Slashdot Mirror
Meet the Virginia-Built 110MPG X-Prize Car
tcd004 writes "Instead of using Detroit engineers or Silicon Valley bitheads, Virginia-based Edison2 relied on retired Formula 1 and Nascar engineers to build its entry for the X-prize. Relying on composite materials and titanium, the team assembled an ultra-lightweight car that provides all the comforts of a standard 4-passenger vehicle, but gets more than 100 mpg. The custom engineering goes all the way down to the car's lug nuts, which weigh less than 11 grams each. Amazingly, they expect a production version of the car should cost less than $20,000." Earlier today, in a Washington, DC ceremony, Edison2 received $5 million as the X-prize winner. Writes the AP (via Google) "Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each: Mooresville, N.C.-based Li-Ion Motors Corp., which made the Wave2, a two-seat electric car that gets 187 miles on a charge, and X-Tracer Team of Winterthur, Switzerland, whose motorcycle-like electric mini-car, the E-Tracer 7009, gets 205 miles on a charge. Both of those companies are taking orders for their cars."
"Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each"
What does that mean? Does it mean they get $2.5 million each or is it split between them?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The story at Wired has pictures.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Edison 2 site that would have been linked to in the summary if anyone posting stories gave a damn anymore
Seriously - the only manufacturing in Lynchburg is Fleets Enemas. And Failwell UN-iversity grads. Come to think of it those are pretty much synonymous...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I believe the statements "Relying on composite materials and titanium" and "should cost less than $20,000" are contradictory.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Like they've ensured Tesla Roadsters never get to the road, nor the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, or the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation of Toyota Hybrids. Oil companies may have been able to get a stranglehold on battery patents before, but the EV genie is out of the bottle. So, go buy one (if it fits your driving needs).
I think it's going to have trouble meeting collision safety standards, actually, although it can't possibly be more dangerous than my motorcycle.
I was going to roll my eyes and say "conspiracy nut", and then I realized this one would be pretty easy to keep off American roads (en masse, anyway): how does it perform on crash tests?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Does it have air bags, side-impact beams, crumple zones, etc? It seems like an impressive bit of engineering, but it will never make it to production in the US unless it meets all the government crash and safety standards.
Safety standards are one of the main reasons a 2010 Honda Civic gets nearly the same mileage in practice as a 1990 Civic. Although the more modern car has made strides in improving drive train efficiency, it weighs over 600 lbs more resulting in nearly the same fuel efficiency. Things like side-impact beams, air bags, and ABS make cars safer, but they also make them a lot heavier.
First off, it's run on E85. That means it gets something like 50mpg and they say "theoretically" the car gets 110mpg in "gasoline numbers." i.e. if you switch it to pure gasoline, you should get 110mpg by some magic due to additional fuel density. (Imaginary, I'm convinced this won't happen; otherwise why wouldn't you just build a gasoline engine?)
At heart, the Very Light Car is a simple vehicle, avoiding the feature creep that has loaded down contemporary vehicles. Design simplicity, low mass and conventional materials result in lower material costs and production time.
Second, they seem to have avoided "design features" ... I don't see a feature list. ABS? Traction control? (things I don't care about). What about suspension? Is this 4 wheel independent? Rear wheel drive or all wheel drive? A heavy Torsen differential or open? All of these things affect the actual handling of the car and its safety. That whole "My Volvo is safe, I don't die when I hit things!" thing is bullshit; my Mazda3 is safe because I can turn HARD into a 120 degree right turn at 30mph without braking and, with tires screeching and wheels scrubbing, the car won't slip or skid sideways or spin or roll over.
If someone cuts me off on the highway, I can A) take a hit to my front quarter and spin; B) brake hard and get rearended by the tailgater, pushed into him, and spin anyway; or C) brake, downshift, floor it, and steer into a nearby opening. (C) is possible in my car; it was not possible in the Cobalt. In my Cobalt, I actually came off the road in a more gentle curve (still kinda tight, but not a hairpin or corner) at 30mph. The back slid a little bit and I had to fight to regain control. In the worst possible place (narrow roads, guard rails, mountains, and one lane going each way... if there was another car coming I would have had a head-on collision). This is not safe; the SUV I was pacing made it, and my Mazda3 can make it at 60mph+ (I've tested the handling elsewhere; no way am I pushing that car that hard on the street) so I know I'm not going to lose control in normal conditions.
That's what I want in a car. A good suspension, good brakes, good responsive steering, and slap some excellent tires on that bad boy. All wheel drive is excellent, Rear wheel drive is also very nice, front wheel drive ... has proven to be a severe safety hazard (loses control in the snow/rain/ice easily if your tires can't handle it; loses control trying to take off into a hard turn, so don't merge into cross-traffic from a stop). The car is safe, now teach the driver to drive, everything from recovery techniques to road etiquette and proper judgment.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Does this mean the car can only turn left?
I think it's going to have trouble meeting collision safety standards, actually, although it can't possibly be more dangerous than my motorcycle.
I've always thought it odd that we are so terribly worried about safety standards for cars, yet we allow motorcycles. Now, don't get me wrong, I think we should allow motorcycles. It just drives me nuts when we see some rather interesting designs and concepts ignored because it won't meet our standards even though you could make a simple (but clear and obvious) warning that such and such a vehicle does not meet the motor vehicle safety standards.
Maybe a class 'experimental' license that you have to get before you can drive one just to show that you are fully educated about the safety risks and how to mitigate them through behavior (extreme defensive driving).
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I had a "Popular Mechanics" magazine from the early 80's that had an article on how to make a 100 MPG car with a spitfire car frame, molded fiberglass, and a Kubota tractor engine.
It's sad that it would take a X-Prize contest with a 10-million dollar purse to get us back to using the technology discussed in a old magazine.
Congrats to the teams. I'm just commenting about the automobile industry as a whole.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Unfortunately, after the added weight of an average American the car only gets 50 MPG.
They won't.
2010 may finally be the year of 100MPG on the Car!
just make sure it has 5 point harnesses and a roll frame and solid anchor points and you should be able to skip the airbags. Really I don't get the "it's light and made of carbon it must be a death trap" thing. Look at an F1 car, they can crash into a car going 50-100mph slower, flip though the air, crash into a tire wall and both drivers get out under their own power and walk back to the paddock, or WRC cars, toss it down a mountainside and the driver gets out and climbs back up, or Peter Solburg in 2004 hitting a Hinkelsteine and going flipping down the road.
It's not hard to make a safe car, it's hard to make a car you can freely move around in and still be safe when it hits a wall at 70MPH, or another car also moving 55mph(110 wall). Strap the meatbags down and it helps a lot.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Yeah I like how people blame oil companies, but more typically it's the car companies themselves that cancel projects (EV1, RAV4) or the lack of interest from customer (Honda Insights barely sold at all). No conspiracy needed.
BTW my Insight can get over 100 MPG with slow driving (55mph) and avoiding use of the brake on the interstate. Of course it's only a two seater but that's fine for my daily commute. The best I've ever done was 121 MPG while driving south-to-north across Utah and Idaho.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Sure, but that's the problem with rules and regulations. Every time you write a law, and entire slew of assumptions get coded in.
What you describe may well be perfectly safe, but that doesn't mean the law still doesn't require airbags, for example.
The NEV article states the safety requirements:
In addition, some states have increased the MPH limit (owner can easily mod this) to 35MPH, allowing them to travel on 45MPH roads in the slow lane:
All of this adds up to a vehicle that is good for local commuting (if allowed on the 45MPH "expressways") and grocery grabbing, with minimal safety requirements and if it's non-emissions, also benefit from tax incentives.
I'm definitely keeping my eye on this, it'd be great for those days when I don't want to ride the bike to work (i.e., have to pick up the kid). The Edison2 car would fit nicely here (though it wouldn't get tax credits).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
it looks like a car, i see 4 wheels, and a steering wheel... what more do you want?
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
So you're saying that despite the fact there are hundreds of thousands of them on the roads, the Toyota Prius is neither practical, affordable, nor does it offer any real and immediate savings to the consumer? And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
As for the Edison2, it's a cool concept, but it's still a concept. The thing exists as a one-off prototype with exactly none of the real-world production hassles and economics worked out. It therefore fails your three metrics by default.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The Mazda3's not an awesome sports car. It's not a 2010 Camaro, or a 2006 GTO, or a Porsche, or an RX-8 or MX-5. That's my point, though. It's a decent little FWD econo car that ... can take a turn you should never, ever take at that speed. In an emergency situation, it's down to driver skill and not what engineering went into vehicle dynamics. I can stop fast, I can turn fast, I can control my vehicle. It forgives mistakes and some level of stupidity.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Extreme defensive driving is right, because other motorists' perceptions come into play too. For instance, like every other driver on the road, I follow at distances where, if their car is able to slow down faster than mine, or I'm fiddling with the radio, I'm going to rear-end them. Before the banshees come out, hey, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap. There's no way to stop the behavior short of driving 30 in a 60mph zone, and that's what crumple zones, airbags, seatbelts, and insurance are for--driving in the real world.
Anyway, when I see a motorcycle, that goes out the window. I'm acutely aware that if they fall off the bike for some reason and I run over them, I'm probably going to kill someone, or at least fuck them up in ways that go far beyond sitting in a courtroom with a neckbrace suing my ass off. Since I'm not willing to accept that, I leave that space, and sometimes, even other drivers don't fill it in. I give them wide berth in other situations as well--just flat out, I never ever ever in my life want to hit a motorcyclist and do everything I can to make sure I don't. I notice most other drivers behave the same way, or at least leave some extra tolerance.
With an experimental car though, you're not going to get that immediate perception of "I'm quite possibly going to kill this person if I hit them." Sure, most of the risk is on the driver of the exotic, but what about steel rods that can detach in a collision and fly through the passenger compartment of a Saturn, or a million other things that can go wrong in weird ways? How do you even begin to evaluate that? Right now we require massive amounts of crash testing, but it becomes a lot less affordable to smash up 50 copies of your car when you might only sell 500 of them, and even then some wild design might cause huge problems in scenarios that aren't tested currently.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Why did the Model T Ford look like that?
For the love of God make one of these horseless carriages look like a damn horseless carriage.
The current glass in cars (for windshields) is SAFETY glass. Essentially, the glass itself is fragile on purpose, and the polyvinyl butyral in the middle only serves to hold the glass fragments together. The glass is supposed to disintegrate when faced with large stresses, but remain stuck to the polyvinyl butyral film. Plexiglass simply will not offer the disintegration behavior, as its designed for the exact opposite purpose and will not disintegrate.
"His name was James Damore."
I have not done the math on most of these vehicles, but I recently did on the Leaf after looking at their display at the California State Fair. Dollar per mile, the Leaf couldn't even come close to the fuel costs compared to my 1999 Suzuki Swift. It's purchase price, even after accounting for inflation isn't even close either. Yes, the Leaf probably has 10 years more worth of safety features, but that doesn't account for it's poor TCO. No doubt it is a better value in those magical parts of the country that I keep hearing about on Slashdot where they pay only $0.10/kwh. Here in California, we can be paying over $0.30/kwh.
I'm on real time metering via ComEd in Chicago. At night, I pay as low as $0.01/KwH. It is extremely cheap for me to charge my Tesla Roadster at night.
And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
Ha! Have you ever met a New York cabbie? Because I sure haven't, and I'm assuming that there's never been a bigger bunch of hemp-wearing tree-hugging kumbaya-singing hippies. With disposable income.
The enemies of Democracy are
So?
If a road is near maximum capacity but still maintaining the speed if you do not maintain speed you become a hazard to other drivers. So the 'safer' option is to give as much distance as you can without encouraging 'lane hopping' drivers. Keeping the speed differential to a minimum is safer than attempting to maintain a following distance which would be safe if traffic was light.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
The truth is that weight mainly affects acceleration, outside towns, while aerodynamics affects fuel consumption rather more. That's why the latest hybrids have such interesting shapes, especially around the rear end where the airflow detaches from the body.
As a real world, example, the Econetic Ford Fiesta is now available in the US, meeting full US specs. It produces 120BHP, more than European versions, but the NYT review mocks it for its low power and suggests it is slower than a rowing boat. That's nonsense, but it's the sort of thing rednecks like to believe. It does about 40MPUSG. It would have been hard to achieve that in a 1990 Fiesta, which would typically get around 28-33MPUSG. Yet it is much safer and much faster.
To be blunt, the real problem for economy cars in the US is the US mindset, which so often sees mere size as better than quality engineering. The mindset won't change until gasoline reaches about $5 per USG, and given the number of AGW-deniers among the current crop of Republican candidates, and Koch funding of the Tea Party, it's more likely someone will get invaded for their oil first.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, but my point isn't anti-US. It's complaining that the US has many of the world's best engineers who could fix all the problems of peak oil and overconsumption - but their own countrymen won't let them.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap.
Then you should back off again. Arriving alive is the goal, it's not a fucking race track.
why weld? just form/machine the parts and then bolt together, see "billet aluminium car" by kirkham motor sports.
Machining is the most expensive way to produce a metal part. You start with a block of metal and grind away everything that isn't the part. It's very wasteful, in terms of energy, even if you recycle the waste metal chips. The cheapest methods are stamping or casting. Guess how most metal car parts are made?
Robotic welding is cheap, repeatable and produces strong assemblies. Bolting tends to be labor intensive, and adds more weight (bolts weigh more than welds).
It's not like the existing car companies haven't analyzed these alternatives more than a few times over the last 100 or so years.
Putting moderation advice in your
That's a particularly lopsided view of the "oil conspiracy." The reality is that oil companies represent the single largest caucus of industry money with a single purpose: sell more oil. They brought those resources to bear against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in order to end the public's mandate for zero emissions vehicles, even the smallest amount, which killed electric car development in it's infancy. I remember seeing electric RAV4s and EV1s and Ford Ranger EVs buzzing around in the late 90s in rural Georgia. The technology developed by GM was mothballed by Exxon Mobil, who bought and buried the battery technology. Toyota continued to develop theirs, and now they have top selling hybrid car in the world.
The red herring offered consistently is, why wouldn't GM want to lead the way in electric car development? Two reasons: one, EV technology was receiving zero subsidy after CARB was bought and sold, yet gasoline in the United States is sold at a fraction of the price due to massive subsidies by the US government. The second is that electric motors are hideously reliable, as evidenced by hydroelectric dams that have been in operation for over one hundred years. If a material for infinitely durable shoes was developed by Nike, do you think they would be dumb enough to manufacture and sell it?
It's tough to continue netting billions if you make your product cheaper and more efficient, without being able to drop the price enough to sell it to more consumers. So, as one would naturally expect, you fight any newer technology with every tool you have, while simultaneously buying up the competition and burying new technology. An oil company actively reducing the value of their trillions of dollars of oil infrastructure is like Microsoft funding R&D for open source software. It just doesn't happen.
Eventually the new technology will win, if there is some other industry that will see gains, or if the government steps in to make sure the economy isn't artificially shackled to old technology because of monopolistic business practices. It's fashionable to call that Socialism, but everyone else calls it progress.
Sounds like deregulating your electric system really worked out for you then.
If that were true don't you think one of the over 100 teams who spent millions of their own money would have done that? Its easy to get 100mpg when you gloss over all of the details and rules, but the X-Prize setup many tests to ensure the car actually got 100mpg in many scenarios. Your alleged PM 100mpg car may not even be true.
Oh come on. VW sells a three-cylinder diesel model in Europe that gets over 65 miles per gallon. You don't think someone could get more than that out of a lighter car with a much smaller engine?
I read this article, not that that's a definitive citation or anything.
The 1980s PM car used a diesel engine that made about 17 horsepower. It was extremely slow to accelerate, but because the engine size was matched up to exactly how much power was needed to keep the car moving, and because a tractor engine can be operated at full power output indefinitely, it meant that the engine was operated right at its peak efficiency most of the time. It got incredible fuel milage at the expense of terrible acceleration performance.
The designers decided that carrying a larger engine with excess reserve power meant that the car would be less efficient at steady-state cruising. They were right. The downside was the car took a very long time to get up to highway speed and couldn't do more than about 65 MPH. At lower speeds, in town, it wasn't much slower than the crappy econoboxes of the time - remember this was when 100 hp seemed like a lot in a small car.
Putting moderation advice in your
Seat ibiza gets 97.4mpg and it's a real car:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/firstdrives/237415/seat_ibiza_ecomotive.html
Time and time again I hear this nonsense. Yes, all things being equal a rear-wheel drive car is more capable. If you're a very competent driver. I'd argue that 95% of the world's driving population is not competent to the level that RWD provides a benefit over front-wheel drive. As a matter in fact, the handling traits exhibited by RWD make it a greater hazard for many, if not most drivers. People are more likely to lose control in RWD vehicles. All-wheel drive real benefit is getting unstuck and being able to get around in slippery conditions more easily. In terms of handling, while in some cases AWD offers some real advantages but more often than not AWD cars have a strong tendency towards understeer followed, in come cases, by snap oversteer.
The fact is, the car doesn't make a driver. Discounting automotive extremes a competent driver can manage to do well in almost any car. In a panic situation you're not going to be fiddling with gears. You're going to either veer out of the way or brake really hard. If you have time to downshift you probably also had time to brake normally. Most drivers in a panic situation aren't going to have the sense to modulate braking or steer around whatever they're facing. They're going to stop on the brakes and hope the car stops in time. All that talk about handling capabilities brought up as an ego booster is ultimately meaningless.
I want a car with capable handling myself. But there's a threshold at which any additional benefits are irrelevant for most drivers because they'll never be able to exploit them limits. I'm sure there's a lower limit which is a detriment, but what modern car isn't sufficiently competent, especially for a properly defensive driver?
This is not true. If solar power efficiency improvements maintain, car companies will be able to sell many customers the vehicle and the panels necessary to power it, and wrap it all up in one long term loan.
I honestly hope Google will form a subsidiary and begin constructing geothermal plants as well. The real fear for fossil fuel companies is these mainly passive methods at generating electricity will become widespread to the point that the value of oil collapses, due to all of the energy necessary to dig it out and process it.
>>>Arriving alive is the goal, it's not a fucking race track.
I agree 100% with you, but I'm afraid you're wasting your breath. A lot of slashdotters think it's also okay to text-and-drive, or phone-and-drive, even though repeated tests show by AAA show that the reaction time is slower than if you were legally drunk
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Admire mine here: http://www.coultersmithing.com/OldStuff/kart.html I did this so long ago I'm two websites, a new business, and a forum since then. And yes, I still drive it every day, it's handy and did I say fun? Swaps ends with the best of them on a limited traction road....mini cooper claims go-kart handling, but this is far better....and it will climb almost straight up. Other than the body work, does this look a little familiar? Sure does to me. Paid about $2k for this, yeah, they can make them for 10 times that, duh.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Seems like the obvious solution is not to replace your car after 5 years. Anyone who does is obviously not concerned with cost (or the environment) in the first place making the whole issue moot.
The enemies of Democracy are