Students Build 2752 MPG Hypermiling Vehicle 233
MikeChino sends along this awe-inspiring excerpt: "Think claims of electric vehicles that get over 200 MPG are impressive? Try this on for size: a group of mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly have developed a vehicle that can get up to 2752.3 MPG — and it doesn't even use batteries. The Cal Poly Supermileage Team's wondercar, dubbed the Black Widow, has been under construction since 2005. The 96 pound car has three wheels, a drag coefficient of 0.12, a top speed of 30 MPH, and a modified 3 horsepower Honda 50cc four-stroke engine. It originally clocked in at 861 MPG and has been continuously tweaked to achieve the mileage we see today." It's not quite as street-worthy, though, as Volkswagen's 235 MPG One-Liter concept. Updated 20:01 GMT: The Cal Poly car's earlier incarnation achieved 861 MPG, not MPH; corrected above.
clocked in at 861 MPH (Score:2, Insightful)
Really?
Pfft.
Not even proofsniffed.
Re:clocked in at 861 MPH (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I could make a car that went 861 MPH and got 2k+ MPG if I dropped it out of a plane, too.
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it would probably just settle into a lower orbit.
If my understanding of orbital mechanics is correct, it would settle in a more excentric orbit, as long as the perigee isn't inside the earth's atmosphere, but it would swing right back to the point where you threw it.
To get it into a proper lower orbit you need to apply a force at least twice.
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You misunderstand, they started with the Thrust SSC and then stripped it back a bit. Their next project will use the SR-71 as a starting design on the same principle.
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Damn typos. And I was just about to order one too. The cops would have needed an F-16 on full afterburners to catch me!
861 MPH!!!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
It originally clocked in at 861 MPH and has been continuously tweaked to achieve the mileage we see today.
Not only eco-friendly, it leaves some fighter aircraft in the dust! How do they prevent the sonic boom?
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Reminds me of a hypermiling competition I read about a good while ago. The team that won totalled the competition... by cheating. ;) They built a wheeled plexiglass box (without a bottom), big enough for their car to be inside with extra room in all directions (esp. front and back). They then had a truck tow the box down the highway while they drove their car inside it at the same speed. No wind resistance! ;)
Re:861 MPH!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
quote from the rtfa: "It originally clocked in at 861 MPG and has been continuously tweaked to achieve the mileage we see today."
So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not that impressed. I mean, while the figure mentioned seems impressive, how is this 'research' helpful? I mean, we already have *known* for a very long time that if you made a super small, lightweight vehicle with excellent aerodynamics, very low top-speed, and very low torque/accelleration, you can get much more mileage than the typical car. But, nobody wants a vehicle like that. People want vehicles very much like what they already have. . . enough mass around them to provide protections in an accident, enough space and power to haul 4 - 8 people plus cargo/luggage, and decent speed and accelleration - I think most of us have had driving experiences where we really needed to accellerate *right now* in order to avoid getting run over by a truck or bus or whatever.
I honestly think these 'toy car' concepts, while they might be great learning exercises for engineering students, aren't very impressive. I'd be much more impressed by the 80-100 MPG 4-door sedan.
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Pushing the limits of engine efficiency is certainly productive research...
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I can see research like this being useful for autonomous individual-family cars that take the place of trains for cross country trips. You don't have to go that fast if you can continuously move and control traffic... Although faster than 30 mph would be good. Who knows if things like this will ever be built, though.
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I think most of us have had driving experiences where we really needed to accellerate *right now* in order to avoid getting run over by a truck or bus or whatever
Most of us don't pull out in front of a truck or bus in the first place.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it's a lot easier to pull out in front of a truck when you're sitting in a recumbent position with your eyes no more than two and a half feet off the road.
Which brings me to a pet peeve of mine: poorly thought out landscaping on street-corner properties. I know you think your ugly bush looks cool and all, and the tree next to it really hides the street sign you placed them around, but street signs are there for a reason, and blocking drivers' view of oncoming traffic is just plain mean. Stop doing it.
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Which brings me to a pet peeve of mine: poorly thought out landscaping on street-corner properties. I know you think your ugly bush looks cool and all, and the tree next to it really hides the street sign you placed them around, but street signs are there for a reason, and blocking drivers' view of oncoming traffic is just plain mean. Stop doing it.
I'll second that. I deal with that in several local parking lots. I don't know what these shopping centers are thinking - I guess they expect everyone will be driving SUVs.
Lately we've had snow piles that effectively do the same thing.
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You can go faster using pedal power (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it ironic that you can get a fairly standard HPV (http://www.recumbents.com/home/) that'll let you go faster than 30mph just using pedal power.
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You're missing the point though, Cal Poly isn't a research university. This isn't research, and these student's didn't do it for some research grant and probably won't publish a paper about it or anything. They did it for the hell of it.
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there's a few billion people who a) dont have cars and b) can't afford what i spend on gas.
my car, btw, an 88 volvo, gets up to 2800 mpg. Up to.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Current vehicles aren't anywhere near fully optimized, mass-wise or aerodynamics-wised. They're still largely built out of steel (composites can be as much as nearly an order of magnitude better in terms of passenger protection per unit mass -- plus, they can't pin you in). We *still* don't generally shroud the tires (and many cars have overly large wheel wells to boot). Most cars have a sharp kink between the windshield and the hood, as well as around the A-pillars. The hood is too long and the rear end too short. There's not *nearly* enough rear taper. We do all sorts of un-aerodynamic ridiculous grill styling, when most of the air for the engine of a modern car comes from underneath anyway. Most cars still don't have aero belly pans. Many include stupid things like fake (or even worse, real) spoilers. Most cars still use *way* overweight wiring harnesses, rather than an aircraft-style networked communication system. The rear wheels are spaced way too far apart (optimum is a single rear wheel). I could go on and on. Heck, only a small fraction of cars are even hybrids.
With current tech, we could make a reasonably affordable 5-person sedan that gets ~70mpg, four-person that gets ~90, three-person that gets ~110, two-person side-by-side that gets ~130, and two-person tandem that gets ~150+, with all of the normal car comfort and safety features. But it'd mean having to first redo our production infrastructure for composites and throw our conventions of what cars *should* look like out the window.
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By the time you federalize it so it can reach at least 65mph (80mph is a more realistic requirement), add in the wiring and lighting equipment, build up the body (or fairings) to hold head and tail lamps at the required height levels, not to mention make it crashworthy, you'll have easily increased the weight to well over 2000 lbs, unless you go all composite like the Consulier GTP (now the Mosler MT900) [wikipedia.org].
Mass (Score:2)
Mass doesn't protect you in an accident.
You're other points aside, it kinda does. Put a ping-pong ball on a pool table. Roll it briskly at the cue ball. What happens? Now do the reverse. Roll the cue ball at the ping pong ball. Now get a friend to help. Roll the two into each other. What happens? Imagine little people living in each ball. What kind of forces are the subject to?
One of the things keeping light weight vehicles from becoming popular are the heavy weight vehicles on the roads. (No, I'm not referring to professionally driven
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To further the debate, however, there are several key issues running counter to what you say.
1) There are *always* heavier things than you on the road. You think your Hummer is tough? Try running into a school bus [wordpress.com]. Of course, if you think your school bus is tough, try running into an embankment.
2) The results of an uneven-weight crash can be counter-intuitive. For example, picture 6,000lb SUV A running into 3,000lb Car B head-on, each going 30mph, in an inelastic collision (I.e., assuming that they fuse
96 pounds (Score:2)
Is the 96-pound figure without fuel? I wonder how much it weight fully loaded.
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Now if were to count humans, they unfortunately on average weight 180 pounds/person.
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Gas density is around 6 lbs/gallon, not 3.4 lbs/gallon.
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...Wow. That was a dumb question. Thanks for the answer, though.
not getting it here (Score:3, Interesting)
Think claims of electric vehicles that get over 200 MPG are impressive?
How about infinite miles per gallon? Electric cars don't consume gas.
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Electricity is generated using something. Depends where you are, but in England it is quite often generated using gas.
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Depends where you are, but in England it is quite often generated using gas.
That doesn't matter. The electric car still doesn't consume gasoline or diesel. It consumes electricity. So it doesn't make sense to discuss the car's performance in terms of gas mileage.
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Yeah, we'll get right on that. I'm currently working on a prototype which burns hippies. There are some kinks to work out (such as burning hippies requiring an initial dousing of burning oil), but I'm sure that'll all be worked out once we get the venture capital and hit the banks.
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Miles Per Gallon there is being used as a unit of energy consumption, not gas consumption. For an electric car it means "how much gasoline would you need to burn to produce this much energy?"
Why should I accept such a measure? MPG has the wrong units for miles per unit of energy consumption. It has obvious rival interpretations (such as the one I mentioned) that are a much better fit. Further, there appears to me to be no obvious standard energy content for gasoline (maybe the ISO has settled this) and energy content of gasoline depends on how you burn it and the environmental conditions (like external temperature) which can change the mix of combustion byproducts.
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What MPG (or L/100km as we have down here) does say though is something about *efficiency* at the same time as energy consumption, because we can quite easily relate the notion of gallons (or litres) to our wallet. We can then determine very easily the economic efficiency of our vehicle. This is what is more important to people than outright energy consumption, and this is the only way you can change their mind about consumption habits as well.
Oh and an electric vehicle still consumes resources, so making r
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They're factoring in CO2 emissions from average grid power. That means you mostly get MPG figures greater than 100. However, if you have solar or wind charging, then it is virtually infinite (you have to take in to account EROEI). You also have to take into account the energy cost of the batteries, and the issue of battery wear-out. If you charge from nuclear, you get a million MPG or more - of uranium fuel.
Last I checked, I didn't have to do this to calculate MPG. I merely figured out distance traveled, gallons of some sort of standardized gasoline consumed, and made the appropriate division.
hypermiling is useless.y v (Score:5, Interesting)
Hypermiling is interesting, but totally useless. It's not even that interesting from an engineering standpoint because it's the answer to a question that nobody has asked: "How do I get amazing mileage in a way that is completely and totally infeasible to actually implement?" Now, if they were doing aeronautic hypermiling, that would be interesting, because the vehicles in question need not interfere with other vehicles. But hypermiling techniques involve acceleration and coasting, and every vehicle would need its own road to take advantage of them without screwing up everyone else's mileage and decreasing everyone's safety. Even typical hybrid drivers create a road hazard by paying too much attention to their MPG readout; not due to their inattention to the road, but because they are slowing down excessively while going up hills, causing drivers behind them to have to leave their powerband and downshift to a less-efficient gear ratio to maintain it. Every time I see a Prius I pass it at the earliest opportunity so as not to be stuck behind it and have to suffer their inconsideration, often consuming additional fuel in the process. A hybrid might get better mileage, but as they are typically driven, they cause worse mileage; and they provably consume more energy over the course of their lifetime than a comparable vehicle with a small diesel engine and no batteries which gets the same or even superior mileage.
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It makes no sense to drive a prius like that. The whole point of having a hybrid is that you can regenerate the energy usually lost in braking and driving inefficiently by putting the energy back into the batteries. The hybrid helps with higher efficiency on hills by allowing a constant speed which running the engine at optimum power by adding the extra power needed with the electric motor so the engine can run at its most efficient more of the time. Yes, you can get higher efficiency by driving differen
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You're both correct. That's the problem. The drivers need to be taught - clearly some haven't been.
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http://www.aptera.com/ [aptera.com]
I'd snap one of these up in a shot, if they ever become available and affordable.
Delays, delays, delays!
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It's not really a marketing department issue. The marketing departments might be blocking them, but they're blocking them because they won't sell.
Cars which are incredibly aerodynamic are so at the expense of other more important factors. They are generally impractical because they don't have enough seating, the seating is uncomfortable, they have little to no storage space, and at least in the current road systems, they are ridiculously unsafe. Essentially you end up with a gasoline powered bicycle with al
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But, achieving higher average mileage doesn't raise the Prius driver's smug levels as much as peak mileage does. :)
Seriously though I hate that too. I've driven my Saab (it's a 2.0t, not an Aero) conservatively (read: not hypermiling, just keeping the boost gauge at the halfway point or lower) and achieved 43mpg driving from Cape Cod (Bourne) to Cambridge, which is about a 65 mile drive. I've achieved full tank averages of 36mpg, and I deal with quite a bit of city traffic. My typical full-tank average is a
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Troll!
There's plenty more to hypermiling than driving technique. Aerodynamics, weight reduction, use of lightweight oils, making sure tires aren't underinflated, and keeping the engined tuned and clean. Quite a few of those things increase safety as well as fuel economy.
You speak as if hypermiling is totally selfish. Some of the techniques are rude and dangerous-- drafting leaps to mind. But many driving techniques can save everyone gas. Coasting up to a red light definitely saves everyone gas, bot
Roundabouts (Score:2)
Because city planners in the US are clueless about where and how to use them. Additionally, drivers here can't wrap their heads around the concept. We have a few roundabouts where I live, and they're nightmarish. I really wish they'd left the stop signs there.
I'm only generally against roundabouts. I could come up with places and ways to use them, but I've yet to see a good, safe, efficient roundabout in actual use. Besides, I doubt most city planners know what a roundabout is. I can only imagine the
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Manual transmission really does bugger all for fuel efficiency compared to a well tuned automatic transmission. That's not to say that automatic transmissions are always efficient, they aren't, but that's a separate problem.
As for the speed limit, 55 MPH far far far to fast to be driving anywhere other than highways. Smaller roads just have too much going on them to be driving at that speed.
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Not buying it, manual wins MPG for fast acceleration. All the automatics with torque converters still lose 1/3 of energy during acceleration, only that no one is taught to shift sooner in a manual, and everyone accelerates so slow with too big of engine anyway as to not keep the engine in a efficient operating range (manual or auto). Accelerate hard in a manual, and use neutral more and it is guaranteed to get better economy than a equal conventional auto. add in that the auto trans weighs 2* as much, ta
They say others did better (Score:5, Informative)
Not to steal their thunder (and this mpg result is old news), but according to their own blog [blogspot.com], Universite Laval got 2757 mpg in that race. And Mater Dei High School hold the record with 2,843.4 mpg [materdeiwildcats.com].
Re:They say others did better (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, how about thisone? http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/18/transportation-tuesday-8923-miles-per-gallon/ [inhabitat.com]
Makes that CalPoly car look like the traditional US gas guzzler, not?
Prior art (Score:5, Funny)
2752 MPG ? (Score:2)
The gas would evaporate from the tank faster than that! I think someone needs to check their figures. Unit conversion FTW??
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Looks better than I thought. (Score:2)
You know. Most of those things look really, REALLY uncool. This one, with a bit of work, comes close to a batmobile. Not bad at all.
Of course, let’s see how it does as a 4-person+dog car going at 80 mph in a crash situation.
It’s always much easier do do all this at low speeds and loads.
My guess: 2752 mpg / 5 seats / (80 mph / 30 mph) = 206.4 mpg. ^^
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It's always easier to do at low speeds because F_drag = c*A*v^2 Cut the speed in half, and you cut the {work/mile} by three quarters. Of course, at some point you have to start cutting switchbacks and tunnels everywhere because your (properly sized for the desired speed) power plant can't climb moderate inclines, but you'd be really efficient!
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Drag increases with the square of speed, so your equation should be:
2752 mpg / 5 seats / (80 mph / 30 mph) * (80 mph / 30 mph) = 77.4 mpg
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I obviously need to get out more, but that low-angle front view looks like a woman reclining with her knees spread apart.
yeah but? (Score:2)
Can it haul my giant bass boat?
Bubba
Mail carriers (Score:2, Interesting)
Can this even hold 1 Gal of fuel? (Score:2)
But whats it get for (Score:2)
city driving?
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Run over?
scooter (Score:2)
3 horse power 50cc honda build with a top speed of about 30 MPH? That sounds like the engin they use on their scooters. I have 4 of them and they run for ever. Without any modifications or hypermileing they will get between 70 and 100 mpg.
Rather pointless (Score:4, Informative)
A consequence of this is that MPG exaggerates the benefit of highly fuel-efficient vehicles. 2752 MPG sounds like a lot. But switching from a 25 MPG vehicle to a 50 MPG vehicle saves you more gas than switching from a 50 MPG vehicle to a 2752 MPG vehicle. To cover a distance of 50 miles, the 25 MPG vehicle would consume 2 gallons. The 50 MPG vehicle would consume 1 gallon, for a savings of 1 gallon. The 2752 MPG vehicle would consume 0.018 gallons, for a savings of 0.982 gallons. This is less improvement than the switch from 25 MPG to 50 MPG. Because MPG is inverted, a 10 MPG improvement on a 25 MPG vehicle saves a lot more fuel than a 10 MPG improvement on a 2000 MPG vehicle.
Consequently, the most important thing for reducing overall fuel consumption is to get people out of gas guzzlers and into more fuel efficient vehicles. Stuff like hypermiling vehicles getting >2000 MPG are interesting from an engineering and design standpoint, but they serve little practical use. Even if you could develop a real car which got 2000 MPG, getting a single SUV driver to switch to a Prius would save 3.5x as much fuel as getting a single Prius driver to switch to this new ultra-high MPG vehicle.
This is why most of the rest of the world measures fuel efficiency in liters/100 km. It makes the amount of fuel your car will use for a typical drive pretty obvious, and makes it dirt simple to compare how much fuel you'll save switching to a different vehicle (just subtract the two numbers):
SUV = 16 liters/100 km
sedan = 9.4 liters/100 km
Prius = 4.7 liters/100 km
vehicle in article = 0.085 liters/100 km
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I am a bit confused by your argument. Your 'alternative' measure that you seem to think provides more information is the EXACT same measurement; it is simply the inverse of the ratio. You can simply put a 1 over your MPG if you would prefer to use gallons per mile. Also, your point about a 10 mpg improvement mattering more to a 25mpg vehicle than a 2000 mpg vehicle is merely pointing out that in RATIO measures (which both MPGs and your alternative 'liters per 100kms' are examples of) it is important to m
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The point is to use less fuel. The gallons per mile measure makes it clearer how much fuel will be saved for an average trip, or how much fuel will be saved by by getting the more efficient vehicle. The GP is obviously aware that the ratio is simply inverted but most people wouldn't recognize this.
A similar situation exists with sunblock cream, where effectiveness is currently advertised as sun protection factor, or SPF. This is just the inverse of the amount of UV the gets through the cream - so SPF 50
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I think you have the Prius figure a little off, all literature I've read, and accounts from people as well, put it fairly solidy in the 7L/100k range (in realistic terms). To put that into perspective, my 1992 carburettor powered honda civic gets about 7.5L/100k at its peak efficiency.
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Because the 30mpg car and the 40 mpg hybrid can't carry a ton of much home from the home improvement center, tow the boat to the lake, or haul your looser buddy's furniture from his ex's place to his new efficiency.
People who get upset about a single person in an SUV or Pickup commuting to work are ignoring the larger picture. That same vehicle may be used for towing or hauling in the evening or on the weekend. Getting a little less gas milage on the weekend is far cheaper than buying a second car (e.g. t
861 MPH! (Score:2)
I think I like the 861 MPH better... "If my calculations are correct, when this baby gets up to 861 MPH, you're going to see some serious stuff" ... CRASH! KABOOM!
UC Davis got 3313 mpg in 1992 (Score:4, Informative)
In 1992, UC Davis students working under Professor Andy Frank achieved 3313 mpg with its SideFX and Shamu. The school later developed some of the first hybrid car technology, among other things.
http://books.google.com/books?id=OeMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=uc+davis+side+fx&source=bl&ots=yNnL_bcwLY&sig=hhexAD2-JnRF_cp2YeJRXn20AVI&hl=en&ei=DVCAS-GrI4zgswOL7-SHBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CB8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=uc%20davis%20side%20fx&f=false [google.com]
I'd rather bicycle. (Score:4, Informative)
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This has a 3HP engine. Humans manage about 0.25HP on a bike, with the exceptions of world-class athletes, who can maybe double that. So...
* Stick this engine on a bike, and it'll accelerate 12X faster, and have 12X the top speed you could possibly manage.
* You're going to be spending a LO
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Somehow I think that after being stuffed in a tiny tube with no air conditioner you wouldn't be an awful lot better.
shell marathon (Score:2, Informative)
Can't slashdot be readable outside the little feud (Score:2, Insightful)
Using imperial units on the headline? Well, ok.
But NOT using it on the news? Oh fuck.
I still have not the faintest idea of what they've accomplished.
Shell Eco marathon (Score:2, Informative)
. http://www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/about/current_records/ [shell.com] [shell.com] http://www-static.shell.com/static/deu/downloads/aboutshell/media/news/shell_eco_marathon_press_kit_2009.pdf [shell.com] [shell.com]
a) The CalPoly is an IC Prototype (futuristic) entry; as some noted, the record is held by the Microjoule, St Joseph La Joliverie, 3,771km/l (8870mpg per wolfram Alpha) b) There are categories for Urban Course
Oh, wow. (Score:2)
Something I kept talking about years ago finally made it onto slashdot.
BUT YOU FOOLS ARE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG CAR.
Considering we've got THREE THOUSAND MPG a few years ago from another group - a bunch of HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS.
Try again, slashdot. Next time you rip off one of my leads, from YEARS AGO, at least focus on the prior cars that BEAT THE SHIT out of this current car.
bam (Score:2)
And then they sent it to NTSHA crash testing.
Services for the crash test dummies will be held Friday. It will be closed casket.
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the speed limit for the centre of Dublin, Ireland, is slower than that - 30KPH.
so the car may be slow for most people, but would be ideal for Dubliners.
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>>>Instead of something that putters around at 30mph and bores its driver to death
Well to each his own. My Honda Insight may be "boring" when I'm driving it only 55 (the Pres. Carter speed limit), but being able to drive to work and back on only $2.00 is a pretty good deal. (It averages over 90 MPG for me.) Even if I speed along at 80mph, it still gets a decent 60 MPG, so no complaints either way.
We need more cars like this, not less, and if I had the opportunity I'd buy this Caltech car (after
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I've long dreamed about a vehicle like this while walking to school. Well, except mine was hybrid pedal powered, but nonetheless, the form factor looks roughly the same as what I had envisioned. I became a mechanical engineer in order to work on stuff like this; however in the DC area the only jobs I've been able to snag were relatively boring defense programming drivel. Someday... when I move far away and can have a garage and setup a shop...
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At that point, these cars will essentially design themselves. They're so lightweight...I can imagine hundreds of different varieties will pop into existence.
These roads would be cheaper and easier to maintain, and require fewer traffic signals.
Now if someone would only come out with a decent version of SimCity, I could at least play with my fantasy.
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The problem is, "making it roadworthy" will ruin their numbers. Let's go into the gory details, shall we?
First off, take a look at those front wheels. Notice something? How about *a lack of ability to make relevant turns*? Note that it only holds one passenger, and that's being generous. Not even the slightest bit of comfort or safety features. It's rolling along on overinflated bicycle tires. And it gets its performance at speeds where aerodynamic drag is basically zero, with no stops and starts.
In
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>>>And guess who was president when it was repealed. I mean, not that these little trivialities really make a difference.
You're right. They don't. It doesn't matter to me who passed the 55mph speed limit, because that was not the point of my post. But since your brought-up politics:
- Rep or Dem, they both have demonstrated themselves intent upon increasing government, and decreasing individual liberty, while completely ignoring the People's Constitution as if it did not exist. The fact
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Next up, the Moyes Litespeed 4-S gets over 1 trillion miles per gallon.
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Average, meet Economy of Scale... (Score:2)
Your car that gets 2000MPG at 30MPH just became the new carbon offset target wet dream.
The numbers this car introduces skew everything everyone knew about efficiencies derivatives, which is little.
Imagine the dark twisty passages of the Excel spreadsheets forcing action in D.C. and the monkeywrench this could introduce. Hooray.
Not very useful for YOU, maybe (Score:2)
Useful for what? Not all of us have to "haul gear" or traverse "goat trails." Some of us just need to get from point A to point B on flat, paved city streets. I bet there are lots of folks out there right now who walk or ride bicycles instead of owning cars who would love this thing.