People who claim 'they could build a 400mpg Hybrid' amuse me.

Honda Insight is a penalty box Civic Si is a funster car.

 

Actually, we do. It's been many years, bu when I was in my
engineering classes we studied something like the "Carnot cycle". It
represents the ideal, lossfree cycle, and it represents the absolute
limit on how efficient we can make our designs.

So yes, we DO know what the limits are.

 

and that's what I don't understand about new cars - how come the mileage
they get is so poor from such small engines? If my 2001 Trans Am can be
rated at 19/28 and actually get that (I've recorded 34mpg on the
highway) with a big V8, then how come a Cobalt can't get 50?

Ray

 

That is the limit for an internal combustion engines. However, there are
other ways to improve efficency, like use a CVT, which lets the engine run
at a more efficent speed, shutting off some cylinders the engine (some cars
do this), channel all the power through a generator instead of through a
transmission (like diesel train locomotives) which also lets you use plug-in
electricity, so that you can generate electricity more efficently in the
middle of the night or use a fuel cell. With using these technologies, I bet
a car the size of a Ford Mondeo can get close to 100 mpg. But it will be
expensive.

Alternatives: Walk, take bus or subway, ride a bike, telecommute.

Jeff

 

The engine used in the Mondeo is a small turbo-diesel. It is probably geared
for effiency (I think it comes with a CVT or a manual transmission). Also,
its actual milage may be lower: It was measured using the British guideline
(as opposed to the EPA guidelines). When gas cost more, like it does in the
UK and just about everywhere else (I am talking out of pocket costs, not
including the cost of protecting the middle east), people are willing to put
up with less performance and will to pay a little more cash for efficency.

The '74 diesel Peugeot I 504 drove years ago got around 33 mpg. It also had
a small engine.\

Jeff

 

Maybe *your* old car.

I'm fairly disappointed that nothing in my driveway matches the mileage
I got from my old Scirocco... I'd regularly get close to 30 MPG while
flogging the living snot out of it. Sold it with 240K miles on the
clock simply because I "had too many cars" and have been wondering what
the hell I was thinking ever since.

That car was built 23 years ago. If I hadn't lost my mind and sold it,
I could get historic plates for it in two more years

nate

 

Sort of, but it is not a meaningless fact. The electricity for the
plug-in may be generated without burning fossil fuel. (This is not
hypothetical, my computer is running on nuclear right now.) And the
cost is cheaper than gas when you factor in the efficiency of the
electric drive system. If your goals are some combination of
conserving resources, reducing pollution/CO2 and reducing dependence
on foreign oil, then the 400mpg figure might be valid for at least
some, perhaps many drivers. The real point is that such a vehicle
could have the best benefits of gas and electric.

 

I'll bet the university engineers could do it with a 200 lb. 2 ft. high
car.
In fact they've gone way beyond that without hybrid technology, which
does nothing for steady highway driving.

 

Please ignore Anim8r. He's an internet stalker who follows me from
forum-to-forum, trying to harass me & generally raise havoc. He is
not a well man.

Actually, it's quite sad. I feel sorry for him. I hope he seeks
professional help.

troy

 

Well yeah. VW built a Lupo that could get 90mpg on the highway.
That's possible. But if you look at the subject, we were discussing a
civic getting *4* times that amount. That's impossible. It would
require extracting more energy than a gallon of gasoline (or a
battery) can hold.

BTW, the Lupo 3L operates at 51% peak efficiency.

So even if you doubled it to 100% (impossible).

You'd still only get 180 mpg on the highway..... nowhere near the
target goal of 400.

 

Hello Gordon,

I'm sorry but that's still irrelevant. The topic was achieving an
energy (key word) efficiency of 400 mpg, regardless if you use
gasoline, or electric, or solar for your source.

In your message, you said nuclear. Well, you input X amount of
nuclear kilowatts per day into your car. Now convert the kilowatts to
the equivalent gasoline value (gallons). Does your nuclear-powered EV
exceed 400 miles per gallon-equivalent? No. It doesn't even come
close to the goal. (Most EVs average only 60-70 mpg.)

Also:

It's worth nothing that solar & nuclear sources DO require fossil
fuels. It requires burning fossil fuels to (1) dig the materials out
of the ground and (2) build the panel or the plant. Everything we do
has an impact on the environment. That's why ACEEE.org rated the EV1
as no cleaner than a Prius or Civic Hybrid. (The cleanest cars, by a
wide margin, are the natural-gas civic and the Insight.)

 

Two answers:
(1) It can. Honda used to make a Civic HX that got 44 mpg. Later,
that was replaced with a Civic Hybrid which gets 51mpg on the highway
(gasoline mode). ------- The problem is that these cars sell
poorly. The HX only sold a few thousand, and ditto the Hybrid,
because Americans don't like seeing the "80hp" stamped on the label.
Americans want more power.

And thus, to boost sales, the Chevy Cobalt's power is boosted over
100hp (more than is actually needed), and the MPG drops to the 30s.

(2)

Highway MPG is more about the "smooothness" of the car, not the
weight. In theory, you could have a large sedan vs. a small compact,
and both have identical Air resistance. As a result, there'd be
little difference in their respective Highway MPG ratings.

 

I doubt a university has the billion-dollar resources that Volkswagen
has. If VW, despite their best efforts, could not exceed 250mpg, it's
doubtful some grad students in jeans & tshirts w/ no money could do
any better.

I mean, look at the VW specs (quoting from memory):
-1 seat.
-3 feet high
-2 feet wide
-only 8 horsepower engine
-made of magnesium & aluminum, the lightest metals they could find

How on earth can you improve upon that design? It's already as small,
lightweight, and low-powered as a car can get.

 

Hell, you could fit at least grad students inside that thing. We put twenty
in a VW bug when I was one. That's the advantage of grad students over
multi-billion-dollar car companies: they are willing to do patently unsafe
things.

When the driver is a substantial part of the vehicle gross weight,
reducing the driver's weight through dieting can be a major factor
in improving mileage.
--scott

 

If you were willing to only do the following first.
1. Do the posted speed limits
2. Never exceed 45-50 mph
3. Gently accelerate [no jack-rabbit starts]
4. Only use Premium Gasoline.
5. Get a tune up and oil change every 5K miles.
6. Never drive with the windows open.
7. Take all routes that are shorter in distance, not time.
8. Never drive during windy/rainy conditions.
9. Limit yourself to a 4 cylinder engine.
10. Only drive passenger cars [no trucks/suvs]

Now, at this point someone could work on a 100 mpg car. In fact, their
was a college team once who had a car get 80+mph on a dynometer<sp?>
which isn't the same but the concept is close.

The idea of what we now know as the Internet is something we take for
granted. Imagine telling someone the idea in say 1970? Would they
laugh and EXPLAIN to you how that can't work work, get ready,
because.....

Multi-National Multi-Billion companies working together could create a
100mpg car, probably 200mpg car, if it was one of their goals.

Most companies would rather work to make huge obscene profits with
quick and dirty plans. The long term stuff isn't something they need
or want to do.

If we could place a $5 per gallon federal tax on diesel and gasoline
it would kick businesses in the ass to increase gas milage. They would
do it and everyone would forget about those "oh, lol, that's
impossible" days of 2007.

I personally would rather see nuclear powered cars. No need to do tune
ups or refuel the car. You could drive like NASCAR and the cars could
be made very sturdy. No need to worry about the weight of the car
since you have a power plant on board capable of many thousands
horsepower.

Submarines for example can stay underwater as long as they want BUT
they have to resurface for things like food, not fuel.

100mpg, you bet your ass it could be done.

If we can't build 100mpg cars then people might want to forget these
pie high dreams of solving global warming. People accept that we might
find a cure to aids or cancer but a 100mpg car is just crazy. Yeah,
ok.

 

Well, that's not specified in the original post. More to the point,
that is not what anyone is claiming. (At least not anyone who knows
what they are talking about - the builders/modifiers of these vehicles
for instance. If the press is reporting otherwise, it is probably due
to reporters who don't know a kilowatt-hour from a diode.)

Of course not. Anything resembling a modern road car is never going
to have energy efficiency equivalent to 400 mpg of gasoline. But
again, no knowledgeable person is claiming that.

I am a little puzzled by how an all-electric car would not be cleaner
than a hybrid. I suspect there are some assumptions about the source
of energy for the power station. Many run on coal so this may not be
cleaner. As for nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, etc. the assumptions
could vary radically. How do you rate nuclear waste, for example?
Properly contained it has zero effect on the environment. If it
leaks, it could be a disaster. However, I would guess that the fossil
fuel needed to get it into the reactor is negligible.

You are correct that there will never be a zero-impact car. Even an
electric running on solar power is probably worse overall than an
electric commuter train.

 

Doing the following still puts far more CO2 in the air than doing all of the
following:

Wrong. High-octane gasoline doesn't provide any more energy than regular
gasoline. The mileage is virtually identical. However, it takes more engergy
to refine high-gasoline than regular gasoline (which is why it is more
expensive). If by premium, you mean name-brand, well name-brand gasoline is
virutally identical to no-name gasoline.

So you actually use less energy when you use regular octane fuel.

Wrong, again. In modern engines, there is nothing to tune up. You can change
the spark-plugs that often, but it wouldn't much difference.

Keep tires inflated to their proper inflation.

Except there is no wind resistance.

Actually, someone did have the idea then. The first connections that made
the APRAnet, for-runner of the internet, was made in 1969, not long after
men were on the moon.

yet it would not be practical.

Quick and dirty profits? It takes a lot of time and money to get a new car
design out to the market. At least millions of dollars and 18 months.

Actually, it wouldn't. It would spur people and businesses to buy cars and
trucks that are more fuel efficent.

Yet, right. There would be a major issue with radiation poisoning as well as
terrorist issues, to say the least.

Yet, we would still need to maintain the electric motors.

That's just what we need: Cars that go real fast so grandma's and teenagers
can get into crashes that release lots of radaition. Good idea.

They also need to replace the fuel every few years.

Not crazy. Just impractible.

Jeff

 

Gordon, allow me to introduce you to Troy Heagy, performance troll and
the self styled "most annoying man on usenet"

Troy posts under at least half a dozen names (see below) and his game is
to create a thread that might otherwise be interesting, and introduce a
deliberate mistake into it, and watch it fall apart with people arguing
about his mistake instead the actual topic.

He's been busted in rec.arts.tv so many times that he's expanding his
net to other groups, like mostly sci-fi like Farscape, and autmobile
ones like these. But he sets the cross posts to rec.arts.tv to show
that he's still managing to annoy us here.

He'll now scream that we're haters, and are stalking him, etc., etc.,
etc., and probably threaten legal action, yadda yadda yadda.

Oh, and he sends death threats to people that expose him like this, and
then will claim they've been sending HIM death threats, and writing his
boss and trying to get him fired, blah blah blah.

Killfile Troy Heagy in all (s)he-its many incarnations now:
,
,,
**DON'T FORGET THE NEWEST ONE>>>

 

The uranium must be mined using conventional equipment and processed into
a form acceptable for use in the reactor.

 

And don't forget the several tons of lead shielding needed to prevent
radiation poisioning. This may impact the efficiency of the vehicle, not to
mention add more than a few dollars to the price of the vehicle.

Jeff