http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/07/07/sahi...-liter-of-fuel/



For practical purposes it's not a very good vehicle, but still if they can get this kind of fuel efficiency from it now, it's not hard to imagine street cars in the near future doing over 100Mpg easily.

Except it deals in the fallacy of hydrogen fuel.

Hydrogen fuel (at least in this century) is fools gold.

It's actually 1600 mpg!
But still not a practical road car - I think the record for purely fuel-economy cars only is something like 3,500mpg+.

French MicroJoule concept car gets 8,923 miles per gallon
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/18/transportation-tuesday-8923-miles-per-gallon/


Yet the driver's neck is irreparably damaged, I'd think!

They had a prototype there - what was it running on? I don't think the technology is hydrogen fusion, which might be what you're thinking of?

I don't presume to know the science and theory behind it..but I think what Vulgarity is alluding to is that the energy required to make the hydrogen that the car runs on has to be factored into the "efficiency" of the vehicle. So..an all electric car would theoretically get "infinite MPG" since it never burns a gallon of gas..but obviously the energy to run it comes from some other form of energy input.

That said..still looks like a darned efficient piece of kit..good for them!

BeachAV8R

Yea, doesn't seem like fusion at all, that would be a massive project that would cost too much and have it's own impracticalities.




It's not terribly clear is it?

Perhaps it's hydrogen fuel cell... but you'd think they'd call it that. Also, I'm not sure that fuel cells are that small and compact, or efficient enough to put in that tiny racer. Which leads me to think perhaps this is a small piston engine that is burning hydrogen as internal combustion, something that is most certainly been done many times in the past. Discovery channel used to show a Fiero someone converted the motor to hydrogen. Main problem was that it produced less power, and the hydrogen was costly and wouldn't stay in the tank for long.

Personally I think we'll get much better results out of electric cars that use "ultra capacitors" as the storage devices, along with new efficient car accessories that don't drain the power quickly: if you can't use windshield wipers, headlights, stereo and iPod dock, heater or A/C and still go the distances you need to go, it's gonna be a tough sell. Give it five years though, and I think it'll happen.

Fusion on the other hand, might eventually create the electricity that will flow from the wall plug into your capacitor-electric car, which would reduce demand for fossil fuels a bit every year as acceptance of the electric increases.

Now, I'd like to see a heavy duty pickup like the F450 Superduty be available in a diesel hybrid, I think that would sell better than most think. You know, actual trucks that do heavy work. Electric drivetrains for that would be more dependable and have more AVAILABLE torque through the entire speed range... meaning if you needed a lot of torque to simply get the truck moving that first meter/foot, it'll have all the torque available to you and more smoothly too. That means "awesome" for trucks with full weight loads on steep hills. Considering how much driving these trucks do, it'll also cut down on fuel burn and air pollutants too.