The Lightning Hybrid and the Inizio EV 128
Mike writes "With auto show season hitting its stride, there's no shortage of incredible prototypes on display. First up is a brand new 100-mpg supercar by Lighting Hybrids. The biodiesel-fueled vehicle has its sights set on the automotive X prize and uses a hydraulic compression system to store energy from regenerative braking. Next, the Liv Inizio, a sleek fully-electric roadster that boasts a scorching top-speed of 150 mph and a 200-mile range, placing it in direct competition with the Tesla roadster."
batteries (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't care about a sedan (Score:4, Interesting)
(Plans for the Doran Electric were always for sale in the back of the Popular Science magazines I used to collect when I was a kid, I'm talking 1986 or so, I always wanted to build one
Family car (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Price (Score:3, Interesting)
If they could get these down to the Vette price range, I'd be all over buying one. If they can get them into the $50K-$65K range, put me on the list.
Re:Price (Score:3, Interesting)
This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer.
Its far worse than that because of diesel used for transportation and tractors and insecticides and, well, everything else.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915 [harpers.org]
"Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten."
The theoildrum.com scientists seem to think ten is much more correct, a blathering mainstream media claims its 1:1, so it's probably somewhere in between, probably much closer to the scientists on theoildrum than to some magazine journalist. So, you can turn (the equivalent of) ten barrels of crude into (the equivalent of) one barrel of human food.
As a side issue, that is why it is not efficient to bicycle... if it takes ten gallons of gas to make the food equivalent of one gallon equivalent of bicycling. Just think about it. My car gets about 30 MPG and after a half hour 30 mile drive is thirsty for a gallon of gas. After a multi-hour 30 mile bike ride I am very hungry and can easily eat two pounds of food (and still lose weight, if it's salad and not eight quarter pounders with cheese and bacon). Anyway, that two pounds of food obviously takes twenty pounds of gasoline to grow and process and ship and cook. Now at 6 pounds of aviation gas per gallon (note I am not a pilot, but that is my fuzzy memory from wanting to be a pilot decades ago) that would make a bit over 3 gallons of gas to grow the food to bicycle 30 miles. Lets be very pessimistic and round my car down and bicycling up. I'm sure I can do better than 20 MPG for a car and I'm sure I'd do worse than 15 MPG for a bicycle. It's even worse if you have four people in the car vs four bike riders. Now bicycling is fun and good exercise, the fact that I'm wasting fossil fuel by bike riding instead of driving does not stop me from having a little fun, but I don't operate under some delusion that bicycling saves the planet compared to car driving.
Now if you're not going to bother making the food safe for humans to eat (like ethanol, or food that is imported from China) you can get that ratio down to maybe two barrels of crude makes one barrel of inedible fuel. Use far more toxic insecticides, process the inedible parts of the plant, a little rot at harvest time is OK as long as the overall total yield increases, bugs will ferment into fuel just as well as food ferments into fuel, etc. Some marketing people claim that under ideal perfect never attained conditions in the perfect climate ignoring some minor details like maintenance or personnel costs it is possible to turn one barrel of crude into slightly more than one barrel of ethanol, but no one believes that unless they are getting a marketing salary, or live in Brazil where they have a uniquely perfect climate.
Hydraulic accumulator? (Score:3, Interesting)
In a car? The safety issues with the high pressures required aside , how reliable would this be over the cars lifetime and what would the maintenance costs be? Also I don't see how you can provide 150hp for any useful length of time from a pressure vessel that needs to fit into a sports car chassis. Call me cynical but I'll wait for v2.0 before I part with any cash for something like this.
Re:Price (Score:3, Interesting)
After a multi-hour 30 mile bike ride I am very hungry and can easily eat two pounds of food (and still lose weight, if it's salad and not eight quarter pounders with cheese and bacon).
Because you are riding a low efficiency junker.
Upgrade to a recumbent velomobile and your efficiency goes up DRASTICALLY. your comparison on biking is like comparing a Honda insight to a Hummer H1 driven in 1st gear the whole way. Your bicycle, yes even that overpriced $4500.00 trendy bike is a piece of crap in aerodynamics and efficiency. A velomobile in a recumbent position and set up right will give you incredible upgrade in efficiency.
I Ride a recumbent tadpole trike. I'm more efficient than they 2 wheel brothers on their pedalies. I swapped with a friend on a long ride last year. he was riding a http://www.go-one.us/ [go-one.us] go-one and the difference was insane. I could go twice as fast with the same effort. I can see riding 24 miles in that thing for a daily commute to be a very doable thing. I could easily average 25mph on flat roads in it.
Re:I don't care about a sedan (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hydraulic accumulator? (Score:1, Interesting)
In a car? The safety issues with the high pressures required aside , how reliable would this be over the cars lifetime and what would the maintenance costs be? Also I don't see how you can provide 150hp for any useful length of time from a pressure vessel that needs to fit into a sports car chassis. Call me cynical but I'll wait for v2.0 before I part with any cash for something like this.
The EPA has done quite a bit of research on this topic. Here are a few articles:
Hydraulic Hybrid for UPS [epa.gov] (PDF warning)
Hydraulic Hybrid a Proven Approach [epa.gov] (PDF warning)
Slide Show Presentation [epa.gov] (PDF warning)
In summary, they are no more dangerous than a scuba tank.