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Technology

Gas/Electric Hybrids, Air Cars in the News 221

Posted by michael from the i'd-buy-a-civic-hybrid-if-the-price-came-down dept.
hackshack writes "eCycle is developing a hybrid diesel / electric motorcycle designed to get 180 miles per gallon. The small diesel engine kicks in at speeds over 12mph, and the electric motor handles acceleration. Target retail price is $5,500. They've got a beta test program going as well. Now I can laugh at all those "gas-guzzling" Insight drivers as I zoom by!" Reader clen writes in about the Toyota Prius doing well in a road rally, and fishdan sent in a note about a pure-electric concept car called the Tango. And the air-powered car is getting a little more media attention, too.
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Gas/Electric Hybrids, Air Cars in the News More

Gas/Electric Hybrids, Air Cars in the News

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  • A great all-electric already exists (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ellen Spertus ( 31819 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @03:07AM (#4302149) Homepage
    Drivers of the GM EV1 are trying to save the car, or at least stop GM from falsely claiming that nobody wants electric cars. See http://cleanup-gm.org [cleanup-gm.org].
    • Well this is a pretty simple problem if you ask me. Instead of trying to get GM to change its evil ways, why not just buy from a manufacturer that caters to your demands? Sure, they're not electric, but the Insight, Prius, and new hybrid Civic have the best fuel economy in the whole fleet, plus an infinite range (unlike the EV1's 70-140 mile maximum range) anywhere gasoline is available. Plus, these cars are purchased, not leased, so you never have to give them back.

      I hate to drag Microsoft into an article about cars, but this isn't a market where one giant company has monopoly control over the market and for most things you're stuck dealing with them. There's lots of car companies, none with >50% marketshare, and of course any car you buy or build can be used on any road, so support a manufacturer that's more closely aligned with your ideals rather than one which doesn't.
      • I think electric/fossil-fuel hybrids are the way to go for now until the arrival of low-cost, practical fuel-cell engines.

        The Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Honda Civic Hybrid have demonstrated you can get a very practical car with good driveability, very low emissions, and most importantly long range. Why get a car with 70-100 mile range (at best) when you can get something that can be used as a daily driver and also take a small family on long trips?

        It's small wonder why both Toyota and Honda have begun to expand hybrid technology to their other model lines. Don't be surprised within a few years we'll be seeing small vans and station wagons with hybrid drivetrains from both Toyota and Honda; Toyota has stated they may produce a hybrid version of the Corolla and Honda is looking at putting hybrids into the Latitude (neé Stream) minivan and Jazz supermini hatchback.
    • Well let me think about which one i'd rather have an accident in...

      (pictures skin melting off from the lead acid)

      Nah -100 degree compressed air sound alot better.

      • Re:A great all-electric already exists (Score:4, Insightful)

        by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @04:12AM (#4302275) Journal
        Generally, the batteries used in electric vehicles are absorbant-mat type valve-regulated sealed batteries. This means you can shoot holes in the batteries and very little, if any electrolyte will spill out. Think of them as bigger, more advanced gel-cell lead acid batteries.

        Also, given the fact that your vehicle will probably be heavier (since you're carrying the lead acid batteries, and the steel to support them) the other vehicle (unless it's a huge-ass truck) will probably come out of the accident in much worse shape than you will.

        I haven't a clue as to what they put into the EV-1, but I doubt that it would fare worse than a Toyota Corolla in an accident.

        As far as GM crushing their EV-1s to permanently get them out of consumer reach, well, they're assholes who have already written off the money they spent building what amounts to a working fleet of prototypes, so from their point of view, "disposing" of the asset makes sense, tax-wise, since they feel that they're no longer going to be in the electric-car business (despite the fact that fuel-cell cars ARE electric cars!!!)

        The biggest joke is on states who built electric car charging stations with proprietary Magnacharger paddles to support EV-1s. With the EV-1s off the road, there really isn't any use for those charging stations anymore - I haven't heard of any hobbyists using the very expensive magnacharger system as part of their EV conversions, so there you go, more taxpayer money wasted on the behalf of these corporate bozos.

        • Re:A great all-electric already exists (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Phil Karn ( 14620 ) <karn.ka9q@net> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @05:59AM (#4302410) Homepage
          The inductive charging situation is even worse than that. Some years ago, GM talked Toyota into adopting inductive charging. Toyota imposed a condition: a new, smaller paddle would replace the original large paddle used on the EV1 and S-10 and become the inductive charging standard.

          The new small paddle fits into large (EV1 and S-10) cars with a simple adapter, but the older large-paddle chargers are useless with the Toyota RAV4EV, the most common EV with a small-paddle receptacle.

          GM was in the process of retrofitting all the public large-paddle chargers with small-paddle units when the California Air Resources Board decided to make conductive charging the California EV standard (the right decision, IHMO). In a snit, GM abruptly took all its marbles and went home. They stopped leasing EV1s and stopped replacing large paddle chargers with small paddle chargers.

          So when the last EV1 leases are up, we'll be left with a whole bunch of large-paddle public chargers that the Toyota RAV4EV, the only inductively-charged EV still on the market, will be unable to use.

          The poor RAV4EV drivers get the worst of both worlds: an expensive, inefficient and unreliable inductive charging system without even the benefit of the many public charging stations that we EV1 drivers have.

          Inductive EV charging was a worthwhile experiment, but it was a failure. The sooner we junk it and move to conductive, the better.
        • The biggest joke is on states who built electric car charging stations with proprietary Magnacharger paddles to support EV-1s. With the EV-1s off the road, there really isn't any use for those charging stations anymore

          This is where hybid vehicles have the advantage. In that they can use existing infrastructure, rather than requiring something to be built from scratch.
          • The infrastructure for electric vehicles is actually even more pervasive than for gasoline. How many US homes lack electric service?

            As an EV1 driver for over four years, it is difficult to overstate the convenience of never having to go to a gas station to refuel. I charge my car in the two places it already spends most of its time parked: at home, and at work. That covers all of my routine charging needs. When I use public charging, it's usually to get the good parking spot, or just to see if the charger still works (I maintain a web directory of local public charging sites.)

            It is true that most commercially produced EVs, both inductive and conductive, require special external boxes and cables that are usually mounted in fixed locations. However, the conductive box is really just an adapter, and you can carry one to make use of a random 240V outlet in an emergency. A dryer or range outlet will work, as will the 240V outlets in most RV parks. Although this is technically against code, being able to use these outlets fairly easily is one of the major advantages of conductive charging. It's also possible to carry an inductive charger (I've done it) but they're much larger, heavier and more expensive.

            Many EVs also allow charging from conventional 120V outlets, although more slowly than at 240V. So in this sense, EV charging stations are already everywhere.
            • No, not a gas generator. Those things have horrible efficiency, and no emissions controls whatsoever. What about a fuel cell though? Install one in the trunk, duct the air intake from under the chassis, duct the steam output to a "tailpipe", and leave that sucker on all the time to trickle-charge the batteries, in conjunction with an external charger. Make sure to get rid of the inverter, so you can bypass all that charging inefficiency to feed DC directly to the battery pack. Of course, this increases the high cost of your electric by another 10K or so...

              Sigh. Maybe sticking a patch of solar cells on your roof would work better.
              • This is actually not a bad idea. Traditionally, fuel cells have a low power-to-weight ratio, much lower than rechargeable batteries. Most of the work done on fuel cells in recent years has been to increase their power/weight ratio to something that can provide reasonable acceleration in a car. You generally do this by increasing the reaction area, but you have to do it without spending too much money on expensive catalysts like platinum.

                So this does suggest the possibility of a hybrid battery/fuel cell car where the fuel cell need only handle the car's average cruising power needs, while the battery is used for acceleration, hill climbing and regenerative braking. A reasonably efficient EV uses less than 10 kW to cruise at freeway speeds on level ground, while over 100 kW may be used during maximum acceleration.

                Also, if the battery is reasonably large then it can provide all of the energy required for short trips around town. It can then be recharged from stationary sources without having to operate the fuel cell at all. This would be the best of both worlds. On short trips, you'd benefit from the greater efficiency and source diversity of large stationary power plants, and you'd never have to go to a fueling station. On longer trips, you'd have the greater range and quick refueling features of the fuel cell.

                This is my chief objection to the hybrid cars now on their market; their batteries are too small to provide any significant electric-only range even on short trips, and there is no way to charge them from external electricity sources.
                • Can't you augment them with a secondary battery pack? One that can be charged using publicly available chargers?

                  Personally, I'm still kind of bummed to find that the RAV4 EV costs well in excess of $40k - even with the $13k in rebates and tax credits, that's still over twice what the gas model costs, without hybrid fuel capability.
      • Why don't you try picturing skin burning off in a gas fire or explosion? Batteries are far less dangerous than gasoline.

    • I think you'd have an easier time resurrecting Enron than making GM follow any publicly rational policy concerning the EV-1s. The EV-1s were showpieces - designed to get California off their back while their lobbyists and lawyers worked to defeat zero-emissions legislation. Now that California has backed off, the EV-1s have outlived their usefulness, and can now be replaced by clearly inferior electric golf-carts (helping to reaffirm the image of electric cars as underpowered and fit only for old people and the golf course.)

      There isn't any public outrage, because there was never any public awareness of the EV-1s. A concerted effort NOT to advertise on GM's part saw to that. And, after the news stations swallowed the line about the EV-1s not selling well (well DUH, they were only leased - they were NEVER sold), the EV-1 literally dropped off the face of the earth. To be honest, I was surprised that there were still any around - I would have thought that GM would have junked them as soon as they repossessed them from all of the previous EV-1 leasees.

      I'm not saying that they shouldn't try to raise awareness about what GM has done. But actually influence their policy? Not unless you own 50% +1 shares of GM stock...
    • Why does everybody get all hyped over electric cars, but, mention little of CNG(Compressed Natural Gas) cars. They burn clean and use an abundant domestic resource.

      Electric cars seem clean to the consumer, but, they plug into the big dirty power grid at least once a day, which is powered mostly by coal.

      I think I would choose natural gas over coal anyday.
    • Perhaps it isn't "nobody wants electric cars", but not enough people want them to make them economically feasable to produce, or at least not enough people are willing to pay what they really cost, and GM isn't willing to sell them at a loss (who can blame them). I personally don't want an electric car because I am unconvinced that they are really better for the environment. Unless your power comes from a truly clean source (and that means wind or solar, even hydro has environmental downsides because damming up rivers does affect the environment), then they aren't zero emissions, let alone zero environmental impact. Even ignoring tailpipe emissions, manufacturing and disposing of all those batteries isn't without environmental impact, since they generally contain hazardous chemicals and/or heavy metals.

      Frankly though, I don't want an electric car because even with subsidies they don't make economic sense for me. For that matter even hybrids don't make economic sense, since according to my estimates you've got to drive something like a Prius about 180,000 miles before the gas savings make up the difference in price between it and the Echo. That completely ignores maintenance costs, and my guess is that the Echo will be far cheaper to maintain, making it unlikely that a Prius will ever be as cheap to operate as an Echo. And by the way, the Echo is a nicer car to drive. And for what its worth, little cars like the current hybrids don't really suit my needs very well, let alone completely, so they'd be at best a 2nd or third car in my household, and further limiting any supposed economic or environmental advantage. And electric cars are even less pracical for my needs than hybrids.

      So quit trying to make GM out to be the bad guy. They built EV1's and lost money on every one of them. The eco nuts didn't put their money where their mouth was and buy enough of them to make it profitable.

  • Not good enough for me. I (pretend to think I (and I can admit that (as I just did))) know what they're sitting on, and it's not a hybrid. I don't see any reason, with the amount of money and brain power put into cars, that we have to worry about "miles per gallon" any more.

    Somebody is holding out on us, and I don't like it (nor do I accept it - no car bought here yet).

  • This [slashdot.org] is what they mean by "air powered car"...

  • Hybrid Modifications (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Has anyone else thought about modifying a Prius/Insight/Civic Hybrid to get better performance and (more importantly) gas mileage out of it? I'm thinking of buying a Civic Hybrid (as opposed to a Prius, since I need a new car) in hopes of being able to use the already available civic mods.

    Huge exhaust....sure
    17" wheels......maybe
    3 foot spoiler..definitely not.
    • ANd dont forget the 6 engines and the Crankcase5 to have them all work together. You'll need a ignitorSwitch capible of using a crankcase5 along with resolving all the dependancies of the Oil/gas/water/sugar mixture. ANd dont forget the bad_driver_os... wait. that's you
    • All those mods will kill your fuel economy. The Civic hybrid has a small engine, and a huge exhaust will reduce its economy at low engine speed in favor of high-rpm performance. 17" wheels weigh a ton, and will hurt both economy and acceleration (unless you get some very very expensive ultra-lightweight racing wheels). Even then, if you get wide sticky tires, your fuel economy will go down because of increased rolling resistance.
      • No offense but if your gonna mod a civic you might as well buy a type r and go for all out mentalness stop worrieing about your fuel eco and just go for it oh and 18's are the way to go not of this 17's milarky :)
    • I have a Prius, and IMNSHO it is a more sophisticated system than that in the Honda models. I recommend it.

      However, the real goal of all of these vehicles is not fuel-efficiency! It is having a low impact upon the atmosphere. It is far more important to be able to continue to breathe clean air than to be able to continue to afford petrol!

      With either of these systems, the key to good mileage is to learn to drive the car, and to find the right balance of acceleration, following distance, and braking that keeps you from operating in high fuel consumption modes.

      • However, the real goal of all of these vehicles is not fuel-efficiency! It is having a low impact upon the atmosphere. It is far more important to be able to continue to breathe clean air than to be able to continue to afford petrol!

        What?

        So, it's not efficiency, but low-impact? Okay. How do you define low-impact? How do you reduce impact? My guess is that your answer will have some efficiency component to it. If I design a vehicle that runs on water, but requires 1000 gallons per mile, you'll probably agree that the lack of efficiency of my device is resulting in a large environmental impact.. Mileage counts!

        • I look at emissions. CO, NO, NO2, Hydrocarbons, and CO2. Only the CO2 is directly related to the amount of gasoline consumed in a manner that cannot be reduced by good design. The Prius is a SULEV, or Super-Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle as defined by law. It actually has a lower emssions rating than the automatic transmission Insite, even though that vehicle gets better mileage. You have to go to the manual transmission Insite before it qualifies as a SULEV. So, yes, impact DOES have an efficiency component, but that is only one part of the equation, and not necessarily the most important one.
  • How much energy does it take to charge up? This car will only be worthwhile if it takes less energy to charge it than would be consumed by a conventional auto in the form of gasoline over the same distance and hauling the same load.

    I'm also a bit perplexed by the air exhaust filter. Why filter the outgoing air at all? If it's just expelling air that was pumped into it from the atmosphere, why would there be any reason to filter it? Surely the filtration decreases the efficiency of the car, since it would take energy to force the expelled air through the filter.

    • Re:Efficiency? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @03:42AM (#4302219) Homepage Journal
      How much energy does it take to charge up? This car will only be worthwhile if it takes less energy to charge it than would be consumed by a conventional auto in the form of gasoline over the same distance and hauling the same load.

      Well I haven't ridden one of these or anything, but the basic premise is this; You have a very small engine which is mostly efficient in one very short range of operation, and an electric motor which is good at accelerating. As they say in the article, electric motors tend to have maximum torque at 0 RPM. So you can use the little motor to cruise (and charge the battery off the drive motor.) The motors are usually very efficient.

      Also there is the issue of regenerative braking. If their charge control system is good (and there are many engineers out there who are capable of building a good control system) then you get very good anti-skid braking by changing the load on the generator (the motor.) The batteries are the load, and when you brake, you store a fair amount of that energy.

      I'm also a bit perplexed by the air exhaust filter. Why filter the outgoing air at all? If it's just expelling air that was pumped into it from the atmosphere, why would there be any reason to filter it? Surely the filtration decreases the efficiency of the car, since it would take energy to force the expelled air through the filter.

      I can't answer this one for sure either, but I can tell you something about diesel exhaust, which is that it contains carcinogenic particulate matter (soot). Rudolf intended us to be running something a little more environmentally friendly in his engine. So it would be beneficial to filter it out. And second, backpressure tends to tune your engine towards torquey-ness (as in, power comes on at lower RPMs) rather than for maximum horsepower (more power but only at higher RPMs.) So if your exhaust were unrestrictive enough, which should be easy considering the small displacement of the diesel engine, a filter might not be unreasonable.

      Instead, I think I'd design my exhaust for quiet and run biodiesel. Environmentally friendly, smells better, won't give the person behind you cancer. The bike goes as fast as you ever need go, and it should be light and relatively trouble free. You'll have to replace the batteries every few years, which is no big deal. They're not THAT expensive and remember, the idea is that you're going to be getting 180 miles per gallon. Diesel fuel is currently cheaper than gasoline, at least in my area.

      I am somewhat concerned about the 80 mph top speed, however. I think that you really need the capability to hit 100 in case some asshole in a sports car tries to kill you or something. But maybe a hot exhaust and an ultraprecise balance job on that tiny little motor will let you get a little more speed.

      Also: It only weighs 230 pounds! I want one set up as a funduro.

      • Sorry, should have been more clear. I was referring to the air powered car.

    • Re:Efficiency? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Read the second page.

      They elude to using the filters in the cars to filter the air in the city. ie: The compress dirty air, when it is released by the car it is filtered, thereby improving air quality over time. (On a side note, making drivers pay for cleaning the air (buying new filters) should put more pressue on the government to crack down on high pollution industries emmisions).

      On a more practical note, the filter is used to increase the life of the engine by preventing high speed particles sand blasting the inside of the engine. I can't think of a reason for a chemical filter, and don't know if there is one, but they may also try to filter corrosive chemicals (acids, etc) suspended in the air.
  • Air powered cars are the future. Now we'll finally get to see completely new Star Trek plots.

    Archer: must...stop...driving...need air
    Trip: here capt'n, try this tachyon modified gasoline. One deep gulp and you won't need all that extra air. Mmm, pecan pie.

  • Air powered car safety (Score:3)

    by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @03:40AM (#4302217) Homepage
    It may be cleaner than gasoline powered cars - but is it safe?

    Four tanks of compressed air at 4500psi contain a lot of potential energy. If they rupture in a car crash this energy will be released in an instant, spraying their surroundings with shrapnel. Sure, a tank full of gasoline isn't exactly benign, either, but outside of Hollywood cars generally do not explode in a fireball.
    • Hey, it's a good anti-personnel device. Now those evil terrorists wont have to car-bomb cars... They just snipe off the tanks.

    • Re:probably safer then petrol (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21, 2002 @06:46AM (#4302446)
      Why?

      High pressure containers can be designed to fail safely. Simply put, the majority of the tank is stronger then it needs to be, then create intention weaker "seams". This encourages the tank to tear itself apart rather than disintegrating.

      Why is tearing good? Because as the tank tears, the hole get bigger and the trapped gas can expand through a larger hole thereby decreasing the relative pressure. Combined with a kevlar webbing around the tank, and protection in the floor of the vehicle, these tanks are probably safer than petrol cars, simply because you can't burn to death.

      For an illustration of this tearing effect, the easiest search is +fireworks + flowerpot. or look for failed oxygen cylinders.

    • I regularly carry a 4500 PSI tank under my arm... (Score:4, Informative)

      by raehl ( 609729 ) <raehl311@@@yahoo...com> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @07:07AM (#4302479) Homepage
      And I don't give it a secoond thought. While I don't know what particular type of tank they're using here, I'd guess it's a carbon-fiber wrapped tank. They're actually pretty resilient - crushing damage isn't going to do much, as whatever pressure you manage to put on the side of the tank is going to be small compared to the 4500 PSI pushing back from the inside. Really the only likely way to fracture one is with some sort of piercing damage, and if that happens there's no shrapnel, the tank just kind of tears apart leaving you with a bunch of un-wound carbon fiber. You obviously wouldn't want this to happen right next to your ear, but other than that, as long as the passengers are separated from the tanks, safety shouldn't be an issue.

  • gas?? (Score:1)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 )
    please.. why couldn't the headline read "diesel /electric" hybrids, i was all worked up to see toyota prius converted for gas.

    and in other news. this isn't really news.
  • Since electric /hybrid vehicles tend to be fairly quiet. I believe it is safe to say not many harly owners with find these hybrid bikes attractive, as it would be impossible for them to rev the motor in such a way sd to wake the dead whenever they arrived or left somewhere.
  • Keep in mind that Corbin Motors [corbinmotors.com] already has put solid, useful electrics on the roads. Can't say their vehicles would be very practical for everyone, but I've seen a few Corbin Sparrows in Boston and NYC, and it looks like they're the perfect urban-mobile.

  • I strongly recommend the Civic Hybrid (Score:5, Informative)

    by Beebos ( 564067 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @03:56AM (#4302240)
    I've had a Honda Civic Hybrid for about two months, 4,000 miles. I couldn't be more impressed.

    It has enough pickup for the driving most people do. Its more comfortable than my Subaru Forrester, including more leg room. It handles well. Best of all, I average 50.8 miles to the gallon. Yes, there is a MPG gauge. It has a range of over 600 miles per tank of gas and is a Ultra Low Emmissions vehicle.

    It charges its own batteries through regenerative breaking and cruising without depressing the gas pedel, e.g. going down hill. The electric engine kicks in for some extra horsepower when you drive uphill or are accelerating. The gas engine is only about 96 horsepower, but that is enought when you are driving a light car on level roads . I drive it through the Green Mountains and it performs very well. It can cruise at 70 mph or more on a highway very easily, though I find I downshift a little more in the Civic than my Forrester for some extra oumph.

    I've added a Sirius Satellite radio, so now I can drive coast to coast on five tanks of gas while listening to the same radio station!!!!

    Put your environmental money where your environmental mouth is and buy one! I believe congress has just pased a tax credit for people who buy a hybrid.

    Go forth and be GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • I've added a Sirius Satellite radio, so now I can drive coast to coast on five tanks of gas while listening to the same radio station

      Thanks to the fine folks at ClearChannel, you can already do this!

      *grumble*
      • Thanks to the fine folks at ClearChannel, you can already do this!

        Hardly.

        I drive on a semi-regular basis from Albany, NY to State College, PA--which is only about 300 miles one-way. For this trip, we have at least four different "radio zones." The Albany stations cut out significantly before Binghampton, there's the crap around Binghampton, then there's a good station out of Sracnton, which doesn't reach to State College.

        The Albany and Sranton stations, AFAIK, are Clear Channel.
    • What's interesting is that Honda may have done a better job creating a real car using a hybrid drivetrain than what Toyota did with the Prius, according to Motor Trend magazine in a recent review.

      The problem with the Prius is that while is quite roomy for its size and has good pep for the hybrid drivetrain, the road handling and the quirky ergonomics of the car may not be to everyone's tastes. Because the Honda Civic Hybrid is based upon the current model Civic four-door sedan, you get exactly the same interior arrangements as the current Civic (which is quite good), though the instrument panel is a little different (to reflect operation of the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) hybrid drive system) and you do lose a little trunk space in order to accommodate the electric motor batteries.

      I've driven the Civic Hybrid sedan with the CVT automatic and it's actually quite good, with decent acceleration thanks to the CVT transmission. If I had the money I'd trade in my Civic HX CVT coupe for the Civic Hybrid sedan with CVT automatic. :-)
    • I own a 1992 Honda Civic VX. During the summer months I have been getting between 50 to 55 mpg. (Winter it will drop to 45-50 mpg.) My car is 10 years old. Why is it that Honda's best mpg car is just as good as my 10 year old car?

      In 1992 it had the second best gas mileage rating (52 mpg on the highway) of all the cars. Geo Metro which was a much smaller car had better mpg. The only difference between my Honda Civic VX and the other Honda Civics was the engine. Why is it they can not do better?
  • Thank-freakin-god!!

    Finally we get the technology that the new millenium deserves.
    It has taken so long to get those flying cars!!!

    Now for my three course meal in pill form...
  • Someone ought to tell him he won't be 'zooming' past any Insight/Prius drivers anytime soon, heh.

  • now if the diesel engine only kicks in over 12 mph, what happens in heavy traffic when the average speed is, in my experience, far less than this speed? Does the diesel turn on when the batteries reach a crucial lower limit? It seems like this would reduce the gains in fuel economy as with the diesel on you would just be running at the same economy level as any other diesel car. Further, you would also presumably be charging the batteries simultaneouly, meaning that emissions and fuel consumption will be greater yet (though still significantly less than a standard car).

    Just a small concern, but it seems important to me as well.

  • Ok, everyhting looks pretty good in theory, and I'm sure it does well in application. I assume that with this, as well as most other hybrids, it is probably lacking somewhat in power. I checked the transmission specs, and it appears to be a 2 speed (unless I'm reading that wrong) and also appears to be an automatic. Maybe it's just personal preference and bias, but when I'm driving something that needs to get out of it's own way, I much prefer a stick to control the acceleration a little better (and eliminate the need for the automatic transmission to hesitate while it decides I want power).

    Besides that, just for "asthetics", it should be a standard trans. I mean, I haven't driven a bike yet that's been an auto, and I'm sure that if they were that good, they'd be a little more prevalant in the market.

    Ok, enough of my ranting. I would definately look into buying one though, if it was a stick.

    --

    "Perl 6 gives you the big knob." -- Larry Wall
    • In a car, changing gear and power delivery mid-corner isn't a problem, the car won't fall over or change line.

      A bike, however needs completely predictable power delivery, if you change the power delivery on a bike mid-corner the line you're taking changes, you run wide or you fall into the corner. The rear tyre can also spin up. It's one of the reasons the new Honda VFR800 with VTEC is not doing so well (It's also as ugly as sin). The VTEC kicks in at around 7,000rpm and starts delivering more power.

  • What about safety? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @04:08AM (#4302268) Homepage
    And just how would you ensure safety of these air tanks? That's a HELL of a lot of pressure!

    I used to scuba dive quite a bit, though I haven't for a few years now. For those of you who don't you may not be aware that there are quite a few laws/guidelines about air tanks and safety.

    Each time you pressurize a dive tank you are doing two things: first, you're causing a huge amount of heat to build up and secondly, you're stressing the metal of the tank. The hotter the tank gets the more quickly the metal it's made of will become stressed over time and become unsafe. That's why scuba tanks are placed in water when they're being filled. A dive shop is required by law (at least around here) to render a tank unusable if they see ANY signs of damage or metal fatigue. It's just a fact of physics that a tank has only so many use cycles before the metal fatigue renders it unsafe.

    The dive shop owner who trained me had an interesting story about an experience he'd had. Many years ago his shop purchased a number of surplus tanks from the military. They had certified that they were in good shape and safe to use. Being a cautious guy he decided to fill them up and use them himself before selling any to his customers. While he was filling one of them he noticed a slight odd sound. He thought it could be a leak, so he placed his hand near the gasket at the top of the tank to see if he could feel any air escaping. He didn't actually touch the tank.

    The next thing he knew he was lying on his back in a different room. The tank had exploded, blowing him over 50 feet through two walls! All the interior walls in his shop were flattened, his ear drums were broken, he was bleeding from tears at the corners of his mouth and eyes, plus tons of other crap was damaged/destroyed. The tank was about 3/4 full when this happened.

    This was a steel tank, which has a max pressure of 1500PSI. And these cars are at 4500PSI???

    I dunno. I'd have to be VERY confident of the safety measures they use before I'd consider riding in one of these things.

    • Re:What about safety? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dive tanks and high pressure tanks for cars are two different things.

      Dive tanks suffer the majority of their fatigue because of the temperature differences they are subjected to. Eg sea, then hot deck, etc. And if they fail they are strapped to the back of a person.

      High pressure tanks can be designed to fail safely (See previous AC post I wrote above for the "tearing" simplified explanation). But no matter how it fails, you don't want a tank to fail strapped to a person, hence the high standard with dive tanks.

      Car tanks would be design to fail safely in the event of over pressurisation or being hit by another car, and hence tear. But with a dive tank there is no really safe way to fail, they mostly blow the top of the cylinder (where they are filled, the name escapes me), which stops air hitting the diver directly, but they can still be propelled a long way.

      Above water newer (and more expensive) dive tanks are given a kevlar webbing surround over the tank to stop the metal breaking away and becoming shrapnel. There are also composite type tanks, but the are _really_ expensive, and I don't think they are intended for divers (more for submersables)
  • The problem I see with air-powered cars is the same as with electric cars -- it takes too long to refill 'em. That would be why nobody would buy electric cars. If it took three minutes instead of three hours, that'd be a different story. I know they said that you can go to stations that do this, but THEY have to cooperate as well (and shell over the hundred grand). Maybe they will. Who knows? Also, there were some questions that went unanswered: does it have AC, radio, etc.? Also, 120 miles isn't a good result for a benchmark. People will want at least double that. And how fast can it go uphill on a highway? I live in a reletively hilly area (that is, I live in a valley which is pretty much entirely on a slope). Anyway, back ot, gas/electric hybrids have been out for quite awhile. This is not news. Although it is a motorcycle, so I guess that qualifies...
    • ^erm, replace "air-powered cars" with "the air-powered car in the article," and put in a few paragraphs in there. Grr... who invented this two minute time limit?
  • According to Michael Baltierra, a reporter for ABC News, "we tested the car and it ran quite well. The only major problem that we noticed," he continues, "was that it was quite noisy...

    I knew there was a catch! I read the article thinking to myself: "How can the car pass wind like that without making the noise?". And the carbon filter is starting to make sense, too.

  • Diesel smart cars. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @04:20AM (#4302297)

    A Diesel smart car [thesmart.co.uk] can do 68mpg(US) which is around 86mpg(UK) IIRC. Top speed of 86mph, group 2 insurance and a doddle to park.

    Ideal for running around town.

    They won't be officially released in the US till 2004, but there are importers [smartcar.com] already planning to ship them. The cars themselves have been around for a few years in Europe and they are all over the place. Daimler are planning a Diesel/electric hybrid version of the car.

  • I was all set to save up and buy an e-cycle (the original electric) YEARS ago. BTW this diesel hybrid is not news, it's been mentioned on their site for over a year now.

    I wanted the electric one, even with 50mi range. They kept pushing dates back, then suddenly it's "Oh, we've decided to build this new hybrid bike instead, so it'll be a few more years."

    I'm betting they'll stall for more investment money and then in another year or so go "Wait wait, we'll make a fuel cell bike instead! Just hang on another 3 years!"

  • Compare these to Clive Sinclair's C5 from 1985 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rufusdufus ( 450462 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @04:42AM (#4302327)
    Clive Sinclair's C5 [nvg.ntnu.no] from 1985.
    The idea was a huge loser then, and its a huge loser now. People will buy cars that do more, not less.
    • Times have changed. In the days of the C5, it was highly unusual for a family to own two cars (at least around most of Europe). These days, many families have two cars, usually one that "does more" and another for driving around town, or a fun car like a small, impractical convertible.

      Furthermore the C5 is not a car that "does less", it "does nothing". It is not a car to drive for fun, they seat only one and don't even carry your groceries. The only thing it is good for is getting one person around over a short distance, which a bicycle does that better and safer, giving a larger baggage capacity as well.

      Many people are already buying small cars for town use. If these cars can be made into hybrids or air cars that are cheap to run and inexpensive to buy, they could be a big hit.

  • Not really impressive - but this is! (Score:4, Informative)

    by allanj ( 151784 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @04:45AM (#4302330)

    That's nice - 180 MPG is roughly equivalent to 80 km/l to the imperial-challenged crowd. But check out the 100 km/l car done by Volkswagen [popsci.com](yes, that's 100 km to the litre, or 235 MPG if you don't like SI units). I'm not affiliated with Volkswagen or anything - it's just cool technology.

    • It doesn't exist yet. You can't buy one.

    • Well - VW doesn't plan to sell any car like
      that. The eBike, on the other hand, will
      hopefully become available as a commercial
      product.
    • One of the things VW says about that concept car is that it weighs about as much as a sport bike. There is no way that a car like that could meet safety standards for automobiles. It's basically a diesel powered golf cart. I thought I read somewhere recently though that they have a production model capable of over 90 mpg. ebike should skip the electrical part and just work on a more efficient diesel, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to get well over 100 mpg out of a small diesel bike, and avoid all the complexity of the hybrid model as well as the need to replace expensive batteries regularly.

      • I think a motorcycle will have difficulty getting the same mileage as the VW concept car. The reason is aerodynamics - a closed entity like the VW is MUCH easier to control in terms of resistance to wind than is the case for a motorcycle, where the rider is part of the wind resistance. But I agree that dropping the electric engine would seem prudent.

    • Check out the VW Lupo TDi [volkswagen.de] .

      The mileage is "3 Litern auf 100 km", and this translates to, roughly, +78mpg.

      Remember:
      1US Galon = 3.789 L
      1 mile = 1.609 Km

      And you can buy it today... if you live in Europe.

      • I'm quite familiar with the VW Lupo 3L - it's very popular in my country (Denmark). Several of my previous co-workers bought them, and if they drive them carefully, they do get 30+ km/l out of them. Impressive.

  • About the compressors on the air-powered car... Does this mean I can finally avoid the (small) fee to have my scuba and 4500 psi paintball air tanks refilled. They might be a little chilly, but could it work?

  • tango (Score:1)

    by hpavc ( 129350 )
    note that tango car in the pdf is parked next to a ferrari at the beach ... must be very worried about the environment and the many intellectual and moral costs of operating nasty emissions vehicles.
  • Now I can laugh at all those "gas-guzzling" Insight drivers as I zoom by!"

    Ever see Revenge of the Nerds? Ever *wonder* why the car's cruise control is set at 35? THIS is why.

    And you are a nerd.

  • Convert your car to run on just water [spiritofmaat.com]
    Fuel cells are for those who don't listen to crazy conspiracy theories.
  • We need newer, more efficient technologies(fuel cells), not new vehicles that derive energy from the same old sources and technologies. Energy doens't come from nowhere and if we all had electric cars then there would just be more coal burning power plants. Just think of the hybrid Toyota Prius. Where do you think the electricity comes from? It's batteries. How does it charge these batteries? From the engine and energy collected from braking. The energy collected from braking is not a significant amount of energy to constitute any real sigh of relief to an oil shortage problem. Electricity isn't a free thing, even for a hybrid car. Try turning your headlights on and all electrical accessories next time you're in your car and listen to the engine. You'll probably notice that the engine loses some RPMs and then comes back up to speed. That's because your modern day computer controlled vehicle just started giving the engine more fuel/air to make more power to compensate for the power you're demanding from it's alternator. We need efficiency. We need fuel cells.
    • You seem to be laboring under some illusions, and you are taking for granted quite a bit of analysis.

      First of all, your statement that "Energy doens't come from nowhere and if we all had electric cars then there would just be more coal burning power plants," applies equally well to fuel-cell cars.

      The fuel in a fuel-cell has chemical potential energy, which is converted into electrical potential energy, and then kinetic potential energy. But to create the fuel requires putting energy in up front. There are a lot of candidate fuels for fuel cell technology, but the bottom line is that you either need to make fuel by putting energy in, or convert an existing fuel into a useable form. In the former case, you need to put fuel in to the system, in the latter you are using fuel. I know that in theory, you could use solar to directly liberate hydrogen or something, but for now that is not going to happen. And in any event, that same technology could be used to replace coal plants, too, which nullifies your complaint about pure electric cars.

      Then you seem to imply that there is no energy efficiency gain from compressed air cars. I am somewhat willing to believe this, but do you have some kind of argument which supports this implicit claim?

      Something that you are overlooking is economy of scale in large power plants. While it is true that if we were all driving electric cars, we would need a beefed-up electric grid, it is also true that big electric plants are more efficient than cars in extracting energy, and that they are also easier to regulate and monitor.

      Also, one of the reasons that hybrid electric vehicles get good overall mileage is that the motor is optimized for a narrow load range, unlike conventional automobile motors which have to supply reasonable torque over a wide RPM range. This means that the hybrid power plants can be more efficient and/or simpler.

      Finally, I have never seen a detailed energy analysis of the fuel-cell energy cycle. If you postulate wide-scale adoption of this technology, does it actually lead to reduced consumption of fossil fuels or not? I am willing to believe that it does, but I am not swayed by your unsupported assertion.

      MM
      --
  • (worryhat)

    I wonder...
    - how much of the appeal of a motor-bike is in the noise they make?? ;^)
    (And is this bike suitably noisy? :o )

    It's got the 'neato' factor, it'll be even cheaper to run than a 'conventional' bike...it goes ..eh...pretty fast.
    I'm not too thrilled about that white paint-job though ;)

    And I have to wonder...'e-cycle' ...'beta-testers'...plenty of 'hip' buzzwords - always a sure sign of trouble (:|

    And then the biggest worry: What if the bike breaks-down? Who has the parts and the knowledge to fix it?
    (Same with all those neato hybrid-cars...I can see big bills for the ppl who buy them (:\ Mechanics will be thrilled though...

    (/worryhat)

    Mind you, considering the amount of computers they cram into these gizmo cars/bikes, us geeks will not have to worry about future-employment either ;)

    While I'm at it...
    I seem to remember that there are perhaps ((cough cough)) better 'intermediate' steps that could be used to move towards cleaner/more economic fuels, using the existing fuel-supply infrastructure.
    i.e.
    Dieselengines can run on a variety of (plant-extracted) oils without any/much modifications to the engine. These oils will (almost) burn clean, and because they're extracted from plants we'll never have to worry about running out. (Iraq? Kuwait? Where's that? Who cares! ;)

    The problem with plant-based oils was/is the smell. Even worse than a smelly old diesel truck.

    as an example:
    There was a research-project a while back where a guy on some pacific island managed to get diesel-engines running on coconut-oil.The exhaust-fumes smelled of...donuts (I think).

    ((Sits back and expects price for least-coherent post of the day))
    ---------------

  • Paris-Dakar (Score:3, Funny)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @07:59AM (#4302548) Homepage Journal
    This bike would be nice with a BMW style 17.5 gallon fuel tank.

    That works out to just over a 3000 mile range...

    Have a nice trip across the United States and then up to Alaska.

    You would have to gas up to come back.

  • How much could they extend the battery life by putting photovoltaic panels on top of the air powered vehicles?
    • Probably wouldn't help much with _todays_ technology. The air powered vehicles are deliberately *very* light and the solar panels you can buy at the moment tend to be a little heavy (hence will reduce the already marginally acceptable speed). There is work being done on solar cells (afaicr) that are so thin they can almost be painted on. That will certainly help, though it depends obviously on cost.

      Phillip.
  • Let me confess an interest. I have been trying to design a workable electric bike for some time, and concluded that the current battery technology just isn't anywhere near adequate. And my requirement is a measly 2000W/30mph.

    So: 0 to 60 in 6 seconds. Well, yes, my little Italian 125cc racer could manage that years ago. It weighed about the same. It also put out about 25hp., was a pig to keep on the boil, and used quite a lot of gas. A quick back of envelope calculation suggests that the electric hybrid would need a combined output (elec + diesel) of around 20 hp to get the same result. There doesn't seem to be enough power there.

    Nor, in fact, does there seem to be enough power to maintain a sustained 80mph. That little 200cc Diesel can't do it, and the batteries run down when using the electric motor as well.

    Ah well, let's just wait for the fuel cell to fulfil the promise it's been showing for the last 50 years or so...

  • I'd love to have one of those motorcycles, but it looks like crap. I don't know why the people designing hybrid vehicles insist on making them look like shit ... don't they get it? Build a hybrid vehicle that looks NORMAL, and people will buy it.

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