Injuneer

Is this the future..........

Progressive Insurance is sponsoring a race at Michigan International Speedway starting on 4/26/10. Cars must be environmentally "clean", production capable, and get 100 MPG (or other energy equivalent) or better. At this point, there are 51 international entries that have qualified.

http://www.sae.org/mags/AEI/7469

slowride94z

your telling me that there are 51 different types of cars that get 100mpg, or 51 cars total in the world that get 100 mpg?

someone or something needs to happen to get the auto manufacturers on the ball.

bet it wont be sponsored by an oil company

Injuneer

I'm not telling you anything... read the article. Manufacturers were required to submit a design for a vehicle which could be mass produced. There were 130 designs submitted. Car does not have to be in production, production ready, etc. The design was required to substantiate that the vehicle could be mass produced. 51 desings passed that first test.

96capricemgr

Pretty interesting and a great way to push technology.

There are some things to consider when chasing MPG. Best MPG and best PPM(parts per million) emissions numbers do NOT go hand in hand. Current production car standards are all about PPM emissions. In reality total volume emissions would probably be better for fuel economy and the environment BUT would put a BIG hurting on the V8s we all love so I am not arguing for that change.

You can run an engine leaner than 14.7:1 at cruise, MPG will go up but so does NOX emissions in particular.

Injuneer

I think the day will come when they prevent any sort of tinkering with the engine, computer, etc. "Performance" is going to take on a whole new meaning. Unfortunately, it will only be available to the rich.

slowride94z

[The 51 vehicles will be scored during speed, distance, hill, as well as other performance and evaluation events starting on April 26 at the Michigan International Speedway (MIS) in Brooklyn, MI. After the MIS events wrap in July, top finishing vehicles undergo dynamometer testing

ZAP's three-wheeled, three-seat prototype—primarily styled and engineered at Lotus Engineering in the U.K.—uses an air-cooled, ac induction motor; a 360-V lithium-polymer battery pack comprised of 110 cells; and three dashboard solar panels,

X Prize's underlying goal is to get teams focused on developing a production-viable vehicle that is fuel-efficient, safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly.]




I will have to wait for the day that affordable, doable electric cars will put the hurt on oil companies.

it would be nice to go to the Chevy dealer and pick up a 10K $ car that would go 100+ miles on a charge, at 70 on the interstate.

nice simple no frills just high mileage potential, think work commuter.

NJ-LE

Gentlemen:

Some thoughts ...

"10K $ car that would go 100+ miles on a charge, at 70 on the interstate." Unless the safety standards are lowered greatly for these cars, the $10K car will be most likely be $50K or more unless the company is doing a "loss leader" or pandering to the enviro lobby and/or getting a large government subsidy from our tax dollars along the lines of the home solar panel installations. It would be nice but the near-term real price will be high.

"Unfortunately, it will only be available to the rich." Sad but mostly true, but there will still be the criminally inclined morons terrorizing the city streets. I suspect the street squirrel tracks on all the streets surrounding the nearby high school will always be with us!

WS6 TA

You mean we're not already there? "Rich" is a relative term, but the fact is that if you're going to do serious work to a car (and are capable of doing most of it yourself), now often the largest single cost is dealing with the PCM, at least when dealing with anything made in the last 15 or so years.


Yea, you're probably suggesting that _no_ changes will be allowed period, so the performance you can have will depend on what you can buy from the factory. I believe that that is the current push with some of the new regs for "custom" bikes, I know know how much of what they were proposing actually got through, but basically the push was to only allow larger companies with production facilities to build actual road going bikes.

I would make the strong argument that what a great way to stifle any innovation. I'm sure there are plenty of naive (stupid) treehuggers that think that it's a way to make the world a better place, but I don't see it benefiting anyone but the manufacturers. The application of even more complicated technologies is often driven by "backyard tinkerers."

slowride94z

well 10,000$ was a joke, just dreaming . I'm not through with gasoline, just want an alternative



make that affordable alternative

WS6 TA

"Push Technology?"

Theres 2 problems with that... that technology does exist, but as you stated, what gets you best mileage is not what gets best emissions. It's not uncommon in Nascar and other similar race classes often run A/F ratios in the 22:1 range and get MPG #s that our cars on the road can't touch while making that kind of power.

Secondly, it's not car makers or oil companies that are preventing the technology from being applied, it's the EPA, safety orgs and mostly consumers preventing it. Look at the CAFE and similar regs that came out of the last "energy crisis." It resulted in cars becoming smaller and lighter and what happened? People didn't want them, they tried, we all had our parents drive around in the little compact boxes for a few years in the 80's (my dad went from a string of cadillacs and pontiacs to a Chevy Citation X11, my mom went from a '68 mustang to a Chevette), but then consumers started replacing their cars with trucks, and the SUV market began to grow... Hey, _I would love_ to save a few $ on what I spend on fuel getting to work... daily, but I actually found that my cummins diesel club cab, long bed truck costs me less to drive to work than my cars, and between me being largish (6'4", I literally don't fit comfortably in 2/3 or more of the cars out there), and often having other stuff with me, plus my wife, plus my >100 "puppy" and typically I can't find anything that would do better and serve my needs.

Lets face it, except for the few months around when gas prices do something weird, for the most part, we're not willing to deal with fuel efficient cars, we like (some would argue need) our bigger vehicles, people expect safety and all their MP3, bluetooth, goo-ghas...

NJ-LE

"well 10,000$ was a joke, just dreaming . I'm not through with gasoline, just want an alternative"

I hear you. Me too. An electric alternative. Maybe then I'd have a grocery getter - daily driver that I (hopefully) wouldn't feel I had to "mess around" with!!

96capricemgr

WS6 TA I was putting the blame on EPA and bureaucrats when I said production car standards were in PPM. I could have made a stronger point of that..

Revolutionary

Anybody see the Top Gear when they picked up a little car made on the Isle of Man back in the 60-70's that got 100mpg?

WS6 TA

yea, but besides the novelty of it, who the heck wants to be stuck in one of these:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.carter/

96LT1TX

haha that car is hilarious. I wonder what my f250 crew cab long bed would do to that... and the person inside if they pulled out infront of me.