlates even more strongly with manufactures than it does with vehicle type. With GM and KIA being the death machines.
(newer study: http://www.iihs.org/sr/pdfs/sr4003.pdf)
Mini four door cars are poor. But they only have 3 cars in the study 2 poor Kia/Huyndais and 1 Toyota Echo. The echo does very well.
The most deadly vehicle in the study is the GM blazer. 4 times as many death as a the tiny toyota echo.
If you want to use this as any kind of basis it would have to be model vs specific model, not generalizations based on body type. You would somehow need to move driver disposition from it as well. Sports cars don't kill their drivers, it is some of the idiot that buys a sports car that gets themselves/others killed.
It might be helpful. I misread that as "What about 10% savings in the passenger seat". I thought you were saying to get rid of those extra passengers, because they're weighing you down.
Probably also makes you drive more cautiously, as in "if I'm in a crash, I'm gonna die! - don't crash!"
I need a new sig...
Lose weight by removing panels, replacing them with mesh, plus a complement of projectile and bladed and spiked melee weapons and you got your perfect post-petrolyptic vehicle to survive in the wastelands.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
1985: Honda CRX "HF" model (so named as it was the "High Fuel Economy" model). Average 50 mpg. It did not have the acceleration of the SI or even DX models, but damn, that is great gas consumption.
(For reference, the SI model, designed for acceleration and sportier handling averaged 24 mpg, while the "middle range" model, the DX averaged 33 to 38 mpg).
What's it's secret considering it is 1980's tech? It's a very light car. 2 seater, Front wheel brakes only, No air bags, no other safety stuff that is now mandatory and weighs a car down. In other words, the "weight" argument has been known for a long time and is already proven.
People arguing about crash safety of small light cars always forget that avoiding the crash in the first place is a much better option. It is proven that drivers of "nimble" vehicles can avoid accidents that vehicles like SUVs cannot due simply to their size, weight, and crappy bulky handling (and I'm not even touching rolling over, which is another problem in itself).
I don't even want to think about where that arms race could go. Except periscopes, bring them on.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If I want to buy an SUV so be it, I fully accept the fact that some little compact sedan POS gets better gas mileage. OH WELL. If you don't like SUV's don't buy one, doughnuts are not healthy for breakfast but you don't see me saying stop selling doughnuts or raise the price for doughnuts or arrest people for buying doughnuts. So back the f up before you get smacked the f up!
Current hybrids include storage batteries that weigh a lot. They can be replaced with a much lighter flywheel that also has a higher efficiency than batteries, at storing and releasing energy (and also works with regenerative braking). Do not confuse this with other decades-old ideas of using flywheels to fully replace the car engine; we cannot make them strong enough to hold energy for 300 miles of travel. But we can easily make them able to hold enough energy for a few bursts of rapid acceleration. The only reason a smallish car has a 100HP engine is to get rapid acceleration. Any hybrid can replace that with a much lighter 15-20HP engine, which produces plenty for cruising at a fixed speed, plus some extra to charge up the storage unit for the desired rapid acceleration. A hybrid that uses a flywheel might weigh about the same as the ordinary car, but it will get better gas mileage because of the smaller engine.
too true. i forgot my razor on a business trip last month and had to use a three blade razor for a few days. damn near shaved off my adam's apple. whoever came up with the Gillette Fusion has my eternal gratitude.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Smart car crash test...
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1NHXiGd0rQ
Which driver suffered more?
No sig today...
The length of the 2008 Honda Civic is about 25% longer than that of the 1979 model. The newer model is also both taller and wider than the older model. But you're probably right, I'm sure it was all the safety devices that really made it heavier.
How about mandatory limiters on SUVs, limiting them to 45 mph, or even 35 and no access controlled highways. Another idea is a weight charge on license plates and registration, heavier vehicles to increase road wear.
Many of them weigh around 2000lbs...I have two of them, a quick little 4-seater (well the rear seats are a joke, to be fair) sports coupe that barely seems to use any gas (over 40MPG highway with careful use of the gas, 50 is possible with hypermiling techniques, it's only had a slight lightening), and a 4-seater 4x4 that goes over anything, and gets ~34MPG combined, even though it has the aerodynamics of a washing machine. Combined weight? 4200lbs. Combined displacement? 2.9 litres. Both very affordable cars in their day. They certainly don't have any advanced materials in them, they don't use any advanced construction techniques, and they only have one powertrain each. Imagine if they had EFI systems instead of carburetters!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Same reason SUVs took off - the drivers want to show the rest of the world something about themselves.
Whether the statement is accurate or not doesn't matter, it's the appearance that counts.
No sig today...
> Why not just make a lighter SUV
They do. Its called a minivan.
"Significant" meaning "Redesign lots of towns more or less from the ground up".
Yeah? Well, I commute
By bike to work
That SUV driver
Is such
A jerk
Burma-Shave
In a fair world, refrigerators would make electricity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EV7wyc3rs
Seriously.
I don't know why people don't make the connection, but corporations thrive on inefficiency. It makes more money.
The caloric value of a gallon of gas would get you a ridiculous amount of mileage if you used your legs on a bicycle instead, and it would save our society resources because you'd be healthier for it. The only problem with this kind of transportation is that you're not using enough stuff. No brake pads, transmission fluid, tires, stops at the Kwik-E mart...
The real flaw of American capitalism is that corporations have corrupted and infiltrated the government and created totally unnecessary wants purely to make a profit. Remember GM and the tire companies buying and dismantling mass transit after WWII?
Just think about this. According to popular convention, these are two different entities: Road and Highway Budget: Necessary for the maintenance of our infrastructure. (In fact, a transportation subsidy.) Mass Transit Subsidy: Government assistance given to subway systems. (In fact, a transportation subsidy.)
And what are subsidies? The result of a radical idea that money collected from taxpayers should be used to benefit taxpayers! Totally communist/socialist/liberal bed-wetting propaganda if you ask me! These lies and half-truths are marketed to us by the media, because the media's TRUE clients are corporations and their advertising revenue. Corporations win, everyone else loses.
no, it just means that people will build these huge honkin ultralightweight SUVs.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Impressive, but not a fair comparison. Call me when you can ride in our Canadian winters, carry passengers or any significant amount of cargo.
-Xoltri
... this is about gas prices. What are transportation trucks going to do, modify their trucks to use carbon fiber? This directly impacts food prices and other consumables. I know you're going to say that if cars were more efficient, oil demand would drop. I disagree, I think if cars were lighter, people would drive them faster, and therefore use up more gas. No, the solution is alternative fuel, like solar. If we spent a billion dollars a year for the next 5 years, I predict that we can achieve efficient 75% solar panels.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
They need to couple a diesel with a CVT to get some pimp mpg. The soon to be VW diesel is 40mpg city, 50-60 hwy, 250 ft/lbs and something like 130hp. Now, unlike gas, which injects fuel for the sole perpose of 'cooling' the engine to keep it from running too lean, diesel tries to pack as much air in as possible. Diesel gets it's BEST mpg under high load. So, when you're coming from the stop sign/light, you gun it and make the engine work hard. This causes more air to come in, and increases exaust pressure which spools up the turbo and allows more air to get packed in which increase torque/mpg. In a nut shell, have a heavy foot and plan your driving to use as little breaking as possible. If they had a CVT(Continuously Variable Transmission), all they would need to do is gear it as high as possible and when you accelerate, instead of increasing fuel injection, you run the engine as max ALL the time and change the gear ratio for more at wheel torue when needed. So, modulate wheel torue, not engine torue, because the engine runs most effcient at max load.
In case anyone actually believes this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterpowered_car Sorry to spoil your fun.
-Xoltri
Modern cars are obese. BMWs weigh over 4000. Its silly and wasteful. Lighter, better, faster, more efficient.
VW has been working on this motor for years, and is currently available in Europe. They used decades of racing technology to build a super efficient 1.4L supercharged/turbocharged motor.
When working together at a boost ratio of approximately 1.53, the two forced aspiration
units create a total boost of about 36.3 psi at 1500 rpm, an astonishing figure considering there is no turbo lag whatsoever. Equally amazing is the total output; the two forced aspirators give the 1.4-liter engine a total of 170 horses, making for an unparalleled specific output of 121-horsepower per liter. VW rates the tiny 1.4-liter engine comparable to that of a naturally aspirated 2.3-liter unit - 177 lb-ft between 1750 - 4500 rpm. If this wasn't a sweet enough deal, fuel consumption is 20 percent less, using just 39.2 mpg in the city and 47.9 mpg on the highway.
Combine this with a light-weight car, you get the best of everything/
A wise asian person (me) once said(5 seconds ago) that you don't need a sledgehammer to put a thumbtack in the wall. likewise, you don't need to commute to work by yourself in a 5000pound 6 person SUV. sure you may need your 6 person suv people carrier when you and your buddies go out, but not when you're commuting to work. we as commuters need to realize that the size of the car should reflect the number of passengers. why isn't there anything in the market for a 1 or 2 person enclosed commuter car with a 500cc engine? a commuter vehicle doesn't need to go 0-60 in 5 seconds and have a trunk capacity of 100 cu ft. it just needs to go 0-60. commuters in europe and asia have already realized this with submini's and kei cars. why are us americans so thick in the head?
I used to drive a lightweight sports coupe that gets good mileage (high 30s-low 40s is the norm...if it gets under 30, I'm either on the track or I have a massive fuel leak). Using it as a daily driver and a track car was sort of a conflict of interest, and the engine could use a rebuild...I needed to find something else to drive. I looked at a Suzuki Samurai. Also decent mileage (about 34 combined, not great but acceptable), small enough to squeeze through traffic, and it could haul parts and deal with the awful or nonexistent road surfaces I'm often faced with.
One of the things dissuading me from buying it was that I didn't want to be lumped in with SUV drivers. I realize I'm driving a sluggish vehicle with poor visibility, and adjust my driving accordingly. I really didn't want to be lumped in with those irresponsible inconsiderate assholes...but I bought the Samurai anyways. They are actually quite stable BTW. Also it makes me put an extra effort into driving in a nice courteous manner, otherwise I'll look like another asshole SUV driver.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No matter how like you make a conventional vehicle, you're still running it entirely on gasoline (or diesel).
If you have a hybrid, instead, it can easily be designed to allow plugging it in to charge the batteries, and then the first, say, 10 miles of every trip can be driven without using a drop of gasoline.
It wasn't long ago I would have agreed with Mr Murray, mainly because I do a lot of freeway driving, where hybrids are just dead weight. However, I've watched how most people drive, and I believe requiring ever manufacturer to sell plug-in hybrids would immediately cause a HUGE drop in demand for gasoline, as most people do most of their driving in short trips. What's more, the amount of fuel wasted in traffic, at long stop lights, idling in drive-thrus, etc. is quite substantial, and could be eliminated...
Of course, next, they need to make hybrids able to power the A/C without running the engine, rather than eliminating practically all the gains of a hybrid during the summer months.
Personally, I'm anxiously awaiting serial-hybrids... Electric vehicles, with perhaps a 20+ mile range, and a very small gasoline generator that runs to charge the batteries on longer trips. That larger all-electric range would eliminate an the majority of people's fuel consumption, and yet also allow for extremely small and efficient engines, and vehicles that are much lighter, and SIMPLER to build and maintain than either conventional or hybrid vehicles, and have far lower operating costs.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
There is still a need for minivans that filled in when the Cafe regulations killed off the station wagon. It is more fuel efficient to take a family - or group of friends, in one minivan than in several Ford Focii. And there are still plenty of people who live north of the Mason Dixon line and need ground clearance a good six months of the year, due to several inches of snow on the road (plows are set two to four inches above the pavement (in this town, four inches). There are still farmers and ranchers who need pickup trucks.
In reply to parent: Not only safety devices, but also sound deadening. With more layers between the driver and the road, the driver can hear other passengers, the radio and their blasted cell phone better. And they feel they're driving a more luxurious car.
Also: Cars have been running on the 12 volt system forever. If cars would switch to an 18 or 24 volt wiring scheme, miles of wires (read: weight) could be avoided in cars.
I don't know how reliable are their numbers, but the article mentioned in previous article, http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html says that if you measure deaths per million of cars, small cars are less dangerous.
This means that if you end up in a crash driving a small car, especially if you crash into a big vehicle, you are more likely to get killed. But with a small car, you won't crash as much as in a SUV, because of better braking and handling (active safety).
Besides, when it comes to crashes, you don't always crash into another vehicle. You can run off the road, crash into a pole or a tree, etc. And there I doubt driving a SUV will help you all that much. The study you linked doesn't take this into account.
When it comes to me, I'd rather drive a medium sized car with good safety rating & proper handling & good tires. But I'm from Europe.
--Coder
Probably also makes you drive more cautiously, as in "if I'm in a crash, I'm gonna die! - don't crash!"
It's crazy, but people modded me as funny without considering that I actually came up with an easy 400-500 pounds, or about 25% of the weight of a modern car. I doubled the article in there. I can chop more weight.
get rid of
a) any bumper mandate
b) the emergency brake
c) power windows [motors/cabling]
d) passenger windshield wiper
e) power mirrors
bottom line is, all the stuff in the car takes up weight. those fancy speakers and subwoofers, they gotta go. even the radio is debatable.
moral of the story is, you gotta start designing cars more like spaceships, where energy / weight is at a premium.
and you can get rid of the heavy leather seats and use a lighter spalco racing seat.
get rid of the spare tire and the wrench. (just get a tow truck for when you need it)
and really, you want to get rid of the tailpipe altogether and just run the exhaust out to the side of the car rather than all the way back.
consider using a plastic fuel tank
how much do disk brakes weigh? do you really need brakes on all four wheels?
This is my sig.
Rally cars have their suspension rebuilt or replaced very regularly (sometimes after each event) and the ride is truly horrendous, the car's chassis takes a serious beating...But also to be fair, most SUVs sold nowadays would break in two if they were ever taken offroading in stock form. Crossovers are just tall overweight cars, and should be driven as such (not off the pavement).
Real offroading vehicles used to be available: The Toyota Hilux, Nissan Pathfinder, and Suzuki Samurai come to mind. They all got better mileage than anything sold nowadays as well.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I drive a Jeep because it is fun. I don't need to rationalize. It is a Jeep thing - you would not understand.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
- There's quite a bit of room under the seat for storage- enough room to carry my gym bag with a change of clothes. They also make an additional storage trunk that you can attach to the luggage rack.
- What's that all aboot, eh?
Seriously though, we have a ridiculous SUV for when we take the kids to the park and stuff like that. But most of my travel (and most everyone's travel) is simply commuting to and from work. A scooter is simply the most efficient way to do that. Being Canadian, I assume you are some sort of maple leaf farmer, so this doesn't really apply to you.
How about the average American just loses a few pounds? When you think of all the overweight people in American and how much each would save in gas.
-Nemo me impune lacessit-
What a quack page... People like this are not at all helping out in making vehicles more efficient. Don't forget that the electrolysis of water takes electricity, which comes from the power grid, which comes from either: natural gas, coal, hydro-electric, nuclear, wind... etc.
At the Rocky Mountain Institute they are researching new manufacturing processes to use carbon composites instead of steel for car frames. The results is something as strong, if not stronger, and much much lighter. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/open/clip-scen-lola-01.html I recommend watching the Nova episode "Car of the Future" for more information on the RMI "hypercar"
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
-light
The '84 Pontiac Fiero had a curb weight of under 2600 lbs.
-safe
The '84-'88 Pontiac Fiero was the 2nd safest new car in crashes in the US according to government crash testing.
-cheap
The '84 Pontiac Fiero was marketed as a relatively low end commuter car.
True the Fiero was plagued by bad iron, mediocre management, and a royal frown from the GM suits. But at 27/40 MPG for a commuter car from the 80's. Even running the 2.8l v-6, 175 foot-pounds of torque is enough to get a 2600lbs car moving faster than most cars in its price range off the line.
-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
The heavyweight equals safety arguments are certainly valid, and subject to reductio ad absurdum (VolksBradley for everyone).
First, have a big dollar annual five hundred mile auto race. Each team gets five gallons of gas. Let the race teams be driven (pardon the pun) by big profits and competition to improve both efficiency and speed.
Second, each year have all car owners drive their vehicle to the local department of vehicles, drive onto a scale, and pays one dollar per pound as their annual automobile tax.
Let money gained and lost push us towards a safer, lighter, and cheaper efficiency.
Those things are way overpriced. Here's some advice: Throw out your shaving cream, aftershave, and ridiculously expensive quadra-ultra-super-duper disposable blade system.
Replace with bulk packs of the cheapest solid blue handle disposable razors you can find (no swappable heads), and a tiny bottle of Shave Secret oil. Use as directed.
Less money, better quality shaving experience, and a better shave at the end of it, and you don't have to get taken advantage of by the razor company quite as badly.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
And how big was a 1979 Honda Civic compared to today? Or a Camry from 1980 compared to today? Thought so... both models are significantly bigger than their forebears. This applies to most cars across the board.
Or, I can just drive my truck without any passengers. A hundred pounds here, a hundred there.
Your general statement has a flaw in it. All you need is one person contradicting you and it is false.
Now if you said 'In the US, not very many people want to buy light cars...' you might be more accurate. A lot would depend upon the region you are in.
There is absolutely no reason why carbon fiber cannot be manufactured as cheaply as steel plates and used for car bodies... Especially with todays commodity prices. The only reason why we don't is because all of North American factories are already set up for shaping and manufacturing metal body parts for cars. The capital investment required to retrofit the factories has been the reason that carbon fiber hasn't been introduced in a bigger way. Having a carbon fiber car with a stock engine will likely be similar to a standard car with a hybrid engine.
------- "I must create my own system, Or be enslaved by another man's" -William Blake
the obvious stupidity of Professor Murray's statement that removing 10% weight will reclaim what advanced hybrid systems do? So by those calculations, I suppose I'm losing something like 35% gas mileage when I have one fat passenger in my Honda Fit? Of course, I'm talking about Hybrid Synergy Drive and not GM's pathetic "mild hybrids" that hardly beat a 4-cylinder. Clearly lighter cars is a good thing for efficiency. But let's not get our information from someone who lost his grip on reality. The 10% figure is nonsense.
The first blade lifts the hair, the second blade hits the hair over the head with a bottle so it doesnt know whats coming; meanwhile, the third and fourth blades pin the hair down while the fifth blade cuts the hair. Once the sixth blade does away with the evidence and throws the cops off the trail, the seventh blade drives the getaway car...
...motorcycle. Even a used sport bike (600-750CC) will hit 150+ MPH, 0-60 in about 3 seconds, and get WELL over 40MPG (closer to 65MPG if driven in a sane fashion). Problem is, they don't work in the snow, and they are very dangerous (I have a 1994-ish CBR900RR).
Grandpa: My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is not a porn star.
Just FYI, the current tax advantages for ethanol production in the US are twice as high for cellulosic as for corn. And they did that because they aren't stupid, they know corn isn't sustainable forever. they know this, the farmers know it, the refinery guys know it., the business people know it.
Corn is being used in a transition stage with ethanol because it is what we have and what the farmers are setup for, so that we can get going and have some sort of useful fuel now, not 20 years more "studies", like fusion power or "hydrogen fuel cells".
Your current choices are, keep working on biofuels and support what we have now and try to get more energy independent using renewable fuels, or keep shoving buckets of cash to the major oil guys and loyal to no one speculators and keep getting raped in the wallet and be in peril of one major middle east event blowing out of control and be staring at $300 buck/barrel with rationing on top of that-which could happen quite easily given the amount of loon leaders involved in the middle east and the usa/uk.
And that's it. We don't have mass quantities of affordable electric vehicles out there yet, you are stuck between mid range expensive on a waiting list, the same it has been for the past 5 years or so, to high end sportscar expensive, extreme limited quantities with the same waiting lists or build a kit (google for them, you can do this for around ten grand now and your donor car/truck and choice of batteries) if you want electrics (I do, eventually it will be a home made though, not going to wait for them to get on the market in cheap quantities, this will take years and years now given the reluctance of any of the majors to actually do anything but build prototypes and yak about it)
so you either support your own farmers and the "corn lobby" and domestic production and domestic research into cellulosic production, or you keep supporting with your fuel cash the exxon/opec/oil dudes "lobby" like you have been. Choices. Me, personally, I am in farming, but not corn, but I would much rather my fuel buck went to another farmer than to some greed based wall street pirate and dictator oil despot some place overseas, because they all *suck*. I've been paying that "lobby" for decades now, I think they have received enough of my loot.
-light -safe -cheap Pick any two.
Sounds like you need Six Sigma. /me ducks.
The Audi A2 was a marvel in this regard. Made out of aluminum and whatnot. Didn't sell at a 20000€ price tage since no one wanted to pay that much for a small car, but got 80 mpg in the most efficient version.
The original Smart was also lighter (745kg), but they had to fatten the car by a whopping 60kg to pass US safety standards.
Like I've said before, electric cars could remove most of the things and lot of other excess parts. Lithium batteries can make it work. You might not get the range of current vehicles, but aren't there plugins everywhere when you need more fuel.
SUV's don't "win" in a collision merely becasue they are heavier, it has a great deal to do with their size, specifically their height. Low, small cars tend to "submarine" under SUVs, rendering safety measures such as crumple zones ineffective. In the vast majority of accidents, the lack of mass and momentum is not the primary reason for fatality; the size difference comes into play more in specific situations such as a car being pinned between an SUV and a building or other immovable object.
Large vehicles could be made much lighter--Large SUVs and light trucks are the most technologically backward vehicles on the road today--They still employ big heavy body-on-frame design one might have seen in the 1950s. You could still make large vehicles but make fundamental design changes to dramatically reduce the weight. A lightened SUV or truck would retain the height advantage over smaller vehicles and still obtain fuel savings.
Why not build them out of paper?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/10/0033201
"Simplicate, then add lightness." - Colin Chapman
Problem solved.
Web-site about hi mpg cars.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml
December 20 2007 - Article on CNN Money:
57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm
Maybe it would, who cares? Many cars that are focussed on fuel economy from the ground up use advanced drivetrain along with fine tuning aerodynamics and construction techniques. The ones that just use a different drivetrain tend to be alternate-drivetrain versions of models that also are available with a traditional drivetrain. Lots of manufacturers offer hybrid options for models that aren't hybrid-only. The advantage of this is that you share most of the frame and body with versions that are expected to sell more widely, keeping the cost down.
So, (1) presenting it as improved construction vs. improved drivetrain is a false dichotomy, for purpose-designed efficient vehicles, you use both (and aerodynamic improvements, among others) together, and (2) for manufacturers working in the real world, improved drivetrains are particularly useful outside of ground-up designs-for-efficiency, as they are more easily incorporated into an existing product mix where the volume expected from the less expensive base vehicles keeps the overall price of the more expensive advanced vehicles down because of the opportunity for shared components.
Semis to transport just about everything or trucks for contractors to build the houses we all live in...
The article was about a guy who's an expert on making ultralight cars crashworthy. His light cars would not be like the light cars on the road today.
Fuck everybody else, I want what I want when I want it. It doesn't matter that if everyone drove smaller vehicles we'd all be able to see just fine.
That is what happens when you don't abandon Detroit, but embrace what they offer.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I lawn-mowe commute to work, and I get plenty of close shaves on the municipal grass-plots every day. And the police has ample evidence of that rather than anecdotal.
problem is, this guy has no knowledge of real world driving, formula one cars spend all there energy accelerating and decelerating like crazy and have ridiculously low drag coefficients. Because of this weight effects them tremendously. Many times more than any average car.
Man, nails have been going into the SUV coffin since they first became popular in the cities. Hasn't that thing sunk yet?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
SUVs aren't better haulers, they just look less dorky than minivans. If you need to haul HEAVY stuff or tow a trailer you'd be better with a truck. If you needed an enclosed space you'd get a full-sized van like a Sprinter or a Savanna or an Econoline. If you need versatility you'd get a minivan like a Caravan.
SUVs are a compromise in every way--they have the inconvenient added height and low fuel economy of a truck, but can barely replace a station wagon for cargo volume. SUVs are basically just cool to look at and nothing else, for the vast majority of people. The SUV won't go exinct, but in the future far less of them will be around. Maybe 10 percent of SUVs are used for what they'd be good for; hauling people and cargo that has to be kept out of the elements through rought terrain.
Cars built with spaceframes can weigh less than their unibody cousins with more safety for the occupants.
By using fiberglass or plastic body panels, even more weight savings can be realized without compromising passenger safety.
Mr. Reiser, is that you? Perhaps you should have used the "seat removal as a means to increase fuel economy defence" and you'd have had better luck.
A car's crumple zones *should* absorb a great amount of that impact, and there are better in-cabin protections for the bouncing about in the car. This contrasted to the tall, roll-prone bolt-on truck. (I read in a different article that much heavier standards are levied against cars/crossovers than SUVs on truck chassis.)
So, who comes out ahead is only clear if you limit it to physics. When you bring vehicle design and crash dynamics in, I don't think it can be easily dismissed. !absurd.
Most energy is lost to wind drag.
Not when you aren't driving at highway speeds. Which of course makes up most driving: daily commutes in the city you live in. And even if you are driving on highway speeds, a motorcycle is going to get vastly better gas mileage than a Mustang, much less a Hummer. Less mass = better fuel economy, or in your case, fool economy.
I'm sorry, but you're comparing apples to oranges.
In the UK it can take all of what, 2 or 3 hours to go across all of England?
That's how long I have to drive just to get through the greater Chicago area.
YOU try stuffing a family into a car that small for a 6 or 10 or 15 hour car trip. THEN come back and you tell me that your U.K. "big" car is suitable for a family. I dare you.
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>> I like being able to see OVER traffic.
Worse, this doesn't scale. I have a car so you get a jeep. I need to see over you so I get an Escalade. You need to see over me so you get a Hummmer. I need to see over you so I get an 18-wheeler.....
or (f) make your car out of plastic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I
It's a crash between a Volvo 940 (big car: 4.80m, but bad Euroncap rating) and a Renault Modus (small european car: 3.90m and great Euroncap rating: 5/5 stars)
The result? A driver in the Renault could go out on his own from the car. The Volvo driver...well, would have several damages in his legs and would need some help to get out of the car.
Can't do that. I drive a stick. (and a manual transmission weighs much less than an automatic).
is about 100mph. @ about 32 mpg at least that's what someone I know got when they tested it on a roadtrip from Oregon to Denver...
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
your stats. emphasizes noise. although my bike only lets out a scream under full accel (which can only be for a max of 3 seconds to legal speed.) It is a common perception by motorcycle riders that loud pipes save lives. Since I live in AZ where motorcycles are a year around ordeal, I get out of the worst (but still a monthly never saw you, pulled out.) But their is no doubt, in my experience, that this is true. And if I ever move back to Illinois (or any semi-annual motorcycle local) I will be un-corking my pipe, sorry that we all have to suffer for the in-attentiveness of a few, but that's my life choice.
I will say I get really annoyed by some of the flashing headlights on bikes now, they are not a replacement for a loud pipe either.
Also chuck out windows and doors, safety belts, and hell, the lids on the boot. Apropos, Top Gear did just this on their cross-Africa challenge...
The only close shave I've had was with Wallace's Knit-O-Matic (patent pending).
- On the Internet, nobody can tell you're a (cyber)dog.
The reason that the US car fleet is so inefficient is that it employs large capacity low revving 2-300hp NA engines that run hugely throttled 99% of the time. At low throttle openings (10-30hp normal driving load) they use twice as much fuel for every hp they produce as they do at full throttle. The simple answer is to reduce or eliminate the amount of throttling you need. Two easy approaches:
Diesel - no throttle, just vary the amount of fuel to control power, but diesel engines cost $5-6000 to make compared to $3000 for gasoline. The added cost of this is likely to be uneconomic for most purchasers, european manufacturers typically cross subsidise their diesel ranges from the gasoline.
Turbo downsized gasoline engines. It is quite simple to make a 1.2l engine that puts out 200hp using a turbo. This gives you all the efficiency of a small car, with more than adequate power, plus the engine is smaller cheaper and lighter to make (a turbo costs only about $100 to manufacture). Under normal driving conditions the 1.2l engine is running with less throttle and therefore is far more efficient.
Even better would be if we were allowed to run gasoline engines lean as they would be closer to the efficiency of diesels, but unfortunately we have to run at stoichiometric conditions (matching amount of fuel to air so that all fuel and oxygen are used) to keep the emissions catalysts happy and achieve the extreme low emissions regulations now in place.
This really has gone too far as more stringent regs stopped producing any environmentally useful incremental improvements 10 years ago, and now represent nothing more than political posturing to be seen to be green while incidentally creating more development jobs, increasing car prices and fuel consumption.
Weight is really not the massive factor a lot of people seem to think it is either, it does cost a bit in stop start traffic, but is dwarfed by frontal area and aero drag.
So forget the old idea that turbos are thirsty high performance beasts, done well turboed 0.8-1.2l (maybe 1.6l for SUVs) engines are the best solution from a cost, performance and efficiency point of view, consumers just need to wake up to it (manufacturers will build them if demand is there).
No one in the U.S. wants to buy small cars? I wonder what the people who buy small vehicles think about that statement: namely motorcyclists. They've had to fight with not only the SUVs lo these many years, but also people in sedans and compacts. So to say that no one in the U.S. will buy small cars seems to me to be a little spurious, considering that they're already buying much smaller vehicles. Americans are a lot smarter than you think!
Cough...
H2(g) + 0.5 O2(g) --> H2O (l) dHf = -285.8kj/mol
Negative sign means no energy from splitting water...
I've got a Jeep Cherokee and It's not really good for most stuff, it's OK at a lot of stuff but not good. It was good at going through an 18 inch snowfall to Lowes to buy a snowblower once; but a typical FWD car is as good for typical snowfalls.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
As I noted you can't make that kind of comparison, with only 2 or 3 models in a segment. The 4 door compacts have Kia/Hyundai with a terrible grade (same manufacturer) and Toyota with a very good grade. Simply remove Kia/Hyundai from the results and they would shift massively in another direction.
Look at the discreet data instead of the supposed overall stats that are IMO invalid. Too bad they didn't give us a spreadsheet, then we could pull out the manufacturer numbers in a table and run various correlations to find the strongest correlations.
you're ALL in taller cars. Now you need a TALLER ONE to see over the traffic.
Stop being a selfish cunt and sit in a car that works and stop giving a rats arse about seeing over the "little people".
Cutting the weight can make a very big difference. I have a Yamaha 50cc scooter. Depending on how hard I ride it I can get between 90 and 110 miles per gallon. 90 = full power all the time and going up to 43 MPH. 110 = never going above 30 MPH and easing off and off the gas when starting and stopping.
Is a scooter right for everyone? Hell no. Is it right for most everyone a fair chunk of the time? Yes. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) assuming only a 10,000 mile life span = 12 cents per mile based on $4 a gallon and only using 92 octain gas. Not even the best car can beat that.
Ascii artist &
So, one question. Why can't we make lighter cars and give them more complex (efficient) drive lines? Isn't that the best of both worlds?
The older large cars and almost all trucks, vans, and SUVs often have much poorer crumple zone designs than modern passenger cars. Passenger cars are built to tougher standards than SUVs. The g-force experienced by an occupant of an SUV can frequently exceed the g-force experienced by an occupant of a car, particularly if both are driven into a fixed obstacle.
Your ball analogy is confusing momentum with forces seen by the passenger during impact. The more rigid the balls are, the effectively momentum will be transferred. The goal in a car accident, is to absorb the momentum in the body of the car. You don't want the rapid change in momentum to be absorbed by the passenger or the passenger compartment. In car accident terms, when the 1lb ball hits the 2lb ball, you want both to stop. How quickly each comes to rest is governed how each absorbs the impact. If the 1lb ball is a car, then the crumple zone is designed to absorb the impact. This reduces impact felt by the occupants. If the 2lb ball is something really stiff, like a big block of steel, then the entire force for the impact is transmitted directly to the occupant. This is really bad.
Incidentally, this is why the newer SUVs and pickups have crumple zones, and crush up like the small cars do now. You want the vehicle to take the impact, not the occupant. Nevertheless, SUVs are often made to truck standards, not passenger car standards, and frequently passenger cars have many more passenger protecting features.
I drive a 10 year old car that has supercar-class performance with the fuel consumption of an economy car.
The Lotus Elise weighs under 700kg (approx 1500lbs) does 0-100km/h (0-60mph) in about 4.5 seconds and uses only 8.5 liters per 100km (27mpg).
Its not a new idea but its an awesome idea. Imagine adding this level of weight reduction to something like a Toyota Camry or a Subaru Impreza.
I ride a motorcycle, wear the proper gear, and as long as my bike is maintained well and the road ahead of me clear, I really have little to fear outside of some driver blind-siding me in a car, regardless of size.
Just make a couple of parallel motorcycle-only expressways, offering both the freedom from slamming into a fool who violated your right of way in a Hummer, and the drop in congestion that makes riding one's bike more appealing. More people on bikes, better fuel economy, everybody wins.
PS: I just filled up on about seven bucks -- a lot for a motorcycle, but paltry compared to large vehicles. That'll get me about a hundred miles, btw.
Currently we're using ~1 tonne of steel to shift N x ~70kg of person from point A to B.
I've always thought there was something wrong with that equation.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I doubt anyone who drives a smallish vehicle hasn't realised that.
I drive a small car (an MG F) and rarely does a month go past without some cretin in a big 4WD trying to merge into the space I'm occupying and I do drive defensively (ie I spend as little time as possible anywhere near alongside their vehicle, if I'm passing them I only do so when there is space ahead to pass them completely. However there is only so much you can do, if you braked and backed away every time such a vehicle came alongside you I doubt the effect on traffic flow would be one that improved safety).
Oddly I never have such a problem with buses or trucks. Part of it may be that professional drivers are better but I think another part of it is that the mirrors on big 4WDs are simply inadequate. There is perhaps too much pressure for the vehicles to look stylish (and inadequate design standards to enforce a decent level of functionality) which prevents them having big enough mirrors.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
My Geo Metro has a 51Hp engine, gets 50 MPG, and cruses at 75 MPG on the highway. I live at 9000 ft elevation and commute down a mountain to 4500 at steep grades. It goes as fast as you'd want to on mountain roads with 3-4 passengers. Yes its no drag racer, but it goes from pt. A to B efficiently and reliably. Besides it cost me 1/10th of a hybrid and gets the same milage. We love it.
Now imagine making it lighter and hybrid. No Doubt 20 Hp is sufficient.
As a mechanic I approve of catalytic converters. They weigh 2 to 5 pounds. The anciliary electronics and sensors weigh 10 to 15 pounds. The tailpipe is less needed if the cat works, if it doesnt , CO. anyway less than 20 pounds Air bags and electronics weigh less than 10 pounds, and save lives. D: Troll Side safety beams. Compare and contrast old American coupe and new toyota doors. Maybe 10 pounds. Total, for a big car maybe 60 pounds. Responding to the followup The insurance companies like good bumpers. What, you dont like parking brakes, do you think that they are new.
All your database are belong to U.S.
As a side benefit, the extra cost and time involved in getting a license to drive a large vehicle like that would deter the soccer moms, who would get something smaller.
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.
Ever since the Geo Metro, everybody already knows that a small light car can get very good MPG, the problem is that there's no publicity in it for anyone. So government and industry promotes such bullshit as EV's and hybrids, when from a total pollution standpoint they are almost certainly a step backwards. If they COST more to build than a conventional gas-engine car, then more resources went into their manufacture--and more pollution was probably produced as a result.
,,,,
Part of the problem with complaining about SUV's however is that car companies made them because they thought that people would buy them--and generally (in the US) that has been true. The super-tiny cars like Metros did not sell as well, it's not easy to promote poverty as a lifestyle choice.
BMW Minis are pretty small, but they're fairly expensive and it's very likely that most of the people who bought them didn't really give a shit about the MPG.
So you see, fashion wins over all else.
People fixate on "smog" and think EV's are great because they don't have a nasty tailpipe, but the fact is that a normal person wouldn't want to live next to an oil field--and they wouldn't want to live next to a battery manufacturing plant (or battery recycling plant) either. Batteries don't grow on trees and they're not filled with milk and honey.
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For a real boondoggle, take a serious look at commuter rail. There is probably no other system in common use that gets promoted so much as a solution, yet is as wasteful. It serves a very limited area (unless you use some other form of transport at one or both ends of your trip), is not possible to reconfigure to changing geographical populations or needs, and {last but not least} generally runs at near-empty capacity most of the time of day other than morning and evening rush hour.
At least with a private vehicle, you always know that it's only on the road when it's needed, it can go grom any origin to any destination and and it's free to take the most-efficient route directly between the two points. THAT should be the standard of efficiency that transportation should be based upon. More mass-transit is a simple-minded waste of money.
~
But it is only 1% of the total.
How do car lighters improve efficiency?
Mine doesn't even work!
What about the Tata Nano?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano
Gee, and I always thought driving a massive box around was the most aerodynamic, fuel-efficient design on the planet.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Why should a bike, that can do 15-25 easily, have to go 5-10 on the sidewalk? Why not make cars that could go 45 go 25 instead?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Oh and thanks for pointing out the best proof of my point Motorcycles!!
I'm just so sick of silly bikers talking about saving gas. If weight is such a factor why does a 500lb bike only get 40 MPG while a 6000lb Hummer can get 15. It weighs less then 1/10th of the weight of the Hummer it should get 10 times the mileage. The reason... bikes have horrible aerodynamics. There are a lot of 2000lb european cars that get much better mileage then the average 500lb bike. Hell my 3000lb minivan can get 25MPG with two people and a bike in the back.
Someone may have already noticed, but it's 'RACE car' NOT 'RACING car'.
Certainly, it takes less energy to change the velocity of a small vehicle....pretty simply physics here. But there's more more involved. A smaller vehicle also requires much less kinetic energy to be transformed when deceleration is called for. For many years, this kinetic energy has been wasted as it is turned into heat by brakes. Now we have competing systems of deceleration that transform the kinetic energy - either into other kinetic energy in the use of a flywheel, or electric energy, or even pneumatic or hydraulic energy. The problem becomes the ability to transform this energy very quickly and efficiently in large amounts. But why is this so important?
Much of acceleration need is due to the competitive driving needed in congested highway or city traffic, and deceleration need as well. If we can improve upon traffic control so as to require less acceleration and deceleration, then efficiency is improved. Road-trains are one method, but they have some serious design flaws to overcome before they are practical. Much closer to being practical is the computer controlled autonomous vehicle, such as those being contestants in the DARPA challenge. Once computer controlled driving becomes ubiquitous, automated 'good manners' can be algorithmically enforced. This will result in less stress, faster travel, greater fuel efficiency, and safer roads. I believe that auto-mation is deserving of much research funds, and not just by auto makers but by national automotive research institutes. More money to DARPA!
Onto safety of small vehicles: There has been much improvement in the passenger safety over the past forty years. Most of this comes from mechanical integrity of the vehicle in an accident in favor of saving the passenger. What I mean is, cars crumble apart when the collide these days, as opposed to bouncing off of each other like billiard balls and throwing the passengers around inside and outside of the car, as they would do in the 60s and before. This is good for human safety (less injuries and deaths) and the auto industry (more cars are destroyed in accidents, meaning more cars must be sold). I only expect this trend to continue, especially as the demand for small, light cars continues. special materials, probably some carbon composites, will absorb all of the kinetic energy of a collision and release that energy by crumbling, or even turning to dust. When considering safety from this point of view, flywheels are very dangerous unless they can also dissemble to dust as need be to protect the passenger from their dangerous kinetic energy. The same can be said of any system of energy storage, be it fuel or kinetic conversion (regenerative braking...er, breaking). Can we develop gelled automotive fuels, or at least less volatile ones, so explosion and fire risk is less?
The mantra of modern society is that the life of the individual is tantamount. Any automotive design which fails to take notice of this is on the road to ruin, no pun intended.
One can philsophise over how remarkably poor the recent generation of Chinese cars faired in European crash tests. I wonder if the nascent cars from India (Tata Nano, and others) will do in similar tests.
Back to efficient 'deceleration' or 'regenerative braking' systems: I think there is great promise in electrical systems such as supercapacitors, particularly in the field of aerogel materials. I also suspect that piezoelectric effects may be able to transform mechanical energy to electrical the fastest.
Now, who wants to start a car company with me? Got any capital?
I repeat for clarity, we do not have that much oil left. And we can not grow crops here. The summer is short and the winter is cold and comes early. Even cucumbers and potatoes do not bring harvest. Well, not every summer.
Some can have nice crops, have plenty of tourists visiting towers, etc. We do not have all that. All we have is oil and natural gas wells. And a cold winter to survive.
We want our wealth to be used in a sane way. Not in a crazy bonanza. We want it to last. And be used by people around the world for their benefit. Not harm.
It is very easy to go with very little fuel:
Get a fuel efficient motor bike and drive very carefully.
You can easily drive 100km with a lot less than one litre.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
"If you could take 10% off the weight of every car on the planet overnight, it would make so much more difference than all the new engine technologies and fuel technologies that people are talking about"
Um, no shit? There's more than half a billion cars on the planet right now. The new engine and fuel technologies only affect new cars sold. Of course the weight reduction will do much more than the new technologies which may or may not be picked up. But, are we going to force every car owner on the planet to start replacing car parts now?
Seat belts are lighter than airbags, 2 speakers are lighter than 17, manual cloth seats are lighter than electric heated leather ones, vinyl is probably lighter than carpet, manual steering is lighter than power steering, manual transmission is lighter than automatic, one camshaft is lighter than two.
On the other hand, mp3 players are lighter than radios or CD players, the electronic speedometer is lighter than a cable speedo, plastic bumpers are usually lighter than steel ones, aluminium heads and blocks are lighter than iron ones.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
This article and the statistics (meaningless or otherwise) tends to refute the above:
> http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html
Yes, lighter cars *are* unsafer.
:-/
The problem is not only the "stiffness" of the car or the amount of energy it has to swallow. It's also the momentum exchange. When two objects collide, both the total energy and total momentum has to be conserved. That is, while you can trick your way around energy conservation by creating parts of the car which dissipate energy as they deforme during a crash, you cannot do that with momentum. The lighter car will always have a greater momentum difference (difference as in "momentum after the crash MINUS momentum before the crash"), thus exposing the driver (of the lighter car) to a lot harsher tajectory than the driver of the heavy car.
Example: imagine a billard and a bowling ball rolling directly towards each other and then crashing: The billard ball will all of a sudden CHANGE its direction (thus the momentum change for the smaller ball being 2x its initial momentum), while the bowling ball will only slightly get slower (maybe few percent), while basically maintaining its original direction.
Now imagine a small flea driving each one of the balls: the problem is now that the fleas have the same speed as the balls they're "driving". So while the flea on the heavy bowling ball would only slightly change his speed (because his own vehicle's speed changed only slightly), the flea on the billard ball would have his moving direction inverted all of a sudden... which pretty much means he sucks it
Keep the PS to yourself
> consider the original Mini, or more modern "super minis" -
> which are actualy still larger than the original Mini.
> I'd hate to see one of them get into a fight with an SUV..
Comparision photos of mini cooper vs F150:
(yeah yeah the F150 is a pickup, not a SUV, but
you get the point)
http://bridger.us/2002/12/16/CrashTestingMINICooperVsFordF150/
Bring back the VW pickup. German quality crash
safety. Plenty fast with the 16V engine, and
gets 30 mpg. (40-50mpg with Diesel)
Certainly not fuel-efficient, which is the main concern in this discussion.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Actually a 20 pound drop in driver weight wouldn't make a measurable difference in fuel economy for most cars.
Seriously, take a 4000 pound car and take 20 pounds of driver out and expect a measurable difference? No, it has to be lighter cars that do not shrink in size. Not just some small weight savings, that will be eaten by new computer systems, many pounds of wiring harness, heavier tires, bigger seats, etc..
The car needs to be designed from the onset to be a lightweight vehicle. The heaviest parts of the vehicle don't get scaled down by saving 20 or even 200 pounds. I'm talking about things like the frame, the brake system, drivetrain, axles, etc.. Cut a thousand pounds of of a 4 door sedan as part of the design and you can then shave off another several hundred pounds through lighter weight components - to include a smaller engine.
It isn't rocket science but it could be aided by rocket scientists - they are very familiar with the effects of mass and design for lightweight vs merely shaving a few pounds.
The other of the two large gains to be had is in teaching people a more efficient means of driving. No the usual (and sometimes wrong) maxims about acceleration and tire pressures don't cut it. I'm talking hands-on real training with vehicles that have "real time" and averaging fuel economy capture and display systems. Let people actually see immediate changes and they will develop a style of driving that works and consumes less fuel. I've personally observed people increase their fuel economy in large SUVs so equipped (and w/proper instruction) by several MPG. Smaller vehicles show similar benefits.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Seriously how can you make the claim that the climate of the US is not "that much different" than that of Europe with a straight face?
A significant portion of the US has summer average temperatures in the high 90's or low 100's, with winter that rarely touches freezing. Another huger portion has winters that dump many feet of snow and leave the area in a frozen blanket of ice for significant portions of the year. Many places have both the high temperatures and the low temperatures. The range of temperatures in the continental US is larger than the range of temperatures in "continental Europe".
As to standard of living differences, that claim is also false as has been shown by the UN for at least a couple decades. If you only just now learned that N.A. uses more energy per capita than Europe you must be new to BBC, or slashdot. America also has a much higher GDP. We make more stuff. so even considering energy use per capita is an incomplete and useless thing to do on it's own.
Go ahead, cut off the electricity supply to millions of people living in 110 degree heat so they can't use their air conditioner and compare that to someone in London not needing an air conditioner. Now tell the millions of people in that 100+ degree weather that their standard of living is "not that much different" than those in Europe. Take the heat source away from those in Minnesota or Canada in January so they can use less energy per capita and convince them that their standard of living isn't any different.
Consider this chart from UN data in 2005: http://www.zianet.com/ehusman/weblog/uploaded_images/E_Intens_v_pCap_GDP-718899.jpg
The US and the UK, for example, are very similar in how many BTUs are consumed per unit of GDP. Yet we produce more GDP per capita. How does that affect your assertion that North America's energy consumption is excessive. IN terms of GDP, the US is about as efficient as the UK, and much more so than Norway which produced about the same GDP per capita as the US, or Canada which produced far less GDP than the US per capita and consumed far more BTUs per unit of GDP to do it. The big "winner" on that chart is Japan which produced a high GDP/capita with a BTU/GDP far lower than that of Europe.
Indeed:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/energy.html
Shows that the US' energy use has in fact been getting more efficient in that our energy user per dollar of GDP has gone down by 42% since 1980. And for those who might say otherwise, it ha snot risen once over the previous year in that 27 year run. Energy use per capita had a slight uptick in the second half of the 90's but is still down a few points from 1980.
How about next you don't just try to take a swipe at those in a different area with a dumb-ass isolated statistic and do some real research? Even a 10 minute excursion into the data coudl have prevented you from such silliness.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
The best way to lighten an automobile is to get rid of the huge asshole inside. Then safety's almost a given.
remind me to buy you a beer when i meet you
I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
I'm curious, what sort of "state intervention" are you thinking of?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.