My next car! 300 MPG!

[dmention7]

Ouch... that's a heavy battery!

And one thing to keep in mind when thinking about ranges, is that we're all used to cars that get 300-400 miles on a tank. But an electric car that gets 100-150 miles on a charge would be able to easily accomodate the daily driving of probably 90% of americans, even those who live in outer suburbs. And when you can plug the car in each night and have a full battery each morning, that kind of range is going to be plenty adequate. Not for everyone, but for quite a lot of people.

Sure, the 300+ mile range of a gasoline vehicle is convenient, but if you could top off your tank in your garage every night, instead of having to make a special stop at a gas station, I'm sure most of us would be perfectly happy with tanks that were 1/2-1/3 that size.

 

[Workdawg]

An excellent point Jay, the only problem is the short range limits your ability to drive any further than it's range. You'd likely need a second car if you ever wanted to drive long distance.

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

Cargo space would be a nice gain from widening the rear end of the car. A car that pretty much can just transport two people isn't very practical... and even the ability to go 120 miles on electric or get the short term equivalent of 300mpg isn't worth what you have to give up.

It's a gadget toy.

 

[dmention7]

Cargo space would be a nice gain from widening the rear end of the car. A car that pretty much can just transport two people isn't very practical...

To some people. To most of europe, a car that fits two people and nothing else is completely practical. Heck, I could argue that a car that seats 4 people and has room for a few bags of groceries is impractical, because one almost never uses any of the extra space. Even though that description pretty much sums up most subcompacts.

95% of my driving is just me, my work bag and a cup of coffee. The actual instances where I need something larger are few and far between, and the economics could easily work out where it would be cheaper for me just to rent a larger vehicle for those couple hours per month where I'd need it.

 

[Z-licious]

It's a gadget toy.

No, it's a commuter car.

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

See, and I consider a car solely for commuting to be an impractical concept. While any single-purpose automobile is a concept I loathe, one that is solely for transporting 1-2 people is worse than exotic sports cars.

Also, even when I drove to work, I used the cargo and back seat a significant amount of the time. When you compare the idea of driving to work, and then having to go home and get another car to run errands or perform other functions, you losing much of the efficiency you gained. It's much more practical and likely even efficient for a car to have the flexibility to perform more of those functions, even it has less maximum range or mpg.

 

[dmention7]

Well, different people have different definitions of practicality. To some rancher, anything other than a monster diesel with dualies and a 20,000 pound towing capacity would be impractical.

In fact, the SUV is pretty much the epitome of ditching of the single-purpose automobile. But if one only needs a vehicle for a single-purpose, why should they compromise on a multi-purpose vehicle that costs more to purchase and operate? It's certainly not for everyone, but I guarantee people will line up to buy a car that gets them to work and back cheaply.

 

[spek1098]

Id take it, I rarely drive more the 50 miles in a day, and it's mostly just going place to place. With gas price trending upwards over the long term, this will only make it more and more practical for those who commute.

 

[upgtx]

Yeah i've seen articles about that air powered car, but good luck getting enough air in a tank to give such a car equal range to a typical gasoline powered car. You would need a tank that holds many thousands of psi. Can you imagine if a tank holding that much pressure were punctured in an accident? Explosions of that magnitude would put the ford pinto to shame.

430 Litres of air at 4350 PSI. But, think how damn thick they can make the tank and still have it weigh less than a 10 gallon tank of gas...

Gas tank what, 30 lbs?
Gas in the 10 gallon tank ~80 lbs.

So, they have 110 lbs to play with. All things considered it is most likely much lighter to have the compressed air tank (even if it is very thick metal) than the gas tank.


http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html?series=19

Coming to the U.S. in less than 2 years and under $20k. Read the articles then comment.

 

[dmention7]

The tanks of gas that we get delivered to our lab are at 3000-4000 psi. Those are just your standard gas tanks that you see everywhere. They are heavy as hell since they are made of steel, but are considered safe enough to deliver just by strapping them into the back of an open-bed truck.

There's no reason such tanks couldn't be built out of more advanced materials to save weight in an automotive application, and still be perfectly safe. Generally, a tank of compressed air is not going to explode if it ruptures; it will just leak and generate a crazy amount of thrust as the highly compressed air escapes. But if you've got a tank properly strapped into the back of a car, it's not going anywhere. The only way you could generate a destructive explosion would be if the tank was made of an extremely brittle material and it were to completely shatter.

There is no question that tanks of a highly-compressed inert gas are safer than tanks of highly-flammable liquid.