1000mpg, patents covered up, tin foil hat time or more to it

[Richyboy]

Any truth to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR9CeCiVrHw

a Shell Oil scientist admitting they broke the 1,000 mpg barrier in the late 70s which seems easily possible since inventor John Weston has a car that gets 463 MPG and he didn't have the massive budgets and technology available to Shell Oil. You can read about John Weston's car here:
http://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?pa...

You can also read about many other cars getting over 100 mpg in this article:
http://www.project.nsearch.com/profiles/blogs/supe...

[GroundEffect]

Oh come on.

[ging84]

if there are no lizards involved, it's not true

[williamp]

Read about the lean-burn technology being developed in the late 80s and 90s which was getting towards very significant mpg. Unfortunately the governments focused on Co2, and catalytic converters etc which took engineers down a different route

[eldar]

A Gallon of petrol has around 36Kw of potential energy, so the equivalent of 400MPG is 90w per mile, assuming the engine were 100% efficient. That is about the same as someone riding a bike at about 8-10MPH.

Normal car, not a chance, lightweight, super streamlined car, yes.

[balls-out]

eldar said:

A Gallon of petrol has around 36Kw of potential energy, so the equivalent of 400MPG is 90w per mile, assuming the engine were 100% efficient. That is about the same as someone riding a bike at about 8-10MPH.

Normal car, not a chance, lightweight, super streamlined car, yes.

Don't trust this eldar - he's a nine foot lizard in a costume. He is part of the cover up

[anonymous-user]

Can you make car do 1000mpg under idea circumstances: YES

Can you make a PRACTICAL, AFFORDABLE and MASS PRODUCED car do 1000mpg in the real world: NO


Here for example is a "car" that will easily do 1000mpg:



How do you fancy that as you family wheels? Not sure how you're going to get the kids in it:




mmm, comfy! ;-)

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 5th November 20:43

[Jonny_]

eldar said:

A Gallon of petrol has around 36Kw of potential energy, so the equivalent of 400MPG is 90w per mile, assuming the engine were 100% efficient. That is about the same as someone riding a bike at about 8-10MPH.

Normal car, not a chance, lightweight, super streamlined car, yes.

Presuming you mean 36KWh and 90Wh?

But me being an engineering pedant aside I'm with you on this. 90Wh isn't a lot of energy to travel one mile...

Converting 90Wh to joules: 90w x 3600 seconds in an hour = 324,000KJ.

Travelling at 30mph, i.e. one mile takes 120 seconds, average power is 324,000/120 = 2700W or about 3.6hp.

That's the total power available from the fuel for one miles' worth of driving if the 400mpg target is to be achieved. In reality, the highest thermal efficiency for petrol car engines is about 38% (current Prius Atkinson cycle engine). Averaging 400mpg therefore limits the average mechanical power to 0.4 x 2700 = 1.08KW or just under 1.5hp.

It would be one incredibly efficient (in terms of aerodynamics and rolling resistance) vehicle that can travel at 30mph using just 1.5hp! To put it in context, maintaining 30mph on a road bicycle with narrow, high pressure tyres and a relatively small frontal area needs about 400W i.e. just over 0.5hp.

Edited by Jonny_ on Thursday 6th November 19:01

[vladcjelli]

I wish I knew stuff.

[jmcc500]

williamp said:

Read about the lean-burn technology being developed in the late 80s and 90s which was getting towards very significant mpg. Unfortunately the governments focused on Co2, and catalytic converters etc which took engineers down a different route

Being pedantic, lean burn failed because of the need to run 3-way cats to control NOx, HC and CO simultaneously. This is not possible with a lean burn engine as the cat needs a stoichiometric feed gas. CO2 is directly proportional to fuel burnt, so a lean burn engine would have very low CO2.

Stratified charge/DI get around some of the issues and allow lean operation, and in fact the first generation Honda Insight was running lean in the early noughties in European and Japanese market versions, though not the US version as (I presume) the emissions requirements there were too stringent.

[JonnyVTEC]

Us manual had lean burned and rated ULEV, the CVT however did not have lean burn unlike the Jap model which allowed it a SULEV rating.

After 3-4 mins of running in lean burn it runs a rich purge to clear the NOx. Even a small engine in a light slippy lost leader car meant a pretty expensive NOx cat, let alone proper size engine.


Prior to the Insight Honda played with the CVCC Civic which looked really interesting, I think the blanket requirement of cats killed it?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVCC

Edited by JonnyVTEC on Wednesday 5th November 21:46

[RobinBanks]

Are you really asking this or trying to provoke insults?

[Richyboy]

RobinBanks said:

Are you really asking this or trying to provoke insults?

I was asking but I expected it to be debunked.

[Fire99]

Well keeping away from the science for a while, Oil is huge business. Wars have been fought and lives lost over it, so I wouldn't doubt there is some truth to it being in the Oil companies interests to limit the availability of high efficiency technology..

[GroundEffect]

Jonny_ said:

eldar said:

A Gallon of petrol has around 36Kw of potential energy, so the equivalent of 400MPG is 90w per mile, assuming the engine were 100% efficient. That is about the same as someone riding a bike at about 8-10MPH.

Normal car, not a chance, lightweight, super streamlined car, yes.

Presuming you mean 36KWh and 90Wh?

But me being an engineering pedant aside I'm with you on this. 90Wh isn't a lot of energy to travel one mile...

Converting 90Wh to joules: 90w x 3600 seconds in an hour = 324,000KJ.

Travelling at 30mph, i.e. one mile takes 120 seconds, average power is 324,000/120 = 2700W or about 3.6hp.

That's the total power available from the fuel for one miles' worth of driving if the 400mpg target is to be achieved. In reality, the highest thermal efficiency for petrol car engines is about 38% (current Prius Atkinson cycle engine). Averaging 400mpg therefore limits the average mechanical power to 0.4 x 2700 = 1.08KW or just under 1.5hp.

It would be one incredibly efficient (in terms of aerodynamics and rolling resistance) vehicle that can travel at 30mph using just 1.5hp! To put it in context, maintaining 30mph on a road bicycle with narrow, high pressure tyres and a relatively small frontal area needs about 400W i.e. just over 0.5hp.

I was going to correct him on the same thing. Us engineers are a sad, predictable lot...

[southendpier]

Downhill?

[PhillipM]

He put his rose joints the wrong way around Max, give him a bking.

[TooMany2cvs]

Just a couple of thoughts for you...

- If there's some kind of oil-company/motor-industry conspiracy, where are the current crop of electric cars coming from?

- If the motor industry could produce 1,000mpg cars in the 1970s, how come they can only produce ~60mpg cars now, at a time when fuel economy _sells_? Can you imagine how somebody selling genuine 1,000mpg cars would clean the market up...?

[Fastpedeller]

TooMany2cvs said:

Just a couple of thoughts for you...

- If there's some kind of oil-company/motor-industry conspiracy, where are the current crop of electric cars coming from?

- If the motor industry could produce 1,000mpg cars in the 1970s, how come they can only produce ~60mpg cars now, at a time when fuel economy _sells_? Can you imagine how somebody selling genuine 1,000mpg cars would clean the market up...?

But only if you had a family of hamsters....... These aren't real cars, and they aren't operated in real traffic conditions.

[sa_20v]

Next you'll be telling us tobacco companies knew of the health risks...