SDSU Students Create Sporty Hybrid Vehicle

Nevyan writes "SDSU Engineering students working in conjunction with real life designers create an electric hybrid vehicle that actually...well.. looks cool for all the right reasons. Participant in the Tour de Sol. I happened to see this vehicle on campus at SDSU and I want to buy one so badly." Njaneer.com has more information and photos - here's one to give you an idea of the size.

impact on the enviornment?

[Profe55or Booty]

i know it's not completely on topic, but i'm starting to question whether or not hybrid cars are really more safe for the enviornment. after all, where does the electricity for the car come from? mostly from fossil-fuel burning power plants which really do the same thing as your car.

i may be missing something here, if so please point it out.

greg clarke

Re:SDSU != South Dakota State University

[thunderbird46]

Lots of wheat, corn, soybeans, and beef. Some tech products, though, too -- Gateway started out here.

Re:SDSU != South Dakota State University

[Drunken Coward]

Gateway's headquarters was moved a couple years back to...

wait for it...

San Diego! Actually, it was La Jolla, but that's just about the same.

SDSU Prof. Thompson's death in auto accident...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I see at that web site
http://www.njaneer.com/
That the Mechanical Engineering department chairman
died in an automobile accident on April 23rd.
I don't suppose he was driving their hybrid
sports car design at the time, was he? Hope not.

That car is awesome. Is it licensed for use on
US highways? I hope a startup company runs with it
and sells lots of them for low prices. We can wish.

You missed a lot actually ;-)

[modme]

Cars (internal combustion engine) emit more nasty stuff than greenhouse gases - chemicals such as benzene, adversely affect human health.

In fact, the two most carcinogenic substances known are emitted from trucks. Diesel fumes are generally considered 25 times more carcinogenic than cigarette smoke - we worry about some passive smoking in a bar, but have trucks/buses/generators blasting diesel into the air *WTF*?

The comments of Dr. Paul Davies were even raised in the South Australian parliament - that more people die from exhaust emissions each year than speed and alcohol related road accidents!!!!!! Where is the TV advertising campaign "Drive a diesel engine - and you're a bloody idiot" !! :-)

In terms of health hydrocarbons suck - to me it makes more sense to emit some extra C02 in order to make electricity for cars. Other than it's affect on global warming, C02 is relatively clean - its not unhealthy to breate - certainly compared to car emissions.

Production of materials such as concrete produce obscene greenhouse gases, we could make a few less tons of that per year to compensate for the extra levels from electricity for cars :-)

Highest Concentration of Buried Data Cable

[DaHat]

A few years ago our jack ass governor (the one who for a time got rid of the adopt a highway program to keep a couple of gays from adopting a 2 mile stretch and who is currently in the middle of an embargo against the nation of Canada)... anyway... a few years ago he started a program of wiring ALL of the SD schools, public and private. For the last 3 years, every single grade school, middle school, high school and college have had AT LEAST a T1 as well as video conferencing rooms to allow students to take classes from remote sites... We continue to lay more and more cable and for the last few years have had more buried data cable per square anything then any place on earth. That... and we have a lot of corn!

What about the FutureTruck competition?

[jezzball]

I'm at Cornell, and several of my close friends are involved with the FutureTruck competition (http://www.hev.cornell.edu). Very very cool stuff - They've made a Ford Explorer with a Miata engine (turbocharged) and electric motor. Much more practical than yet another sporty car (which I think has been done better...witness the EV1, for instance).

Go Cornell! Competition starts Monday! Go Big Red!

Here's some stiff competition.

[Talkischeap]

After having worked on several electric cars (conversions), and being 'into" electric/hybrid vehicles for well over two decades, I can say nice effort, nice lines, but when can we buy one that's affordable?

And speaking of un-affordable, here's something pretty darn sweet that's been around since 1997.

I like this TZero [acpropulsion.com] better because it can be a pure electric around town, and for long trips you just hook up their very cool 'Long Ranger' hybrid trailer, which allows for continuous highway cruising.

And it's quick too!

• 0 to 60 mph: 4.07 sec
• 1/4 mile: 13.24 sec at 90 mph
• Skidpad: 0.88 G
• Range: 100 miles at 60 mph

I want a TZero!

Re:lifetime of waiting

[BLAG-blast]

too bad the oil companies will do all they can to keep those kinds of cars from selling, hurts their profits you know

Well, the auto companies (well, really the auto industry) stand to have a more damaged profit margin than the oil companies do. An ICE (internal combuston Engine) based car cost 28cent per mile to run (about 6cent of that goes to gas, the rest is spend on brakes, oil changes and replacement parts and repairs), and electric car cost about 6 cents per mile run, around half of this is spend on charging the batteries, the rest is spent on new motor brushs (At 80k miles) and replacing all the batteries after 4 or 5 years (also brakes, which may wear less if you have regenerative braking, or may wear more because the car has to be heavier due the wieght of batteries.

I think that everybody in a household should have an electric car for driving around town...

Here are 100s of ICE cars converted to electric [austinev.org]

I'd like to see a used car dealership that buys ICE cars with blown motors and converts them to electric, every town should have one....