Peugeot Citroen To Introduce Compressed Air Hybrid By 2016 204
cylonlover writes "With a few exceptions, such as Volvo's Air Motion Concept, major automotive manufacturers have generally shied away from compressed air technology. PSA Peugeot Citroen is bucking this trend with its 'Hybrid Air' powertrain that addresses the limited range of compressed air energy storage technology by combining it with a gasoline powered internal combustion engine. The company plans to have Hybrid Air powered vehicles on the road by 2016."
Rush (Score:5, Funny)
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
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Re:Rush (Score:5, Funny)
New car tag line, "Our brakes suck, but the acceleration blows."
I, for one, welcome our new hot-air overlords. (Score:4, Funny)
So much different than our current ones....
Wait - what?
Ultracaps (Score:2)
I'm waiting for ultracap overlords. Even hybrid ones.
All-electric car, enough UC capacity to run you around for, say, 15 minutes, and an IC engine that can charge the thing on board. No wasted idling energy (unless you spend it on AC or heat, etc., in which case it isn't wasted), all the great benefits of 4wd, regen, huge torque at any speed...
Of course, if you had a higher efficiency source of power (like nuclear... of course I'm dreaming now), that'd be super, but for now, gas/diesel is it.
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Yes you are dreaming - higher energy density and not efficiency, because you get a choice of steam power, thermocouples or photovoltaics to be run by that radioactive decay.
Still waiting on Mr Fusion (which won't be coming out of the USA after the ignition research got axed) and that hoverboard.
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Sure, ultracaps would be nice, but will likely be very expensive at least initially. Compressed air on the other hand can serve much the same purpose far more cheaply using well established technology. It doesn't really matter that much whether the energy is stored as electric potential to drive electric motors, or compressed air to drive compressed air motors. In either case your combustion engine (or other mechanical energy source) can recharge the power buffer while operating at optimal efficiency whi
Compressed air. (Score:5, Informative)
Not many details about it.
I guess you can re-use cylinders from the ICE for compression and expansion, which would save on weight.
Though the main problem with compressed air is that it cools and lowers pressure after it's been compressed, which is a big source of inefficiency. Large amounts of the energy are lost as heat. No mention on how they tackle that. For a lot of hybrid use, I suppose that insulating the tank would work quite well, but they imply that it can run off air for a large amount of the time, suggesting that the air will stay in the tank for a while and therefore cool down substantially.
Still though, batery charging isn't exactly 100% efficient and the simplicity could outweght the reduced efficiency.
Also, free A/C in summer.
Re:Compressed air. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm always free, not just in summer.
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They should scratch the compressed air part and use hydrogen per oxide as a storage medium. You can pump small amounts into an expansion chamber and react it like you would for a jet pack and toggle the pump on and off with the pressure inside the expansion tank that would be used to power the compressed air motor.
Something like that would give much further mileage plus a heat source for winter driving. It's relatively low temp compared with burning gas or diesel, and not much more dangerous if you do not u
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Then it's just another fuel source.
The point of a hybrid is to recover braking energy.
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Why couldn't you re-energize the expansion chamber or even fill a tank that works in tandem with the braking energy?
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How are you planning on making more h2o2 on the fly exactly?
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The same way you make gasoline on the fly- you go to a filling station. The only significant difference in this system would be a h2o2 tank instead of an internal combustion engine and a lot further range.
Think of it this way, imagine the h2o2 as 30 tanks of compressed air squeezed into the same space as 1 tank of compressed air. If 1 tank gives you 12 miles, you could have over 300 miles with h2o2.
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Modifications would be insignificant. Most likely, it would be self contained drop in units or even solar units in the owner's back yard that creates the h2o2. with a 300+ mile range and the exhaust being water and oxygen, it's not any more complicated then current tech trying to achieve the same results.
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Not really. Look at the hydrogen and compressed natural gas stations on the west coast. I don't mean to be completely dismissive of your concerns, but I find them overly exaggerated.
If I was to offer a car that could get 300 miles "per charge", that was lower cost then a traditional electric/electric hybrid, the interest in he car alone would be enough for several gas stations to consider installation of h2o2 pumps. This could be even drastically increased if the marketing initially focused delivery vehicle
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Yeah, but I guess my point was that the fuel could be cleaner and pretro fuels avoided altogether by using this guys drive train with h2o2. it also gets around the use of battery packs and so on. A much more practical car can be made that is useful to quite a larger audience.
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You are better off using a slightly modified of distilled version of feedstock that provides the hydrogen (oil or gas) in terms of both energy density and total energy usage. There's a lot of effort to get hydrogen in other ways to use to make things like h2o2 but it's still vastly easier to get it out of fossil fuels than any other way.
Re:Compressed air. (Score:5, Informative)
So instead of air, which is cheap, safe and readily available, you want to use h2o2 which is none of those things. It is also corrosive. The lower the purity of the h2o2 the less energy you are storing.
I see literally no upside to your suggestion.
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Yes, I want to go more then a dozen miles before having to refuel or go back to using gasoline.
You seeing no upside is why we are still using gas and oil or trying to kludge together expensive work around to simple solutions. With modern materials, the corrosive aspect is not an issue.
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CNG is known to burn vigorously, while air is known not to. I agree a small puncture might be a risk, but I think you will find that all trucks (in Europe anyway) have air brakes that require storing significant amounts of air at 10-12 atmospheres, and have done since before 1950. I dont recall a single accident where escaping air caused a fatality. (European trains use the same air
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>If this is made in Europe, then I guarantee the welding will be done by well trained robots, and not third world immigrants.
You know nothing about this subject. No, really, that statement came squarely out of your ass.
>have air brakes that require storing significant amounts of air at 10-12 atmospheres, and have done since before 1950.
Having enough air to propel a car and having air brakes are two entirely different amounts of air and pressure. I'll give you three guesses as to which has more.
As fo
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2. Exactly how big do you think these tanks are going to be that if ruptured there would be enough energy release to blow up a city block? I somehow doubt that these tanks are going to be large enough to ho
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>NG is toxic if inhaled in high concentrations.
No it isn't. The only hazard is asphyxia.
Also, flammability is not the same as explosion risk. Gasoline, contrary to the cinema, is not as much of an explosion risk as compressed air or CNG.
2. Exactly how big do you think these tanks are going to be that if ruptured there would be enough energy release to blow up a city block?
Take the energy to push a car for an hour.
Now put that in a pressure vessel. Since it will be in a car, it will be a very high pres
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>Your answers are pedantic and boring.
And you're a moron.
--
BMO
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And you also suck at physics.
>It just ruptures and maybe sends debris all over,
It's like you've never heard of a steam boiler exploding, which is still even lower than the pressures we're talking about when we want to propel a car for 10 minutes.
This should be fucking apparent to anyone who ever took HS physics. But either you slept through class or didn't bother. Either of which makes you an idiot.
--
BMO
Re:Compressed air. (Score:4, Informative)
You've got that backward. Air gets hot as its compressed. Very hot. To store the kind of PSI they'll need, that tank will be scortching hot unless they have some system to use that heat. Then, when it's released and the air expands, it cools. It says the drive train is hydrolic. I suspect it's a lot like a hydrostatic garden tractor. They've got a pully that when they spin it produces drive. If you've got compressed air driving that pully, and you have a gasoline engine driving it at the same time, the engine would be extremely efficient to begin with... then, as the compressed air tank loses preasure the load on the gasoline engine would become greater, reducing its efficiency. The result is that it's actually a gasoline powered car that gets a great efficiency boost while it still has air in its tank. Once it runs out, its just a normal car. So you can have a very efficient drive to and from work, but trips to grandmas not so much.
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You've got that backward.
Nope.
Air gets hot as its compressed. Very hot. To store the kind of PSI they'll need, that tank will be scortching hot unless they have some system to use that heat.
The system to use the heat is the air. If it stays hot then there is more stored energy. The problem is that the hot air cools, shedding a large amount of energy which went in to compressing it. That energy is not recoverable.
For example:
Block up the end of a bicycle pump, and compress it down. It will now bounce back w
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And fire is gas cooling through convection and radiation while being released in a chemical chain reaction.
It's weird to talk that way.
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There will always be lost energy. It's impossible to get around that.
As long as it doesn't ice-up or overheat within the confines of the heating and cooling systems of the car, it's only an engineering problem.
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I have yet to see a argument to justify claims of a "good deal" or a "large amount" of energy lost nor frankly do I expect to. That would require more than the most basic understanding of the issue.
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You are partly right, but things are not quite that bad.
You are right in that you don't want to compress air into a hot tank and then allow the tank to cool. That is energy lost. But just because gas will get hot if you compress it quickly in an insulated container does not mean you have to _let_ it get hot as you compress it.
If you compress the gas in such a way that it does not get hot (be efficient in removing the heat of compression) and expand the gas in such a way that it does not get cold (be effici
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You are all missing the point (Score:2)
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They (at least used to) stink and let out lots of soot.
Though I wish there were more (any?) diesel hybrids instead of gas hybrids.
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But do all hybrids actually stop/start the gas engine very often? I thought that wasn't always used. So would a "use the battery until it's empty, then use the diesel engine to charge the battery" type of hybrid work?
I did say "at least used to", though sometimes I'll smell a burning smell not coming from my car (heh).. Isn't that the smell of a diesel?
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Petroleum chemistry don't allow to produce arbitrary ratio of diesel compared to others products. The overall consumption have to match the ration that refineries can produce. So if the the diesel consumption increase, then his price will raise and the others products price will fall. This is exactly what happened in many European countries since the diesel have been promoted. Some government still try to biased the price by the taxes, but this cannot change the petroleum chemistry facts.
Ok, diesel have mor
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On the other hand, excess heat from the gas engine could be used to raise efficiency on the compression, no?
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Now that is a very interesting point.
They do claim it can run for a while on compressed air, though.
Excellent insulation coupled with a heat jacket from the exhaust could work.
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Well, I suppose they have it insulated well. It just needs to maintain energy through a typical stoplight cycle, so just a few minutes. Or maybe they go full retard and and hook up a stirling engine to the pressure vessel so they can at least extract some useful work out of the heat loss ;-) Well, that might actually be somewhat useful for keeping A/C and accessories powered while the ICE shuts down at stoplights.
I don't really understand why more manufacturers are not using flywheels instead, though...
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In principal you can compress and expand at constant temperature by exchanging heat with the outside air and get high (ideal) efficiency. Imagine many stages of compressors (or expanders) spaced by heat exchangers to ambient. In the limit of LOTS of compressors and expanders, the air never gets hot, and there is no efficiency loss. Real high presure compressors usually have a few stages with coolers inbetween.
I don't know if there is a mechanical trick to make this practical, and I'm too lazy to calculate
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I agree to the lack of details. There is some additional information on the PSA page about this [psa-peugeot-citroen.com], including two presentations (the press presentation is actually better than the "technical" one).
But nowhere can I find how much energy they can store with compressed air. I would imagine it is not very much so the "Zero emission" runs mentioned on the PSA page might be quite short.
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I don't know if they do, but they could re-warm the compressed air using the exhaust heat from the ICE.
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Ah, but in hot weather you have automatic air conditioning, just need to blow a fan by the cylinder into the passenger compartment.
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The working pressure of the ICE's pistons would be in the order of 10 atmospheres - look at the ratio of headspace to the volume swept by the cylinder's travel ; about 10 to one - which is negligible on the compressed air front. Off the shelf diving equipment can go up to 300 atmospheres, 4500psi. Though you would need to have the cylinder inspected and hydraulically tested every couple of years. FTFA
UPS has been doing this for over 4 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:UPS has been doing this for over 4 years. (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting. According to this more recent article:
http://www.dailytech.com/UPS+to+Use+40+New+Hydraulic+Hybrid+Vehicles+in+Baltimore+Atlanta+/article27846.htm [dailytech.com]
it appears to have worked out well enough to expand the experiment.
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To offset the usual chatter on /. (Score:5, Informative)
Here is some some quick responses.
1- No, running around in car with gas full of high pressure tank is the not the end of the world, people (including yours truly) do it with CNG enabled cars.
2- As for compression/decompression energy losses, same as for CNG, you need to cool it it blah blah, and is done so on a commercial scale at every CNG station; therefore can be done.
3- CNG suffers from power problems on steep climbs, same seems to be the case for air. But for regular commute, it's perfect and economical.
4- Air car suffer from low power density (much lower than CNG), but AFAIK, a full tank can last you the usual daily commute, which ought to be enough for a small city car. (which is what it will be able to power anyway, can't carry the load of bigger cars as of yet) And you could charge at work too(regular mains-running onboard compressor apparently take 3-4 hrs), so there is that.
5- MDI realised that air alone won't be enough, so they have been developing hybrid versions themselves.
TL;DR Air could prove to be good for the usual regular commute, since fuel costs will be minimum (air is free, all it will cost is running the compression and pump, which, looking at local CNG setups, will prove to much less than petrol equivalent, if commercially done)
Here is some aircar nerd sites:
- http://www.aircars.tk/ [aircars.tk]
- http://www.cyber-media.com/aircar/index.shtml [cyber-media.com]
(I would take their figures with a grain of salt, but well, the video shows running prototypes, so at least there is *something*)
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2- No, its NOT the same as CNG. Because the energy density of adiabatic expansion is a LOT less than the one of natural gas combustion. So a much higher loss fraction during the compression cycle AND combustion waste heat cannot be used to pre-heat the compressed gas to counter valve freezing and whatever.
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The point was CNG has already explored these frontiers, and have developed technology to render this commercially feasible.
More specifically, I was referring to the Pump-end of the equation; CNG stations cover about the same area as normal petrol station, and have an automated setup for compression, *cooling*, storing and dispensing gas at the pump; this is *not* a new or difficult thing to do, as americans presume, and you are not to blame, you have most likely not seen CNG pumps in action, so setting up a
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Sorry, I am not an engineer, so I can't answer this, but as I understand, the CNG running engines don't provide enough *power* on steep climbs, so cars have to switch over to petrol for the climbing portion, then switch back to the cheaper CNG for gentler slopes. Also, AFAIK, it isn't possible to do a diesel/CNG hybrid, and Bigger cars (~2000 cc plus engines) usually don't benefit from CNG.
Gas stations will have to start charging... (Score:3, Funny)
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Around here, gas stations have charged for tire inflation for a long time.
If you fill up your tank, you either get a token or they turn on the compressor for you. Otherwise you pay a quarter or whatever at the air/water machines. (I've never paid, and have never noticed anybody else paying.)
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Around Chicago it costs $1.00, and the air machines take credit cards. Wish I would have thought of that one...
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Wow, ok, maybe I'm wrong.. I just knew they took quarters/tokens.
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I have a small 12V compressor. Bought it a decade ago, and it is still as good as new. The price was $30 or $40, I don't remember. If you need compressed air often then it would be a good investment.
Pneumatics (Score:2)
Compressed gas, on the other hand... far scarier results with a ruptured vessel as the rapidly expanding gas is more than happy to forcefully hurl projectiles out of its way.
Its a HYDRAULIC Hybrid (Score:4, Informative)
The compressed air designation is very misleading. This is a hydraulic hybrid, using a hydraulic pump/motor the same way a normal hybrid uses a battery - for acceleration and storing braking energy.
Hydraulic hybrid vehicle (HHV) technology has been slowly maturing and is very promising. It is already in use for some advanced heavy trucks. Garbage trucks in particular, with their stop and go usage profile benefit from their efficiencies.
UPS is trying some out. Manufacturers like Navistar and Eaton are on board
In the U.S the EPA has been at the forefront of the research. See their page about it: Hydraulic Hybrid Research [epa.gov]
In 2011 the EPA announced a partnership with Chrysler to produce an HHV minivan that would give you a 60% improvement in city driving fuel economy.
Hybrid Batteries are expensive and can't handle the braking energy a truck generates. Hydraulic technology is cheap, well understood, and gives you more bang for your buck.
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No "compressed air" is not misleading as that seems to be exactly what is used for storage. From the PSA page about it (who should know intending to produce it):
--- snip ---
What is it exactly?
A new type of full hybrid powertrain that uses petrol and compressed air:
- An innovative combination of tried and tested technologies: a petrol engine, a unit to store energy in the form of compressed air, a hydraulic motor-pump assembly and an automatic transmission working with an epicycl
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The English article don't show the details. Here is a French article with more details:
http://automobile.challenges.fr/dossiers/20130123.LQA4031/psa-hybrid-air-des-hybrides-peugeot-et-citroen-a-air-comprime.html [challenges.fr]
It say that there is two nitrogen tanks, a high pressure one and a low pressure one. A hydraulic fluid (not specified) is used to compress the nitrogen of the high pressure tank. There is no description about the utility of the low pressure tank. There say that the gear boy is actually of the same ty
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Okay, I have to ask:
What is your native language?
Your grammar coupled with the spelling make it pretty clear that it's not English, but I cannot find any obvious pattern pointing to any particular language with which I'm familiar.
Of course, if your native language IS English, consider this to be my way of poking fun at your illiteracy....;-)
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Really sorry for my English. You are right it's not my native language.
My native language is French.
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Thanks for all the details.
Another key part of the system is the epicycloid gear. On a Prius for example, this gear allow the computer to adjust the energies flows with precision because all is controlled by two electric motors. I wonder how Peugeot Citroen system can archive the same. Possibly by controlling electrovalves on the hydraulic pump and hydraulic motor circuit.
Good for Buses and Delivery Trucks (Score:2)
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Well, If the air was pure hydrogen or oxygen, that would be a better way for sure.
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You don't want to drink it, you don't want to power your car with it
There must be some good reason they have to bless it after all
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a LOT of people dont have 20 mile commutes.
Not sure what your point is. A lot of people do have shorter communtes than 20 miles.
A lot of people also need to haul hay in the back of their car. A nontrivial number of people need to pull a tractor trailer too.
All that means is that the market is segmented since there is no one size fits all vehicle.
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Mine is 10 miles, round trip.
A car that can go 20 miles between charges would be fine for one vehicle and we could have one gas car as well.
Re:I've had my Volt for a year (Score:5, Funny)
You don't understand.
Once every 15 years you will need to haul 20 tons cross country, so you should just buy a semi for your regular commute so it's there when you need it.
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The average commute distance by private vehicle as of 2009 in the United States is a little over 12 miles (12.09, PDF [ornl.gov], page 48, table 27). So I would say that a lot of people DO have less than 20 miles commutes.
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Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
You know those funny little Citroen (dear /. janitors, please fix your bloody character encodings) 2CVs? With the little two-cylinder engines?
Yes, the little two-cylinder engine that produced around 60bhp/litre in its final form in the late 1970s. The little two-cylinder engine with alloy heads, pistons and crank-case (the prototypes were magnesium but that was too expensive) and drop-forged crank, borrowing heavily from fighter aircraft engines of the day. And then that engine, fitted into a body designed to protect the occupants in an accident - it was the first car designed so that the engine would break off its mountings and slide under the floor in a front impact, rather than back through the bulkhead and into the front seat occupant's legs.
Back in the 70s they could do well over 60mpg at safe motorway speeds. The French *can* make cars, and they make them better than Americans.
Here's a hint, America - no-one wants to buy your heavy, slow, ugly gutless V8s. They suck.
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I think your opinion of American cars isn't much more factual than the previous poster's opinion of French ones. Take a look at the new Ford Fusion or Dodge Dart for example.
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the dodge dart is really a fiat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Dart_(2013)
or is at least based on a fiat.
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Well, as another poster has pointed out the Dodge Dart is really just a Fiat with different badges - and that in turn is really just an Alfa-Romeo with a smaller engine.
There is a Ford Fusion sold over here that is basically just a Fiesta with a slightly higher roof. The new Fusion looks like a tarted-up Focus, and again comes with a range of shit engines. It's ugly, and (unless they alter it for the UK/EU market) it doesn't come with a diesel so it's going to be slow and gutless.
They are both utterly poi
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Everyone always ignores the fact that MPG ratings on European cars for the European market are rated in MPIG - Miles Per Imperial Gallon.
1 imperial gallon = 1.2 US gallons
In reality, the 60 MPG-rated eurocar only gets 50 mpg.
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
You should replace "European" in your text by "UK". But UK is an exception about this.
All others European countries use SI units: litre and meter. Usually the car consumption is rated in L/100km.
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The stupid thing is that nobody in the UK buys fuel by the gallon. It is always sold by the liter.
Also, the signs on the motorway that say "2/3 mile" are placed exactly 1km from the exit, they are just labelled wrong.
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Also, the signs on the motorway that say "2/3 mile" are placed exactly 1km from the exit, they are just labelled wrong.
This is certainly a clever decision in case the UK roads will switch to the km notation in a possible future.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Informative)
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Owned a 2cv, and loved it, (in its designed-for environment, rural France).
But in a crash, (with roadside tree, for example), you really would be better off in almost anything...
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You know, 1HP/cu in really isn't all that impressive.
Wasn't it about 40 years ago?
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Agree. I loved my various Citroens, (2cv, SM, CX, XM), except for one thing.
Apart from the 2cv, they broke down all the time.
Extra points for the SM and the XM for being virtually impossible to fix yourself, (and I'm a decent mechanic).
In the end I gave up, and like most people with money and sense in France, my wife and I drive BMW and Mercedes...
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Hopefully, this baby will come with its own hand pumps, to put your passengers to work.
Re:great idea (Score:5, Informative)
No one has heard of who?
These are major car brands in the EU.
DS5 (Score:3)
Nothing better than some examples, like the DS5 Diesel electric hybrid [topgear.com] with interesting styling [topgear.com].
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Oh come on, doesn't everybody know that Columbo's car was a Peugeot?
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So they've already got the fact that they got like 12 miles then have to refill
That's why it's a hybrid.
Re:great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, a hybrid of an internal combustion engine, and a hydraulic pump/motor unit recovers energy generated by the ICE and from braking and deceleration.
PSA says for city driving, its Hybrid Air system provides fuel savings of 45 percent and increases a vehicle’s range by 90 percent compared to conventional engines with the same power rating. In standard body styles the company says the system achieves certified fuel consumption (combined cycle) figures of 2.9 l/100 km (81 mpg) and CO2 emissions of around 69 g/km.
(The current voluntary target for CO2 in EC legislation limits average CO2 emissions from the European fleet of cars to 120 g CO2/km.
Oddly, Peugeot chooses to mention this voluntary target rather than indicate the degree to which the obligatory standards would be met.)
Mileage would be pretty impressive if they could actually achieve it in typical Euro city driving conditions. And it has the advantage of not requiring a heavy battery pack which can cost around 7 grand.
Unstated is what percentage of the time the engine must run to accommodate the typical trip, and keep the air tank topped up.
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I'd have to give this serious consideration when it comes to replacing the VW time.