Well that makes more sense.

 

Wanna know something?

The engine computer in your favorite EFI'ed automobile has MORE computing power in it that any of the Apollo spacecraft for sure. Maybe at least as much computing power as the current shuttles.

The fact that newer vehicles are heavier and have much more power in them and better fuel efficiency than years past is no small feat while obeying the laws of physics. 200-600 LB's of engine moving anywhere up to 6000+ LB's of light duty vehicle with a bunch of little flames is no small feat.

Space shuttle...fuel sipper? Nope. Maybe the aerospace industry should catch up.

 

Would you have leased an EV1 for $300/month?

A Metro for $300/month would have been the better bang for the dollar.

Really. Look up the limitations of the EV1 sometime.

GM is in the business of NOT making stuff people didn't want.

At least in that case.

GM had gubmint funding for the EV1, so they lost nothing on it.

As for the mention that GM is in bed with Big Oil...yeah, all that plastic that poses as an interior of the average GM vehicle attests to that. I know it couldn't be a complete sleepover unless CAFE requirements went by the wayside this morning.

 

meh, it runs on hydrogen and aluminum.

 

Well the last shuttle flight went 5,735,643 miles, the external tank holds about
146181.8 gal of LOX and 395581.9 gal of LH2, so that's about 10 mpg

Of course that's neglecting the ~2,200,000 lbs of Solid Rocket Motor fuel, but since I couldn't find the density of Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant with a quick google search I blew that off! I also neglected the Orbital Maneuvering System propellant, but a lot of that is used for Rendezvous and the deorbit burn (which is a braking burn) so not a whole lot of that gas is used to get those 5 million miles.

I'm pretty sure we could get a lot better mileage with the Space Shuttle if we stayed in orbit for longer since all the gas is used up getting there, you could coast in orbit for a very long time if you didn't have people and electrical systems on board using up the other consumables which are what limit the amount of time we can stay on orbit...

 

HP and weight are the main factors in acceleration times.

Car 0-60 time HP Weight

Gumpert Apollo 3.0 650 2425lb

Saleen S7 TT 2.8 750 2950lb

McLaren F1 3.2 550 2513lb

Ferrrari F40 3.8 471 2425lb

Covette Z06 3.6 505 3132lb

Stock 5.0 stang 6.4 225 2900(est.)

Doug Pelmear stang 3.0 400 3000 (est.)

Doesn't make sense now, does it?

 

Some people are gullible. This guy is known on the Corral, he scammed someone on a supercharger purchase and was banned. They are tearing him a new one in several different threads:

http://forums.corral.net/forums/show....php?t=1035781

 

So, 400 HP, and judging by the exhaust sound, it's still a big engine (5.0 V8). And yet it's able to achieve 110 mpg? Why aren't any car companies doing this? They have engineers galore, and yet they weren't able to do even half as good?

There's some BS somewhere there, he's getting a lot of coverage right now because everyone's attention is on the fuel crisis.

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

 

I'm gonna hafta see the engineering on that one before I believe it.

 

I lived through the 70's so I will pass this along to you. Prior to about 1970 the average American car got about 12-15 mpg. Emissions legislations reduced this to about 6-8 mpg in the early 1970's. After the gas crisis in the 70's US automobile manufacturers used essentially off the shelf technology (fuel injection, overdrive transmissions, etc.) to essentially double mileage. The part I don't like about this is it was doable but nobody really cared until gas got high enough to force it. Doesn't make me trust manufacturers at all.

 

But all these things you mention would have cost more to manufacture. Therefore adding to the cost of purchasing the cars. Fuel injection wasn't as perfect as it seemed then. After all, the corvette had a fuel injection option, but it was dropped wasn't it. I don't remember ever hearing about a corvette with Fuel injection past 1968? It was the 60s and nobady cared with gas as low as 0.25 cents a gallon. Why spend an extra hundred bucks so you could save a dollar a week? You will remember that cars cost around 2K back then. Heck, you could get a COPO Camaro for about $3500 ~ back then. The manufacturers could have offered the options but it wasn't cost effective and nobody would have bought them.

 

Agreed, 110mpg 400hp-500 ft/lbs - time to get the hip waders, but I'll give this guy the benefit of the doubt, maybe he lives on the side of a mountain and the town is all on one straight road with a ski lift capable of lifting a car at the other end.

or.... maybe he has a mr. fusion under the hood, they also tossed around 500mpg in the vid.

 

I just read this article and when I saw hiim say he can do 0-60 in 3 seconds with 400 HP I knew the article was BS.

 

Not true. 0 to 60 is all torque, gearing and traction. 1/4 mile is HP on the top end.

 

He has been banned on the Corral as a known scammer who took a lot of money from a few people. It is hilarious that he managed to scam the mainstream media as well. There are several threads about him at the moment over there.