Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car(50 MPG & 0-60 MPH 4 SEC!)

CBS NEWS ^ | Feb. 17, 2006 | STAFF

[kellynla]

(CBS) The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines performance and practicality under one hood.

But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been waiting decades comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean bio-diesel fuel to boot.

A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School

The five kids, along with a handful of schoolmates, built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren't exactly the cream of the academic crop.

[kellynla]

And whatever happened to the Toyota Eco Spirit that got 100 MPG?

[MNJohnnie]

Do they report how much oil their Bio-Disel fuel source uses in refining it?

[CindyDawg]

C students with an imagination and a dream.... The backbone of America.

[saganite]

A bunch of high school gearheads! I thought they were a dying breed. Good to see some of them still like to crawl under a hood.

[FreedomNeocon]

I'd say it is because you get more 'efficient' engines, that give you more performance.

It can be spent on more horsepower, better acceleration, more control / subsystems, powering a 'heavier' car that is more of a beast.... or you can just run the engine at the lower rate (which yields the same power as 'current' engine) and leave the 'leftover' alone as an improvement is in gas mileage.

The issue is that the market (epically up until recently) has put more emphasis on space, or structural hardyness, or speed/acceleration, rather than into just being able to use less fuel to do the 'same thing' that you did before.

[dhs12345]

Yup. Nothing out there yet can beat oil. Ends up taking more energy to produce these alternative fuels than burning the original oil directly as gas or diesel in the first place.

[Yo-Yo]

Sure it goes from zero to 60 in four seconds and gets 50 mpg, but does it meet DOT crash regulations, have an airbag, meet EPA and CARB emissions requirements, and operate in all weather from -40 to +140F?

[CowboyJay]

"As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren't exactly the cream of the academic crop."

BTD with the teacher's elitist attitude. Doubtful more than a handful of their schoolmates will demonstrate this level of dedication and enterprise, or accomplish something this impressive in their entire lives.

[Muleteam1]

>>A bunch of high school gearheads!<<

No surprise. Back when these types were building for Detroit, American cars were still worth driving.

Muleteam1

[Boundless]

And this project is different than a chipped VW Golf TDI
just how?

[gaijin]

The problem doesn't lie in technology. It lies in laws and REGULATIONS --no way they'll let you drive this thing. And that is why rhetoric about convervation is exactly that --rhetoric.

Call me when they rejigger the laws to permit the driving of ultra-light vehicles, etc.

[NewJerseyJoe]

>> but does it meet DOT crash regulations, have an airbag, meet EPA and CARB emissions requirements, and operate in all weather from -40 to +140F?

In other words -- is it something that the federal and state governments can find a way to TAX??

[Alouette]

But does the exhaust smell like farts?

[theDentist]

fueled by soylent green? Wow!

[Visalia]

It's really a GO-CART, people.

[SkyDancer]

Reminds me of the movie "October Sky" .....

[VeniVidiVici]

but does it meet DOT crash regulations, have an airbag, meet EPA and CARB emissions requirements, and operate in all weather from -40 to +140F?

Shhh! You'll spoil their fun!

[Mike Darancette]

Cheeseborough?

[kellynla]

maybe you and your little friend should do your homework before you come on my thread and make a total arse of yourselves...
Brazil produces ethanol for a buck a gallon...
that's a third less than the world market price for gas.

and FYI, whatever the cost of alternative fuels, it's cheaper than the life of one dead Marine in the Middle East!

Point, Game, Set, Match!

[MNJohnnie]

That is what is so frustrating about this misreporting in the Junk Journalism. The kids did NOT build an engine, they rebuilt an EXISTING engine to run on the bio diesel. Then this bio diesel probably takes as much oil to produce as a gallon of gas.

OK, there are no magic silver bullet solutions despite what the Junk Media and Eco freaks keep pushing. This kind of irresponsible pie in the sky promising makes it HARDER to actually get things done to wean us off cheap foreign oil. People keep kidding themselves that we do not have to make any tough decision cause tomorrow the magic wand will be waved and the silver bullet technological fix will appear. It is NOT going to happen. Changeing OFF oil will be a evolutionary, NOT Revolutionary, process