In 1991, the Rocky Mountain Institute put out the idea of the Hypercar, a lightweight, high-efficiency car that could get 100+mpg. 15 years later, we're finally seeing some major progress in high-efficiency hybrid cars.
First, there are rumours that the 2008 Prius will get 100+ mpg.
Secondly, the 2007 Honda Fit will use their well-tested Insight drive train, with the promise of 50+ mpg. Not Hypercar-levels of performance, but still a good step in the right direction.
Finally, and most happily, one company is building a plug-in hybrid drivetrain that promises 200-250+ mpg, depending on the car. In particular, AFS Trinity says that this drivetrain could go 40 miles without liquid fuels. Even better, AFS seems to be a fan of flex-fuel cars as well. They say their 250 mpg car could get 220 mpg on 85% ethanol. Even if the real mileage is closer to 200 (ethanol gets worse mileage than gasoline), that means effectively getting over 1200 mpg of gasoline.
A car like that would effectively eliminate most of the common objections to ethanol as a substitute for gasoline. Most of the gasoline use would be replaced by electricity - most humans commute less than 40 miles a day - and the remainder that needed liquid fuel would be mostly replaced by ethanol. Because so little ethanol would be required, we'd need little extra farmland to cultivate. If the mileage can be pushed even further, the demand for ethanol could be so low as to allow lower-intensity cultivation, meaning we wouldn't need to rely on massive doses of fertilizer and pesticides.
How does an organic gas tank sound to you?
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3 comments:
We could have hypercars as early as 1997
A four passenger electric sedan (running at the equivalent of above 200 mpg if the electricity had come from wind, water or other non-combustion sources) was demonstrated in 1997 that had a range of 240 miles at normal highway speeds before needing recharging and could have retailed for as little as $20,000 .
Note that the nickel cadium batteries that would have needed to be used at the time would have still had half their capacity at 1000 cycles (roughly 100,000 miles) which would have given the car a range of 120 miles even at the "beater" life stage.
The cars would have gotten a 240 mile rane from a 40 kwh battery. Given a non-combusion grid that would yielded the equivalent of 200 mpg. Even with our grid at that time, running mostly on fossil fuel coverted to delivered electricity with .36 efficiency it would have had a 90 mpg equivalent efficiency.
http://www.ovonic.com/PDFs/LtrstoShldrs/ecd97ltr.pdf
p3.
Somehow the source link seems to have been cut off
http://www.ovonic.com/PDFs/LtrstoShldrs/ecd97ltr.pdf
OK - Ill do a tiny url.
http://tinyurl.com/l5evj
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