Sahimo Hydrogen Vehicle Gets Over 1,300 mpg 453
Mike writes "Students from Turkey's Sakarya University have unveiled a remarkable attempt at creating Europe's most fuel-efficient vehicle. Dubbed the Sahimo, their pint-sized hydrogen car is cable of eking out an incredible 568 km on 1 liter of fuel (about 1,336 miles per gallon). An aerodynamic carbon-fiber construction keeps the vehicle's weight down to less than 110 kg (243 lbs), and the designers hope to push the Sahimo's performance even further to a full 1,000 km per 1 liter of fuel before participating in the Global Green Challenge in October."
Re:The real question (Score:4, Informative)
We don't have that problem in Europe, especially in the richer countries. In Holland it is very popular with cars in sizes from smart cars and a bit larger. Then again fuel here cost about $6.5/gallon. And even while driving much smaller cars than north Americans do we still have less people killed in traffic here in Europe. You are doing something wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not too impressive. (Score:2, Informative)
Electricity Hydrogen (Score:4, Informative)
Electric motors can go very quickly (at least the speed limit), have great acceleration, don't require a grid of hydrogen fuel stations to be built, don't require the massive amounts of energy used for electrolysis (the process of making useable hydrogen), have 0 risk of exploding (although admittedly hydrogen vehicles are pretty safe, but its more of a mental thing), and are ridiculously efficient. You know that about 3% of the energy used in internal combustion engines actually ends up moving the driver? With an electric motor, it is more like 50-80%, depending on the type of vehicle.
You could argue that we're just shifting the dependance (and the green house gases) to power plants- but this would open a door to a 100% maintainable system, it just requires an eventual (much more eventual than current state) shift over to clean power for plants. Our existing grid could easily handle 20 million plugin cars.
The only thing we're waiting on is efficient battery technology for the range of the things.
Re:Not too impressive. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real question (Score:1, Informative)
The average American Slashdotter could not fit half an ass cheek in that thing.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Electricity Hydrogen (Score:2, Informative)
That's the general problem when you concentrate a lot of energy in little space. There are practical differences between fossil fuel, hydrogen, urane and batteries, but the concept of accidentally releasing (converting to pressure/temperature) much of this energy is pretty much the same.
Re:Per liter, why is that hard? (Score:3, Informative)
Did you mean a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator [wikipedia.org]
Re:These types of competitions are interesting (Score:1, Informative)
Shell Eco Marathon, 1246 km on 1 liter (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real question (Score:2, Informative)
If you define looking at the pretty pictures as "reading" then sure I did! ;)
Of course it is very small, even as a production car it is unfair to compare it to a regular multi-seated car. This is more of a personal vehicle, it has a different use. What it does show is possibility. It is possible to build an extremely efficient car if you put your mind to it. A smart car sized version would probably not get the same mileage but if it got even close, that would be fantastic!
I, and many others live in a city where parking space is expensive and hard to find. If there was cars like this we could have miniature parking spaces, maybe even put the cars standing up. In the same space for one normal car you can park four or five like this. I don't really need a bigger car for almost any trip. If it had place for two then it would cover 99% of my needs, the rest i can rent a car or borrow one for. It is much cheaper than to pay a lot of money for parking, gas and of course finding space for it.
It is time for small cheap cars. In cities and in developing countries they WILL sell like crazy soon.
Re:Not too impressive. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not a good measure (Score:5, Informative)
No, 3% is closer.. (Score:3, Informative)
If you're an average American, your car probably outweighs you by a factor of 10-20 (unlike this lightweight vehicle, which you might outweigh :-). So no more than 5-10% of the energy is moving you as opposed to the vehicle, and *then* you can go multiply by 30-45% depending on fuel, etc.
Also, one of the most common methods of producing hydrogen today isn't electolyzing water, it's cracking methane or other hydrocarbons.
Re:110 kilograms (Score:3, Informative)
No must probably doubling the weight won't halve the mileage. Think about it - most of the energy use will be in wind resistance (which won't change) and the rest in rolling resistance (which will increase, but probably not by that much).
Re:Why we should ban hydrogen powered cars (Score:5, Informative)
Hydrogen doesn't explode unless well mixed with oxygen. Normally it just burns. (Burning hydrogen is almost invisible so there is a risk that someone might not notice that a leaking hydrogen cylinder is burning) The R101 didn't explode. Neither did the Hindenburg. In fact, despite the hydrogen in the Hindenburg completely burning in less than a minute most of the passengers and crew survived (the diesel continued to burn for a long time afterwards)
Secondly, it's much lighter than air. This means that leaks and flames go upwards, unlike a gasoline spill that spreads out over the ground while it burns.
If the fuel in the Hindenburg had been uncontained gasoline rather than hydrogen it's hard to see how any of the people on board the airship could have got clear in time (and I'd have expected lots of people on the ground to be killed as well)
Tim.
Re:The real question (Score:1, Informative)
Most countries in the EU have either an 120 or a 130 km/h speed limit on freeways thats 75 or 80 mph for non-metrics.
Uh, can you actually back this up with any sort of evidence?
From Scandinavia, my experience is that 100km/h is controversial and seen by some as too high. Above 100 is impossible. I remember from Spain once that I saw a 110km/h limit. Your assertion that most countries in the EU in general terms operate with either 120 or 130 is rather bold and some evidence would be appreciated that you aren't betting with fraudulent dice.
Re:The real question (Score:2, Informative)
I'm 6'5 185lbs and I drive a Ford Focus. Not the smallest car, but far from what most people would consider "roomy". A friend (who is bigger than I am) and I drove it from Ohio to Florida and back with no huge "cramping issues". I've been on many other trips with it as well. It's fine as long as you don't have any adults trying to ride in the back seat. :)
People just seem to want the biggest and best of everything when medium size is usually just fine.
Drive what you want, but you'll never catch me owning an SUV.