Who says economy cars have to be boring?

[Ianab]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/7548376/320kmh-diesel-powered-supercar

Runs on diesel or vegetable oil, gets about 98 mpg at 65 mph, top speed of 198 mph...

Big turbo diesel in a little sport cars. Massive amount of torque from a 6.6 litre engine, or runs at 980rpm @ 65 mph

Now, they just need to work on the price  :D

Ian

[Al_Smith]

I'd say off hand not too many people will being buying one at that price .Maybe Bill Gates or Jay Leno .Al Gore maybe seeings he's such a greenie with more dollars than sense .

[Ianab]

True, not many people buy 200mph super cars of any type

But that doesn't mean the technology wont trickle down into more mainstream cars over time. Turbos, variable valve timing, fuel injection, composite materials etc were all exotic stuff 40 years ago, now it's common on Mum's shopping wagon.

What I thought interesting is being able to get that sort of economy AND performance in the same car.

Ian

[Al_Smith]

Well first of all it has to have some pretty tall gears on it to go 65 MPH at 900 rpm  but we're talking 900 ft pounds of torque here .

That engine displacement equates to 402 cubic inchs which considering is impressive to crank out over 600Hp in it's own right .

I have no doubt the assumption that the technology might some day find itself into production automobiles discounting the politics .What certainly will happen though is that will not happen until the time is ripe for it .

[Al_Smith]

More .Around thirty years ago my sisters first husbands father was a tinkerer and putser .He had a Ford van with a 65 HP Massey diesel from a tractor and three transmission with two stages of over drive .It would run flat out at about 85 MPH but if kept within the speed limit it could get around 60 miles per gallon .

Now keep in mind with around a zillion combinations of gears he was constainly shifting the thing but he proved a point that high mpg could be accomplished .This was in days the average American gas guzzler was lucky to see much over 15 MPG if that .

[Kansas]

I guess this qualifies as an economy car. The Tesla sports car can go from 0-60 in 3.7 seconds. Its an electric battery powered vehicle. I don't know what the top speed is. I think it is programmed to not allow it to go over 125 mph. Pity. That takes all the fun out of owning a sports car.

[Ianab]

Yeah, what those cars show is what is technically possible, even if the technology is too expensive for us mere mortals. AAt the moment the market is with the eccentric millionaires.  :D

But even Al's DIY buddy with his tractor engine and 24 stage gearbox was doing better than most car manufactures can achieve even now.

So it's not that economy cars need to be boring shoe boxes, they just need to mass produce the technology that allows it.

Ian

[Ron Wenrich]

Took a 200 mile drive in my VW Jetta diesel last week.  Went from Ocean City, MD to Lebanon, PA.  Highway and city driving and got 50.1 mpg.  3 people and loaded with luggage.   On the open road I was doing 70 mph.

The technology is there, too bad it isn't getting to the marketplace.

[Ironwood]

I LOVE hearing about "someone" putting a combine (harvester) diesel in a ______ , just too cool. Reminds me of the publication called Farm Show, all kinds of cool stuff going on out there in various places around America. If yo uhave never seen the publication and this stuff is intriging try to find one, I think it was bi-monthly or quarterly.


http://www.farmshow.com/archives.php

Ironwood

[tyb525]

The technology has been here, and I hate to buy into conspiracy theories, but it's not in the interest of the oil companies to promote, or even allow, the existing technology that would allow us to produce fuel efficient cars. I'm sure the auto makers feel very lucky that big oil has "allowed" them to make hybrid cars that get 40mpg. A hybrid should be able to get more than that.

A bone stock manual late 80's-early 90's Honda Civic Hatchback could get you 50mpg and beyond, stock.

[tyb525]

Ironwood, I knew a guy that put a JD inline 6 diesel into a dodge, it sounded pretty darn good!

[maple flats]

I'd say off hand not too many people will being buying one at that price .Maybe Bill Gates or Jay Leno .Al Gore maybe seeings he's such a greenie with more dollars than sense .

I don't know about Gates or Leno, but Al Gore only talks the talk, he does not walk the walk!! Just look at his electric bill, something like $30,000 a year according to one article I read.   http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=5072659
He might however be green, since he's likely connected to TVA power.

[maple flats]

I used to know a Belarus tractor dealer (Frank Tuller of Cicero, NY back in the 80's) who was putting a 60 HP air cooled Belarus diesel in his pick up. I don't know if he finished, he died not too long after I talked with him about it. He predicted it would get over 100 gph, but ? I'm not sure.

[BBTom]

Nothing special about the engine in this car, same engine that is in my truck.  I can get 20 MPG in a 6000 pound non-aerodynamic 4wheel drive truck.  All they did was slip that engine into a light, sleek body with the proper gearing.

[Al_Smith]

Much ado about this "green " business " and less action ,all talk .My ex had a 1980 Chevy Chevette that got 42 MPG on a trip with no problem at all .Put over 100 thousand miles on that thing and even then got over 35 mpg .

What does Chevy do ,discontinue the model and bring out the GMC Sprint made in Korea and they couldn't give them away .What the idiots failed to realize is if the buying public wanted a rice burner they would have bought one to begin with instead of a US made automobile .

Sure the powers to be could do a lot of things if they wanted to .Politics in my opinion is what ties the knot in the hose so to speak .The pot lickers are all sleeping in the same bed .They never run out of creative ideas of how to surgically remove the wallet from the consumer nor do the polititions for that matter .

[Al_Smith]

More .Supposidley "new" innovations with drive lines ,engine designs etc are really not actually new .Old ideas whose time was not exactly right when they were first discovered through experimentation .

Things like variable valve timing ,electronic fuel injection or variable compression ratios diesels are just old ideas brought back .

I've got a Ford Ranger ,1997 model .OHV 2.3 liter 8 sparkplug .It gets 26 MPG but I swear even with that little engine it could very easily pull itself with one more stage of overdrive which would likely give it another 4- 5 MPG .Just one example of what they could have done if they had wanted to .

[tyb525]

Al, I know that ranger engine could get incredible gas mileage, but that is not what it was intended to do, cause that would just make too much sense :

Automakers make vehicles that get just good enough gas mileage to seem like they are trying, but nowhere near as good as they could be, in order to make the oil companies happy.

My boss has a 2000 Dakota with a V8, it gets less than 13mpg on a good day. how does that make sense?

[Al_Smith]

I had a '72 Ford F-250 with a 390  that did that good ,loaded or empty . ;D

[Al_Smith]

Here's how that would go if say every vehicle in the US got 50 MPG .First of all they'd raise the gas prices per gallon because they aren't selling as much .Secondly because the states base tax revenue per gallon they'd raise the tarrif on that .

True story because they did so in Mass. just within the last several years. I 'd like to blame Romney for that but I don't think he was the gov .when they pushed that one through .

Thirdly and just with my sarcastic outlook on this situation most likely within three years all the OPEC bunch would be lobbying for foriegn aid because their economy tanked .Worse part about that is most likely they'd get it .Now don't that just suck with a half life . >:(

[Todd]

The idea has already been floated that there could be a tax based on miles driven because tax revenues will fall due to higher MPG vehicles

[Al_Smith]

Well nothing wouldn't surprise me if the powers to be with "on star" and the like if they couldn't one day tell exactly how many miles you drive .In addition to your location ,if you snuck out to play poker with the boys or took a tour of the strip clubs .

By the same token think of the delight of the polititions if they could create an entire new bureaucracy of odometer readers to catch cheaters .Might be known as the "milage police " .Oh the possibilties are endless .

[beenthere]

Al
I get a monthly report telling me how many miles I've driven via OnStar. Also gives me the tire pressure in each tire.   : :
And how many miles to the next suggested oil change.
And their is on board GPS, so locating the car at anytime can be done. If stolen or in an accident, they can pinpoint the location for recovery, or where to send the EMS help. Also, the car can be unlocked if the keys are locked inside.
Not rocket science anymore. Plus, for a long time the events in a car have apparently been recorded in the on-board computer. If in an accident, those events can be recalled to get the true information as to when they occurred.

[Ianab]

The idea has already been floated that there could be a tax based on miles driven because tax revenues will fall due to higher MPG vehicles

All diesel road vehicles are taxed on mileage here, rather than a tax on fuel like petrol is.

Trucks are taxed on weight x mileage and have to carry a special hubometer on a wheel, to make it harder to disconnect the speedo. Cars and vans are just taxed on the speedo reading, which can be fiddled. But the fines are pretty big for the tax you would save, some most people just pay the tax and get the sticker. As long as the sticker on your window shows more Kms than the speedo you are OK.

There has been some muttering because a 1litre Diahatsu shoebox pays the same tax as 6 litre SUV, but it's a tax on Ks travelled, not on fuel used.

Ian

[John Mc]

Took a 200 mile drive in my VW Jetta diesel last week.  Went from Ocean City, MD to Lebanon, PA.  Highway and city driving and got 50.1 mpg.  3 people and loaded with luggage.   On the open road I was doing 70 mph.

The technology is there, too bad it isn't getting to the marketplace.

Ron - I was considering one of those (when my wife's Subaru Legacy wagon finally bites the dust).  How have you found maintenance to be on it?  I don't have the time or skills to do much of that myself, and our preferred mechanic seems to think the VWs can be maintenance hogs (though he admits he hasn't worked on many.  It's been tough to get diesel passenger cars in VT.).

I'm also curious how it handles in snow and ice (particularly on hills).

[Al_Smith]

     
Not rocket science anymore. Plus, for a long time the events in a car have apparently been recorded in the on-board computer. If in an accident, those events can be recalled to get the true information as to when they occurred.

Yeah I knew all that .I just wonder how long it takes for the  gov. to use it to blackmail us into paying more tax .The older stuff without the on board GPS is why they would need a task force of
"milage police  " who would naturally work for the milage tsar .Not to be confused with the chainsaw police some people worry about if  they alter their saw engines . :D

Oh my Orwell was right with that big brother stuff all along and we thought it was just a work of fiction .