Okay, I posted a bummer of a diary a couple of days ago in my
The End of Everything post. But hey, I'm basically an optimistic guy. I just have take my inner pessimist out for a walk every now and them or I end up sitting awake at 3AM, fretting over the ultimate entropy death of the universe.
But while I was busy being a black cloud of despair, some folks were out there actually doing things on the auto front that could really make a difference. I'm not talking about the Bush administration and their pitiful extensions to CAFÉ standards (hey, by 2011, smaller trucks will be slightly less crappy!). I'm talking radical, extraordinary, and just plain peachy keen.
And not one bit of it requires hydrogen, miracle cream, or a secret carburetor design kept hidden in a Mason jar on Funk & Wagnall's back porch for the last sixty years.
Four Wheels, Four Motors
If a hybrid is just not rad enough to suit your needs, how about going all the way to electric? True, the electric cars currently on the US market are pretty sad little things, suitable for not much more than ferrying retirees along streets where there are more golf carts than Golfs.
But that might not be true for long. There are new companies in China and India developing cars that run on electric alone at highway speeds and more than reasonable commuting distances. True, these are in the "mini-car" category which (according to Detroit) doesn't interest American consumers. And if Detroit says we don't want something (like hybrids, Mini Cooper, or just plain good quality small cars), then they must be right.
Even if the newcomers avoid our shores, one of the Japanese companies is now moving forward with their electric plans in a very exciting way. Not have they dropped the traditional gas-powered engine, they've also dropped the transmission, and just about every other component of current powertrains. According to the folks at Autoblog, this car might look normal, but under the hood... hey, just what is under the hood, anyway?
It's called the Lanver Evolution MIEV, which stands for Mitsubishi In-wheel Electric Vehicle. Like its name indicates, the EVO MIEV has four electric motors located in the wheels packaged neatly with the brake assemblies and steering hardware.
Packed into each of the four wheels of this auto are a set of unique electric motors. For those used to the usual manner of building such motors, these guys actually seem to be constructed backwards.
The idea of putting motors in the wheels is a science fiction staple that goes back at least as far as Niven and Pournelle's
The Mote in God's Eye (1974). What could be better than completely dumping all the gunk that currently translates the motion of the engine into turning the wheels, while at the same time gaining the poise and control given by four independently-powered wheels?
Of course, there is a slight problem. When you add weight to the wheels, that weight is considered "un-sprung weight," in that it's not supported by the suspension (shocks, struts, etc.). Stick a lot of unsprung weight out there, and you can get a crappy ride, poor handling, and some weird effects of physics (ever tried to control a spinning gyroscope?). Still, Mitsubishi is a big name in rally racing, their engines look nice and small, and it may be that they've cracked this nut.
Mitsu also hasn't said anything yet about the range or performance of this vehicle. Hopefully, we'll get a better idea of both after the MIEV competes in a rally next week.
Halfway to Heaven
Many times -- many, many times - Austin has proven that its relationship with the rest of Texas is merely one of geography. While the oil companies sit in their Houston and Dallas offices, licking their greasy chops over the ever increasing margins on their products (margins that last quarter made ExxonMobil the most profitable company in history), right down the road, folks are starting a revolution.
It's becoming old hat for states and cities to promote hybrids through tax breaks and access to the car-pool lanes. Austin is going one step beyond, and supporting plug-in hybrids.
The City of Austin kicked off a major campaign Monday to promote the mass production of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Austin city leaders say batteries in the plug-in vehicles would drastically reduce gasoline consumption -- some estimate it would reduce gas use by as much as 70 percent.
"Plug-in hybrids can help significantly address two very serious problems facing communities and our country," Mayor Will Wynn stated in a press release. "The over-reliance of America on oil imports and the need to improve air quality in our cities by reducing pollution from automobiles."
So, why is it that Mayor Wynn sees the importance of the plug-in hybrid, but the Democrats in D.C. are willing to go along with Bush's hydrogen hype? Eh, well at least they've offered a stirring defense of the anti-war position.. I mean, of universal healthcare. I mean... what is it we stand for again?
If you have read any of my energy diaries, you'll know that plug-in hybrids have been my favorite solution to our transportation crisis since Moses was a boy. Why? Because even plug-in hybrids built by simple tinkering with existing hybrid cars can get you 80 MPG. Not enough to interest you? How about 250 MPG?
Does that interest you?
Plug-in hybrids use technology that's already available, don't require a huge investment in new infrastructure, and could reduce our oil consumption by 70%. Daimler-Chrysler is going to become the first company to offer factory-produced plug-in hybrids next year (unfortunately, it's only a version of their bulky Sprinter delivery van, but it's a start). With Toyota and Honda slow to move on this front - they've spent millions convincing people that they don't have to plug in a hybrid car, and they don't want to confuse the issue - this could be Detroit's last golden opportunity to pull themselves out of the Slough of Despond.
5 Men, 12 Gallons, 1400 Miles
I love this story most of all. I love it because it shows what can be done with a car that's already on the market. Not with tinkering, but with a feather touch on the gas and a near insane dedication to an idea.
Two weeks ago, five drivers took a car to a little stretch of road in Pennsylvania. After a whole weekend of driving in four hour shifts, they had achieved fuel economy numbers that seem almost magical: 110 MPG.
So what was the secret? It wasn't some miracle fuel additive, some secret engine design, or some low friction track. This was an ordinary car, running on ordinary roads, using ordinary gas. The answer lies in two things: a unique ability of the Toyota Prius, and good driving technique.
This wasn't the first time these drivers had achieved extraordinary mileage. One of the drivers first posted about a 818 mile tank he had gotten over on PriusChat.com and challenged other drivers to beat him. Within a week, reports came in of a 900 mile tank. Then 967. Then the first driver edged 1000.
With that experience behind them, the best of these drivers teamed up for a experiment in pushing the Prius to its mileage limits. With a camera crew from HBO in pursuit, and lots of local media monitoring their progress, they set out on the Prius Marathon Run, hoping to get 1200 miles from one 12 gallon tank of gas.
For this run, they made only very slight changes to the car. They pumped up the tires to 60psi to cut rolling resistance. And they added some electronics. Only the electronics weren't really to improve the mileage, they were just to monitor the mileage. The regular displays on the Prius only go up to 99.9 MPG, and these guys knew they were going to top that, at least for part of the trip, so they loaded in some aftermarket gear.
This thread in PriusChat details their progress, along with the comments of Prius fans (like yours truly) "watching" over the Internet as drivers came off their shifts and posted the results. For those of us tracking the progress, this thing was every bit as exciting as any NASCAR race. When the 'add fuel' warning began to flash around 1,000 miles, it seemed like the predicitions of 1100-1200 miles were going to be right on. But the car kept on going for almost nine hours with the add fuel blinking all the way, finally reaching 1,397 miles before the well ran dry (and only then because the exhausted drivers finally decided to try to waste some gas).
The Pittsburg Post-Gazette caught some of the MPG-fanatic action:
Kroushl and four other middle-aged men are fuel-obsessive mileage maniacs, who drove themselves into the Internet's record pages with a jaw-dropping joy ride over a 15-mile stretch of Route 65 in Sewickley while averaging a little more than 110 miles a gallon."
Over on AutoBlog scoffers stood by to pan the event as "not real world numbers," but one of the drivers, Wayne Gerdes, had an answer for them:
I do not know how much more real world you can get. Over the almost 48 hours of run time, we hit 300 stop lights and 175 slow downs to less then 20 mph when coming up to those stop lights before they changed green. The course was a std. every day slower speed 4-lane highway running along the west bank of the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, PA. We obeyed all traffic laws.
For someone who has a Prius but "only" gets 52MPG, these guys have set a high bar. Excuse me while I practice my technique.