Breaking the Gas Ceiling

[Duppers]

Backstory: Breaking the gas ceiling

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - Ask Jerrod Bouchard what he did on his summer vacation
and he'll let you peek at the car he helped create, a teardrop-shaped
three-wheeler that gets 600 miles to the gallon - if you pedal. But if
you're feeling lazy, this human/solar-powered hybrid, which plugs in at home
and pops out solar panels while parked, will zip off at 50 m.p.h. for 50
miles. No pedaling required.

Of course, miles per gallon in this case is only an energy equivalent. The
"fish," as Jerrod's team of nine fellow students dubbed the bullet-proof
vehicle, doesn't burn gasoline - just a little electricity and some
calories. No need for a traditional fill-up. Ever.

And that's just the point at the first student-led "vehicle design summit"
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): to build commuter cars
more efficient than anything the world has ever seen. It's a sort of garage
mechanic meets computer geek event - a rogue student summer camp for the
best young vehicle-engineering minds in the world. Their goal: create four
cars that carry people and luggage - and get 300-plus miles per gallon. And
do it all in eight weeks.

http://tinyurl.com/kxre6


But Detroit doesn't care; they still have geo. and cheney in office.

[AreJay]

1. I wouldn't want one of these in urban traffic...

So lightly built that a Hummer would squish me flat.

I wonder if the solution is special lanes or street corridors for light vehicles?

[Marblehead]

2. Thats great

I peddle my bike allot and get pretty good gas mileage with that. I want to come up with a small electric motor for the bike.

[phantom power]

3. I've been reading this story for 20 years.

Gee, you mean to say that if I build a low-profile one-person car, shaped like a tear-drop, and give it some small electric motors and/or pedal it manually, that it will be really efficient??? You don't say!

College students all over the world have been building these cars for decades. I'm glad they do it, but if you want to solve a problem that hasn't been solved before, here's a poser: get people to own one.

[Duppers]

4. yeah!

"here's a poser: get people to own one."

Well, when petrol goes to $8.00 per gal., perhaps they will!

PP, none of the words in my post, with the exception of the remark about Detroit, were my own.
It was posted for interest. I've been reading about concept cars for yrs. now too.

For instance:
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/02/27/loremo-debuts-150-mpg-concept-car-in-geneva/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/AR2005060601842.html

Btw, thanks for being 'so pleasant,' Mr. PP!

[phantom power]

5. Sorry, my frustration is actually directed at the reporting.

The MSM loves to trot out these puff pieces about how our latest batch of engineering students is going to save us all with their "new" car designs. There are reasons why the cars people actually own are shaped the way they are, and the size they are. Which isn't to say smaller cars aren't a good idea, but it's just such lazy reporting to print some pictures of a little bullet on wheels and say "Look! The young geniuses are building our future!" Frankly, it makes more sense to just ride a bike if you want to go that route.

:rant:

[Xithras]

7. The #1 problem with these: No A/C

Where I live, that car would be a coffin. On a hot summer day, that thing would get up to 150 degrees inside, making it useless for any kind of travel. To work in the western US, a car MUST have air conditioning or some kind of air exchange system. You NEVER see these on the college built prototypes however, because they destroy the aerodynamics (the air inlet and/or radiator mount), they add considerable weight, and they rob power.

[DireStrike]

6. Regarding road-worthiness and people buying them

The problem is the other cars ALREADY on the road. I know that a huge motivating factor for people to buy SUVs now is that there are so many damn SUVs on the road, and you can't see over them in a standard car. If they hit you, it's not pretty. A friend of mine came up too quickly on a clump of slowed traffic on the freeway, and she hit the back of an SUV. Its bumper smashed the front hood of our car, while our bumper didn't come into contact with anything. Maybe the SUV's back wheels...

The solution is to get these inefficient pieces of crap off the road. The car companies don't want it, and the consumers don't care as long as they've got theirs. Even if they did, it wouldn't get around the companies.

A special lane might help matters. Maybe.