Posted on 08/06/2002 2:08:25 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
To listen to automakers snipe about tightening fuel economy standards, you'd think it impossible to squeeze more miles from a barrel of Extract of Arabia. This, of course, is not the case, particularly if you design a vehicle expressly to drive far and drink little.
Forget power, space, and speed: Volkswagen AG's latest idea-on-wheels does not address the requirements of the average American family driver. What it can do is travel more than 100 kilometers on a single liter of fuel. Translation: 235 miles per gallon.
The car's designers combined highly tuned aerodynamics, exotic materials, and a 0.3-liter diesel engine to achieve 0.99 liters per 100 kilometers. The project, the brainchild of engineer Thomas Gänsicke, is an engineering exercise and therefore has rather whimsical features. Most noticeable are the car's canoe-like proportions: It's 4 feet wide and 11 feet long. Occupants sit tandem, the passenger straddling the driver's seat, both wedged under a 4-foot-long gullwing canopy.
Three video cameras eliminate the mileage-reducing wind drag of rearview mirrors. Wheels are faired in, side-cooling air inlets open only when necessary, and even the keylocks have been replaced by a proximity unlocking system. The resulting coefficient of drag is 0.159, compared with 0.30 or so for most production cars.
The slinky carbon-fiber bodywork covering the magnesium frame is just the beginning of the unobtainium-based technology used throughout. The front suspension is a combination of titanium, aluminum, magnesium, and ceramics and weighs less than 18 pounds. The single-cylinder four-stroke engine has monoblock construction—there's no separate cylinder head—and is all aluminum. Fuel is atomized directly into the cylinder at 28,000 psi. Two overhead camshafts operate the one exhaust and two inlet valves. The fuel pump is magnesium, the exhaust system titanium.
The engine produces a thundering 8.5 horsepower and weighs only 57 pounds. It conspires with a 6-speed gearbox—magnesium housing, hollow shafts, titanium bolts—to pinch miles from the diesel fuel. The transmission shifts electronically, killing the engine when an onboard computer foresees an inkling of fuel savings. A starter-generator, with energy stored in nickel-metal batteries, rekindles the engine as necessary.
Because the electric motor only restarts the engine, the 1-liter car is not a hybrid. Gänsicke explains that if fuel economy wasn't paramount, the motor could be used to increase horsepower and torque by 30 percent. "But that's not the effect we wanted." In fact, he's not terribly specific about performance, other than to say that top speed exceeds 70 mph and that it's "not very quick in accelerating."
It can, he promises, "swim with the usual traffic." Who better to emphasize that point than Ferdinand Piëch, chairman of VW? For the most recent board meeting in April, Piëch drove the 1-liter car from Wolfsburg to Hamburg, 110 miles, averaging 264 miles per gallon on the way. That works out to an ultra-miserly 0.89 liters per 100 kilometers.
Of course, "0.89-liter car" doesn't quite have the same ring.
SIZING UP THE SMALL FRIES
How VW's 1-liter machine stacks up against the shortest-wheelbase vehicle on American roads today, the Mazda Miata.
VW 1-Liter Car
Length: 143.7 in.
Width: 49.1 in.
Height: 43.7 in.
Weight: 588 pounds
Peak Power: 8.5 hp
Fuel Capacity: 1.7 gal.
Mileage: 235 mpg
Mazda Miata
Length: 155.3 in.
Width: 66.0 in.
Height: 48.4 in.
Weight: 2,387 pounds
Peak Power: 142 hp
Fuel Capacity: 12.7 gal.
Mileage: 29 mpg
Stopping is simple. Turn on the A/C :~)
We don't look at cesium compounds any more...
Furthermore, we don't just leave chunks of sodium lying out on the bench. When we're using it, we hustle. That probably helps.
I do research work with nickel metal hydride batteries... Those are really fun, because of all the H2 gas boiling off of the metal matrix.
It sounds like you have a fascinating job. Perhaps it will someday lead to efficient electric cars. Wouldn't that be cool? I could come home and plug my car into a windmill and charge it up.
As to that MSDS, it isn't detailed as to why Na will react with air. It's because of humidity. It is a bit of a trick question because it gets down to the water reaction of which you are well aware.
It could be that your lab maintains a dry air environment and that's why you've not seen an air reaction. But, it would seem responsible for your supplier to at least put a warning label to that affect.
As far as H2 goes, I used to evolve it by dissolving Al in a sodium hydroxide solution when I was a kid. As you are probably well aware, H2 has an LEL of only 1% in air (five times lower than methane). I’m very lucky I didn’t blow myself up!
Best regards, Barnacle
Doesn't VW also have a hand in Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Bentley, Rolls Royce? Pretty solid company to keep, I'd say.
I asked my Porsche dealer (lying scum that he is) if he had any deposits on the Cayenne and he said, "Oh yes. Tons." The Touareg will supposedly cost half of the Cayenne. I am mildly interested in the Cayenne ... but will wait to test drive it next month. Who would put down money for something like that sight unseen?
Purist friends of mine are OUTRAGED that Porsche would even offer a SUV. In the mean time the Carerra will do just fine. &;-)
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