Meet the Virginia-Built 110MPG X-Prize Car 370
tcd004 writes "Instead of using Detroit engineers or Silicon Valley bitheads, Virginia-based Edison2 relied on retired Formula 1 and Nascar engineers to build its entry for the X-prize. Relying on composite materials and titanium, the team assembled an ultra-lightweight car that provides all the comforts of a standard 4-passenger vehicle, but gets more than 100 mpg. The custom engineering goes all the way down to the car's lug nuts, which weigh less than 11 grams each. Amazingly, they expect a production version of the car should cost less than $20,000." Earlier today, in a Washington, DC ceremony, Edison2 received $5 million as the X-prize winner. Writes the AP (via Google) "Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each: Mooresville, N.C.-based Li-Ion Motors Corp., which made the Wave2, a two-seat electric car that gets 187 miles on a charge, and X-Tracer Team of Winterthur, Switzerland, whose motorcycle-like electric mini-car, the E-Tracer 7009, gets 205 miles on a charge. Both of those companies are taking orders for their cars."
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
"Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each"
What does that mean? Does it mean they get $2.5 million each or is it split between them?
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Reading the Wired article, linked below, the total prize was $10 mil. Edison2 got $5 mil, the other two got $2.5 mil each.
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Considering the other team made a car that got 187mpg (and it looks like a real car, to boot), I hope it's for each.
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It's grammatical nonsense.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who read that and went "huh?".
Better story at Wired (Score:5, Informative)
The story at Wired [wired.com] has pictures.
Why (Score:2)
For the love of God make one of these cars look like a damn car.
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Physics is not a slave to style.
The problem with cars is we expect them to look a certain way. This shows we could make more efficient vehicles with a radical new design.
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Why the in hell does it look like that? For the love of God make one of these cars look like a damn car.
I bet a lot of people said the same thing when they stopped putting fins on cars.
Personally, I think it looks pretty neat and would love to take one for a spin.
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I believe you mean designed like a car should be. A car in pretty much any non-teardrop or boxfish shape is putting form over function.
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it looks like a car, i see 4 wheels, and a steering wheel... what more do you want?
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You want an iCar this model instead has function over form.
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Why did the Model T Ford look like that?
For the love of God make one of these horseless carriages look like a damn horseless carriage.
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VW has been doing some interesting stuff with high-milers
http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1035176_preview-170-mpg-volkswagen-l1-concept
Official Edison2 website (Score:5, Informative)
Cognitive dissonance (Score:3, Insightful)
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The car's only 830 pounds, so they don't really need much of either.
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So use lots of flat pieces and bolt it together. Not saying they did that just a possible alternative.
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why weld? just form/machine the parts and then bolt together, see "billet aluminium car" by kirkham motor sports.
Because those processes cost too much (Score:5, Informative)
why weld? just form/machine the parts and then bolt together, see "billet aluminium car" by kirkham motor sports.
Machining is the most expensive way to produce a metal part. You start with a block of metal and grind away everything that isn't the part. It's very wasteful, in terms of energy, even if you recycle the waste metal chips. The cheapest methods are stamping or casting. Guess how most metal car parts are made?
Robotic welding is cheap, repeatable and produces strong assemblies. Bolting tends to be labor intensive, and adds more weight (bolts weigh more than welds).
It's not like the existing car companies haven't analyzed these alternatives more than a few times over the last 100 or so years.
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Let me rephrase that for you:
OH brilliant! So part of the fuel economy system is relying on the wind not pushing it!
I'm not even close to an expert, but I think that is what aerodynamics is all about, or at least cars designed with aerodynamics in mind is about.
Re:Cognitive dissonance (Score:4, Informative)
It looks like they opted for non-scarce materials according to the official site: [edison2.com]
The Very Light Car is a more sustainable vehicle. Not just efficient to drive, but cradle-to-grave environmentally responsible. Less mass means fewer material inputs. Energy intensive materials and hazardous or scarce materials are largely avoided in favor of conventional materials, such as aluminum and steel, that are readily available, easily made in volume, and completely recyclable.
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Depends on what composite material. Plywood is a composite material.
Though being serious, this isn't a large vehicle. It seats 2. That's the reason why they think they can make it that cheap.
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it seats 4, if you RTFA. but yes, it isn't very large.
Does it include a unicorn? (Score:2)
Add to it the 800lbs GVW and if the thing gets hit by another vehicle in the 2000lbs range it will certainly fly off the road. Good start, just not very believable in the statements made.
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Can it meet safety standards? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it have air bags, side-impact beams, crumple zones, etc? It seems like an impressive bit of engineering, but it will never make it to production in the US unless it meets all the government crash and safety standards.
Safety standards are one of the main reasons a 2010 Honda Civic gets nearly the same mileage in practice as a 1990 Civic. Although the more modern car has made strides in improving drive train efficiency, it weighs over 600 lbs more resulting in nearly the same fuel efficiency. Things like side-impact beams, air bags, and ABS make cars safer, but they also make them a lot heavier.
Re:Can it meet safety standards? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does a motorcycle have air bags, side-impact beams, crumple zones...?
Maybe we need a new class of driver's licence.
Low Speed Vehicle (Score:5, Informative)
The NEV article states the safety requirements:
In addition, some states have increased the MPH limit (owner can easily mod this) to 35MPH, allowing them to travel on 45MPH roads in the slow lane:
All of this adds up to a vehicle that is good for local commuting (if allowed on the 45MPH "expressways") and grocery grabbing, with minimal safety requirements and if it's non-emissions, also benefit from tax incentives.
I'm definitely keeping my eye on this, it'd be great for those days when I don't want to ride the bike to work (i.e., have to pick up the kid). The Edison2 car would fit nicely here (though it wouldn't get tax credits).
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Nah, insurance rates will just be through the roof on this thing.
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Not trolling, serious question.
Are you saying that only the latest and greatest safety features be present in all vehicles that exist on roads inside countries with universal healthcare? And that anything that doesn't meet the best standards should be fatal in all forms of accidents?
Because, I'm not sure you're going to be successful telling everyone to buy a _new_ car every 2 to 5 years to have the best standards of safety. I mean, the old ones wouldn't be as safe generally and comparatively speaking. U
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FAIL!
Those European Lotus Elises are pretty much all driven in nations with universal health-care.
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The 2010 also produces 140 horsepower vs 108 for the 1990 model. Let's not bullshit ourselves fuel economy comes way after power and safety in modern car design.
Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth is that weight mainly affects acceleration, outside towns, while aerodynamics affects fuel consumption rather more. That's why the latest hybrids have such interesting shapes, especially around the rear end where the airflow detaches from the body.
As a real world, example, the Econetic Ford Fiesta is now available in the US, meeting full US specs. It produces 120BHP, more than European versions, but the NYT review mocks it for its low power and suggests it is slower than a rowing boat. That's nonsense, but it's the sort of thing rednecks like to believe. It does about 40MPUSG. It would have been hard to achieve that in a 1990 Fiesta, which would typically get around 28-33MPUSG. Yet it is much safer and much faster.
To be blunt, the real problem for economy cars in the US is the US mindset, which so often sees mere size as better than quality engineering. The mindset won't change until gasoline reaches about $5 per USG, and given the number of AGW-deniers among the current crop of Republican candidates, and Koch funding of the Tea Party, it's more likely someone will get invaded for their oil first.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, but my point isn't anti-US. It's complaining that the US has many of the world's best engineers who could fix all the problems of peak oil and overconsumption - but their own countrymen won't let them.
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Re:Can it meet safety standards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Safety standards are one of the main reasons a 2010 Honda Civic gets nearly the same mileage in practice as a 1990 Civic. Although the more modern car has made strides in improving drive train efficiency, it weighs over 600 lbs more resulting in nearly the same fuel efficiency. Things like side-impact beams, air bags, and ABS make cars safer, but they also make them a lot heavier.
Well, no. Yes, airbags and side-impact beams do add weight -- but putting an extra 600 pounds of curbside heft at the feet of safety equipment stretches the limits of credibility.
Compare the 1990 Civic [wikipedia.org] with the 2010 Civic [wikipedia.org]. The new Civic has a wheelbase roughly eight inches longer. The overall vehicle is roughly a foot longer. The 2010 model is about three inches wider, and about three inches taller. The smallest-displacement (non-hybrid) gasoline engine offered for the 2010 model (a 1.6 L straight-four) is the same displacement as the largest engine offered in 1990.
The trim has gotten fancier, the soundproofing has gotten better, the seats have gotten cushier, the engines have gotten more powerful, and Honda has been targeting more affluent buyers. The 2010 Civic isn't heavier because of safety standards; it's heavier because it's quite a bit bigger. The 2010 Civic isn't just an otherwise-identical super-safe variant of the 1990 Civic -- it's a different car.
Nascar Engineers? (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean the car can only turn left?
How does it perform in crash test? (Score:2)
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About as well as ramping a steel pipe through tin foil?
Sad thing being... (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a "Popular Mechanics" magazine from the early 80's that had an article on how to make a 100 MPG car with a spitfire car frame, molded fiberglass, and a Kubota tractor engine.
It's sad that it would take a X-Prize contest with a 10-million dollar purse to get us back to using the technology discussed in a old magazine.
Congrats to the teams. I'm just commenting about the automobile industry as a whole.
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"It's sad that it would take a X-Prize contest with a 10-million dollar purse to get us back to using the technology discussed in a old magazine. "
The components you listed are essentially delicate junk powered by a good tractor motor.
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Re:Sad thing being... (Score:4, Insightful)
If that were true don't you think one of the over 100 teams who spent millions of their own money would have done that? Its easy to get 100mpg when you gloss over all of the details and rules, but the X-Prize setup many tests to ensure the car actually got 100mpg in many scenarios. Your alleged PM 100mpg car may not even be true.
"While it isn't terribly hard to build a vehicle that will propel itself 100 miles on only a gallon of gas, the X Prize rules call for a car that can carry four adults and sip gas while traversing all kinds of terrain and negotiating real-world traffic. And the car builder must demonstrate that the vehicle can be profitably offered for sale in volumes of 10,000 units in a form that meets federal crash safety and emissions requirements. If this weren't enough, the competition really is a race, because the money goes to the fastest car that can do all of these things."
http://www.xprize.org/news/automotive-x-prize-seeks-100-mpg-car [xprize.org]
I call BS on your BS-calling (Score:3, Interesting)
If that were true don't you think one of the over 100 teams who spent millions of their own money would have done that? Its easy to get 100mpg when you gloss over all of the details and rules, but the X-Prize setup many tests to ensure the car actually got 100mpg in many scenarios. Your alleged PM 100mpg car may not even be true.
Oh come on. VW sells a three-cylinder diesel model in Europe that gets over 65 miles per gallon. You don't think someone could get more than that out of a lighter car with a much smaller engine?
I read this article, not that that's a definitive citation or anything.
The 1980s PM car used a diesel engine that made about 17 horsepower. It was extremely slow to accelerate, but because the engine size was matched up to exactly how much power was needed to keep the car moving, and because a tractor engine can b
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I found the magazine issue!
Nothing slower than going through the magazine covers and getting distracted...
Anyway it wasn't Popular Mechanics, it was:
Mechanix Illustrated, February 1982.
It was the Quincy-Lynn Centurion that was advertised to have 128 MPG.
Now that I found that issue, that is one less thing floating around in my head. Now if only I can get that stupid song I heard on the radio out of my head...
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Not 102.5 MPG In America (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, after the added weight of an average American the car only gets 50 MPG.
It's all about how to approach the problem. (Score:2)
More practical and way more fun to drive.
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Too bad it's a mustang, otherwise it might actually be interesting.
Hmmph. Seat ibiza gets 97.4mpg (Score:4, Informative)
Seat ibiza gets 97.4mpg and it's a real car:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/firstdrives/237415/seat_ibiza_ecomotive.html [autoexpress.co.uk]
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It's nearly impossible to get diesel cars in the US.
Chrysler made a variant of almost every car they sold in the 2009 model year with a diesel engine, all cars gained about 10 MPG from being diesel alone (Most of which were getting 32 MPG on gasoline, so 42 MPG on the switch). They wouldn't sell to the US though, either direct or through a dealer. I'd have to drive to Canada to have boughten one and have it imported home...
Ford won't sell any of their performance diesels in the US either citing no demand an
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Seriously - the only manufacturing in Lynchburg is Fleets Enemas. And Failwell UN-iversity grads. Come to think of it those are pretty much synonymous...
Re:Nice car (Score:5, Informative)
Like they've ensured Tesla Roadsters never get to the road, nor the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, or the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation of Toyota Hybrids. Oil companies may have been able to get a stranglehold on battery patents before, but the EV genie is out of the bottle. So, go buy one (if it fits your driving needs).
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The Edison2, according to the article, is practical, affordable, and offers real and immediate savings to the consumer. None of the models you listed can make all these same claims.
I don't know if the oil companies will keep the Edison2 off the roads and out of the minds of the consumer, but I am well confident they will try.
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Don't worry. The government regulations will guarantee that it is never as efficient. Every car has to meet safety requirements: air bags, crash tests, type of glass used (plexiglass not allowed), etc. If this thing really is that light, it might not do too well in crash tests. In order to meet those requirements, it will have to be beefed up.
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Why no plexiglass?
It could even be two layers held together with a sheet of thing plastic in the middle like current glass. Seems redundant, but could be used to make everyone happy.
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Re:Nice car (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying that despite the fact there are hundreds of thousands of them on the roads, the Toyota Prius is neither practical, affordable, nor does it offer any real and immediate savings to the consumer? And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
As for the Edison2, it's a cool concept, but it's still a concept. The thing exists as a one-off prototype with exactly none of the real-world production hassles and economics worked out. It therefore fails your three metrics by default.
Re:Nice car (Score:5, Funny)
And before you come back with some trite answer about it being a smug feel-good car, I've got two words for you to consider: Taxi Cab. If the Prius weren't a winner on all three of the metrics you name, why would taxi companies love the things as much as they do?
Ha! Have you ever met a New York cabbie? Because I sure haven't, and I'm assuming that there's never been a bigger bunch of hemp-wearing tree-hugging kumbaya-singing hippies. With disposable income.
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Seems like the obvious solution is not to replace your car after 5 years. Anyone who does is obviously not concerned with cost (or the environment) in the first place making the whole issue moot.
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah I like how people blame oil companies, but more typically it's the car companies themselves that cancel projects (EV1, RAV4) or the lack of interest from customer (Honda Insights barely sold at all). No conspiracy needed.
BTW my Insight can get over 100 MPG with slow driving (55mph) and avoiding use of the brake on the interstate. Of course it's only a two seater but that's fine for my daily commute. The best I've ever done was 121 MPG while driving south-to-north across Utah and Idaho.
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P.S.
Volkswagen is now making a two-seater that gets ~200 Highway MPG. I wish I could buy it here in the US.
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I could not afford one at the time, but would love to get a used one now. The real question would be could such a beast be converted to diesel.
Maybe one day a diesel series hybrid will be sold in the states. GM really screwed the pooch on the volt it looks like.
Re:Nice car (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a particularly lopsided view of the "oil conspiracy." The reality is that oil companies [wikipedia.org] represent the single largest caucus of industry money with a single purpose: sell more oil. They brought those resources to bear against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in order to end the public's mandate for zero emissions vehicles, even the smallest amount, which killed electric car development in it's infancy. I remember seeing electric RAV4s and EV1s and Ford Ranger EVs buzzing around in the late 90s in rural Georgia. The technology developed by GM was mothballed by Exxon Mobil, who bought and buried the battery technology. Toyota continued to develop theirs, and now they have top selling hybrid car in the world.
The red herring offered consistently is, why wouldn't GM want to lead the way in electric car development? Two reasons: one, EV technology was receiving zero subsidy after CARB was bought and sold, yet gasoline in the United States is sold at a fraction of the price due to massive subsidies by the US government. The second is that electric motors are hideously reliable, as evidenced by hydroelectric dams that have been in operation for over one hundred years. If a material for infinitely durable shoes was developed by Nike, do you think they would be dumb enough to manufacture and sell it?
It's tough to continue netting billions if you make your product cheaper and more efficient, without being able to drop the price enough to sell it to more consumers. So, as one would naturally expect, you fight any newer technology with every tool you have, while simultaneously buying up the competition and burying new technology. An oil company actively reducing the value of their trillions of dollars of oil infrastructure is like Microsoft funding R&D for open source software. It just doesn't happen.
Eventually the new technology will win, if there is some other industry that will see gains, or if the government steps in to make sure the economy isn't artificially shackled to old technology because of monopolistic business practices. It's fashionable to call that Socialism, but everyone else calls it progress.
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This is not true. If solar power efficiency improvements maintain, car companies will be able to sell many customers the vehicle and the panels necessary to power it, and wrap it all up in one long term loan.
I honestly hope Google will form a subsidiary and begin constructing geothermal plants as well. The real fear for fossil fuel companies is these mainly passive methods at generating electricity will become widespread to the point that the value of oil collapses, due to all of the energy necessary to dig
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm on real time metering via ComEd in Chicago. At night, I pay as low as $0.01/KwH. It is extremely cheap for me to charge my Tesla Roadster at night.
Re:Nice car (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like deregulating your electric system really worked out for you then.
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I think it's going to have trouble meeting collision safety standards, actually, although it can't possibly be more dangerous than my motorcycle.
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I think it's going to have trouble meeting collision safety standards, actually, although it can't possibly be more dangerous than my motorcycle.
I've always thought it odd that we are so terribly worried about safety standards for cars, yet we allow motorcycles. Now, don't get me wrong, I think we should allow motorcycles. It just drives me nuts when we see some rather interesting designs and concepts ignored because it won't meet our standards even though you could make a simple (but clear and obvious) w
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Extreme defensive driving is right, because other motorists' perceptions come into play too. For instance, like every other driver on the road, I follow at distances where, if their car is able to slow down faster than mine, or I'm fiddling with the radio, I'm going to rear-end them. Before the banshees come out, hey, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap. There's no way to
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>>>when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap.
So?
.
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So?
If a road is near maximum capacity but still maintaining the speed if you do not maintain speed you become a hazard to other drivers. So the 'safer' option is to give as much distance as you can without encouraging 'lane hopping' drivers. Keeping the speed differential to a minimum is safer than attempting to maintain a following distance which would be safe if traffic was light.
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>>>but what about steel rods that can detach in a collision and fly through the passenger compartment of a Saturn, or a million other things that can go wrong
This is the kind of thinking that prevented the VW Lupo from coming to America, which is a shame because it could get 90 Highway MPG. Sometimes safety standards are too strict, and end-up harming the US people in other ways (in this case: more pollution because the cleaner car was not available).
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Insightful)
, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap.
Then you should back off again. Arriving alive is the goal, it's not a fucking race track.
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>>>Arriving alive is the goal, it's not a fucking race track.
I agree 100% with you, but I'm afraid you're wasting your breath. A lot of slashdotters think it's also okay to text-and-drive, or phone-and-drive, even though repeated tests show by AAA show that the reaction time is slower than if you were legally drunk
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I was going to roll my eyes and say "conspiracy nut", and then I realized this one would be pretty easy to keep off American roads (en masse, anyway): how does it perform on crash tests?
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, it's run on E85. That means it gets something like 50mpg and they say "theoretically" the car gets 110mpg in "gasoline numbers." i.e. if you switch it to pure gasoline, you should get 110mpg by some magic due to additional fuel density. (Imaginary, I'm convinced this won't happen; otherwise why wouldn't you just build a gasoline engine?)
At heart, the Very Light Car is a simple vehicle, avoiding the feature creep that has loaded down contemporary vehicles. Design simplicity, low mass and conventional materials result in lower material costs and production time.
Second, they seem to have avoided "design features" ... I don't see a feature list. ABS? Traction control? (things I don't care about). What about suspension? Is this 4 wheel independent? Rear wheel drive or all wheel drive? A heavy Torsen differential or open? All of these things affect the actual handling of the car and its safety. That whole "My Volvo is safe, I don't die when I hit things!" thing is bullshit; my Mazda3 is safe because I can turn HARD into a 120 degree right turn at 30mph without braking and, with tires screeching and wheels scrubbing, the car won't slip or skid sideways or spin or roll over.
If someone cuts me off on the highway, I can A) take a hit to my front quarter and spin; B) brake hard and get rearended by the tailgater, pushed into him, and spin anyway; or C) brake, downshift, floor it, and steer into a nearby opening. (C) is possible in my car; it was not possible in the Cobalt. In my Cobalt, I actually came off the road in a more gentle curve (still kinda tight, but not a hairpin or corner) at 30mph. The back slid a little bit and I had to fight to regain control. In the worst possible place (narrow roads, guard rails, mountains, and one lane going each way... if there was another car coming I would have had a head-on collision). This is not safe; the SUV I was pacing made it, and my Mazda3 can make it at 60mph+ (I've tested the handling elsewhere; no way am I pushing that car that hard on the street) so I know I'm not going to lose control in normal conditions.
That's what I want in a car. A good suspension, good brakes, good responsive steering, and slap some excellent tires on that bad boy. All wheel drive is excellent, Rear wheel drive is also very nice, front wheel drive ... has proven to be a severe safety hazard (loses control in the snow/rain/ice easily if your tires can't handle it; loses control trying to take off into a hard turn, so don't merge into cross-traffic from a stop). The car is safe, now teach the driver to drive, everything from recovery techniques to road etiquette and proper judgment.
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First off, it's run on E85. That means it gets something like 50mpg and they say "theoretically" the car gets 110mpg in "gasoline numbers." i.e. if you switch it to pure gasoline, you should get 110mpg by some magic due to additional fuel density. (Imaginary, I'm convinced this won't happen; otherwise why wouldn't you just build a gasoline engine?)
To be fair, I constantly see E85 marketed as a green fuel not a more energy efficient fuel. Some quick reading says that on average E85 is 25-30% less efficient than gasoline. Is it possible that a car could be 50% less efficient when running on E85? I would say yes if the car was specifically engineered to increase MPG and ignored other features.
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Time and time again I hear this nonsense. Yes, all things being equal a rear-wheel drive car is more capable. If you're a very competent driver. I'd argue that 95% of the world's driving population is not competent to the level that RWD provides a benefit over front-wheel drive. As a matter in fact, t
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I could engineer a fuel-by-mass system. It'd need three reservoirs: a main fuel tank; a mass measuring reservoir; and an output reservoir. The charge of fuel in the mass measuring reservoir and the output reservoir would be set and measured upon starting the pump. The mass reservoir would fill from the main tank faster than the output reservoir emptied to vehicle; the output reservoir would similarly fill faster than it drains.
In use, the system initializes by taking mass of both the mass and output re
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I designed a less elegant solution, use a bunch of baffles in the tank to prevent sloshing and mount it to a digital scale. Better yet just place a scale in each of the mount points that the tank strap attaches to and do some simple math.
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More likely, these are specialized cars designed to meet an X-prize goal, not to meet road-safety standards, so you will never see it on the road. But you may see the technology in your next boring every-day car. Right now, I bet someone over at Toyota is calculating how much better gas mileage they can get by using specialized lightweight lug nuts.
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Even more likely, this team has patents on many of the things they did so they can either license them to large manufacturers, or sell parts to them.
Most legitimate X-Prize teams I know of, and to be fair I know the space-based ones better, have a business plan that goes beyond the mere prize. Scaled Composites always had something like Virgin Galactic in mind, and Odyssey Moon has plans for funding their lunar mission beyond what the prize provides.
Thats the real strength of these prizes -- not being the
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Re:Nice car (Score:4, Insightful)
just make sure it has 5 point harnesses and a roll frame and solid anchor points and you should be able to skip the airbags. Really I don't get the "it's light and made of carbon it must be a death trap" thing. Look at an F1 car, they can crash into a car going 50-100mph slower, flip though the air, crash into a tire wall and both drivers get out under their own power and walk back to the paddock, or WRC cars, toss it down a mountainside and the driver gets out and climbs back up, or Peter Solburg in 2004 hitting a Hinkelsteine and going flipping down the road.
It's not hard to make a safe car, it's hard to make a car you can freely move around in and still be safe when it hits a wall at 70MPH, or another car also moving 55mph(110 wall). Strap the meatbags down and it helps a lot.
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but that's the problem with rules and regulations. Every time you write a law, and entire slew of assumptions get coded in.
What you describe may well be perfectly safe, but that doesn't mean the law still doesn't require airbags, for example.
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So add some airbags, whats that $1500 and a couple lost MPG?
Lots of people buy cars with no or no useful trunk. Go look at every sports car ever. Better yet, just add a hatchback lid to it.
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It does not, I did not write the article nor the summary.
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Datsun B210
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Hiring a bunch of unemployed (aka non-unionized) former factory workers is getting easier and easier these days.
Re:Nice car (Score:4, Funny)
2010 may finally be the year of 100MPG on the Car!
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No, because anyone over 40 is going to be driving a car so large they can barely see over the steering wheel.
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Fisrt thing to note is that the cost of the car is not because they are "trying to make money hand over fist" They are trying to make money but what business is not? The big raise in the price of cars is based on the emission control systems that now how to be installed. The catalytic converter, EPS Valves, Etc, etc, etc. Add to that that new cars have to monitor emissions so where an old car had a Collaborator, a new car has Fuel injectors, Computer, O2 sensors, cam position sensors, etc.
All of that costs
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