Air Car....

[GuchiGuh]

back to topic!
Non the less, at least its nice to know that people are working on new sources of energy.

every little bit helps!
And even if this is the most inefficient engine in the world, like Brian said, most power plants I've done some calculations on I've gotten efficiency numbers in the ranges of 20-35%...and that was excluding feed pump work! But this is the nature of this world.

Kudos to them for giving it a shot anyway! I wonder how much noise it produces thou? 300 bar of compressed air....

I say Diesel all the way, bloddy torque monsters! Well until hybrid becomes better and cheaper and until cars run on fuel cells.

[Brian Ellis]

Except that for the air car you've mentioned the electrical grid inefficiency, the compressor inefficiency, the decompression inefficiency, and the transmission inefficiency.

Yet for the Prius you didn't mention the distillation inefficiency, fuel infrastructure inefficiency, combustion inefficiency, etc.... And what about the environmental damage?

I'm not saying that the air car is a great idea, but at least compare it honestly. There's no way the Prius gets a 35% crude->wheelpower efficiency.

Wrong! I was comparing ready-to-burn fuel to wheels in both cases, so it is comparable. The fuel required to generate electricity requires just as much infrastructure as to drive a car, so it IS apples and apples.

[Fluff]

You know how silly dump valves sound. Can you imagine.

[Brian Ellis]

The Prius is an over priced piece of shit that can't even come close to its EPA ratings. I can go out and get an old Honda CRX and get over 40 MPH with a pure gasoline engine. Hybrids are just a crutch and aren't worth the extra 5K+ they want over smiliar sized gasoline powered cars. You can't even make the difference up in saved gas money with a Hybrid with the price preium you have to pay

You obviously are simply prejudiced, as you have not researched the facts. I've a friend living near DC with a Prius. 4 days per week he commutes 14 miles into downtown Washington from his home in Maryland and gets about 65 mpg in rush hour stop-start traffic. There's not many other medium-sized cars that will come within sniffing distance of that: with most of them, you would be damn lucky to get 20 mpg under those conditions.

On the other hand, once a week he goes to Baltimore and he sets the cruise control on the highway to 5 mph over the limit and he averages about 48 mpg, with the aircon on low most of the time. Weekends, he uses the car a lot for recreational purposes. He told me that his average over several months was 56 mpg. And when gas is over $2/gal, he very much appreciates the difference from his previous Camry, especially as he arrives at work much more relaxed.

There's a guy on another forum who has just taken delivery of one:

It's official. I am now the happy owner of a 2005 Toyota Prius and I got 55 mpg for my first day of driving.

This is just about the coolest car I have ever owned. It is like playing a video game. It has so many cool graphs and charts on the display to track your fuel consumption.

It becomes a game trying to get the battery to move the car as much as possible and avoid the gas engine being on. Even when moving at 40+ mph it is possible to sort of coast with the battery providing much of the momentum and the gas just flickering on occassionally to handle small inclines. During acceleration from a stoplight, I can get it up to 17 mph before the gas engine engages.

I got a bare bones model with a minimum of options. Only a two week wait because I did not care about the color. There was an estimated 3 month wait if you want a specific color.

The key to maintaining the 50+ mileage is clearly to chage the style of driving. If I just drive without thought, the mileage will clearly be low 40-45 mpg. If I focus on driving in a manner that maximizes the battery use, it quickly climbs into the 50+ range.

There seems to be a sweet spot where you just keep the car at 45 mph and the gas engine just comes on occassionally to maintain speed. The mpg can be 70+ mpg for significant periods of time.

This is actually a really fun car to drive. If you ever have a chance to drive one or just ride in one, do it. This is an entirely different experience.

I just got back from a test drive. I found some really flat roads with no traffic so that I could accelerate as slow as I want and really test out the 2005 Prius Hybrid. (completely unscientific test with only a few samples)

By doing a really gentle acceleration, I was able to get the speed up to 32 mph without the gasoline engine engaging. I was using pure battery and able the maintain 32 mph on a flat road. I was able to do this for about 3 miles. Then the battery charge meter showed it dropping by one bar which is about 12.5%.

I would estimate the acceleration was 0 to 30 mph in about 15 seconds. I had to be really gentle to avoid the gasoline engine engaging.

On the regular drive back to work (about 3 miles) the battery complete recharged from regenerative braking and gasoline engine running.

I experience rush hour highway traffic for about 8 miles per day (14 mile one-way commute to work). There is an area where it is always backed up in the afternoon because 3 lanes shrink to 2 lanes. Traffic moves along at 20 mph in this area. This was pure battery time for the Prius Hybrid. Stop and Go with speed under 25 mph.

My display computer said that I was 99.9 mpg most of the way. Radio on and A/C on low. The fuel consumption graph will show you how you are doing for every 5 minute period for the most recent 30 minutes of driving. My average, for that 10 minute period, was well over 75 mpg for that section of road when I was mostly on battery electric engine.

For the first 100 miles, my average was 52 mpg. I am still learning how to take advantage of the electric engine more. It is a very fine sweet spot to find that foot pedal pressure to use the battery to just maintain momentum at 45 mph. That is where the average mpg starts climbing to the highest levels.

Today I had the Prius on cruise control at 63 mph. My average for 10 miles was about 49 mpg. Mostly flat road. It was raining and I had the A/C (low), radio and wipers on.

I am going to try over-inflating the tires by a few pounds of pressure and see if that changes my statistics.

That is one guy's actual experience, to which I give more credence than uninformed rants.

[GT98]

I'll Raise you on The Prius:

http://autoweek.com/article.cms?articleId=102204

Most on staff feel if we have to endure such wretched driving dynam�*ics—numb steering, terrible handling—the least the Prius should do is deliver on a promise of super-duper fuel mileage. The EPA pegs the Prius for a combined 55.6 mpg; that we are getting 42.29 mpg year-to-date means the Prius ain’t cutting it. Any diesel Volkswagen can do that and still be a hoot on the highway—as well as offer the same utility as the hatchback on the Prius.

Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short

Prius is no where a midsize car in the North American Automarket..at best its a compact or subcompact car. Your friend in DC downsized from an Accord when he went to a Prius.

On the regular drive back to work (about 3 miles) the battery complete recharged from regenerative braking and gasoline engine running.

Can I even ask why this guy has a Prius? He would be much better served taking a bicycle or Motorcyle into work if he lives that close to work

What it boils down to is that Hybrid in most situations isn't any improvement over a Diesel or small car with a 4 cyc engine and the price preium over them makes the car even more unattractive. At least in the states its for stupid asses that think they are doing something for the enivorment. Like PT Barum said...a Fool and his money are soon parted.

[RichL]

Kudos to them for giving it a shot anyway! I wonder how much noise it produces thou? 300 bar of compressed air....

It wouldnt be long before I'd get the outlet from a whoopee cushion and jam it over the 'exhaust' from one of those cars...

I say Diesel all the way, bloddy torque monsters! Well until hybrid becomes better and cheaper and until cars run on fuel cells.

Diesel rules!
My Seat Leon gets 45mpg without trying too hard (and I know I'm getting less gas milage than most other owners), and doesnt cost the earth to build, buy or maintain.
IIRC diesel fuel is easier and cheaper to refine than petroleum, and you can run diesels off biofuels.

I don't know why they've never been big in the US.

[VJ]

This might improve the Prius mileage:

The standard Prius can't be plugged in a wall socket to recharge the batteries, with this plugin it can:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/03/new_plugin_hybr_1.html

(why did Toyota exclude this?)
So for short hops, you could manage without fuel. Ok, you still need electricity to recharge it.


As for the aircar: I read about it before, and it seemed like a good idea. However, I totally forgot about the inefficiency of compressors.


Jörg

[agallag]

I think it's agreed that the Prius gets pretty good mileage. How good depends very much on your driving style though. What most people fail to mention is that the toxic chemicals used in the production and disposal of the batteries more than cancels out the fuel savings in terms of environmental responsibility.

An Echo hatchback or a diesel Golf would be a much smarter choice at this point.

[Wombat]

Wrong! I was comparing ready-to-burn fuel to wheels in both cases, so it is comparable. The fuel required to generate electricity requires just as much infrastructure as to drive a car, so it IS apples and apples.

Only if you're burning petrol. Solar, wind, thermal, nuclear.... all different. And less pollution.

[Dr Mordrid]

Then you have stories like the one from Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin.

They have a program going to put up environmentally friendly wind power generators. Farmers would be paid about $4000 for each one built on their land and they would still be allowed to farm around them.

So...whose objecting?

The enviromentalists, of course!!

Seems they think that birds won't be able to avoid the propeller blades, even after years of experience with wind power in California says this isn't a real problem.

It's always something with those morons....

IMO any bird that can't avoid those huge, slow moving blades deserves to become extinct

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

I don't know why they've never been big in the US.

Because all of our diesel fuel is low-quality stuff meant for the big rigs. We don't have the premium diesel that you guys have. Also, you can't find diesel at every gas station, there may only be a few places, even in a larger town.

[RichL]

Because all of our diesel fuel is low-quality stuff meant for the big rigs. We don't have the premium diesel that you guys have. Also, you can't find diesel at every gas station, there may only be a few places, even in a larger town.

But surely taking what must be relatively simple steps to improve the quality and availability of diesel fuel and popularising diesel cars has to be a lot more cost effective and politically correct than say, invading Iraq?

[DGhost]

But surely taking what must be relatively simple steps to improve the quality and availability of diesel fuel and popularising diesel cars has to be a lot more cost effective and politically correct than say, invading Iraq?

but it would be a lot less fun for some of us

[GT98]

But surely taking what must be relatively simple steps to improve the quality and availability of diesel fuel and popularising diesel cars has to be a lot more cost effective and politically correct than say, invading Iraq?

LOL

We are getting "Clean" Diesel in 2007 or so...

I'm not sure how this is supposed to help our depenance on foreign oil though...yeah it gets better MPG, but is it that much better that it will make a big difference?

[Wombat]

Having more diesel engines out there would make it more feasible to use other forms of diesel, like biodiesel.