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Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50%
bonch writes "Autoparts manufacturer Delphi has developed a diesel-like ignition engine running on gasoline, providing a potential 50 percent efficiency improvement over existing gas-powered engines. Engineers have long sought to run diesel-like engines on gasoline for its higher efficiency and low emissions. Delphi's engine, using a technique called gasoline-direct-injection compression ignition, could rival the performance of hybrid automobiles at a cheaper cost."
WOOHOOO!!!
I don't really care about the karma here, but there's been so much bad news lately this is rather refreshing.
I'll let the critics speak and explain why this is not as good as it sounds, but FTS it's inspiring.
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
From what I understand, the major challenge of combustion without a spark plug for gasoline is preignition. High pressure direct injection allows normal spark-plug motors to run at higher compression ratios with lower chance of knock (preignition), so that was part of it, but I wonder what other fabulous tech was used to get this to be feasibly production ready. Very cool.
People will just drive more to make up for the greater efficiency, and still whine about gas prices...
Can't wait to have my self-driving electric flying car by 2032.
I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Electric has a moving target to hit, just as it has for the last 100+ years. Batteries are not the only technology that can improve in the next two decades.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What keeps diesel engines from becoming a standard in the US? I know regulations nearly disappeared them from the market, but that was for environmental reasons, which are the very reasons why diesel cars are attractive. While in Europe it is not outside the norm, here it seems like you are committing a crime if you run a diesel engine.
Also - since diesel engines are so efficient and all - what stops them from making a hybrid car that benefits from the even greater efficiency of diesel? or this new type of diesel like gas engine for that matter?
Seems a bit redundant really, I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Perhaps. It will depend on if we can figure out how to store electricity in the car less expensively then we can store the equivalent energy in a liquid fuel tank.
You reminded me of my hate for that programming language
Why is this news? Mazda is currently selling this as their "Skyactiv" technology. It is already here, and yes the gas mileage is 'close' to diesel like.
It's the same concept as Mazda's high compression ratio "SkyActiv" gasoline engines. 14:1 outside the us and 12:1 inside the US because they're more like diesels.
Where exactly do the efficiency increases from tradition -> diesel -> Delphi engine come from? The article mentions the ignition process but I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what about this drives a 40-50% improvement. What's so great about diesel, and what makes this engine so much better?
It is cheaper, or the cost is lower. You can not have a cheaper cost! Nor can you have cold temperatures for that matter.
OK, yes, this makes a gasoline engine more efficient by emulating a diesel. Why not just go with diesel, then?
Is there more energy density in gasoline? Is it cheaper to produce? Or is this just about gasoline being more widely available and consumers being more comfortable with it?
I'm asking. Someone here knows, I bet.
Let's face it, economic social justice requires us to enable the billion+ people around the world today who do not have access to personal transportation (like we do) to gain that access. Anything else is unjust. Breakthroughs like this one are a step in that direction.
It's probably inevitable-- it's just a question of when. Battery cost per kWh has been decreasing at around 10% per year, and gasoline is getting consistently more expensive. It seems incredibly unlikely that both of these would stop moving toward the crossover point.
Seems a bit redundant really, I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Until we see new power plants being built I am not so sure we will have a large scale transition to electrically powered vehicles. Various parts of our electrical grid are already pretty stressed out and seeing periodic brown outs and black outs. This could put a damper on large scale adoption of electric vehicles.
At least they won't rival the hybrid version of this engine.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Don't forget that, when considering the extra mining and transportation of rare earth metals required to build a hybrid car, its overall environmental impact might not be any better than a conventional gasoline engine. My choice would be to buy a gasoline powered car with 50% improved efficiency over hybrid--at least until battery technology (and China's environmental policies!) improve.
Sounds somewhat like skyactiv but I think Mazda still uses spark.
The only problem I see with this delphi engine is that it might require high octane gasoline or the lower octane gasoline might ignite too soon and not be so controllable with a lower octane.
>>>everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Only for those who live close to work and never go long distances like the beach or grandparents' house in the next state. For the rest of us, we need fuel-powered cars (including hybrids).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I seem to remember hearing about a type of engine from the 1930's that was designed to run this way. The name escapes me, but basically, fuel was sucked in, and then the engine (once at operating temperature) would run off of pre-ignition, which allowed it to run using much more fuel. The problem with the engine back then was that the pre-ignition was somewhat unpredictable which made the engines extremely unreliable at best. Pre-ignition is something that can kill modern engines fairly quickly. It means the fuel is combusting at the "wrong" point in the cycle, which can cause parts to bend or break, and gaskets to be blown out. I'm assuming that they've figured that out with this engine.
Does anyone know the name of the engine that I'm talking about? I'd like to go back and read about it.
hey!
One word - biodiesel
Reminds me of the variable combustion chamber geometry engines that were a fad back in the early '90s. With electronic control it is possible to run a gasoline engine mostly on single event pre-detonation (which used to be called "pinking") which allowing things to get completely out of control and creating the damaging pre-detonation commonly called "knocking".
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
How is this different from homogeneous charge compression ignition ”HCCI"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogeneous_charge_compression_ignition
Compression ignition of gasoline is not, in an of itself, a new technology.
Or need to be in a car sharing program, or rent a different vehicle for the 1-5% of the time you need one.
Gasoline. Because we still have glaciers.
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This. Personally I can see all-electric cars being even more capable than fossil fuel cars, at a lower cost, and cheaper to run, over the coming twenty years.
Hybrid will use this as well.
It's good thing, hope it pans out.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Imagine a hybrid diesel-like OPOC engine!
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
It's still burns gasoline.
The advantage of electric is that you have the option of generating your electricity using the cheapest, best, most efficient means possible.
Of course, the disadvantage of electric is that we haven't been making electric cars for 100 years, we've been making gas ones. So the gas ones will be simpler, cheaper, and likely more reliable.
A compression-ignition (aka "diesel") piston engine makes nasty emissions. The "cleaner" the fuel you burn in it, the easier to meet emissions regulations. Gasoline will burn cleaner in such an engine, but will require different materials and engineering design to withstand the much more sharply spiking, and higher cylinder pressures that gasoline makes when it detonates inside a piston engine's cylinder. A normal gasoline engine that detonates, will self-destroy its internal parts very rapidly, so such an engine must be built a lot tougher than a normal diesel engine that runs on diesel oil fuel.
I don't think it's much of a moving target ... electric needs to reach a 600 mile range and charge in 10 minutes. That will make it an effective transportation alternative for all current automotive travel. It really doesn't need to get any better than that.
It's hard to see how electric can be beat in the long run. Even a 50% decrease in fuel use won't make gasoline fueling the cheaper choice.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
There have been at least a dozen articles posted about new revolutionary engines in the last five years promising 40, 50 or better miles per gallon of gas. Has a single one gone into production, I think the answer is no. So either they're vapor or those conspiracy theorists are right and big oil is in one way or making sure they never get to market.
There was a news article about five or six years ago about some guy who invented a new revolutionary car transmission that was promised improved gas mileage but I haven't read anything about it since so what happened to it?
It's probably inevitable-- it's just a question of when. Battery cost per kWh has been decreasing at around 10% per year, and gasoline is getting consistently more expensive. It seems incredibly unlikely that both of these would stop moving toward the crossover point.
Gasoline engines have been keeping up with that 10% though. In 1998 the Ford Mustang GT with a 4.6L V8 had about 215hp. In 2011 the Mustang GT 5.0L V8 packed in 412hp. That's about 7% a year increase in power and a slight increase in mileage. It stands to reason if that extra efficiency was put towards more mpg instead of more power, that crossover point could be farther out than you think.
The good news is it's getting better on both fronts and fast!
require a new factory? I don't foresee it going into mass production unless existing factories can easily retool back and forth between these engines and standard engines.
No, I didn't RTFA yet.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Didn't someone release a direct injected gasser like 20 years ago??? And for the love of god, why are we still using gasoline and not Diesel like the rest of the world for our commuter cars?
Yet another improvement on an outdated concept. The owners of cars with this type of engine will still be stuck in a the cycle of ever increasing gas prices. These days the only cars that impress me are the ones that offer an affordable escape out of this trap, even if the range is somewhat limited.
there is nothing redundant about that comment, mods
No I don't see all electric in 20 years.
Unless we solve the problems of...
1. Range
2. Recharge Time
3. Getting the Grid to handle all the cars.
4. How do we generate all that electricity to do so.
Range and Recharge time. is the biggest issue for me. I travel 30 miles to work and 30 miles back. That is 60 miles. Most electric cars are pushing 100 miles, but that is the ideal range... what is the range going up a mountain? What if the batteries after 8 years are not optimal...
Next my parents live 800 miles away. Say I have an electric car that can do 500 miles per run. I drive mostly there, however I need to recharge. Can I recharge in 5-10 minutes or will I need to spend the night charging my car.
I do not have the money for a car to drive to work and a car to drive longer ranges.
So we will still need chemical powered cars, until these issues are fixed. I am happy to see that they are getting a lot more fuel efficient. That is a good sign, because electric cars are not going to solve all the problems.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
long distances like the beach
If you're a long distance from a beach, you're doing it wrong.
I've seen people use the term "This." just as you used it here.
I am not sure what "this" means.
Is this some kind of new shortcut phrasing? What does it mean?
I am a native English speaker (but an old person now and trying to keep up to date).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
This is nothing new really. They had similar technology back in the 70's but it was never pursued much because people preferred driving BIG GAS HOGS. 1975 Honda Civic had a similar type of technology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVCC. I owned one of these cars. It was small, an automatic without the D (drive), just speeds 1 and 2. Wish I still had the car today.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
It means "I approve of the above message which neatly encapsulates most of my feelings on the matter".
I've seen people use the term "This." just as you used it here.
I am not sure what "this" means.
Is this some kind of new shortcut phrasing? What does it mean?
I am a native English speaker (but an old person now and trying to keep up to date).
This. You kids stop with your weird and no-doubt-sexually-charged slang, and GTFO my lawn!
This would be amazing if it were true.
300km/50l = 14mpg
1200km/50l = 56mpg
What vehicle are you talking about which offers two engines, one which gets 14mpg petrol and another which gets 56mpg diesel?
Long signatures suck.
It means "I agree with this" or "this is true", or some variation on that theme. Referring specifically to the parent post.
The more you know.
That's not a given by any stretch. Non-petroleum based liquid fuel that can be synthesized is every bit as good of an alternative. Either way you need big and efficient power plants to produce lots and lots of electricity.
I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Electric has a moving target to hit, just as it has for the last 100+ years. Batteries are not the only technology that can improve in the next two decades.
But electric is not free energy. Somebody (ie powerplant) has to produce the electricity to recharge the batteries. Now a hiydrogen fuel cell powered electric, that would be a different story, but then, they are not usually consumer friendly devices.
Not really, battery technology isn't getting that good, there are still huge infrastructure problems.
If anything diesel (which can be made from Natural Gas, coal dust, FT process, oil, etc) is the long term winner.
I don't think it's much of a moving target ... electric needs to reach a 600 mile range and charge in 10 minutes. That will make it an effective transportation alternative for all current automotive travel. It really doesn't need to get any better than that.
It's hard to see how electric can be beat in the long run. Even a 50% decrease in fuel use won't make gasoline fueling the cheaper choice.
How much will it cost to purchase the electricity to recharge that battery pack? It is naive to assume that electricity to recharge cars will be cheaper than gasoline to power cars once the electricity is the primary fuel source. Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear. Why would you expect electric recharging to be any different?
Or we could just go back to using alcohol as a fuel and stop relying on foreign oil altogether. And don't even give me that "It costs more to produce ethanol and it'll ruin our food supply" garbage.
Or need to be in a car sharing program, or rent a different vehicle for the 1-5% of the time you need one.
This is just not going to happen. It's a great idea, but a great many people WANT their own vehicle to do these things, and right or wrong, that fact isn't going to change; at least not abruptly. Rather than fight human nature (at least some humans' nature, anyway) it's better to provide a gradual path to change that still gives people what they want.
No. It's cheaper to own then rent. Not just for cars but virtually everything.
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Meh. I'm waiting for my teleporter. There's no way I'd want to step outside with everyone flying badly maintained autonomous electric cars.
However, putting this in a Hybrid would provide the better of both worlds in the near term.
Hydrogen is the exact same story, actually. Somebody has to produce the hydrogen for your fuel cells, that takes energy.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The midwest and rectangle states reject your proposal.
1. is slowly being fixed by better batteries.
2. Charge times at a station can be down to 10 minutes already
3. Smart grid handles this.
4. not really needed since we have so much off peak power
5. If you parents are that far away consider taking a plane.
It's probably inevitable-- it's just a question of when. Battery cost per kWh has been decreasing at around 10% per year, and gasoline is getting consistently more expensive. It seems incredibly unlikely that both of these would stop moving toward the crossover point.
Gasoline engines have been keeping up with that 10% though. In 1998 the Ford Mustang GT with a 4.6L V8 had about 215hp. In 2011 the Mustang GT 5.0L V8 packed in 412hp. That's about 7% a year increase in power and a slight increase in mileage. It stands to reason if that extra efficiency was put towards more mpg instead of more power, that crossover point could be farther out than you think.
It is easy to get more horsepower. The hardpart is to get better mileage. The most fuel efficient vehicles on the planet are race cars. They squeeze every bit of energy out of the fuel they can. Their mpg sucks, though.
So, yes, your 5L V8 is burning fuel more efficiently as evidenced by the increased horsepower, but it still isn't getting better mileage. It is easy to design to maximize horsepower. The difficult part is maximizing mpg while maintaining acceptable performance. The only real way to do that is build smaller and lighter vehicles. A 78 Honda got 38mpg back in the day. Of course, it wasn't much bigger than today's mini-cooper, which gets significantly less.
The good news is it's getting better on both fronts and fast!
I don't think it's much of a moving target ... electric needs to reach a 600 mile range and charge in 10 minutes.
I think cost is at least as important a criteria as range and charge time. I'd have one electric car if they were cheaper, even if it took overnight to charge and had only 40 miles of range. My wife's commute is 10 miles round-trip, so we put less than 5000 miles on her car each year. At today's battery pack prices, an electric would never be cost effective.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'd set up my teleporter to make copies of myself.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Better late than never, I suppose. Of course, it's probably been on the design boards, and possible, for 105 of those years.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
every selfish ****** ****** who buys a diesel car should be shot.
Diesel exhaust contains the most carcinogenic compounds known to man and despite supposed soot traps the particulate pollution they produce is appalling.
Yes they produce less carbon dioxide per mile but I'd much rather live and deal with that, which is in no way directly toxic (handy given that it's a product of respiration), than the crap that comes out of a diesel engine.
As for the LeMans endurance racing argument for the performance of diesel engines; the rules are entirely weighted in their favour - they are allowed larger engine capacities and larger fuel tanks, and if petrol engines use turbo chargers their compression ratio is severely restricted.
But for these constraints the performance advantage enjoyed by petrol engines would be ridiculous.
Give me petrol, electric, LPG, hydrogen, methanol, anything but diesel.
What was the point of comparing the cost of batteries with the output of gasoline engines? Not only does increased horsepower not translate to increased fuel economy, even if it did you're still comparing apples and rocks. Not that it matters much - your larger argument is a non-starter. Gasoline has so much against it that it will become economically/environmentally/politically untenable much faster than engines will improve to compensate. The technology is already up against the wall of what physics will allow.
Also, since you like Mustangs: Here's a video of an electric car kicking a Mustang's ass in a drag race. :D
=Smidge=
Can you make gasoline in your garage from sources that fall on your property regularly?
Uhm.. Diesel and low emission? don't know in what world you are living, but diesel is much MUCH filthier as regular gasoline is. There is a reason why it has a seperate carbonfilter these days (well at least in my country, as it's required by law now for newer cars).. But this is good news, hopefully it finds it's way into cars soon otherwise it's useless as we're switching to electric soon anyway (which is more necessary as switching to more efficient gasoline engines as oil is becoming more expensive and we're running out of it, and oil is also needed for other products other than petrol)..
So, generating the hydrogen to feed into your hydrogen fuel cell is done not by electricity but magic? I'd buy some stock of that Magic Inc.
Direct-injection gasoline engines have been around for a while. From TFA, it sounds like the key to this one is the timing and number of injections used to combat detonation with the high compression ratio.
Still it is somewhat puzzling. Gasoline engines meter air intake so that air:fuel ratio stays roughly constant to control emissions. Diesel engines basically draw in the maximum amount of air all the time because it is needed to create the heat for compression ignition. I`m not sure which way the engine in TFA works. If it is like a normal gasoline engine then won`t it need a spark plug to ignite the fuel at low loads (and possibly to start burning early enough to run at higher engine speeds)? Or if it is like a Diesel then won`t it be pumping out a bunch of NOx from the lean air:fuel mixture?
Because many people/companies/locales, even farmers, can become a solar/wind electric supplier, i.e. a lot of competition. Oil, and especially gasoline has relatively few suppliers; suppliers who sell their product through the slot machines in Chicago. A combination of solar/wind would charge a vehicle and keep it charged for all of my needs, except for long-distance. And I could do it myself, on my roof and from winds from across the lake, for the little I choose to drive.
That's where the gas/electric hybrids like the Volt come in. The ability to use battery for most if not all of your daily commute. A gasoline engine that can keep the car going for longer trips.
It's expensive right now, hence why I went with a vehicle with their E-assit rather than the volt. ($14k less that the volt and I'm getting an overall MPG of 36 right now with mixed city/highway driving). I'd be hard pressed to recover that $14k price difference unless gas goes to about $6 a gallon in the next 5 years. It very well may get that high, but who knows.
That being said, I fully suspect my next car will be a Volt like vehicle that can run around town mostly on battery, but has the ability to travel long ranged when needed.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Cost is the one element that is almost certain to improve to the necessary degree to make electric competitive. So if all you demand is 40 miles of range, you are going to be happily driving electric within the decade.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
it were banana peels and stale beer.
Absolutely. I was really only responding to the GP's discussion of what will make sense twenty years out.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
of course it's true you moron.
1200km/50l is easily done, just pick up ANY VW TDI, say from 2009 on.
even my piddly tdi jetta does this
everyone else I know is getting 1400km/50l or better.
as for 300km/50l there's a host of cars I had that did this, form the ford focus to the toyota prius, i've driven about a dozen different cars that get this mileage on a regular basis.
don't believe me, check out the VW sites where drivers are posting their own experiences and do 46mpg or better on a regular basis.
and then there's this from 2008 - http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/09/vws-prius-killi/
rectangle states
Thank you for that chuckle.
I do not have the money for a car to drive to work and a car to drive longer ranges.
Why would you want to own an internal combustion engine if you don't need to - use your electric car for commuting, and rent a gasoline fueled car (or fuel cell car, or maybe a generator-trailer that you hook up to your own electric car for longer trips)
My commute is around 10 miles by car (12 miles by bike). I choose to bike or take transit, but if I really wanted to drive, a Nissan Leaf would be very practical for my commute, and I have easy access to Zip Car or City Car Share cars when I need something with longer range.
It will cost the same or less than it costs now, and right now you can travel with a LEAF for about half what it costs to travel with a prius (just in terms of pure fuel costs, ignoring the price of the vehicles). Electric generation gets done by big plants, including nuclear, that can produce energy more cheaply/efficiently than gasoline can be shipped and burned in a tiny plant in your car. Those efficiencies just can't be beat by ICE.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Re: "Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear."
Ah. Controlled by the Trilateral Commission, no doubt. Or perhaps the Illuminati.
TANSTAAFL
As to number 5... Fuck that.
Any time it is at all feasible I will drive over fly any day.
The have made flying so horrible that many people just do not want to deal with it anymore.
Fuck flying.
Unless of course I get my own plane.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I'll ask the obvious question "Wouldn't it be simpler to just use diesel engines powered by diesel fuel instead of trying to make diesel engines powered by gasoline?"
No I don't see all electric in 20 years.
Unless we solve the problems of...
1. Range
2. Recharge Time
3. Getting the Grid to handle all the cars.
4. How do we generate all that electricity to do so.
1. Range is increasing with every generation, and is already sufficient for 90% of daily needs.
2. Recharge time is also improving steadily, and is more a matter of infrastructure for convenience than time required. Recharge overnight at home, recharge during the day at the office, recharge while shopping, etc.
3 & 4. No clue - but I assume there are engineers working on solutions. Let them.
Range and Recharge time. is the biggest issue for me. I travel 30 miles to work and 30 miles back. That is 60 miles.
Charge at home overnight, charge at the office, you should have a mostly full charge when beginning either leg of your commute.
Most electric cars are pushing 100 miles, but that is the ideal range... what is the range going up a mountain?
Range will be effected by terrain -it is no matter your fuel source.
What if the batteries after 8 years are not optimal...
Batteries need to be replaced when they get old, oil needs to be changed, tires need to be replaced... its a fact: maintenance needs to be done.
Next my parents live 800 miles away. Say I have an electric car that can do 500 miles per run. I drive mostly there, however I need to recharge. Can I recharge in 5-10 minutes or will I need to spend the night charging my car. I do not have the money for a car to drive to work and a car to drive longer ranges. So we will still need chemical powered cars, until these issues are fixed. I am happy to see that they are getting a lot more fuel efficient.
The answer to these concerns is to rent a car for longer trips. I see Hertz has rental cars as low as $14 /day for some sort of econobox. I think my last multi-state driving vacation was about $150 for a week in a mercedes c240 (thanks to a free upgrade coupon).
That is a good sign, because electric cars are not going to solve all the problems.
Electric cars or hybrids do not have to be perfect. They need to be good enough for daily use - we use diesel rigs (18 wheelers) for hauling big loads, and dont say that because a honda civic cant haul the same load every day it isnt a viable commuter car. Different solutions for different problems.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
*lowercase bitching and crying*
Is that you unity100?
No, but I can make alcohol from sources that grow on my property...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Basically it indicates agreement. Something like "This (is the correct understanding)."
Direct injection gasoline will be news when you can go to a dealership and buy one. I may wait in line for that, unless of course they come out with Mr. Fusion first or a 500 mile range plugin. On an aside. I recently learned that while it is commonly thought that diesels have better efficiency due to some thermodynamic property, it has more to do with the lack of a throttle, ie anything but wide open throttle causes big losses. Diesels regulate engine speed with amount of fuel injected, no throttle related losses.
For me, an electric car has its problems, the short range and long recharge cycle makes it a non-choice for long distances. My parents live about 400 mls from my home, my brother about 600 mls -- a trip with an electric car would surely take more than one day. But as I have children, going by train or by airplane would cost much more than taking the car for us all, that they really aren't an alternative.
Word.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
The question is whether they will bother making a nice car that only has a 40 mile range. Currently I'd have to overpay for a Leaf, which still isn't as nice as my Camry. Then again, if a kw-h only adds $200 to the price of the car, then I might not care if it is a bit over-spec'd. The Leaf has a 24 kw-h battery - currently, the 100-mile range battery pack in the Leaf costs $18,000. Perhaps if they sold a 30-mile Leaf with a $12,000 discount I would have considered it :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yea. If I stand up i can see the blue sky and palm trees out the window over the next row of cubicles. It makes it really depressing to go back to work after lunch.
It can only help efficiency. In the short term, CAFE standards are going to require insanely high mileage out of cars pretty soon (60MPG fleet average IIRC) and this probably just made automotive engineers everywhere breathe a sigh of relief. I don't think electrics will have total dominance of new car sales until 5-10 years from now, and even then there will still be old ICE vehicles on the road.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Most modern households have multiple vehicles. One of them should be a plug in electric/hybrid for driving to work and running around town.
of course it's true you moron.
1200km/50l is easily done, just pick up ANY VW TDI, say from 2009 on.
even my piddly tdi jetta does this
everyone else I know is getting 1400km/50l or better.
as for 300km/50l there's a host of cars I had that did this, form the ford focus to the toyota prius, i've driven about a dozen different cars that get this mileage on a regular basis.
don't believe me, check out the VW sites where drivers are posting their own experiences and do 46mpg or better on a regular basis.
and then there's this from 2008 - http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/09/vws-prius-killi/
But the non-diesel VW doesn't get 300km/50l so why are you claiming that diesel gives 4 times better mileage? For around the same price as a VW TDI, you can get a Prius C and get over 1000km/50l
Except instead of transporting your electricity through wires and storing it in a battery, you now need to transport it in (new) pipelines and store it in pressurized containers, all of which it will leak out of because it passes through solids. Hooray!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
When you get kids and a wife, you'll probably (not certainly, but probably) wind up owning two cars. I have a Camry and a minivan - I would gladly trade the Camry in on an electric car if my payback period were not infinite. I'd still have the minivan for longer trips.
Indeed you can't beat the price of a car for trips when you have multiple passengers. Well, maybe the bus.... Last time I looked it was still only about $12 to take the bus from Philly to NYC, which is hard to beat.
As an aside, we have a fundamental problem with our nation's infrastructure when it costs less to drive my own car into a major city than it costs to take transit of some form. Even given the atrocious parking fees, tolls, wear-and-tear, and gas, it will be cheaper for me to make the 6-hour trip up to Boston with my family of four by car than by Amtrak. Amazing.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So you can make a product that can be used to fill up to 15% of your transportation needs (assuming you have a normal gasoline engine)? The gas companies are already maxing out safe alcohol content to keep their costs at a minimum. How much do you save brewing your own alcohol and mixing it with pure gasoline?
Oh, I don't know. That's not what it means in JavaScript.
Or have an EV range-extended by an ICE trailer. Although pretty soon "electric jerry cans" will be possible, once the energy density is high enough.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Really, it depends. If you live and work in a large city center and only need the car occasionally to run an errand or go on a weekend trip, but end up paying $300 a month to park in a garage in addition to an auto loan and insurance, then taxis, zip cars, and rentals may be far cheaper.
How much will it cost to purchase the electricity to recharge that battery pack? It is naive to assume that electricity to recharge cars will be cheaper than gasoline to power cars once the electricity is the primary fuel source.
Especially if construction of new power plants is artificially constrained. Besides the environmental argument, there's always a fair amount of NIMBYism -- "I want my electric car, but I don't want the power plant that runs it to be anywhere near where I live." While there's nothing inherently wrong with that sentiment (I wouldn't blame someone who likes beef yet doesn't like the smell of a cattle ranch), it is another upward force on price.
Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear. Why would you expect electric recharging to be any different?
"Supply and demand" and "what the market will bear" are precisely the same thing. Or do you mean that energy demand is partly inelastic? In that case, I agree with you.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Plus flying pollutes way more than driving, so I'm not gonna encourage anyone to go out of their way to fly.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hydrogen is the exact same story, actually. Somebody has to produce the hydrogen for your fuel cells, that takes energy.
I agree with that, however, solar and wind are quite capable of generating enough power to extract hydrogen from sea water instead of using fossil fuels to do it.
The midwest and rectangle states reject your proposal.
Oh, come now, don't be bitter that they ran out of both imagination AND organization by the time they got to your state. "Mreh, yeah, yeah, and this state'll be... um... half this coast. Kinda up to this sorta squiggly line inland here. Oh, wait, and it curves a bit down near the south. Yeah. Look, we've got enough states, can we just GO yet? I'm getting BORED!"
There was a story on Slashdot not long ago about a battery with gasoline-like energy density. Most people will charge at night so the infrastructure problems aren't so huge.
If anything diesel (which can be made from Natural Gas, coal dust, FT process, oil, etc) is the long term winner.
More fossil fuels, yay! What could possibly go wrong?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You couldn't be more wrong. Some times renting is cheaper. If I need a U-Haul to move across town one time, it is definitely cheaper to rent one for the day instead of buying a U-Haul truck. The same is true with cars. If I go on vacation somewhere for 2 weeks, it is much cheaper to rent a car than to buy one for the time I'm there.
If you need to have the vehicle everyday, than yes, buying is probably cheaper. For infrequent usage, renting may just be the better option.
http://www.rexresearch.com/vaux/vaux.htm
This engine uses a scotch yoke mechanism to take capture the energy of gasoline in an engine that is intentionally detonating. I toured Denner's lab back in the 90's.
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
but it isn't getting better mileage. It is easy to design to maximize horsepower. The difficult part is maximizing mpg while maintaining acceptable performance.
It's about an 8% increase in fuel economy, which is pretty good, but downright impressive with almost twice the power. It's pretty disingenuous to imply that all they did was crank out more power. It's also not really a reasonable comparison to say 26 MPG "sucks" compared to a subcompact economy car, because it's phenomenal for a 400+ HP sports car.
It's not naive at all, it's simple physics, which apparently you know absolutely nothing about.
Most of the energy in gasoline is used to create heat, which is simply wasted. There's no way gasoline engines can even come close to electric cars in efficiency, once the battery problem is solved. Of course, a lot of electricity is still created with thermal cycle technology like cars (coal, oil, natural gas-fired plants), but a lot isn't (nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar). However, the efficiency of any power plant is far, far more than any small gasoline engine can ever hope to be, due to economies of scale and the lack of need to operate at highly variable speeds.
I don't. For my job, I use a company owned car. To get to my job, I am using the bicycle. It's just 2 mls, and there is a path along the fields I can use. There is no point for me to own a second car. Thus I probably will not own an electric car for the time being.
Actually Diesel is denser than gasoline so a gallon of Diesel contains more hydrocarbon molecules and more available energy than a gallon of gasoline. I think that you will find that the tax is almost exactly the same per joule of energy.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Except instead of transporting your electricity through wires and storing it in a battery, you now need to transport it in (new) pipelines and store it in pressurized containers, all of which it will leak out of because it passes through solids. Hooray!
That would be true for cars running off of hydrogen as the primary fuel (just like propane powered vehicles). For a fuel cell powered vehicle, it could be as simple as driving to the refill station and swapping out the fuel cell for a new one, assuming it was self contained or swapping out a fuel tank for a new one (like they do with BBQ grills).
One major advantage of the gasoline engine is that the compression ratio can be reduced for starting so that less power is used by the stop start cycle. You can't do that with Diesels, so a much heavier starter motor is needed. The Prius uses the electric drive motor to start the gasoline engine, too, so that it does not need a conventional starter motor at all (unlike a stop/start Diesel).
It's clever optimisation rather than revolutionary technology.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If I only need a car 1 week per month, that's only about $125 per month, not counting gas. And I don't have to worry about miscellaneous repairs or insurance. Although I will admit that I do not know if the $125 price is only valid for people that have auto insurance that would cover any accidents that occur with the rental. That was something that crossed my mind after my first post as to why you would have ended up spending "several hundred" to rent a car for a week, while the price I saw was just $125. And yes, I had also selected 25 year old single male, which would further increase costs.
There's a little more to it than that. First is the initial cost; right now, they're not cheap. You can get a much nicer car on the used market for instance, and the cost savings will more than account for the fuel savings. Secondly, there's the cost of replacement batteries; the jury is still out on how long the batteries really last, and if you have to pay several thousand dollars for a new battery in 5 years, then that just wiped out all the money you saved in fuel savings.
The simple fact is that right now, the cost of fuel is actually a pretty small fraction of the total cost of owning and operating a car, unless you have some kind of serious gas-guzzler, or drive an extremely large number of miles per year. For people with normal cars and driving 20k miles/year or less, the fuel isn't that much of a cost compared to the car itself, insurance, and tires and other maintenance costs. If you're really trying to save money, EVs are a terrible choice; you're much better off buying a nice used car that's ~5 years old which has a good reputation for reliability. Your car cost will be much lower obviously, but also your insurance and registration costs will be much, much lower (this depends on state however). Some states really screw you if you buy a new car, with insanely high yearly registration costs or personal property tax; used vehicles have far lower taxes, the older the cheaper. Same goes for insurance; a 10+ year-old car with liability insurance will probably be dirt-cheap in insurance costs, whereas new cars require full coverage and cost a fortune, and of course that cost is based on the car's initial cost too (so a crappy $13k econobox will be much cheaper than a $35k Leaf or $40k Volt). Of course, older vehicles have maintenance costs to worry about (brand-new cars usually go 100k now with little maintenance other than oil changes), and a much stronger possibility of repairs (with unknown costs), so at some point the lines intersect and having a too-old car becomes more expensive. Being able to do some or all of your own work changes this factor, but you still have to factor the value of your time (and don't forget, paying someone else to fix your car still takes your time; you have to drive it there and back, you have to sit and wait for it to be done or get your spouse to drive you home and back the next day, you have to deal with the car not being available that time, etc.).
However, I have heard that, lately, the used car market is very hot because of the bad economy, peoples' poor credit, etc., so that may sway things to favor a new car if you don't have these problems.
The detonation is bad because of the rate of pressure rise, which causes shock loading which temporarily destroys oil films, causing rapid wear. The object is to design an engine with a controlled burn by careful design of the swirl, fuel stratification, and combustion chamber shape. I've had this argument on Slashdot before and someone always cites some Wikipedia article which says the spark plug causes an explosion but it should not; it should cause a controlled burn with a moderate rate of flame propagation so that the bulk of the pressure rise occurs as the combustion space starts to expand. Doing this well results in a long lived, quiet engine.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If you have kids and a wife, it's most likely you have multiple cars if you're a middle-class American. Lots of people have one more-efficient smaller car for commuting to their day job, and a second vehicle that either the wife drives or they use for longer trips with all the kids.
don't believe me, check out the VW sites where drivers are posting their own experiences and do 46mpg or better on a regular basis.
Indeed - just bought a 2012 Jetta TDI for my wife, as she has a 60-mile-each-way daily commute down the interstate:
Average mileage: 50mpg... and she can often fill up on diesel for less than what I pay for the same amount of gasoline if she goes to Sam's Club.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Hybrids are going to have an advantage in stop-and-go traffic, due to the regenerative braking and lower speeds.
The TDI is going to have an advantage in long distance driving, even with the same engine, as it doesn't have the weight of two power systems.
So, if you're going to be doing 90% of your traffic as highway traffic, and you time your trips to avoid congestion, the hybrid will *never* be as efficient as a lighter small engine car.
(I don't own a hybrid, but I was on the GW Solar Car Team, when it placed first in the 1996 World Solar-Car Rallye ... and yes, we were in the 'junior' class, but came out ahead of all vehicles in the higher classes)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
.....in a Beowulf cluster...
"Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear."
Isn't that the same?
The bus isn't a realistic choice for most Americans; I think your Philly-to-NYC thing is an anomaly unique to the northeast corridor, and isn't remotely like other less-dense parts of the country. Philly and NYC aren't even very far apart. For long trips, the bus is generally a terrible choice; the travel time is insanely long (i.e. overnight or even days), because the bus takes a long, winding route that stops at every podunk town they can find. They don't take highways. Secondly, they're not even cheap; it's only slightly more to fly coach. Why, you might ask, does anyone bother taking the bus then? Simple: because felons and people without valid ID aren't allowed to fly. So you're going to have some rather interesting seatmates if you take the bus.
Sure, buses work fine for things like going from Manhattan to the Newark airport, but NYC and the whole northeast corridor is really an exception in America. They even have a train system there which is usable, plus actual subways. Those kinds of things are either non-existent or infeasible outside the northeast, except in small parts of California.
Don't be ridiculous, we can just mine some hydrogen, like we do for oil! Oh wait...
I agree with everything you're saying, now. My suggestion applies only at ten years out. We'll have clarity on the battery reliability and replacement costs then, and the used market should be viable.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Lucky you! I used to live next to the company that I work at, so I walked into work. Then I got married and had kids. Now instead of "where's the closest apartment complex to work" I had to optimize based on school systems and distance to both my work and my wife's. I think we did pretty well - I have a 10-mile commute and she has a 5-mile commute... not quite splitting the difference distance wise, but time-wise my commute is actually better because about half of mine is highway. I can't bike without taking my life into my hands. Neither can she, since she drives through an absolutely horrible part of the city.
So for us, an electric car would be perfect, but they can take their time... at less than 5000 miles/year, that Camry will last a looooong time.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I think the real answer is that in a decade, 100 miles will be the low end of electric range, and the cars will have prices and features entirely competitive with gas powered sedans.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
You don't need to store the equivalent energy. Gas engines only extract a small fraction of the energy in that liquid and use it for propulsion; most of the energy is wasted in the form of heat. This new diesel-like engine may improve that, but only somewhat, and it'll never be over ~50% efficient. Electric motors are around 98% efficient, so virtually all the energy stored in your EV's battery can be used for propulsion.
Of course, there are some caveats. In cold climates, for instance, some of that waste heat produced by ICE engines is actually put to good use, keeping the passengers warm (or even preventing them from freezing to death in very cold climates where it's -40). EVs don't produce any appreciable waste heat, so they have to produce heat directly from electricity to keep passengers warm, which greatly reduces range since it takes a lot of power to produce heat. Of course, this isn't a concern if you live in southern California, for instance.
Errr..... They have won it in previous years with a Diesel powered car.
What you describe is market evolution and demand, not technical evolution or efficiency.
A Lamborghini Gallardo of 2007 with the same capacity as your Mustang (5.0L) had 625bhp.
A Lotus Esprit S4s from 1995 with a 2.2 liter engine, less than half the size of your 1998 Mustang, had 300bhp, almost 50% more than the Mustang.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
that produces more than 130BHP and had the possibility of 200BHP.
Very low emissions and great fuel economy.
Designed by Ford in the UK.
Some technologies are in hybrid cars are not exclusive to them. they were just implemented there more widely. These include continuous transmission, turning engine off during idle, electricity from braking, etc.
I realize submitters often can't resist editorializing, but come on, this isn't a replacement for hybrid technology. Indeed, this engine could be part of a hybrid system just as easily as any other. Yes, early hybrids present a mixed record of success and failure and there are plenty of detractors. Nevertheless, battery technology will improve and cost to manufacture will continue to come down. The technology is still in its infancy and a just battery breakthrough alone changes the picture in a big way. At the very least, hybrid technology is a great bridge to all-electric vehicles and the added range compared to an all-electric will long be of interest.
That is why I said buying is cheaper than rental on "virtually everything" which is the same as saying "almost everything". Not every situation.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Hyundai already ships what this article touts.
"The new fuel delivery system has allowed the engineering team to bump the compression ratio from 10.5:1 up to 11.3:1."
Look at the Sonata specs. Non-turbo 200HP with 2.4L engine and 35MPG.
Delphi is way behind the international competition.
Those kinds of things are either non-existent or infeasible outside the northeast, except in small parts of California.
Yeah, that was kind of my point... it seems insane that a privately-owned, privately-maintained car can be a lower-cost option. We really have a weird transportation system. It should be cheaper to maintain a set of train tracks than a highway. It should be cheaper to maintain a fleet of identical vehicles than for each individual to keep up their own.
One thing I didn't do is include the capital cost of my car in the calculation. That's roughly $0.27/mile if the car lasts 100,000 and has zero value at the end. So that adds $162 to my Philly-to-Boston round-trip. But even then, I'm still cheaper than Amtrak for 4 people.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No problem as long as you are mining the atmosphere of Jupiter. Transportation costs back to our planet might bit a little high though.
I agree.
These engines will have high pressures (diesel-like) so they must be build strong to withstand that. They will have more steel at critical points, and the moving parts will be more stress-tolerant ($$). So they will be heavier. And, like a diesel, you can expect half-a-million miles, unlike a gas engine, because of the robust construction. That will cause lower sales in the long run.
Apples to apples
Battery efficiency 95%
Power generation efficiency 50-70%
Electric transmission efficiency 80-98%
Assuming best case, net efficiency 0.98 * 0.95 * 0.7 * 0.98 or about 64% for an electric car.
That is why I said buying is cheaper than rental on "virtually everything" which is the same as saying "almost everything". Not every situation.
Communication lesson time!
No. It's cheaper to own then rent. Not just for cars but virtually everything.
"Virtually everything". Now what do you suppose "everything" could refer to? Things? Situations? Given that the sentence started out as "not just for cars", clearly you were using "everything" to refer to objects, not situations.
(I'll avoid pointing out the use of "then" instead of "than" since, as humorous as it is to think of how that changes what you said, I acknowledge that as a typo and know what you meant. Meanwhile, if you really did mean "situations" and not "objects", that part was not clear.)
Your example doesn't show any increase in efficiency. Instead, it shows an increase in horsepower versus cylinder volume. Which is irrelevant except if you're an engineer looking to minimize displacement volume in order to minimize some particular physical attributes.
What you describe is market evolution and demand, not technical evolution or efficiency. A Lamborghini Gallardo of 2007 with the same capacity as your Mustang (5.0L) had 625bhp. A Lotus Esprit S4s from 1995 with a 2.2 liter engine, less than half the size of your 1998 Mustang, had 300bhp, almost 50% more than the Mustang.
Apples to oranges much? I was taking a like for like example that I'm familiar with and showing an improvement over time. A mainstream muscle car that increased the efficiency with which it turns gasoline into horsepower ... mpg is less of a concern. A better comparison would be a Gallardo vs a Diablo from 10 years previous. Or a Honda Civic of today vs 10-15 years ago.
...
... but they still got more efficient at turning gasoline into something other than heat & noise. MPG > HP for a compact commuter car. HP > MPG for a muscle car. Not too hard to grasp is it?
Hell, I'll do it for you
1998 Honda Civic 1.6L had 106hp and got 25 / 32 mpg.
2011 Honda Civic 1.8L had 140hp and got 25 / 36 mpg.
So Honda went the route of increasing mpg vs increasing hp
...just wake me up when I can actually buy one
No. WV is the US state of West Virginia. Although I hadn't heard they were dabbling in government-owned automotive companies.
WV still has an auto industry even if it isn't government-owned like GM. Toyota makes motors there.
But superior battery technology has been one of the holy grails of engineering for over a hundred years. This isn't some minor technical problem that can easily be solved if Toyota or Mercedes decides to sink an extra billion or even five billion dollars into the right kind of research. If it was within reach, we would have electric cars with a 600 mile range and 10 minute charging time available at some price point, even if it was for a million dollars apiece.
That "long run" in which electric can't be beat may be a hundred years away or longer.
Let me formulate this another way. In 1998, Ford could probably already produce a 5.0L 400bhp engine, but there was no market for it from their point of view. Obviously, they have more power each year, because the market demands that. Most stock US cars have always been very inefficient compared to european or japan models because the market didn't need efficiency. Probably because gas is very cheap in the US (I just looked right now and the highest price in New York is 4.69$/gallon while in Europe it's 1.8eur/liter, which means converted, in Europe we are at about 8.7$/gallon).
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
If I had a space-time machine and I wanted to have another one, I would just go back in time and steal it from myself......There, now I got two.
You need to put nucler on the thermal-cycle side of power generation.
Not only is the heat wasted, you have to spend even more energy on getting rid of that heat because if the coolant gets too hot the engine will break. The irony...
Time flies when you don't know what you're doing
If you have a family, you can have two cars - one electric car for most driving, and another combustion engine vehicle for long trips.
Otherwise, if electric cars become a lot cheaper to buy and remain cheaper to fuel, you could consider using an electric car for your local driving and renting other cars for long trips. It certainly doesn't make sense now, but if the 2020 equivalent to the Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus Electric costs the inflation-adjusted equivalent to $25,000, it might make sense then.
I think the real hope might be improvements in the range-extended hybrid technology pioneered by the Chevy Volt and the Fisker Karma. The Volt gets an average 35 mile range electric, and then a relatively disappointing 35 miles per gallon on gasoline. But if GM improves that technology to the point that it reaches 60 miles purely electric and 40 or better miles per gallon on gasoline, it's probably the closest you can get to a perfect compromise.
In pavement management systems, the first four classifications (below) are ignored as insignificant.
from: http://www.eng.mu.edu/crovettj/courses/ceen4660/PMS-Notebook.pdf
module-page: 7-10
The HPMS includes thirteen vehicle classifications defined as follows:
1. Motorcycles (not required).
2. Passenger Cars (not required).
3. Other Two-Axle, Four-Tire Single-Unit Vehicles.
4. Buses.
5. Two-Axle, Six-Tire, Single-Unit Trucks.
6. Three-Axle Single-Unit Trucks.
7. Four or More Axle Single-Unit Trucks.
8. Four or Less Axle Single-Trailer Trucks.
9. Five-Axle Single-Trailer Trucks.
10. Six or More Axle Single-Trailer Trucks.
11. Five or Less Axle Multi-Trailer Trucks.
12. Six-Axle Multi-Trailer Trucks.
13. Seven or More Axle Multi-Trailer Trucks.
For the estimation of ESAL loadings, vehicle classifications 1 through 4 are generally
ignored because their contribution is very small in comparison to that of classes 5
through 13.
Actually, there have been a number of big improvements to batteries over the last decade, and commercialization of improvements have been very successful. Ever since mobile devices started needing more power in a smaller package, the amount of money pouring into battery research has skyrocketed, and the result has been success. The Leaf has about 100 miles range, and there is commercial technology out there at 3x the power density that just needs to scale up manufacturing (there seems little doubt it will be in widespread use in a decade). And there is all kinds of stuff in the labs at 10x the power density, it's pretty hard for me to imagine that none of them will prove to be scalable in two decades.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
We are just defining efficiency differently. You're saying mpg == efficiency. I'm saying amount of work that can be done using an given quantity of gasoline == efficiency. The muscle cars turn the more efficient burning of gasoline into more horsepower per gallon, mileage be (mostly) damned. Japanese and European cars had more emphasis on mpg, so as they got better at turning gasoline into work they focused less on hp and more on mpg.
The reason for the different approaches is/was due to market demand. Now as the market is demanding more mpg's in the states you'll notice that the domestic manufactures are putting out more mpg efficient vehicles. The 1L Ecoboost that's going into the EU Focus for example.
Mixing? Oh, no, my friend, you have it all wrong! I intend to replace gasoline with alcohol. See, the major issue with alcohol as a main fuel source is that its burn profile is more akin to diesel than gasoline - that is to say, to achieve the maximum efficiency of the burn, you have to significantly up the compression ratio.
That is what excites me about this new engine tech; with diesel like compression in a gasoline-oriented system, it's a trivial matter to convert the gas engine to run on alcohol and remove, or at least severely diminish, our dependence on petroleum-based fuels altogether!
Here's my vision for the future of automobiles: alcohol-electric hybrids, in which propulsion is provided solely by the electric motors, and the engine merely kicks on when needed to charge the batteries; we would be free from the shackles of the energy cartels... well, until they lobby (read: bribe) the government to criminalize the possession of distillation equipment for anyone but themselves...
To dream the impossible dream...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Cue the expensive HPFP replacements. Unless someone can/will produce/sell them cheap? I personally don't want another GDI motor.
Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear.
Those are the same thing.
This sig has exceed its monthly bandwidth allotment.
We really have a weird transportation system. It should be cheaper to maintain a set of train tracks than a highway. It should be cheaper to maintain a fleet of identical vehicles than for each individual to keep up their own.
Where do you live, New York City? You really don't make sense here.
Yes, train tracks probably don't cost that much to maintain. But how are you going to build train tracks to every single house and place of business in a large, spread-out city like LA? Same goes for shared-vehicle fleets like buses. Who wants to ride a bus that stops at every single house in a subdivision? It'd take forever to get anywhere. We actually have a free local bus system here in Tempe, Arizona, called "Orbit"; it rides past my house every 10 minutes. It of course doesn't stop at every house or drive down every street, it just takes one circuitous route through a bunch of developments on its way downtown, stopping only if there's people flagging it down. However, it's ridiculously slow. A 10-minute ride downtown in my car (because of all the stoplights) takes 30-40 minutes on that bus, and that's to get to a destination that's only about 4 miles away; I can get there faster on a bicycle. We also have larger longer-distance buses in this metro area, but you're looking at maybe 4 hours to get to the other side of town instead of 45 minutes that it'll take you in a car in rush-hour traffic on the freeway.
The simple fact is: public transportation doesn't work in the USA, outside of very dense cities like Manhattan. (It also helps that Manhattan is a long and narrow island, a geography that favors transportation that travels in a line rather than a grid.) There's simply too many destinations, and no efficient way of allowing people to travel from any one random point to any other random point, while sharing a ride with dozens of other people who all have entirely different start and end points. With cars, people have a vehicle they don't have to wait 30 minutes for the next one to arrive, and they can direct it to go straight to their destination, without meandering all around picking up lots of other people in a vain attempt to increase efficiency at the expense of time.
The only realistic solution to this is a Personal Rapid Transit system like SkyTran, where small, automated cars travel on inexpensive, suspended maglev rails. With one car per person (or two people if a couple is traveling together somewhere), it has the advantages of cars, along with the advantages of public transit (shared infrastructure, not having to maintain your own vehicle).
Of course small lightweight engines have a hard time competing with large heavy generators, efficiency-wise, but most of the problem come from driving the wheels directly from your powerplant. That difference could be a lot smaller with a hybrid (which, as we were discussing on another thread, needn't be internal combustion), perhaps close enough to balance transmission losses.
Long term, electric cars have the advantage that they can run on solar power, whitch is a pretty huge advantage, but we havent even really started the 20-year infrastructure shift needed to make that important.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You could also just gather it from the Sun. There might be some technical difficulties however.
Ah, good point, I'm surprised I made such a mistake.
I've thought for a while it would be really revolutionary if someone came up with a way of generating electricity directly from nuclear power, without the thermal cycle (heating steam and turning turbines with it) step in between. The thermal cycle causes a lot of problems, not only because of all the energy being wasted, but because you have to find a way of exhausting the waste heat. There've been problems with nuclear plants having to shut down because the rivers they were dumping heat into got too hot.
Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) gas engines have been discussed, designed, and tested for a long time. Direct injection HCCI is not a new idea either.
It is great that there's more progress being made, but let's not pretend Delphi invented the idea.
Compressed hydorgen gas is a terrible idea. Hydrogen "compressed" as metal hydrides is a different story: very dense, little leakage, and no explosion danger. There's some great technology there to use very small palladium-group spheres, encased in glass (glass balls below a certain size are incredibly srtong and durable) to create a "pumpable" fuel. Basically, a way to use the existing gasoline-transport infrastructure to move electric power (well, almost - you have to reclaim the empties, so that's a bit of a hurdle to refist existing cars). It's a neat idea and the government has the key patents.
Sadly, fashion matters more, and I doubt that idea would evey be fashionable.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Well, one neat thing about generating the hdrogen: it's (locally) more than 100% energy efficient if co-generated at a powerplant with waste steam (i.e., almost any powerplant), because you can reclaim some of water's immense heat of vaporization in the process. But hydrogen is just a way to store and transport electric power, nothing more.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I am not sure what "this" means.
For centuries people would have written "thus" for the same purpose, which now survives only to point out errors, rather than agreement [sic]. More recent fashion was "just so". Current fashion is "this", though it's a bit soon to see it that will last.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear.
Those are the same thing.
No it is not. Supply and demand means that as supply increases price decreases. With gasoline, price is set and doesn't changed based on consumer demand. Put differently, if there is a bumper crop of corn, corn prices go down. When prices go down, demand goes up and and equilibrium is found. With gas, prices are not tied directly to consumption and therefore normal supply and demand do not have a large impact on price or supply. Investor speculation is what drives the price of gasoline, which is a totally different model.
"Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear."
Isn't that the same?
No. Supply and demand has some kind of curve for both, and and equilibrium is reached between the two. Since the demand for gas is so inelastic, instead of an X supply and demand curve, it is closer to a sideways t. As such, gas companies can pretty much charge what they want. The reason they don't is because of public backlash (which translates into government oversight, which they don't want), not because of as prices go up, people buy less gas and prices drop. In reality, as the price of gas goes up, people buy less of everything else, but the overall demand for gas changes very little. Put differently, what the market will bear manifests doesn't mean it manifests itself by lower demand.
Did you put your reply in his quote?
but it isn't getting better mileage. It is easy to design to maximize horsepower. The difficult part is maximizing mpg while maintaining acceptable performance.
It's about an 8% increase in fuel economy, which is pretty good, but downright impressive with almost twice the power. It's pretty disingenuous to imply that all they did was crank out more power. It's also not really a reasonable comparison to say 26 MPG "sucks" compared to a subcompact economy car, because it's phenomenal for a 400+ HP sports car.
I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't impressive, but the trend to higher and higher horsepower does nothing to reduce one's dependance on oil. Cars in the 70s got better mileage than cars today. I'm not saying everybody should be driving air cooled VWs (although I do have one), but if a 1972 car that was designed in the 1930s can get 27mpg around town how come a modern car 40 years later can't do any better?
... the last person to invent the diesel engine got to play with the fishes on a dark and lonely night at sea.
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
I remember being flabbergasted when I first learned that the way nuclear power plants work is that we take what arguably the greatest technical innovation humanity has ever achieved and use it to boil water....
This sig has exceed its monthly bandwidth allotment.
... If electric cars were really widespread enough to cause a problem, there would also be enough of them to help do some load-levelling on the grid, if you have the infrastructure ...
That's the key, sadly it is unrealistic to expect that infrastructure. Grid connections at each parking space will reduce parking capacity. Capacity was already a problem at the last couple of places that I worked. Plus these electrical devices will need ongoing inspection and maintenance (exposed to weather, bumped by cars, etc). Not to mention ripping apart parking lots and parking structures to retrofit. With the possible exception of a few of subsidized/greenwashing/vanity spots next to the building there will be no place to plug in your car.
This.
"It is naive to assume that electricity to recharge cars will be cheaper than gasoline to power cars once the electricity is the primary fuel source."
Yes, they will color the car electricity a different color, so you can detect if cheap heating electricity is used, just like they do it with Diesel oil and heating oil.
Now go back to your basement, moron.
Actually, it doesn't seem like that much of a technical innovation to me. Computers, microprocessors, software, and solar power seem like much greater technical innovations to me. Basically, we've figured out that some particular rocks have very large atoms which emit neutron radiation, and it you refine those rocks and extract the heavy element from them and make it concentrated, then get enough of it together in a small enough volume, you create a runaway chain reaction, which creates lots of heat. The biggest technical innovations are how to refine the uranium sufficiently, and how to control the reaction using neutron absorbers so that you can use the heat to generate power instead it turning into a crappy bomb or a radioactive wasteland (or alternately, for the weapons designers, how to turn it into a highly effective bomb, or rather a small bomb that ignites a much larger bomb).
I think it'd be a much more impressive technical achievement if someone figured out how to turn nuclear radiation directly into electricity, somewhat like how we currently are able to turn photonic radiation directly into electricity.
Diesel engines are more expensive than gas. It pays off in the end, but most people are short-sighted and don't want to pay the upfront costs.
This engine uses direct injection--that is, it has a very high pressure fuel injection system that injects fuel into the cylinder right when the compression is highest. That CVCC engine uses a standard carb.
Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear.
What would you consider to be the difference between those two? Demand is currently basically equal to supply, so the price is set as high as it can be without people screaming bloody murder and switching to alternatives.
And you are delusional. When the power of the engine is anywhere close to the toprated level of 400bhp, the gas demand is staggering. The point is that at no point, those engines are more efficient in terms of hp actually developed. You are paying, in dollars and gallons of gas, for a lot of headroom that is never used. As this is a car debate, I guss one should use a software development analogy, and I give you... this... Sure, a lot of headroom in your design for any possible need is a nice thing, but it is hard to say that it is efficient.
Please stop with the FUD. Most people will charge their EV's overnight, when electricity demand is lowest (and so are the spot prices for electricity). That's hardly going to "stress" the grid. Also, as more people put solar panels on their roofs the load on the grid falls. See this article for the impact existing solar photovoltaic capacity has had on wholesale electricity prices in Germany to get an idea for what the solar panels mean to stress points (aka peak demand) on the grid.
There's another factor to consider as well, the growing efficiency of powered devices and of transmission technology. If you have been following the advances with graphene and carbon nanotubes at all you'd know we're on the threshold of a quantum leap on that score.
Will there be challenges with this conversion in our energy & transportation economies? Sure. But they pale next to the problems that fossil fuels are creating for us. So stop mindlessly (or purposely) spreading FUD about EV's.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
We've had semiconductor-microprocessor engine control technology for 105 years?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Uh, nuclear is thermal cycle...
The current car I drive has a 3.8 liter engine and makes 415 hp - that's about 3x the amount (I think it has the highest output per liter of any naturally aspirated car made so far). I bet you might get better gas mileage than me though...
I used to drive a VW turbo diesel about 20 years ago - worst mileage I ever got was 43 - best about 60. I think it took about 12 seconds to get to 60, and I think I sustained permanent hearing loss from it.
Uh, did you bother to read all the other comments before pointing that out? Another person pointed that out 4.5 hours before you, and I acknowledged the mistake.
Mass-transit cost calculations depend heavilly on the route, and sometimes on how far out you book. I was thinking about going Milwaukee->Vancouver sometime this fall. Amtrak is around $220 depending on the date (one-way). The fuel bill for my motorcycle (48mpg) would come out to perhaps $200 one way (I would take a lot of side roads and detours). Both would be an equally cool adventure. I consider the price to be a dead heat, and Amtrack probably comes out ahead since I would have to stay in hotels or buy camping gear. If only there was an inexpensive option to ship a motorcycle that kind of distance. Too bad the Autotrain is on the east coast only.
If you had 2 people in a 25mpg car, it is still about equal for the above trip. Once you start loading 3+ people into a car though, most mass transit in the world starts to look bad. Even in Japan where cars are crazy expensive ($40 tolls are not uncommon) and mass transit will take you wherever you want to go, there is a certain point where a car full of people is cheaper.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
If this enables vehicles to go 33% farther on a tank of fuel, Gasoline tax base will have to change to make up for the loses. Catch 22 for the State or more pot holes.
The simple fact is: public transportation doesn't work in the USA,
I submit that this is because we build roads and then watch development build up around the roads.
I live in a 70+ year old suburb that was built around train tracks. Most of the people who live here take the train into town.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That doesn't sound like a very good use of space. Think about it: trains travel in lines. If you restrict all your building to being near a line (even if it meanders a bit), that's not a very efficient use of space at all. It might be OK if you're constrained to a long, narrow valley and don't have much choice, but in any place that's flatter than that, it doesn't make any sense to constrain all your building to one line, and it also keeps your town from getting very large (because it'll take too long to get from one end to the other).
Plus, that might work OK for your suburb, and for the single use case of going to work and back, assuming "work" is in the middle of this hub-and-spoke model. What if you want to go somewhere else that's in an adjacent spoke? Now you have to take the train downtown, then get on another train going back out. How long is that going to take, when you could have just gone directly to your buddy's house on that adjacent spoke (or to the workplace at the new industrial park there, because the downtown got too crowded and new development was forced out)?
Trains are a perfectly good form of commuting transportation for a few extremely dense cities, and for the 1800s or early 1900s. We have the technology to do better now.
Well, yes, it is true that the demand for gas changes little with price -- that is called price inelasticity, as you say. But still, "supply and demand" is the same as "the market will bear".
Don't forget:
* avoid or get around the so-called "use based" billing common in places like California, which will only increase as modern electricity generation technology is avoided (nuke plants), green energy is embraced (inefficient), and fossil fuels become less green (more taxes on said production methods).
* contend with energy conversion inefficiency and the associated costs associated with charging a vehicle
Short of gas stations having micro-nuclear power and/or hydrogen generation facilities, I don't see these hurdles being beaten at any point soon. And
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
He's saying "This" as shorthand for "I agree with this" or "you can say that (this) again". It's pretty stupid and annoying, if you ask me.
What's you're really doing is using photosynthesis, a form of solar energy, to produce your fuel. Fun fact : most crops are between 1-2% efficient at converting sunlight to chemical energy. Then, you're going to lose at least half of that energy converting the crops to ethanol, then you'll lose 2/3 of the energy in the ethanol when you burn it for motive power.
Also, those crops need water and fertilizer, generally, costing you energy. If you use the good fertilizer, you won't even gain energy doing this.
Or you could use cheap Chinese made solar cells (less than $1 a watt) and use it to charge batteries. Commercial solar cells are 7-14% efficient, and the battery charging is around 80% efficient or better. When you drive the car on those batteries, another 80% or more of that power actually propels the car.
Do the math. The problem today are the high technology items needed to make all this work have high manufacturing costs (that are falling rapidly). However, in the long run, it seems pretty obvious where this is heading.
Not revolutionary - just problematic to achieve a working plant. Certain forms of fusion release almost exclusively beta particles, which are pure electrons.
Really? Which forms are those?
Who knows, maybe such a system could be used for powering vehicles (I'm thinking ships, not cars).
You do realize "what the market will bear" is pretty much the DEFINITION of supply and demand? The two terms are EQUIVALENT.
amount of work that can be done using an given quantity of gasoline == efficiency
True
The muscle cars turn the more efficient burning of gasoline into more horsepower per gallon
Wrong
I will stop arguing after this post.
US cars are generally less efficient as they pack much less power per liter capacity.
For example, the iconic Dodge Viper gets 600bhp for a 8.4 liter engine (and something like 14mpg) while the Bugatti Veyron SS packs 1182bhp for 8 liter engine. If you want near the power of the Viper without turbos, just take the Ferrari 458 which packs 562hp with only 4.5L and 17.7mpg. Mean mpg doesn't mean much as it's not calculated based on the engine running at full power.
But again, it's not the same market. In Europe most people generally do not want a very big overtaxed engine with poor efficiency. Also our roads are not as wide and straight as in the US, so we focus more on reasonable power with good handling.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/
Delphi's engine, using a technique called gasoline-direct-injection compression ignition, could rival the performance of hybrid automobiles at a cheaper cost.
I don't think so. The person who wrote this didn't foresee that the combustion part of the hybrid will be using the exact same technique.
...Boost Fuel Economy By 50%
Yes, if you read that gasoline engines have an efficiency of 30% and diesels of 40-45%, then 50% improvement for the gasoline means 50% of 30%, or 15% absolute, which brings it exact on the maximum diesel efficiency of 45%.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Anti-hybrid articles full of crocodile tears over the pollution from batteries and rare earth are just hand-waving drivel. Most transportation lifecycle analyses just take the weight of a car; the Prius weighs the same 1.5 tons as other midsize cars. So cue fact-free diatribes about dirty rare earth and nickel mining, complete with pictures of Sudbury from 40 years ago.
But here's where you need to apply common sense. The 100 pounds of recyclable NiMH batteries (including about 20 pounds of nickel) and ?? pounds of rare earth for magnets and electronics in a hybrid probably *do* involve more pollution pound-for-pound than all the other crap that goes into making a conventional car. But over 120,000 miles they result in 3 tons less gasoline getting burned compared with the 35 mpg TDI for which diesel fanbois have such a hard-on (here's the math). Every one of those 6,000 pounds of gasoline saved would have been dirty and polluting to produce, spill, and refine, and they all wound up in the atmosphere.
=S
There the RTG units in nuclear powered spacecraft (forgive me if it's the wrong acronym - long day), which are more or less just photon emitters + photovoltaics. They don't really scale up which is why the big stuff boils water. If you have vast amounts of steam you can keep on looping it through turbines until there is hardly any pressure left at all.
Nuclear is mostly attractive because a lot of coal inspired work was done on the turbine side over the last sixty years which has improved efficiency of every type of thermal generating unit. The turbines don't care if it's nuclear or solar (or solar pre-heated coal), especially anything that has actually been in a reactor should be in a closed loop and merely exchanges heat with the expensive treated water that goes through the turbines.
The hybrid is there to solve the problem of stop-start traffic in crowded cities. In that situation it was a clear winner years ago.
Not everyone does nothing but high speed highway driving (which is where hybrids still suck in comparison).
Dual mass flywheels, high pressure / common-rail injection, variable geometry turbochargers, all have had a catastrophic effect on diesel reliability. I have driven several old-school diesels to very high mileages but when it was time to change car most recently I bought a petrol car to convert to gas.. as I no longer trust modern diesel technology
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I am generally inclined to agree - that the best (in terms of technology, emissions, economics and energy security) route is probably internal-combustion+electric transmission/battery hybrid cars. We do though need to be careful about the feedstock of choice for the fuel production, as not everyone has the land and time to make their own.
Companies operating in free markets will pick the lowest costs of production and or highest value end markets above ethical considerations. This *could* lead to people in neighbouring states paying more for basic foodstuffs as it becomes more efficient to plant fuel than food crops. Or because crops are bought to use as feedstock for alcohol rather than food for people.
Personally I'm hoping for better bio-gas fuels. petrol/gasoline engines can run quite easily on gas as long as they have good enough injectors and hardened valve seats.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I live here since nearly 10 years now, my job has moved several times (I've changed companies), but I always used the bicycle to go to work. Distances were varying between 2 and 8 mls during that time, but the town is not much larger though... And yes, the place has its advantages. The daycare center is a 5 min walk, and the elementary school is in the same building. My oldest one is now in secondary school, but there is a bus line which goes there directly.
That doesn't sound like a very good use of space.
That's true, but who's out of space? Is it such a bad thing to have farmland and estates interspersed with mid and high-density residential?
Also, in this suburb, the line branches several times. So they aren't single spokes that radiate out from the city, but a series of branches. This covers much more area. The way this area developed is there are townhouses and rental complexes directly adjacent to the track (high-density). Each station is surrounded by a small "downtown" with a few restaurants, a dry cleaner, and other things like that. A block or so off, it becomes single-family residential. Once you pass a reasonable walking distance, there are more public areas: churches, cemeteries, parks, schools, libraries, etc. Finally you have larger estates and golf courses. Of course, in the last 50 years most of the estates and golf course type uses have become housing developments that are not convenient to the train, so they added parking to the train stations. They've also built big shopping centers on some of them, which killed off some of the little downtowns surrounding the stations. Nevertheless, it is still easy to see how development worked when it was rail-centric.
Plus, that might work OK for your suburb, and for the single use case of going to work and back, assuming "work" is in the middle of this hub-and-spoke model.
There's a feedback mechanism involved. "Work" would stay in the middle because there is no convenient way to travel around the spoke. There will obviously be jobs out on the spokes - people need groceries, dry cleaners, restaurants, etc. But industry would stay in the middle - which is much more efficient than having it all spread out anyway.
If you are hell-bent on providing a way to get from branch-to-branch, you can put in a "beltway" line - just like we do with highways.
We have the technology to do better now.
Highways with individual cars are horribly space-inefficient. You need 8x the lanes compared to tracks to carry the same number of passengers. And while trains certainly are subject to delay, they do not have something akin to a traffic jam. I hope you're not referring to highways and cars as "the technology to do better now"! :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Once you start loading 3+ people into a car though, most mass transit in the world starts to look bad.
This probably is as much a commentary on how poorly most mass transit is run as it is on the relative efficiency of the two methods of transit.
Also, they run the same big-ass train whether there are 1000 people on it or 3, which seems wasteful. I always wonder why they don't run regular city buses or even short busses (modified, of course) on the tracks during off-peak hours. Naturally, anything running on the track should be automated.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, yes, it is true that the demand for gas changes little with price -- that is called price inelasticity, as you say. But still, "supply and demand" is the same as "the market will bear".
But it is not the consumer market that is determining the pricing. Nor is it the manufacturers. Gas and oil is priced, today, by speculators, which has nothing to do with supply and demand. When Katrina hit the Gulf, it impacted less than 1% of the supply at the time and yet prices skyrocketed. Forces outside of the normal supply and demand model set the price. In 1974, 87% of oil futures were purchased by oil companies and 13% by investors. Today 80% is purchased by investors. Investors are outside of the supply and demand equation as they artificially control prices.
You do realize "what the market will bear" is pretty much the DEFINITION of supply and demand? The two terms are EQUIVALENT.
You do realize that supply and demand only deals with markets where the demand is set by the consumers of the product. Oil and gas prices are set outside the the parameters of supply and demand because they are set by speculators/investors. Then the "market" gets the price that is set outside their control, so regardless of their consumption, the price is unchanged. In 1974, 87% of oil futures were purchased by oil companies and 13% by investors. Today, investors purchase 80% of oil futures. Investors, who speculate on the market are the ones setting the price, not the manufacturer (oil company) or consumer. So supply and demand doesn't really apply.
Yeah, we picked a house on the same block as the day care and about half-a-mile from the elementary school, so we walk the kids to school each morning... but then it's a car ride after that!
We used to live in Manhattan, and there it is trivial to live without a car. But part of that was because I worked from home, day care was in the 2nd floor of our building, and my wife worked across the street :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
600 miles??? Most gas vehicles sold in the U.S. have a range of maybe 400 miles if you stretch every last drop. I've been buying gas about every 250 miles for more than thirty years, regardless if I was driving a Honda CVCC with a 600cc motorcycle engine bolted onto tiny car body or a Ford F150 half ton pickup. (Well, there was that F150 I had that had a 2nd tank, but that was an option bought by a farmer who later backed out of the purchase, not me.)
No, I'm referring to Personal Rapid Transit technology, like SkyTran. Why are we still thinking like it's 1850? We have the technology to make small, autonomous, fully-automated cars that can take us wherever we want, without having to wait for the next train, without having to switch trains several times (each time waiting and wasting time), and without having to sit next to drunks. Plus, the energy used by small cars is a small fraction of that used by a train (trains are rarely fully loaded with passengers).
Also, the bit you overlooked with your hub-and-spoke scheme is what happens when things grow beyond what the planners envisioned? Obviously, you've already run into that problem wherever you are, because they've broken the model and built big shopping centers. The whole thing breaks down.
I picked 600 miles as a range that covers even the fairly extreme end of the capabilities of gasoline/diesel powered cars. There are a small (but not meaningless) number of 600 mile range vehicles sold. And it also greatly increases the chance that there will be a fast-charge station within range along any major route through the country (for example, imagine trying to plan a cross country trip in an EV ... you have to plan ahead where you'll refuel (whereas in a gas car your plan can simply be: i'll look for the gas station signs while i'm on the road), even with a 600 mile range, but the 600 mile range is likely to make it possible (that is, there will probably be a fast charge station every 600 miles, pretty much anywhere you'd want to go).
But i'd certain agree that even 200 miles would satisfy maybe 90% of the 'just drive around town' market.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
let's go forward, not backward. call it delphi, call it gm, it's the kiss of death. remember the gm diesel?
GM has been working on this for years, with Delphi and others (Bosch comes to mind). It is a dual mode combustion system concept without a throttle plate on the intake side. At low loads, it runs a butt-load of cooled EGR as an inert gas in the cylinder fill and a small amount of combustion air and fuel. Because emission controls (cats) require stoichiometric fuel/air ratio, the use of EGR in the cylinder fill volume and a small amount of fresh air and fuel serves to keep compression pressures high enough for compression ignition but with a relatively low power output. At low loads, the small amount of fuel each cycle and the lack of pumping losses over a throttle plate are the main contributors to improved fuel consumption. At high power levels, it operates with much less EGR like a traditional GDI engine with typical power densities and emission levels. The trick has been to make smooth transitions from low to high power without stumbles.
Wake up and go with NATURAL GAS. Dirt cheap and lots of it!
The whole thing breaks down.
As opposed to the highway paradise that is every major city in America??? :)
They system didn't "break down", the highway was invented and the automobile became ubiquitous and necessary. They built 2-way track all the way out, and have since abandoned half of it on some of the branch lines because ridership dropped (or never materialized, I don't really know). The track could handle - with 1920s signalling - at least 15 trains per hour in each direction. I think we get about 3 in each direction, maybe 4 or 5 at rush hour - and we live on the main trunk. The trains are also much shorter than the stations were built for. Capacity is not currently a problem - and if it were, what is easier: finding the room for a single track in each direction or finding the room for 8 new lanes of highway in each direction?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Plus, the energy used by small cars is a small fraction of that used by a train (trains are rarely fully loaded with passengers).
Yeah, I think a hybrid system might be interesting. Handle rush hours with the usual packed trains, and then switch over to PRT vehicles off-peak. Modern trains don't need conductors or engineers, so there shouldn't be an issue with idle staff. Using the PRT for off-peak only would reduce the size of the fleet that you need to purchase and you might even get away with re-using the existing heavy or light-rail track.
I lived in NYC for a while and I was always amazed that they ran the same huge trains all night in the subway. You'd think they'd have a few smaller trains for the night shift.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course, a lot of electricity is still created with thermal cycle technology like ..., but a lot isn't (nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar).
Nuclear's often (always?) a thermal cycle too.
In my arrogant opinion, avoiding oil the key. Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus increasing the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol.
I agree with you, but you forgot something else: ethanol.
Ethanol is already produced cheaply and sustainably in Brazil, where it already competes with gasoline without subsidies. And it is getting better. From 1975 to 2004, Brazilian ethanol productivity went from 2024 to 5917 (in liters per hectare). And there's still new technology in the queue - cellulosic ethanol, algae-based ethanol (which promises to be revolutionary).
All of this makes the target even harder to hit for all-electric cars. They have to compete with combustion engines that gett ever more efficient, running on fuel that gets ever cheaper.
"For the rest of us, we need fuel-powered cars (including hybrids)."
Or fast-charging cars. Or simply more locations that provide charging. Stop for lunch, and charge your car while you eat.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
As has been pointed out, many families ALREADY have two vehicles, a commuter and a hauler. In many cases, one of those could easily be electric.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"I think my last multi-state driving vacation was about $150 for a week in a mercedes c240 (thanks to a free upgrade coupon)."
Really have to wonder why more people don't do this.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Ditto. People always act like it's an either/or situation. Put this engine into a next-generation plug-in Prius and get 150mpg...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Wake me when this thing is more than a one-lunger test mule.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
What about air-powered cars?
http://www.engineair.com.au/
Just seems, I dunno, simple.
The www.mpgleader.com fuel system is the silver bullet!
Investor Alert re: www.mpgleader.com fuel system!!
Much of the energy from an electric motor is lost to heat as well... same with motor switching... and then there is the power grid... where much of the energy is wasted in stepping up and stepping down voltage... and then there is storage, where a every known storage mechanism seems to loose some energy to heat. In even mass production of energy, there is usually huge amounts of wasted energy that escapes through heat (nuclear cooling towers?!).
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
The only language I've ever really hated is PHP.
We do though need to be careful about the feedstock of choice for the fuel production, as not everyone has the land and time to make their own.
Indeed - good thing ethanol can be produced from virtually any plant cellulose.
What do they do with cornstalks/non-edible parts of foodstock now? Leave it to biodegrade? Tsk tsk, so wasteful...
Companies operating in free markets will pick the lowest costs of production and or highest value end markets above ethical considerations. This *could* lead to people in neighbouring states paying more for basic foodstuffs as it becomes more efficient to plant fuel than food crops. Or because crops are bought to use as feedstock for alcohol rather than food for people.
That's more of a capitalism related issue, though, isn't it?
Let us not fall prey to the lowest-common-denominator habit of blaming the inanimate for the actions of people.
Personally I'm hoping for better bio-gas fuels. petrol/gasoline engines can run quite easily on gas as long as they have good enough injectors and hardened valve seats.
Fairly certain you meant 'alcohol' there, in which case it's less a matter of the quality of injectors and more about the size of the jets/time the injectors are left open, which can easily be adjusted on current vehicles via reprogramming the ECM.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
What's you're really doing is using photosynthesis, a form of solar energy, to produce your fuel. Fun fact : most crops are between 1-2% efficient at converting sunlight to chemical energy. Then, you're going to lose at least half of that energy converting the crops to ethanol, then you'll lose 2/3 of the energy in the ethanol when you burn it for motive power.
Also, those crops need water and fertilizer, generally, costing you energy. If you use the good fertilizer, you won't even gain energy doing this.
Or you could use cheap Chinese made solar cells (less than $1 a watt) and use it to charge batteries. Commercial solar cells are 7-14% efficient, and the battery charging is around 80% efficient or better. When you drive the car on those batteries, another 80% or more of that power actually propels the car.
Do the math. The problem today are the high technology items needed to make all this work have high manufacturing costs (that are falling rapidly). However, in the long run, it seems pretty obvious where this is heading.
While you are probably fairly accurate on the efficiency (too lazy to bother checking right now), one cannot just grow "cheap Chinese made solar cells" in one's back field.
Which was kind of my entire point.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yes, but you can't grow nearly everything else needed for you to survive in your back field, either.
The point is that in the long run, cheap solar cells will be produced that need very little in the way of resources to make (whether it be skilled labor, materials, or energy). The fact that China can make a profit (albeit yes with some cheating such as a deflated currency, and no OSHA standards) selling them this cheap means that the resources in them are already down to moderate levels.
Silicon is pretty darn common an element. The rare earths aren't, but some solar cells types need very little of those.
I agree with you, and I'm in that position myself. I use my 30 mpg VW for puttering around town and my 12 mpg Dodge for moving or pulling a friend's snowmobiles or sometimes when I just have a hankering for flouncy-bouncing about while grunting like a pig. The car could easily be electric; maybe someday the truck could be too.
The problem is, I still have no intention of switching my VW to an electric or hybrid until A) I can buy one used for about 6 grand (this is what I paid for my 2000 VW back in 2005) and/or B) the VW completely shits the bed on me and I'm forced to buy something.
I, and a lot of people like me, would prefer to drive their cars into the ground (I'm going on 12 years with the dodge, 6 with the VW, and expecting at least 6 more each), unless a switch can be done at reasonable cost - in both money and aggravation.
People need to keep in mind, also, that switching a gas car out for an electric one doesn't necessarily help the environment, anyway, if the old gasoline car is still on the road with a new owner inside. The only way a switch helps is if the old car goes into a crusher, at which point I lose my investment in it (less a couple hundred bucks for the scrap metal). I really can't stomach the idea of tossing my old cars into the waste-basket to feel better about my carbon footprint, at least until they're officially not worth fixing (value of vehicle is less than the lowest possible cost to fix). In my case, it's very likely a new owner will drive it MORE than me anyway, resulting in a net loss to the environment.
So, I think it's very important to improve gasoline efficiency on existing cars (for example, I'd happily refit my Dodge's exhaust, or maybe even engine, for a 10 mpg efficiency increase, as long as the refit is less than what the truck is worth), wherever possible. I also think it's important to make the upgrade path to an electric car as easy, efficient, and cost-effective as possible. Maybe by getting an immediate tax break (sales tax? registration fees?) on the new car when you trade in your old one for demolition, or something. What I do know is if the switch isn't made easy and financially sound, not very many people will want to do it until it's time to buy a new car anyway.
Yes, but you can't grow nearly everything else needed for you to survive in your back field, either.
Why not? People have for thousands of years, still do.
Of course, that's non sequitur - this particular discussion is about energy independence, let's stay on topic and leave the strawmen in the fields scaring crows.
The point is that in the long run, cheap solar cells will be produced that need very little in the way of resources to make (whether it be skilled labor, materials, or energy).
Self produced ethanol requires even less: Any hillbilly can build and operate a still, the materials are plentiful, abundant, and infinitely renewable, and the energy needed to distill alcohol is provided by the ancient method of burning wood to produce heat.
I do have to concede that the production of the copper materials used in distillation would likely have to be outsourced, but that is of minimal concern.
The fact that China can make a profit (albeit yes with some cheating such as a deflated currency, and no OSHA standards) selling them this cheap means that the resources in them are already down to moderate levels.
... ensuring future dependence on the economies of other nations. Not a positive point when discussing energy independence.
Silicon is pretty darn common an element. The rare earths aren't, but some solar cells types need very little of those.
Hey, man, you figure out how to make solar cells from natural and readily available materials, and I'll be your biggest supporter! Thermoelectric Effect devices (AKA Peltier cooler/heaters) also show promise for both power generation and efficient heating/cooling, might want to check out that technology as well.
Until then, I'm going to go the practical route and stick to my alcohol/electric hybrid idea.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
1. That's what I am saying. For the system as a whole, LESS resources are used if you do some skilled labor for someone and trade that labor for solar cells than if you were doing hard labor in your own backyard. Sure, people USED to do everything on their own lands, but the population has been too high for this to be possible for centuries now.
2. I'm saying that anyone BUT a hillbilly with no education or capital will get more usable energy, faster with solar cells than wasting time with ethanol.
3. The thermoelectric effect is useless for energy production of any noticeable quantity. Go take a few math and physics classes. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
You want a practical route? Buy a car or convert one to run on natural gas. There's tons and tons of it being pumped, for dirt cheap, and this will continue for decades until the easy to frack reservoirs are drained. One way or another all that methane is going to be used, you might as well burn it when it is cheap.
You want a practical route? Buy a car or convert one to run on natural gas.
How is that more practical than ethanol, especially considering the fact I can make my own ethanol in my back field? Unless you've developed some new method of capturing natural gas that doesn't require expensive rigs and highly toxic pollutants, that's probably one of the least practical ideas I've heard thus far.
I won't even go into how much more difficult it is to convert a vehicle to natural gas than ethanol.
There's tons and tons of it being pumped, for dirt cheap, and this will continue for decades until the easy to frack reservoirs are drained.
Do you even understand my premise? Did you actually read what I wrote, or did you stop reading the instant you saw the word "ethanol?"
I don't give two shits how cheaply gas can be pumped and transported; my point was and still is that I can make my own fuel for damn near free, without ever leaving my property.
This will be the third time I've had to restate my premise; how many times do I have to say it? one cannot just grow natural gas wells in one's back field: Which was kind of my entire point.
Now, please get it, or leave me alone.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
For the system as a whole, LESS resources are used if you do some skilled labor for someone and trade that labor for solar cells than if you were doing hard labor in your own backyard.
So, for example, you believe Jack Daniels uses less resources per bottle of whiskey than a moonshiner? Unless you have some figures that support your premise, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one.
Sure, people USED to do everything on their own lands, but the population has been too high for this to be possible for centuries now.
Not from the midwest, I take it? Or perhaps you are under the misconception that I actually care about anyone other than myself having access to cheap, renewable energy?
If the rest of the world wants to run their cars and equipment on petrol, or natural gas, or unicorn farts is of no consequence to me - while you and the rest of the globe continue hemorrhaging money hand over fist into the coffers of the energy cartels, I'll be laughing all the way to the still.
2. I'm saying that anyone BUT a hillbilly with no education or capital will get more usable energy, faster with solar cells than wasting time with ethanol.
Doesn't matter - point always was and still is renewable DIY energy production. Not that I take issue with solar power, mind you, but until someone comes up with a way to cheaply manufacture them at home, they are non sequitur to the point.
As for "wasting time with ethanol," that's obviously a subjective statement and thus, I don't really give a rat's ass what you think.
3. The thermoelectric effect is useless for energy production of any noticeable quantity. Go take a few math and physics classes. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
You know, that's exactly the kind of narcissistic, self-righteous statement that makes it difficult for me to continue being polite and not tell you to go fuck yourself.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I'm British - I think of Gasoline as 'petrol' and LPG / Liquid Petroleum Gas as 'Gas'. I accidentally used both sets of terms in one post trying to make it easier for american readers but not trying hard enough.
Not convinced alcohol is as easy a fuel to arrange.
Or Goldman Sachs, oil is priced based on the futures market, not supply and demand.
It means "I'm an idiot".
Driving a group of four is not only more cost-efficient, it is much more time-efficient than any mass transit option other than jet travel over long distances.
I don't see how this makes for a "fundamental problem" that Amtrak costs more than driving, unless you're suggesting we get rid of Amtrak.
Rentals and zip cars are only cheaper than ownership if they're available at the time of need without punitive overtime charges.
Otherwise, its cheaper to own the car even if it sits idle most of the time.
Zip, Flex, and all the silly car-sharing outfits all manage to make their cars turn into pumpkins long before midnight in my 'burb, and they expect you to reserve a specific block of time, with fines for late returns. Most of the inventory isn't close by, and much of it, like a DRM'd streaming title, has just disappeared. The inconsistency of product availability, especially when you NEED it, means you'll only need to be burned a couple of times before you learn the real difference between renting and owning.
You don't see why driving a group of a few hundred should be even more cost-efficient than driving a group of four?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
For me to take my family downtown by bus would cost $2.00 a person (or $2.75 if we took the express).
6 x $2.00 x 2 (there and back) = $24
If I drive I have gas and $5-$10 in parking. I'm not worrying about gas simply because its a 10 minute drive to get downtown or I can spend over almost two hours on a bus.
With four kids, who would choose the bus? TO be honest, I might if I had plenty of time, but you never know when something may happen you may need to get somewhere quick (with 4 kids it happens more often then not). My kids want to ride the bus, so we may ride it to the library or something this summer, but generally its just too inefficient.
Well, of course the cost of the bus includes the capital cost of the bus, maintenance of the bus, insurance, fuel, and the cost of the driver. Your car is not so cheap as simply $5-10 + gas. It probably costs you around $0.40-0.50 per mile.
But even then, it is cheaper than the bus - which is exactly my point... we have a serious problem with our transit system when it costs less to own and operate your own private vehicle than it does to ride something that can carry dozens or hundreds of people.
In some cities, like NYC, you can get rid of your car and replace day-to-day travel with public transit and "get somewhere quick" trips with taxis and zip cars. I know because I've done this :) Now that I'm back in Philly, I need to have two cars for a combination of reasons - but mostly because the public transit that serves my house is not easily accessed from the public transit that services my office or my wife's work. My wife would need to swap buses at a shady bus depot during odd hours or walk from one train over to the subway at a similarly shady location and I would need to change trains and then hop on a bus. So for my wife, a 15-minute trip would turn into over an hour, and for me a 20-minute trip would easily exceed an hour, if I were lucky and timed everything just right.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well with that negative attitude we wouldn't have won WWII either. Why are anti-electric types such negative ninnys? I guess they didn't feel that going to the moon thing helped us technologically.
I'd love to have a full electric car. Most of my trips are 30 miles or less round trip, and I can't stand changing oil, doing fluids, paying for mind numbingly expensive items like a fuel pump ($700) and a muffler ($200) when they wear out.
For longer trips there's always the "family car" like we used to have in the old days. We only used it once a week at most. I'm sure the insurance industry will allow special categories for cars with low usage.
to add a turbo to that thing? I mean going all out at 3 PSI, maybe a BOV too? I bet that extra 5-10 HP would feel monstrous!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Great post. Something by me on a related theme:
"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.