Ok, I give up on Hydrogen, but I need an alt.

Hey people,

Me being 16 in a few days I am going to set out to get my drivers license and get a car. Whatever car I get I would like to enjoy driving it, and I personally don't like the ideal of driving a car which pollutes. I have realised that hydrogen is not a good alternative atm, so I am asking what can I turn to now. I have heard about some low emmision, to no emmision fuels which can run in the Gasoline Internal Combustion Engines of today and would like to know more about these if you know anything.

Let me know, Thanks!

 

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Get a bike or a car that runs on electricity.

 

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Ha! I wish. Where would somebody get an electric car? and then what happens when I run out of juice unexpectedly?

 

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heres an electric car that goes 300 miles and can be recharged in an hour,and with that gas/hybrid trailer can go even farther
its also quicker accelerating than a Porsche
mind you its bit expensive as its only low production car,see t-zero at
www.acpropulsion.com

 

You could look into a natural gas car.

Not many areas have refilling stations yet, but in some places you can get your tank filled at the local power company (whoever provides natural gas to homes in your area).

 

Electric/hydrogen cars seem kinda silly. Instead of burning fuel in your car, you just make the electric/hydrogen company burn fuel for you instead (to generate the electricity or hydrogen).

You can make a car engine so that the efficiency is much higher then the power plant-> electricity-> car system.

I agree that natural gas is a better option.

 

I was thinking more down to earth. I heard there was some biofules. I seen it on TV where this teen put some cornoil or something like that maybe? in his car and burned that and it is cleaner...

 

If you can tolerate hippy madness http://www.grassolean.com

 

I think toyota still has a hybrid that gets some killer gas mileage.

 

I like this one:

http://clickit.go2net.com/search?po...oyota.com/html/shop/vehicles/prius/index.html





Better than this one:



http://www.insightcentral.net/


But you decide for yourself. These are both great cars and have been around awhile.

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The VW TDI gets 45 MPG highway. Desiel engine.

It's not an ULEV, though. The Toyota hybrid and the Honda hybrid (either the insight or the hybrid civic) both get pretty good mialage, and are both ULEV. The Civic hybrid only get around 40 mpg highway, though.

Even the regular Honda Civic gets 40mpg, and some are ULEV. hybrid aren't quite up to snuff yet, IMO.



All this while the common SUV sometimes breaks 15mpg

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Ethanol, methanol and Biofuels. No net production of green house gaseous, lower smog pollutants can be made energy productive from waste, can be used with standard car technology with little to no changes. Imagine that: replacing all gasoline and diesel fuels needs with fuels made from farmer’s waste, garbage and good old American feces.

My folks have a Civic Hybrid here in MN, gets 45.4mpg (that’s what the odometer says after 19,139 miles) regular civic gets 30/34mpg. The idea is that if every car was a hybrid the nation would us 20-30% less automotive fuel reducing fuel demand on oil pumping industry that’s reach critical in demand verse production ratio and producing less pollution.

 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031002/tc_nm/autos_toyota_hybrid_dc_1


it would appear that the rev 2 of the Toyota Prius hybrid will double the MPG rating. 80 MPG!! And they look and drive like regular cars (unlike the Honda insight).

 

How much money do you have?

The best hybrid car out there so far is the 2004 Toyota Prius. It uses regular gas and it is a SULEV (Super Ultra-low Emissions Vehicle) It sounds most like what you describe as your ideal car.

- It's a 5-seater mid-sized sedan (About as spacious as an Accord)
- Has good acceleration (Thanks to the 250 foot pounds of torque at 0 RPMs generated by its electric motor)
- Uses regular gas
- Gets 60 miles per gallon in the city and 50 miles per gallon on the highway. (2004 model has 10% more space, 15% faster, 15% more fuel efficient than the 2003 model)
- $20,000 (About the same price as a Ford Taurus)


This is only the second generation of the Prius and the improvements have been drastic. Toyota is going to be employing this "Hybrid Synergy Drive" that the Prius uses in many other cars this year. They're marketing the cars as, "Have fun driving our cars while saving the planet" Because they really don't have to sacrifice performance too much with these high-tech cars.

 

I have this idea for a hybrid car: It would have a turbine engine connected to a G-motor that is centered in a M-motor. The Turbine is not connected in any way to the drive train (only the M-motor is) but torque from the turbine is transmitted from the G-motor to the M-motor electrically and magnetically, extra electricity is stored in batteries. This is different from a normal serial hybrid concept because the G-motor is centered in the M-motor and will pull the M-motor magnetically so a good percentage of the torque is transmitted magnetically instead of all of it being transmitted electrically, increasing efficiency. I have not heard of any idea like mine, only normal serial hybrids using a turbine generator in the back charging the batteries that goes to electric motor power train in the front.

One of the problems with the Prius system is the planetary gears cause a lot of friction and waste more energy over a standard transmission this makes the Prius less efficient over long distances at constant speed (highway) the Prius is most efficient on "stop and go" were it is best at recycling the kinetic energy of the car as it slows down. The Honda using a electric assist which is just a electric motor between the engine and the transmission, the Honda gets most of is fuel efficiency from is small and very efficient engine rather then from the hybrid system, the Honda is best on highways. A good compromise system between both concepts would be something like a Srigear arrangement http://www.powertrain.se/pow1.htm

 

Yeah, sounds great, thanks. My only problem is that it's ulgy.. heh...

 

You need a Flexible Fuel Vehicle . These vehicles are mainstream, indistinguishable from their less sophisticated gasoline-only versions. These vehicles are fully equipped to burn gasoline, ethanol, or any combination of the two. So you don't have to buy a new car if the cost of fuel changes.

Remember, ethanol is the least expensive renewable fuel on the market, costing barely more than gasoline. Also, it is made from biomass, so all the carbon emissions from your vehicle will be re-absorbed in next year's biomass crop, which will again used to make ethanol in a neverending renewable cycle.

You could also go for a diesel engine, if you can nail down a supplier of biodiesel. No engine modifications needed in this case. In fact biodiesel doesn't produce carcinogenic soot and other pollutants that make diesel so unattractive to consumers.

Zero net carbon emissions. Low cost. Renewability. Widespread availability. Biofuels are the way to go.

 

Widespead availability? I've seen ethanol at some pumps but in my experience, most gas stations don't carry ethanol.

 

Widespread availability, as in they can be made anywhere

 

to be more clear, it's not that the emissions from this fuel is specieal, and plants absorb it before any other carbon-based by-product available in the environment. it's just that the carbon came from active bio-matter, and not underground stores which were being held out of the environment.

So it's not that the carbon you use will be taken up by next-years crop, it's that you not helping oil company's re-introduce carbon which had been outside of the earth's active carbon cycle. By using active carbon, your net year-over-year addition to the carbon in the environment is 0.