Toledo Representing! lol I'm waving the BS Flag.

 

My senior engineering project was a super mileage vehicle sponsored by SAE. The competition was at the Shell facility just out of Toronto. The vehicles were basically aerodynamic carts (think soap box derby) with 50cc engines. The strategy was to go full throttle up to 20 mph, then shut down and coast. When the vehicle speed dropped to 10 mph the driver started it up and accelerated to 20 mph and started teh process all over again. There was only room for the driver, no luggage space, A/C, or stereo, and don't even think about airbags.

The vehicles were not exactly practical for daily drivers.

 

Let's focus on this.

The new Mustang GT weighs almost 1000lbs more than an old fox body. It also has 100 more hp. It also burns much cleaner thanks to more advanced emissions equipment, which also robs some additional power. It has large wheels and tires which means more unsprung weight. Also, new EPA ratings are different than what old cars were rated with. There are many factors that contribute to a similar city mpg other than simply more weight. 20 years without a single breakthrough in the internal combustion engine is not going to produce drastic improvements in fuel efficiency.

Even when companies make a one-off concept car designed to get good gas mileage, it comes nowhere close to getting 80mpg out of 400hp in a 2500+lb car that runs on gasoline. There are no outside factors contributing to that seeing as how they don't even put them into production. Even projects at schools and institutes like MIT do not produce cars that efficient. Are you saying they are controlled by the oil companies as well?

 

Your problem is you are only thinking about American automakers, and yes we have had cheap gas. However, Europe has always had expensive gas. You can't defy the laws of physics, otherwise a Murcielago would get 50mpg.

 

Easy, by designing a rain drop that weighs 100lbs and carries one person. It probably goes from 0-60 in 60 seconds

 

Haha, true, but i doubt it even does 30mph. Its the coasting that gets it done, rolling on road bike tires and crazy bearings it will go for quite a ways. Not practical at all for travel.

 

Interesting....

If this turns out to be real, I could see people tearing out their V6s out of their Camaro, and putting one of this guys engine's under the hood.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...00mpg.car.wnwo

 

Wow, surprised CNN picked this up. Read several articles from much smaller sources. I guess we'll find out after the X-Prize competition and third parties actually test the mileage of all these entries.

The other articles mentioned that this is still the Ford 5.0 engine...no details on whether the heads are stock (probably not). But the guy claims the mileage claims are mostly through electronics. Seems too good to be true.

EDIT: This begs the question though...why is his design benefiting mostly from electronics, if he's using a "design" from the 1940s when microcontrollers didn't exist?

 

Autoblog reported that it was 80mpg, but still good no matter.

 

Is this like the 100mpg carb?
Well, I guess its possible, but there are a lot of factors out there to get that into modern production cars.

 

lol, it does 0-60 in 3 seconds, but i cant show you under the hood because thats where I keep all my secrets.

 

This article says 110MPG!

http://www.nbc5.com/automotive/16768626/detail.html

Also, 400HP in a Mustang does not equal 3.0 seconds to 60mph.

 

I can't see the video at work...

Peak horsepower doesn't tell the whole story. For example, a 400hp electric motor paired with the right gearing, and assuming there's enough traction, could easily pull that off.

 

500 lb-ft of torque he claims...I don't see how that couldn't make it in 3 seconds with the right suspension, gears and tires.

Either way, the guy is formally entered into the x-prize. No need for everyone to get their panties in a wad, we'll find out soon enough if he's full of it or not.

 

Because the larger one made 33% less power with the same amount of gas. Do you not understand the term efficiency? The size of the engine doesn't matter, a 500hp car that gets 20mpg is more efficient than a 250hp car getting 30mpg. Why would displacement matter?

They have vehicles that get 8000 mpg, they're just not very useful.