Student-Built Car Could Get 400 MPG

Electric car built by high school students.

A vehicle designed by a group of Kansas City-area students could get up to 400 mpg and could change the face of fuel-efficient cars.

High school students are doing with very limited resources that high and mighty engineers can't do with almost unlimited funding and resources. If these students, and students like them, could have the support from the government, there is not any reason to believe tyhat the next generation could be tomorrows answer to todays problems.

This is a great story. It gives me hope that America can once again become innovators in this world while saving the planet.

Other related articles:

Students Build World’s Most Efficient Car

Transparent Eco Vehicles

Student-Built DeLaSalle Electric Car Aiming For World Record Efficiency

This should give inspiration to those who think Americans have lost their ingenuity.

This car patent will be purchased by one of the big three or a behind the scenes oil company exec,.. and that will be the last it will be ever heard of

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
This car patent will be purchased by one of the big three or a behind the scenes oil company exec,.. and that will be the last it will be ever heard of

Exactly Drummerboy...you beat me to it!

This (suppression of fuel saving technology) has been happening since the 1970's.

kaybee5000

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


Put all blueprints, schematics, source-code and materials used online and that should prevent that. Some exec can't really undo that. It isn't the 1970's.

I'm very sceptical that this is practical technology. My school did a similar thing years back, it's not revolutionary. Problem is, the technology isn't practical. For example, the car my school built was not road-worthy becaus it was barely more than a frame with a bit of fibreglass. It was more of a super go-kart driven by the lightest kid in the school. Not only that, but it did such an astonishing mpg by creeping round a level race track. Now, 400 mpg in a road-worthy car that has a realistic acceleration and top speed would be something. Maybe they mentioned such specs in the vid but I only had a quick flick through so apologies if I'm mistaken.

reply to post by EnlightenUp
I am all about that,. get the info out there,.
jus sayin,. this kind of concept is a threat

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
reply to post by EnlightenUp

 

I am all about that,. get the info out there,.
jus sayin,. this kind of concept is a threat

It must be public domain and everyone free to build or modify to suit their own purposes. If they wish to keep it proprietary (assuming there's anything really new here) in order to sell it to a high bidder, then they're only playing on the same level. You have to go above them to defeat the hegemony.

Top speed 42 mph, this car is just a test platform, for new ideas. Don't count on a 400 mpg car in the near future.

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


Patents can only be bought if they're sold. That's what's wrong with the United States. People here would rather benefit themselves at the risk of others.

We can only hope that these students will continue their research without any interference. If the federal government allows this technology to be taken off shores or suppressed like the new manufacturing techniques for producing solar cells that went to China, then there should be a revolution to overthrow the government and destroy big business.

I'm not advocating violence. I'm advocating freedom.



[edit on 24/8/10 by Intelearthling]

reply to post by Intelearthling

Patents can only be bought if they're sold. That's what's wrong with the United States. People here would rather benefit themselves at the risk of others.

Yes, but research can be destroyed, fines can be levied, people can have accidents, and life can become a living hell if you survive at all, or you can reap the benefits of your research and take the payoff.

Sometimes there is nothing truer than the Godfather line, "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse."



[edit on 24-8-2010 by getreadyalready]

stop with the big three buying it up conspiracy,,,,, watch the video

it's a 10 year old indy car chassis,,,, seating 1 weight 1200 lbs,,,,

TOP SPEED 42 mph ----- totally unrealistic in todays world

no conspiracy,,,, it's totally impracticle for real world use


light weight,,, and electric= 400 mpg


not everything is a conspiracy,,, or some evil plot

reply to post by Intelearthling


The high school's website gives links to more media reports.


They claim the "electrical equivalent" of 300 to 452 mpg. They don't say at what speed or under what conditions that efficiency was achieved. Is 42 mph the top speed of the vehicle or the speed at which it was tested for efficency?

They don't explain what they mean by "electrical equivalent". Are they measuring the electric energy drawn from the battery or drawn from the power grid to charge the battery? Are they comparing that the heating value of gasoline (about 150 MJ/gal)? Given that interpretation, they would be claiming about 300 miles on 42 KWh of electricity. Why don't they state the efficiency in unambiguous terms, like Joules per kilometer?

[edit on 2010/8/24 by Phractal Phil]

reply to post by Intelearthling


Thanks OP. I believe Electric cars are 'out' since you need to burn a natural resource to create electricity. It would be more exciting getting a Free-Energy car up and running and I don't meen solar...

Cheers

This is really nothing new. A carbon fiber chassis with an aerodynamic plastic body, and a standard fully electric drivetrain underneath.

The chassis and body weighs next to nothing and thus requires only 300 lbs of batteries, leading to a very high efficiency. It will still take many hours to charge, the batteries still need to be replaced after 500-700 charges and it's likely not a very safe car.

So an electric car gets 300MPG. Let's think about that for a minute. 300 MILES PER GALLON. But the car runs on electricity. So is that 300 miles per gallon of battery electrolyte or what? None of the articles spoke to how long the car could run on a charge either. I would say something sounds fishy to me.

Originally posted by groingrinder
So an electric car gets 300MPG. Let's think about that for a minute. 300 MILES PER GALLON. But the car runs on electricity. So is that 300 miles per gallon of battery electrolyte or what?

It's the energy usage equivalent of using one gallon of gasoline to go 400 miles that I believe is being referred to. I don't see anything about that including charging losses or overall generation and distribution losses.

[edit on 8/25/2010 by EnlightenUp]

here is the just of it all they great minded kids put together a car that is electric, gets an equivalent of 400 mpg. and some people want to slam on them . Yet we have a multibillion dollar corp. called GM or goverment motors that can only be able to make an electric car that goes 40 miles to a charge. i say sombody needs to fire the fools at GM and hire these kids right out of school. they got it right and didn't take billion of taxpayers funds to do it. i give them a great job and my full support.

reply to post by crawgator406


This is the point of this thread. The builders were high school students with the help of mentors. It doesn't matter if the car can become marketable. What matters is that these students put together a project with exisitng technology.

I believe the main point of the article is what these students achieved at such a young age compared to the "learned" society people tend to follow as absolute.

There's been at least one race across Australia in purely solar powered cars, not that they're ever going to be a practical form of transport but the point is, they did it. What was their equivalent mpg? (not that I know the answer but any distance divided by a virtual zero is a virtual infinity)

Students at Cal Poly built a three wheel motor vehicle contraption that runs on petrol and gets over 1900 MPG. They won $10,000 from Shell Oil for it. That was about 3 years ago. 5 years ago they had it getting over 850mpg

articles.latimes.com...

I guess it's the perfect vehicle for driving about 11 miles at at leat 15mph using less than three ounces of gas.