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VW Concept Microcar Gets 235 MPG
Hugh Pickens writes "Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 235 mpg. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 660 pounds. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 11.4 feet long, 4.1 feet wide and 3.3 feet tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."
So small, light and snug (from the picture), that when you get knicked by a Toyota on the autobahn, it can substitute as your coffin too! Now THAT's eco-friendly.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
In 2006, this vehicle got 3,145 miles per gallon, and some high-school students last year won a mileage contest by creating a similar vehicle that got mileage in the 1000-mpg range.
If VW want to impress, they will have to do a hell of a lot better than that.
These cars are great if they ever come to market and if people will buy them. We keep hearing about these new and revolutionary cars, but nothing ever makes it to the showroom floor.
When some new gas saver comes out (like the smart4two), do people really line up to purchase it?
Also, I really wonder if a car made from carbon fibre, magnesium, titanium & aluminum will really hit the market starting at $31,750? In addition, what would my insurance be on this?
They want their futuristic car design back.
3 points.
1 - It's a 1 person car
2 - It's going into limited production
3 - Marketing is talking about it 2 years in advance
It's a gimmick to make the company appear eco-friendly, without actually offering anything for the average consumer.
Apparently they don't want to massproduce this, just enhance their brand, without actually jeopardizing their relationship with Big Oil(TM)
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
It's hardly shocking that if you strip the weight off a passenger car you can run up the mileage.
The reason these things don't usually make market is that
A) you can't make them that small and have them meet passenger car safety standards
B) you end up using a lot of exotics in your design to strip weight down and that runs the price up
End result is you end up with a "car" that's roughtly the mass (and passenger capacity) of an oversize motorcycle, but costs as much as a mid range luxury car. Hardly an appealing prospect for all but the most dedicated mileage enthusiasts.
Some Americans weigh that much!
Gas companies will start charging $235/g to compensate.
What we need is not more efficient gas-powered vehicles.
What we need is new technology entirely. Clean, efficient, cool technology.
It's really quite sad that we've gained such vast scientific knowledge this past century and we're still using the same basic idea (albeit with more precision) that they were using roughly a century ago.
It weighs 300 kilograms, and the dimensions are 3.47x1.25x1 meters. With that, it would qualify for a microcar class. In some places you wouldn't even need a licence to drive it..
By the time this car makes it into regular mass-production, (if it ever makes it at all), it'll look just like every other car on the road.
you think $30,000-$40,000 is too much for a car that gets 235 mpg??? Do you realize how much money you'd save in fuel costs each year? It would quickly drop down to probably less per-year over a 10 year span to own than a Civic (hybrid or non).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
To be fair, the big hubbub they're making this time around is that they are planning on putting it into production in 2010 - last time they showed this car was in 2002. But, if you live in the US, chances are you won't ever be able to buy it at your not-so-friendly neighborhood VW stealership - this will never meet US safety regulations, even if it *IS* actually safe.
I tend to agree. At that price, only the quarterbacks and wide receivers will be able to get them. Maybe a running back, if he's really good.
Due to mileage demands, the quality of vehicles that are "road legal" has been decreasing every year. Where I live, it is now legal to drive those stupid "mini-motorcycles" on residential streets, even though they don't have turn signals or even brake lights, and (because of the position of the rider) are inherently less safe than a kid's unpowered scooter.
Those "experimental" vehicles did not look so UN-roadworthy, in comparison.
This isn't gas-powered. It's diesel-powered. Can you say "biodiesel?"
Also, maybe we're using the same basic idea because it actually works well?
Does anyone have another link? This one is blocked at work because blog is in the url, and I don't have any access to the internet other than work here in Iraq. And I'd really like to see the article! :(
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It's impossible to solve all the engineering challenges of tomorrow all at once. I think VW wants to learn the engineering lessons from creating the car as much as introduce consumers to something that at least some will think is really cool.
I doubt anybody at VW thinks that they are saving the world with this new model.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yes, you're right if you take that in isolation. But, you have to come up with the $$$ up front, which is always the problem if you're not on a high income.
Secondly the thing is small and low, and holds only one man. Not even remotely practical. Nobody is going to spend $30-40k on a one man tiny car.
I totally agree.
Neal Boortz, a local talk show host that tends to sway conservative where I live, keeps railing on how the U.S. needs to have a "Manhattan Project" to explore for oil and develop domestic resources. He says that within three years, if we really focus our time, effort, energy, money, and our brightest minds on it, we could wean ourselves off dependence on foreign oil by replacing it with oil from domestic sources.
I can't help but think, if we're going to gather our time, effort, energy, money, and brightest minds, why can't we come up with a "Manhattan Project" to wean ourselves off of oil entirely?
I'm so tired of the U.S. taking a technological back seat to the rest of the world, but it looks like we're about to yet again. Let other countries develop, test, and build the products while we sit back and get further behind. That way, we'll have yet more industries we can't compete with and yet a higher trade deficit.
I look at a vehicle this small and wonder what would happen if it was hit by a 3000lb vehicle. Even if it has a crumple zones, I could see it being sent flying across the road like a hockeypuck, or it's lack of mass being unable to stop the forward progress of the impacting vehicle after the impact.
What arguments does one use to convince laymen that these tiny vehicles are safe? My gf wants to get a volvo SUV, but when I even mention a Corolla/Tercel/Yarvis, she likes that they are fuel efficient, but is concerned about being hit by any full size vehicle (not just a Hummer/SUV).
I recently rode in a coworkers SmartCar, and while it seemed like a great car, I realized that if were were rear ended, we'd be killed. There's about a foot between your back and the back of the car. Less than that of a Jeep Wrangler. My biggest fear would be having to stop quickly on the highway and the guy behind me doesn't stop in time.
Anybody have any good arguments for justifying these ultra-light cars (VW, SmartCar) to those that do equate a certain size=safety measure?
Yep you nailed it. The gas prices we're seeing have less to do with scarcity, and more to do with a captive market - well, that and the fact that the majority of oil producing countries are literally overrun by the OPEC cartels, which is what inevitably happens when you stick a trillion-dollar business in a 3rd world country.
I agree, we don't need fuel efficiency, we need a whole new form of fuel. One that doesn't shackle every civilized nation to every uncivilized oil producer.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Correcting myself, it has two seats. But is still impractical, And I bet the mpg drops substantially when there is a second passenger.
The main article is slashdotted, here's the summary article for the "Totemcrappen" which has a picture. Notice the priceless licensence plate which is Leet speak "Wobbly".
Interestingly the car was desinged 6 years ago but the 2012 was the release date as the prices would fall far enough to manufacture it. But they decided to roll is out 2 years early.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In one corner: Soccer Mom talking on her cell phone in her Hummer H3. In the other corner: Driver in the VW One-Liter. Guess which one they give up counting body parts on, and which one they're trying to pull out of the vehicle because she's still talking on her cell phone.
Obligatory:
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At 660lbs, the driver's weight has got to be a significant factor in the final mileage. Sure, Danica Patrick might get that kind of mileage (her driving habits aside), but I wonder what a fat coach potato such as myself might get - should I be able to fit my ass in the driver's seat at all?
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
Be sure to let us know how the NHTSA tests go for this vehicle.
If the vehicle needs to be modified to pass the tests, what sort of milage do you expect to see? I suspect it would wind up with an EPA rating around 60 MPG.
You'll lose some of that playing relay-games dropping off one kid at a time to school, plus three or four trips to the grocery store. Calculate the extra time spent vs. the value of your time.
This is too expensive to be a practical solution. It might be a nice solution for areas like Los Angeles (where people routinely drive 60+ miles to work -- alone in their car), but it's a hell of a lot easier on the average worker's car budget to lease a modest economy car which gets 30+mpg.
Something like this would be useful as a single-person commuter car at half the price. Otherwise, it's an expensive "toy" that someone with a lot of money can buy to show off how "eco-friendly" they are.
the feed is disrupted."
Does anyone sense a new Knightrider remake in the offing?
Seriously though, if I was allowed to drive on the public roads with 'normal' folks I wouldn't be ashamed of driving this thing, which is more than I can say for many (not all) other gas/energy/whatever-saving vehicles that have been developed so far.
If they can get people to actually want to own one of these instead of an obnoxious gas-guzzler then they'll come out of their niche and enter the mainstream. That would be neat.
The small matter of a lack of storage space would still put many off, I fear, but that's easily solved :)
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
With petroleum galloping over $140/barrel, it's great news that automakers finally start designing cars that are meant for the real everyday traffic.
The Smart bubble car by Mercedes-Benz was a success because manufacturers took into consideration that in day-to-day commuting less than 2 seats [on average] are occupied, at least in the bustling European cities.
It's good that VW is creating nimble cars with just two positions (the driver and just one "passenger of fortune": spouse, kid, cowerker, grocery). A light design and economic engine complete the picture. I wish we could see more of these little cars, especially with hybrid engines, if that is possible.
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Mopeds are fuel-inefficient. They're also slow and no fun in the rain or snow.
Right now a gallon of fuel costs more than $ 9 in germany.
I don't understand why they would even bother with making a few of these by 2010 when the appeal of the diesel hybrid Golf seems so much more apparent. Bring out the diesel hybrids already!
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I just need somewhere to go with a midget and a lunchbox.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Simply kick all the senseless SUVs, Trucks, Offroaders and so on off the streets.
If there are only light cars around, no one get's hit by a 2.5 ton doctor's wife with her Porsche Cayenne.
It's really time for it. And by the way, if your car is extremely light, an much heavier opponent in an accidend would push your micocompact away instead of crushing through it. Especially if the microcompact is made of an robust security cell (see the Samrts Tridion Security Cell) or a Formula One like cage of carbon fiber like the VW 1L. I assume there are almost no more secure big cars around as these compacts are.
Let's discuss the hypothetical non-hybrid Civic DX sedan with 34mpg @ $15,010 and the American average 12,000 miles a year.
$24,706 dollars spent in fuel over ten years at $7 a dollar gasoline.
total cost = $39,716
Not to mention the Honda Civic can haul you, your family and your stuff at that price, this VW? Nope.
We won't even get into the cost of money and the lost value of paying the high up-front charges of the VW option.
That's where the fallacy lies - do the math.
How about we actually put pen to paper on this one and figure out exactly how much money we would save in fuel costs each year :
I am going to be generous and work with easy numbers - $4 gasoline, 1,200 miles per month.
Start with a relatively easy to find 40 mpg car :
1,200 miles / 40mpg = 30 gallons * $4 = $120 per month.
Crank that up to one of those Volkswagon TDI or a hybrid getting 50 mpg :
1,200 miles / 50mpg = 24 gallons * $4 = $96 per month. Saved about $25 per month.
And now for this ultra-cool one man car made of recycled SR-71 parts at 235 mpg :
1,200 miles / 235mpg = 5 gallons!
5 * $4 = $20 total fuel costs for the month. Which sounds great, except it's only saving about $75 per month, assuming the production models get the same mileage as their hand made prototype - which isn't going to happen.
Let's pretend they get them in viable quantities getting 120mpg, which is still crazy good, right?
1,200 miles / 120mpg = still only 10 gallons, which is only $40. Pretty awesome!
Except compared to a current Prius or a VW TDI, you're only saving $55 a month.
It's because of the way the 1/x curve flattens out on the tail end, after about 40-50 mpg it really doesn't make much of a difference. The dollar difference between 40mpg and 120mpg is the same dollar difference between 17mpg and 21mpg, again - because the curve of 1/x is so high below 20mpg. Get down into the 9mpg-11mpg range and difference for every 1mpg = $40.
Want to make a killer difference in our gas consumption, engineer a way to make the current 500 million cars already on the roads today get 3 more mpg, because I figure 1/3rd of the cars on the road are in the sub 20mpg range.
I already figured that one out too - tire pressure during the winter. I used to think that the gas stations used different formulas in the winter (which they probably do) which is why my gas mileage went from 21 in the summer to 17 in the winter (which wasn't why.) My most recent car has air pressure sensors on the tires so I noticed that during the winter months the air pressure in the tires dropped from 35psi to about 28psi (cold air shrinks) - when I pressured up my tires to the suggested 35psi, my gas mileage went right back to 21mpg. How many people go the entire winter without adding air to their tires (well ... it doesn't look flat and it had plenty of air in August, air isn't leaking out ...) and spend their entire lives thinking the reason they get crap gas mileage in the winter because of the 'winter gasoline formula'? Bingo.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I'd rather see VW work on an improved version of the GX3 concept. If they enclosed it for better aerodynamics and reduced the engine power from the concept's 125 bhp, they'd be able to eke out much better mileage than the measly 46 mpg of the prototype. There really wasn't any need for a 1.6 L engine in the GX3. They could have gone with the engine from the Lupo 3L, which was a 1.2 L inline three cylinder TDI engine that made 61 bhp.
Of course, the first thing they should do is bring the Lupo 3L back to life and bring it to the US.
The Lupo 3L weighed about 1830 lb, and the GX3 weighed about about 1260 lb, so you can see that the Lupo 3L engine would still give quite interesting performance in the GX3 chassis, and the fuel consumption, with a new aerodynamic, enclosed chassis for the GX3 should enable that configuration to easily reach at least the ~80 mpg of the Lupo 3L, and probably even better that figure by a good margin, while offering the advantages of side-by-side seating.
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Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I think this is a great design, but the canopy leaves me with one concern. How would you get out of the car if it rolled over? With the one-piece canopy door, you could easily end up stuck inside the car if it were flipped or rolled. And there's so little space inside, you likely wouldn't be able to kick out the glass, since you probably wouldn't have space to retract your legs to make a strong kick.
That said, I think it would be great for over 90% of commutes.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
More people in the world with high disposable incomes drive on roads where American SUVs are in a small minority. Here in the UK SUVs have been making inroads which have come to a sudden halt as fuel approaches $3/liter. On the other hand, the sales of class A,B and C vehicles - microcars, minis and superminis - are rising fast. Expect European roads to look rather different in 2010, when the first of the new technologies really start to reach the market.
The guy who wrote the article did not get this - quoting US gallons is pretty irrelevant. 1 liter/100km, or miles per UK gallon, are appropriate because that is where they will be used.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I haven't had any experience with Civics, but my brother and my dad drive standard a Corolla (new) and standard Tercel (old) and get 40-50 miles per gallon (they drive on the highway, mostly). At 45 miles per day (roughly what I drove before I moved to the bus-filled city), that's all 1 gallon = 4 dollars per day at current prices. So instead of buying almost 1 500USD of fuel per year, they'd be buying around 300USD, saving 1200USD/year, or 12 000USD over ten years--assuming gas prices average 4USD.
A NEW (and why buy new? Unlike the VW, there are used ones around.) Toyota Corolla costs about 15 000USD. Approximate total savings: 15 000 for the Corolla - 35 000 for the VW + 1 5000 for the Corolla's gas + 3000 for the VW's gas = NEGATIVE 8 000. They break even over ten years if it hits around 5.50USD/gallon average or they drive more. (Or the VW gets really good highway.)
Oh, I just realised the VW is diesel. Diesel recently increased in price because they took out the sulphur, right?
... was that it looked like a Weeble. Then I saw the license plate. WOBL. Remember "Weeble's wobbles but they don't fall down".
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
Yes, it's too much. Way too much.
I drive a pickup, which is about as bad as it gets in terms of gas mileage. It's a 2002 model, and it has about 68,000 miles on it, which translates to about 4,000 gallons of fuel that it's used thus far. At $4.00/gallon (far above the average cost of gas over the period I've owned it), that's $16,000. I paid about $19,000 for the truck after all was said and done, so even if this new car had *no fuel cost at all*, it still wouldn't break even until after it had been driven 90,000 miles, and again, that's with gas at $4.00/gallon. More realistically, it'd probably be about 150,000 miles or so before break-even. The comparison with my truck is about the most favorable one that can be made on the basis of fuel costs - there's no way this car could pay for itself with fuel savings as compared to something that already gets decent mileage like the Civic you mentioned.
But that's not all. My truck got rear-ended by a car going about 20 mph two years ago, and while the car that struck me suffered thousands of dollars' worth of damage, I got out of it with a bent back bumper that cost about $80 to have pulled straight again. That same strike in one of these VWs almost certainly would have totalled it because, aside from the severe frame damage that likely would have occurred, carbon-fiber bodywork is so horribly expensive to fix, when you can even find someone that can do it competently. Because of that, count on insurance costs being ridiculous for this vehicle. Also, I noticed "air-conditioning" being conspicuously absent from the list of amenities - there appears to be a cool/warm temperature control for vented air on the console, but not much more. I'm sure VW will have good luck selling a $40K vehicle without A/C.
There's a lot more that goes into making a car salable than just great mileage.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
If this 2 seater can get ~235 mpg a slightly bigger 4 seater should be able to get ~100-150 mpg I would think.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
235 MPG is impressive, and this concept car is *really* cool looking, which is a rare thing when it comes to super efficient, futuristic concept cars. While I really doubt will see cars like this on the road anytime soon, this car does bring to mind some things, though, particularly in the weight department. If we took our current engine technologies (not even hybrid) and put them in much lighter cars, we'd likely be able to have cars average close to 100 MPG without any special work.
Compared to light cars in the 1970s, our cars are much heavier (1000-2000 pounds heavier on average), but produce much, much more power from the same amount of gas than engines in the 70s did. Not to mention they are now better looking than the boxes of the 70s.
Basically all the extra efficiency our engines now have is pretty much wasted by the fact that we're hauling around so much extra weight. If we lighten our cars a bit and then stop this silly addiction to "power" (really acceleration), we'd be a long ways closer to practical cars that get 100 MPG right now. That'd pave the way for mass appeal of cars like this VW concept.
Or maybe all weather scooters. Sure, they could be deadly in a collision with a much larger vehicle, but I don't choose my cars or vehicles based on worse-case scenarios. This is basically a modernized 4 wheel Messerschmitt or BMW Isetta, or any other of the various micro cars produced over the years. I ride a bicycle daily, I'm well aware that I could be killed by a Mini Cooper, let alone a Hummer.
See http://microcarmuseum.com/index.html if you want to look at several micro-cars.
And that one gets about 25 MPG real world.
VW has done much, much better than that since.
You almost remind me of sciroccohal on The Car Lounge, except he'd be saying that we needed a 30 year old VW Scirocco instead of a 50 year old Beetle.
I don't care how much it would save me per year. Cars don't last forever. I care about the total amount a car would save me before it dies. Assuming an average car will drive 200,000 miles before it dies, the total gas cost of an $23,000 Prius would be 200,000 / 50 * 4 or $16,000 compared to 200,000 / 235 * 4 or $3,400. Assuming this car will cost $35,000, the total costs are $38,400 for this car and $39,000 for the prius. Why would anyone spend $35,000 on a car that will only save them $600 over the life of the car? The car loan interest for the extra $12,000 would obviously be more than $600. As a car buyer, I would much rather have the versatility of a sedan unless I can save a large amount of money by downsizing. The additional savings of smaller cars just falls too fast to justify an excessively efficient car.
Or is it?
http://www.myersmotors.com/
These were being developed/sold in the late 90s, but Corbin Motors went bankrupt well before the prices on gas shot up. Ironically, there is a huge market for their tri wheel enclosed scooter today, they just came in ahead of the game.
http://www.3wheelers.com/corbin.html
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
This car could probably not be sold in the US as it is. We have much stricter safety standards here than in Europe. The Ford KA is pretty popular in Europe and get excellent gas milage, but for the model Ford plans to introduce in the states, the gas milage suffers considerably from all the added weight that comes about by adhering to US safety standards. Things like airbags, reinforced frames etc. The current version in Europe cannot be driven in the States legally. I have serious doubts that this car would meet US safety standards and continue to get such good fuel economy.
Way too high a price and still years away. If they could drop the price severely by just using all aluminum instead of exotic materials and still get a mileage of half that, 117.5 MPG (which would be still pretty snazzy and also hit the x-prize for cars deal), maybe they could get them out on the lots sooner. All these various alternatives the majors are working on are just too darn expensive. 100 grand for a tesla sportscar or "only" 60 grand for the sedan. Nuts. Honda fuel cell cars "lease" for 600 a month and like two hydrogen stations. Nuts. 60 grand for a chevy volt, only jumped 20 grand since they been talking about it and still none for sale. nuts. Perpetual design wanking. We'll see the Chinese and Indians eat the great mileage and cheap car market before detroit, stuttgart and yokohama pull it off. They just don't seem to understand affordable and get it done now, not years and years from now. Look at GM and Ford, they make good mileage cars but don't sell them in the US. GM used to make a decent and modern good mileage car for the US market, the original Saturns, now it is just another ho hum car with medium crappy mileage. Where's the real improvements? Old falcons and darts and valiants got 25 mpg with crappy transmissions and they were solid steel stout vehicles. 35 years later we are still stuck at that 25 MPG plateau, despite apollo moon rocket plumbing and wiring?? They need to study it more and keep throwing concept cars at shows at us?
My idea of a homebrew good mileage car that might work would be if you could get around a 7 speed transaxle for old air cooled VWs (you can mod one to a 5 right now), put that in a lightweight rail buggy with one of the new small Kohler two cylinder diesel engines (or another brand, just small, and not costing mega thousands and have all sorts of exotic controls either). If you want a real body they got them too or it could be fabbed, it is just fiberglass after all.
One nice thing about this car. When you're carrying a canoe on the roof and you get to a lake, you could put the car in the canoe and bring it across as well.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The smart car "bounces" off other cars with its intentionally rigid design so they other car gets more force of the impact because the smart car does not absorb any more than necessary.
Years ago we had a man die in a large truck down 1km from our house from a medium sized car. His massive truck didn't do a thing about the full speed car going thru a typical intersection! The SIDE of the toughest SUV can't save you from the sudden acceleration from a 60mph side impact (your brain actually sloshes in your head.) BTW, the driver had a crumple zone and only got a DWI.
FYI:
The human brain can handle more G forces forward or backward than from the side.
There were less fatal accidents when the speed limit was 55.
Turn-abouts are safer than intersections.
Injuries are much less if you are facing backwards (passengers, mass transit should take note of this... I mean the seats.)
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at $7 a dollar
Where can I get this exchange rate?
The article says it has drag coefficient of 0.16. That's better than Tatra T77 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_T77).
I wonder what have been engineers doing all those years, if it's so hard to beat a car from the 50s.
It's amazing how many people on this allegedly nerd site can't or won't do the math. Doesn't even need to be exact, just ballpark estimations will show how impractical the VW is (and many of the other "alternatives").
Guess how long it will take for the VW with its 8.5 HP engine to climb up a hill. I'm assuming that 600 pounds does not include the weight of passenger and driver. You're not going to break the laws of physics anytime soon.
Does it have an airconditioner or heater? If it doesn't, you might as well get a motorcycle. You can easily get 50-70mpg with a 250cc motorcycle and these bikes are 17-25HP and so can take you up a hill faster than the VW.
Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_Ninja_250R
But yes it's true these bikes have a tendency of taking people to their graves much faster ;). How much safer will this VW be in practice with 18 wheel trucks on the road? The car seems to be quite low.
But the car doesn't cost $30 - $40k. It's estimated to cost 20 - 30k euros. The dollar price is estimated using exchange rates. Who knows where the dollar will be in a couple of years. A couple of years ago, the car would have been in the $18k - $27k range.
The fact that you didn't see the 2nd seat says a lot about how practical that 2nd seat is in reality. Unless you're Frodo Baggins, you're not going to want to ride shotgun in this thing... For all intents and purposes this car is a one man vehicle.
BTW - since when was $32K-$48K priced like a "folk's wagon"? When did big business get so out of touch with the salary reality out there? When are technology improvements going to start SAVING me money, instead of those costs being transferred from one company (gas/oil) to another (VW price tag)?
Mind that the DX does not have an air conditioner, nor does it have an AC as an option.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
oops! ;)
In cars like this there can be a substantial difference in mileage between a 130 lb driver and a 235 lb driver.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Wrong.
The VW does not appear to have AC, the Honda Civic DX sedan offers it as an accessory.
Honda's Site
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/03/0256235&from=rss
for the 2 passenger unspecified wheel config?
i'm assuming they did this for a reason, you know, like to win the x-prize
kinda like how the next gen prius is trying to get a real 4 passenger car with 100 mpg, for that x-prize, by switching to li-ion batteries, and tuning the engine..
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Yep you nailed it. The gas prices we're seeing have less to do with scarcity, and more to do with a captive market - well, that and the fact that the majority of oil producing countries are literally ...
I'd offer the suggestion that Bush's "All options are on the table." drum beat of war comments with respect to Iran, or Israel's recent military exercises have something to do with it, but I'm still grappling with your the implicit "China isn't a factor." reasoning.
Well, VW has already been selling cars like the Lupo 3L, named for the fact that it needs 3 litres of fuel per hundred kilometres. (I.e., three times as much as this one, or 3 times less MPG, but still pretty much half the fuel use of a normal car. And by "normal" I don't mean SUV;) It already makes heavy use of aluminium, btw.
Or, since VW owns Audi, it's probably no wonder that Audi sells the Audi A2 which isn't far off, but has even better (i.e., lower) drag factor. And costs more since it's, you know, an Audi. It's got an aluminium body too, but then Audi uses that extensively for their bigger cars too.
Not everybody buys one, to be sure, but you see a few around at least in Germany. And I see they're still being manufacturing the A2, so it can't be too bad.
Well, you have to also bear in mind that fuel taxes are rather heavy down here, so the price of a tank of gas is higher than in the USA. There always was a healthy market for small cars and diesel cars, and a lot less of a market for SUVs. (Though you see a few of those around too.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If you shoehorned a Subaru WRX all-wheel drivetrain into this thing, you'd have some serious acceleration.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
I have seen dozens of fuel efficient concepts from VW in the past couple of years but so far I haven't seen anything hit the showroom floor, at least not in the states. Flipping through my DasAuto marketing bullshit magazine, I see an SUV and a Minivan. Not exactly a fuel efficient line-up for 2010, if you ask me. The Diesel Jetta is a step in the right direction, but again, it's not on the lots yet.
That being said, I saw this interesting little car floating around the blogohedron a couple weeks ago. I'll let you rtfa, but if this hits the US showrooms in 2010, I suspect it will be a Volt killer. Also, it's not hideously ugly.
Long story short, I am so fucking tired of waiting on this shit. At least in the Golf Twin Drive, Germany is putting some money behind it. As much as I hate corporate subsidies, governments need to make some incentives for getting SUVs and Minivans off the roads, and fuel efficient compacts on the roads because consumers apparently aren't interested, or if they are, the car makers aren't hearing them or don't care.
I had no idea the Smart had such a shitty performance. I used to get 36 mpg from my Chevette, about 25 years ago.
Two of the tractors I use have air cooled diesels, simply outstanding machines. Deutz. The smaller one with a 60 horse engine I can get around two full shifts out of 12 gallons running at heavy working rpms, 2000. The water cooled ones I use (kubotas mostly) tend to start to run hot as soon as the radiators get plugged up with dust and debris, which happens constantly, even with the protective screens in front of them, and they don't get near the mileage even though they are smaller engines. I think they like radiators in cars though so you can get some decent heat into the cabin as part of the reason anyway. The old bugs had some pretty non existent heat, if you were running the stock exhaust, and zero heat if you ran a better power and mileage exhaust. VW had to eventually go to an additional gas run heater for real cold weather use. heh, what we used to do in ye olden hipster days was just clamp a small camping propane heater in there and run with the windows open a little.
And with that said, remember when they were working on ultra light weight ceramic engines? What happened to those? Very little to no size changes when they got hot, meaning they could run them with no piston rings! Stuff like that. Maybe it just costs too much to build them, I really don't know, but they had some working. That's disappeared into the amazing inventions that have disappeared category. Smokey Yunick's engines he built for mileage with still good power, just to show it was entirely possible, gone, poofed, GM offered him toy money for it so he said no and went back to racing.
I'd LOVE to see a gas saver that's not a total death trap. Imagine getting hit at 80mph on the freeway by a truck while you're sitting in one of those. So you're saving on gas but lose your life in the process. What's the point?
Jessica
I challenge your claim of a 20% MPG savings as a result of inflating your tires by about 20%... Believe what you will, but I can tell you from experience that this was very much not true for me.
Filling or over-filling your tires sounds good on paper and it does have a measurable effect according to sites like Edmunds and fueleconomy.gov (About 3%). So, I decided to make my own test. I purposely deflated each of my tires from their current 32-33 PSI to 25 PSI and measure my gasoline usage each time I filled up. Unlike your situation, the weather was warm; however, I saw little difference in my MPG. I drove the same exact way to the same places during the same times with the same load using the same gasoline from the same gas station. And to rule out a fluke, I tried this twice... with nearly identical results.
The trend showed that properly inflated tires help, but only very slightly. Both my first and second runs resulted in a savings of less thn 2%. There could be other factors at work in my situation. But, I'm very sure inflating your tires did not account for nearly 20% of your MPG... It *does* help in some small way, but there was obviously something else happening because 20% is huge. It isn't like the circumference of your tires increased by 20%... or even at all (especially if you have radials). The total volume increases, but the sidewalls of your tires bear the brunt of of it, not the belt. It does decrease friction though - which is where you save gasoline - by narrowing the contact point between your tires and the road. But there's no way in hell it accounts for 20% of your gasoline usage.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
You must not be aware of how public transportation works in Los Angeles.
..is economically sound. Buying small single meal servings and going to the store or deli or latest cool restaurant for every meal is rather wasteful and overly urban trendy. It makes much more economic sense and green-sense to get your purchases bulk whenever, which is what costco stores are for, so the parent had a point. No one single vehicle fits all situations, the VW in the article is primarily for commuting or cheap road triops with light luggage, and as such would be interesting once they got the costs down a lot more. Mostly here we just use a mid sized sedan that gets in the 20s and can still do a lot of bulk shopping, as in hundreds of lbs, bulk dogfood and catfood, various other stuff, we do combined big shopping trips (and we are both skinny folks here) but occasionally we need a truck, and once in awhile I could get by with a scooter (if I had one). There is just never going to be a one size fits all vehicle, situations are just too different, household and family sizes are too different, etc.
By the same logic it is pointless to consider the safety of the car at all, because no amount of safety can save you in all conceivable accidents.
And, BTW, there's a small but greater than zero probability that your keyboard will give you a lethal electric shock when you touch it. Consider that before you post your next inane reply, coward.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
....are going to be constantly in the oil drip/slick section in the center of the lane (if you mean eventually a lot of them will be sharing lanes). With a normal bike you ride to either side of that accident strip.
Nowadays, outside of some hybrids, you can't find a real-world 40mpg new car.
In the April 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, for example, there is exactly one car listed with greater than 40mpg overall — the Toyota Prius, a hybrid. Now, this is actual miles per gallon from their testing, vs. EPA estimates. But, your financial analysis really should be using actual miles per gallon vs. EPA estimates, anyway, since the EPA probably ain't paying for the gas. In this issue, excluding hybrids, the better compact cars get an actual 32-34mpg, mid-size/large sedans get 24-25mpg, and SUVs get 22-23. And there are plenty much worse than the "better" ones. (BTW, the figures are in the left column of page 12)
Going with 30mpg as the baseline, you get 40 gallons/month = $160/month. This doesn't change your arguments much, but it's a bit more realistic.
Since getting my Prius, I've argued that a chunk of the fuel savings comes from the excellent fuel usage data you get from the in-dash display. At any point I can get instantaneous MPG, five-minute average MPG going back in five-minute increments over the past 1/2 hour, and per-tank MPG. This data helps me refine my driving techniques to reduce fuel use. It's entirely possible that a conventional car might still get better mileage just by showing this data to the driver so, for example, they learn to avoid racing up to red lights and mashing on the brakes. Not sure if there's a way to safely retrofit this type of thing into a conventional car, though.
Also, regarding the fuel formula vs. air pressure issue, I keep the air pressure topped off on my tires pretty consistently, and I still get 10% worse mileage in the winter, even last winter, when I didn't encounter much drive time on snow or ice. My presumption is that the "winter gasoline formula" is partly the culprit, plus possibly somewhat more time running the engine to keep the engine temperature up.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Forgot that part!
What do you do when summer comes around and the air expands again? Do you have to pay attention and let some air out? What if you forget? Serious, these are things I want to know.
Qxe4
"Do you realize how much money you'd save in fuel costs each year?"
Well, since I currently spend about $2,000 a year on gas (even at $4.60/gal) I'd say that it couldn't possibly save me more than that. Since you could buy a used subcompact in fairly good condition for less than $10,000 it sounds like it would take 10 to 15 years for this care to pay back on the investment. Then again, you never know what fuel prices will do in the future. . .
it's a 40k price tag. This means over the life of the car you will save very little.
Additionally, I live in the southeast. How much do you want to bet there's no AC under that closed, plastic, solar oven.
I can get a yaris for a few bottle caps and a broken cigarette, it will have AC, it's toyota, a make with a reputation for endurance, and it will get reasonable MPG.
I can put the 28k I saved into a mutual fund and roll it over for gas money.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
What about emissions? I learned recently, to my surprise, that a motorcycle pollutes about 10x as much per mile as a car. Emissions equipment is heavy. A one- or two-cylinder diesel is something that I'd imagine would pollute like hell.
Find free books.
FWIW, I've noticed effects more in line with what the GP says. I calculate my MPG every time I fill up, and it's usually around 22 (I drive one of these.) Over time, say 3 months, I noticed my gas mileage slip to about 19. A couple of my tires had slipped to 25ish PSI.
I let this happen about three times before I bought an electric air pump, and haven't had the problem since.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
And that captive market is... The US Department of Defense, which is consuming 16 gallons of fuel per day per soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq by their own accounting.
Yeah, yeah, let's blame OPEC.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
We really need to rethink the rules to allow and even encourage vehicles like this. Regardless of the motive technology we are facing an energy crunch going forward so we need the most efficient vehicles for personal transport in terms of Joules/KM. It doesn't matter if you use fossil fuels directly or electricity to power the vehicle, it will still need to be efficient.
This is obviously the design of a very efficient vehicle and a sign of things to come.
Naysayers worrying about being hit by SUVs need to remember that people already drive motorcycles/scooters and even an SUV won't protect you when hit by a Semi. Also as gas hits $10/gallon, your chances of being hit by an SUV will decrease dramatically.
You are supposed to measure your pressures when the tyres are cold, but they will be considerably warmer are running at speed for a while. I'll be interested to know how much the maximum temperature (and thus pressure) varies through the year.
It's all a compromise. I'm sure race cars have their tyre pressure tuned according to the conditions on the day, but your average driver will check theirs infrequently.
How good are the replacement caps that show when the pressure is down?
We've been hearing about wondrous super concept cars since the 1960's. And always, ALWAYS the promised land is about 2 years in the future at which time everyone's forgotten or 'market forces' have changed. It's all bullshit. We haven't gotten any further with George Jetson technology of the future in the last 45 years.
A two seat microcar that gets 235 mpg is only about 2.35x the mileage that I could get out of my Bajaj Chetak scooter with a sidecar attached to it. And they each have approximately the same room. But I get to save about $40,000 for no rain protection.
I believe your car runs leaner in the winter (because the intake temp is colder). This is also why people get cold air intakes and screw with their intake air temp sensors (to tricking the computer into producing more power). This can likely account for the reduction in MPG
You must drive American cars if you think a car only lasts 200k miles......it's not uncommon for Japanese or German cars to last several times that long. Also, it's not about the number of miles, it's how you drive the car and take care of it. You can buy the most reliable car in the world but if you don't do regular maintenance and shove the pedal through the floor all the time, it'll burn out pretty quick.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I could have sworn it snowed in Germany. They can't possibly expect people to buy two expensive gas-misers in order to have optimum mileage year-round. That thing couldn't be expected to last a mile on a typical Canadian highway from December through the end of March - 1/3 of the year.
I would also be very concerned about getting into accidents because people don't look for midget microcars as they turn corners or merge lanes. I got around Vancouver for two years by bicycle and got hit 6 times by drivers not checking their blind spots (mostly just ended up on their hood). And that's in a town where it is well known there are many cyclists.
So regardless of how likely people are to survive accidents without injury, what's insurance going to cost on those? How much does it cost to fix an $8000 carbon-fiber monocoque? Sounds like owners will spend more on insurance than Civic drivers will on gas.
And once you get past 50 mpg or so, it really becomes academic. If the price of oil ends up making it prohibitively expensive to operate a car with less than 50 mpg, your personal mode of transportation will be the least of your worries, i.e. how is your food going to get from distant farms to your local supermarket? If people can't afford to drive their cars, guess what trucking companies can't afford...
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
How many m/l is that?
They changed that recently, then. The DX didn't have AC available for the '07 model year, when we were looking at one.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Ya gotta love the comments. These comments illustrate why oil will be over $350 per barrel as Mathew Simmons suggested a few years back. I personally have anecdotally tested this because in the city I live in lots of guys drive around in big pickup trucks. When asked who is going to use less gas, they look over their shoulder at the next guy.
One comment "save you money". So how many people are of the opinion that if gas prices cost them an extra $100 or so per month then they'll just skip going to the restaurant once or twice a month? Is this what its about? I thought if gas prices go up then people should think of using less gas.
VW is looking to produce a vehicle which actually provides the transportation people need and which addresses the issue of dwindling liquid fuel supplies.
A really good article to read can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_megaprojects
They are not forecasting prices, only supplies. The issue is that the supply side looks bleak from 2010 onwards and the price side is already starting to look bleak.
One thing I'll add is that these analysis do not consider the possibility of oil production from the Ghawar field keeling over. This will happen and it will happen abruptly and without much warning just as it did for the North Sea fields. The UK for instance switched from being an oil exporter to an oil importer in 2005. In 1998 the North Sea production peaked and that that time very few people saw the peak coming.
My feeling is Ghawar is peaking now but the real issue is the water cut at Ghawar. When production at Ghawar keels over its going to be ugly. Robert Hirsch figures $500 per barrel is not out of line.
This car was a prestige project of the outgoing chairman of VW, Ferdinand Piëch. He wanted to show that it is possible to build a 1-liter car in the time he is at the company. Later he himself drove the prototype from Wolfsburg (where the head office of VW is located) to a shareholder meeting in Hamburg. And all this was in the year 2002!
Since then the project had been frozen and the real news (which appeared in a German newspaper in September 2007) is, that this car, which was only a concept car, should be put on the marked in the year 2010.
The most interesting bit from the German article answers why this project hadn't been developed any further:
No, what we need isn't more efficient cars.
What we need are cities designed around mass transit, or better yet, a pedestrian lifestyle.
Think outside the box.
In the future, cars may serve the same role that horses do now.
What a crappy thing for them to do. My 1993 Civic DX had AC.
I've been in the mood to buy a more fuel-efficient car like a Prius or other hybred, until I did some simple math.
And, even with one of these amazing 235 MPG cars, the dollars don't make it attractive.
If a car gets 235 MPG, and I drive 15,000 miles per year, at $5 per gallon of gas, that's $320 per year I would spend. The same math with a car that gets 25 MPG would spend $3000 per year.
So yeah, I would save $2600 per year in gas with this ultra-efficient car. However, this car might retail for as much as $30k or $40k. This is probably $10-20k more than an equivalent non-efficient car. I would have to keep the car around for 4-8 years before seeing a return on that investment.
And the Prius with it's 60-ish MPG would take well over a decade.
-David
I'm sick and tired of people whing about "What if that hits an SUV?" as their justification for getting an SUV the same(or larger) the same size in case they crash into someone.
I really hate to break it to you, but no matter what vehicle configuration it is, BAD THINGS HAPPEN in a car crash. No magical $ you spend on an suv will turn a car crash from blood *& guts to rainbows & puppies. Airbags are everywhere now, which does a better job compared to optional seatbelts & no airbaigs of yesteryear's vehicles. You roll your saving throw, and hope for the best.
This would make a great downtown (or airport-to-city) taxi if it has a large enough luggage compartment, and if hopping on and off the thing isn't too difficult.
I don't have stats at hand but I'm guessing that the vast majority of taxi rides are 1-person. Seems to be the case here in Paris at least.
In many Asian countries, short-distance taxis are motorcycles (well mopeds really) who can take 1 or 2 passengers. This hasn't caught on in the West for reasons of safety and comfort. But I can see this type of car delivering the same kind of service.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
In "My Name Is", Eminem refers to a "fifth of vodka". A fifth of liquor was one-fifth of a US gallon, which gallon is 231 cubic inches, or 3.785 L. This would make a fifth 46.2 in^3, or 757 mL. But nowadays, many liquor-regulating agencies have converted to SI and restandardized the fifth at 750 mL. This new fifth would make the gallon exactly 3.75 L
What's wrong with diesel? Rudolph Diesel, the inventor and designer of the diesel engine had it running on vegetable oil. However vegetable oil isn't diesel, by mixing lye to the oil though diesel can be made. So, unlike gasoline, diesel is very much a renewable fuel.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It's entirely possible that a conventional car might still get better mileage just by showing this data to the driver so, for example, they learn to avoid racing up to red lights and mashing on the brakes. Not sure if there's a way to safely retrofit this type of thing into a conventional car, though.
Enter the Scangauge II. Not only does it give you a choice of 4 readings to display at the same time, it also reads the maintenance codes when your Service Soon light goes off. Works on all cars after 1996 or so which have a standard ODB-II (On Board Diagnostic) system.
Transport the goods on trains. That's the best you can do anyway.
So how should we transport goods from the train station to where they will be used?
Here in the U.S., with all the behemoth SUVs driven by morons
With high fuel prices people are dumping their SUVs.
yacking away on their cell phones when they should be paying attention to their driving
I almost believe that maybe there should be a law against talking on a cellphone without a hands free set while driving.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I like to think that by driving a very light vehicle I'm keeping other people safer in a collision. That probably makes me a bad American, valuing the lives of others as much as my own.
While I applaud and appreciate your sentiments, you cut down your fellow American by assuming malice where ignorance is most likely the correct attribute for which to assign blame. No one is getting up the in the morning and saying, "today I'm going to be a bad person", but it has never occurred to them that they are endangering everyone else for their own perception of safety. Do not attribute to malice what is better attributed to ignorance.
;)
Value others lives over your own if you want to make a difference.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
If fins were added that were lighted with blinking LEDs then this would be visible to such a degree that the issue would be the accidents it caused.
a guy dressed in a creepy rabbit suit
It's a moth suit!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You roll your saving throw, and hope for the best.
Except that this car, there isn't much room for "saving throw". You'd need to roll 20 about every time with this car on normal roadways.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There has been serious talk of gas reaching $8 or even $10/gallon. That changes the numbers a bit, but I am too lazy to even figure out precisely how. Sorry. Besides, how fast it ramps up matters. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
See the Aptera typ-1 at www.aptera.com
Sure, you'll have to be a California resident for the first distribution but I'm sure that'll be resolved shortly after they start production. I'm willing to wait for it.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
What are you.. a moron?
Whatever options you "take off the table," you will eventually be forced to put back on the table, and actually exercise.
The best way to avoid war is to appear to be ready for it.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
This would include cargo trucks and semi tractor-trailers.
Also, what about mass transit vehicles, such as coach buses, city buses, and school buses?
In your utopian world, will you remove all of these as well?
My point is while your position may seem at first look to be an easy solution, upon closer examination it is completely without merit. Not all large vehicles are "senseless."
This story and most of the current comments are flat-out riduclous. If VW and any other manufacturers want to conduct research for future vehicles, then great. Go forward and do great things. Perhaps it will yield benefits in the future. That is the purpose of research.
However, there are vehicles currently available which get outstanding mileage, are simple to construct and maintain, and do not require change to existing infrastructure.
I am not talking about hybrids or hydrogen.
I am talking about current small diesels. Example: A VW diesel Jetta will get better than 50 mpg highway.
Making more small diesels available combined with an increase in biodiesel production would (in addition with other measures) significantly lower US dependence on foreign oil within a few years.
With gas in excess of $4.00 a gallon, fewer 3000 lb cars will be out on the roads over time. This trend will reduce your exposure to collision with a 3000 lb vehicle. Your purchasing decision helps effect this trend.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Here, in imperial, metric & US:
http://www.carfolio.com/specifications/models/car/?car=98263
Well, except for the consumption, which is just in l/100km. Disclaimer: my own site.
Ok, so first Slashdot readers started to decide to skip the article that the summary links to. Now the next step in our evolution is that we post without even reading the summary. Great. I quote, from the 1 paragraph summary that you are apparently too busy to read. . .
"Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers"
There you go.
If there are only light cars around, no one get's hit by a 2.5 ton doctor's wife with her Porsche Cayenne.
As a 911 owner, I have to say that the day Porsche released the Cayenne, I was saddened. It is the polar opposite of what Porsche represents. Dark times. It's like in the eighties when Porsche released those front-engine models to imitate the japanese sports cars.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Interestingly, if you crash into a divider at 70mph with a regular car, the video tells us, you'd be dead too.
What does this tell us? It tells us that you shouldn't run into walls at 70mph. How terrible. I'm crushed.
It's been a long time.
The problem with trucks *is* the last mile of delivery, where you have city streets, intersections, congestion, pedestrians, etc
Why the fuck are they crowding the interstate highways then? Panel trucks should be the last mile of distribution. Semi trucks shouldn't exist except for small hops between towns that aren't on a railway. Sams Club would do well to re-locate adjacent to train tracks now that gas is so high.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
If you fear islamic terrorists, then they are your master.
Osama bin Laden could easily sway the election, simply by releasing a tape saying "I am Osama bin Laden, and I support John McCain."
He did it for Kerry, after all.
It's been a long time.
Because regular cars CAN get that already, but the cost is too great to justify buying one?
It's been a long time.
F1 drivers have neck braces, helmets, body hugging seats with four point harnesses...etc.
No sig today...
Using a cell phone (ie: puching in digits to dial... not talking) is just about as unsafe as tuning your radio or popping in a cd. If done properly, talking on a cell phone is no more dangerous than talking to a passenger.
As I said in my reply to the post above yours perhaps I should of said driving with the phone glued to the ear, though actually I'd expand that to driving unsafely.
The driver doesn't want to sound rude so they keep talking, distracting themselves from driving.
An accident would be a lot more deadly than being rude. I know, while in a coma in the hospital after I was hit the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. Because someone who never should of been driving hit me my life as been a living hell, so I'd argue with the docs about there being a miracle. As for using a cellphone, it's the only phone I have, I never make a call while driving. I will either make a call before driving or I will a make it when I get where I'm going. And if I receive a call while driving I'll ask the person to wait while I pull over, once not a danger I'll talk. Nothing is as important as life. Well a good quality of life as my is shitty and I wish I hadn't survived.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"Want to make a killer difference in our gas consumption, engineer a way to make the current 500 million cars already on the roads today get 3 more mpg, because I figure 1/3rd of the cars on the road are in the sub 20mpg range."
Lower the highway speed limit to 55 mph and city/town speed limits to 35 mph. Eight solar panels on your roof can provide 30 miles daily range in an electric car with no emissions at all. No engineering needed, and it can be done tomorrow.
--
Perhaps what we need to get on with it is a bit of widely-shared sacrifice.
... if you hit a school bus with your SUV (or the bus your tanklike SUV), what will happen with the kids? So, you survive, and 10 kids get killed...
What is better? And what is fair? Is that OK when the bus hits you, or not if you hit the bus? There are always traffic participants which are weaker or stonger tahn you. Building bigger guns... ehm... tanks... ehm, cars is not the answer.
I'd go with the VW. It has airbags and a high-tech monocoque carbon body. On a motorcycle, the crumple zone's your spine.
Your 4$ /gallon gasoline is already outdated at the time of writing, and will be a lot more very soon. In Europe, the equivalent of 10$/gallon is the norm.
In the last five years, prices have gone up by 50%. They'll probably go up a lot more in the next five.
In fact both Europe and Japan have developed really efficient small Diesels. My commuter vehicle has a tiny 1.5 liter 3 cylinder turbo intercooled Diesel engine, basically half a V6, seats 5 European-size adults, gets 45 miles to the US gallon at 65-70 mph, and tops out at over 110mph. But I cannot see that it would sell in the US, because all the American visitor notices is that the engine vibration is more than in his SUV or van, and the 6-speed automated gearbox is not quite as smooth as an energy absorbing slushbox. Your Kohler generator engine is way behind Daihatsu, Mercedes or VW technically (after all it has to run on inferior fuel and withstand other abuse, and be cheap to repair, I am not knocking it) but it would only sell to the converted.
It has taken sixty years to persuade the US consumer that bigger and more powerful is always better. How long will it take to persuade them to buy a Toyota Yaris, a Suzuki Swift or a Hyundai i10, in their Far Eastern/European engine variants?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Compare:
http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/02/vw_one_liter_concept01_2.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.com/member_images/4/web/2416000-2416999/2416491_569_full.jpg
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Because I have the tire pressure gauge on my dash I noticed it was going up again, so I let some air out (so it was 35psi cold (ie, not driven yet that day), where cold was a lot warmer than in the winter.)
Moral of the story : measure and adjust your air pressure once every month or two, get better gas mileage. I knew a guy that measured his air pressure every time he filled the gas tank, but he was pretty meticulous (then again, he was also very wealthy. Correlation?)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I may be mistaken, but a leaner running engine is more efficient, not less.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Woah - slow down there trigger. I rode a motorcycle in college that got 4 mph better gas mileage at 75 mph than it did at 55 mph - 44mpg vs 40mpg. Plus, people tend to get really, really irate about driving 55mph because what really happens is that one person drives 55 when everybody else wants to drive 75, causing tailgating and accidents. The 35mph number, if a car has to downshift a gear to run 35 without lugging the motor - actually causes WORSE gas mileage than perhaps a slightly faster number where cars can run in a higher gear. If we could figure out a way to let everybody drive the same speed, evenly spaced out with little or no speeding up / slowing down - then we would save gas - here's a thought : how about synchronizing the stoplights in town to maximize the flow of traffic ...
Plus - the cocksuckers with the lights on their car roof take those numbers as a way to generate revenue, and you will NEVER get good enough gas mileage savings to make up the cost of all the speeding tickets / insurance rate increases that will hit across the nation.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Well, right now today you would sell the heck out of them if you could get them on the car lots. Around here now I am seeing very prominent signs in the windows of vehicles at the car lots emphasizing some alleged bragger mileage, like "30" mpg. If you could put 40 or 50 up there and it not be consumer fraud I don't think you'd have much trouble selling them. I know I went last year and snagged an old beat on datsum diesel pickup because I knew they got fantastic mileage, but those sorts of vehicles are rare here. And we've had demand, it has been there, but none of the car companies has been able to address it fully, toyota has a backlog for priuses for instance. And no one has electric vehicles yet, nothing between a glorified golf cart or an exotic sportscar. They keep saying americans only want giant crappy mileage vehicles, when the reality is that is primarily what they produced and put on the lots so that's what people wind up buying, because they have no choice at all, that's all there is for the most part, even though it sort of "looks" like there are choices.. I see a ton of smaller cars on the roads, and people are keeping them running, but you look at the car lots and very few of them are in the lines at the new car dealers, and it has been that way for some years now, the public has been buying up the smaller more efficient vehicles, but the millionaire bosses at the car companies just can't seem to see what is reality in front of their faces and kept pushing out the huge monsters, even as they closed plant after plant and are going bankrupt. Those guys who make the big decisions are all so rich they just didn't "get it" on the economy at all, out to lunch, clueless, the same as their majority big rich shareholders, so they had no realistic corporate governance. They just so much didn't "get it" on the worsening economy and the need for affordable vehicles and vehicles that got better mileage that I guess they just assumed that it wasn't getting bad or something. At least that is all I can figure out, just a near total disconnect with what non-millionaires have been going through. Apply the same to the big union bosses and still working union workers, they make so much more than the median here they don't get it, even with their business crumbling around them. I was in the UAW in the 60s and it was like that, both management and rank and file out to lunch, you just couldn't get nary a one of them folks to see Japan coming on strong, it would bounce off their brains and they would dismiss it, I tried, I really did, to get some acknowledgment of the situation to sink in there, eventually gave up and quit that work I was so disgusted with the lack of vision and no apparent long view on things, and it looks to not have changed one single bit. Those people in that business in the US just can *not* use some normal data and business analysis acumen and extrapolate more than a couple years into the future worth beans, they just can't. Henry Ford was the only one who could near as I can see.
Go die in a flaming jihad.
Post tenebras lux. Post fenestras tux.
and used 0,89 Liters at 72 km/h on average.
All in here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_1-Liter-Auto
(only in the German version of this Wikipedia article)
This seems like VERY old news.
Well, a lot of the US "safety" regulations legislate certain ways of doing things, even if the same thing can be accomplished better with alternative methods.
And, there's the 2.5 MPH bumper law - IIRC, a 2.5 MPH collision, directly to the front or rear of the vehicle, must not do any damage to anything other than the bumper. In the case of the 1L car, that can't happen.
With gas already $5/gallon in some parts of the country (paid 4.89 yesterday), how many SUVs do you think will still be on the road at six dollars a gallon, much less the ten bucks the news keeps telling us we "should" be paying?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Good thought, however it doesn't apply to all vehicles and most vehicles sold today. Every vehicle produced has an optimum RPM range, combine this with different gearing and you get a different optimum speed for milage with each vehicle. For some that may be 55mph for others it may be 45 or 65. For freeway driving my car's most efficent rpms puts my speed at right around 65 mph. If you want to reduce your fule consumption follow some simple rules: 1. Take everything out of your vehicle you don't need. (Less weight=better milage) 2. Proper maintenence (Oil changed, tire pressure correct, and air filter clean) 3. Keep the outside of your car clean, including undercarriage. (Weight again.) 4. Lastly and most importantly, moderate your driving. That means easy on the gas, coast when you see a red light and if you can know the timing of the lights. Most importantly don't be in a HURRY. If you are in a hurry you end up using more gas just to get to the next red light. Don't beive me? I drive a 96 Mercury Mystique and get better then 34 mpg with almost all city driving. It took some time and practice but that is up from the 26 when I first got the car a year ago.
"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.