Category Archives: autos

Video: Mentos and Diet Coke-powered car sets distance record

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Looks like too much fun.

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Via AutoBlog:

Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the two men who helped kick off the fun in the first place, are back, claiming a new record for the longest distance traveled in a car powered by Diet Coke and Mentos: 239 feet.

 

No, that doesn’t seem very far to us, either, though Mark II of their machine is a marked improvement over Mark I. The Mark II vehicle is more aerodynamic and seems to have less mass than its predecessor, which positioned the rider way out in front over a bicycle-like contraption. That said, we think Grobe and Voltz do even better… especially since they used just half the fuel this time ’round.

Another EV ‘Manufacturer’ is Bankruptcy While Lotus Sports Cars Plans US Expansion

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Yet another Electric Vehicle ‘manufacturer’ files for bankruptcy without building a single car:

Aspiring electric car company Aptera Motors has announced that it is going out of business.

In a letter to supporters, Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur said that the company had obtained conditional approval for a $150 million loan from the Department of Energy, but was unable to raise the matching private investment required to tap into the loan. As a result, it had run out of resources and was forced to shut down.

While government backed (and leftist approved) EV’s are not selling, one of the most storied sports car manufactures, Lotus Cars, is making a push to expand its sales in the United States. Not only are they are staffing up US operations, they are making a push into IndyCar racing in a big way:

Lotus, after dabbling in IndyCar racing this year, returns in a big way in 2012 when it starts providing engines and aerodynamic kits to the teams. The storied British automaker joins General Motors in breaking the monopoly Honda has held on the Izod IndyCar series since 2006.

The automaker, which sponsored Japanese driver Takuma Sato (pictured above) for KV Racing this year, signed the deal with IndyCar just before the deadline for the 2012 season. It was announced Thursday afternoon to great fanfare by IndyCar, which had become something of a spec series in recent years.

“Lotus is a renowned name in racing, with a long association with some of the greatest names of motorsports,” IndyCar boss Randy Bernard said. “We’re honored Lotus has chosen to serve as an engine manufacturer for the first time with us. We are excited about the future of Indy car racing with the addition of Chevrolet and Lotus as well as the continued involvement of our longtime engine supplier Honda.”

This is good news, since I’ve always had a soft spot for British sports cars.

Video: Drag racing wreck that refuses to end

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This is crazy:

According to people in attendance, both tires on the car’s driver’s side were torn off, and the impact ripped the master cylinder from the firewall. The throttle cable was attached to the cylinder, so when the cylinder fell, the throttle controlling a 1,500-plus-horsepower engine got stuck wide open for more than a minute. Worst of all, the initial impact knocked Peterson unconscious, so he wasn’t able to do anything to intervene.

And the video…

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The driver came to after the medics cut him out of the car and is said to be at home and ok.

In Canada People Are Catching on That Electric Cars Are Not The Wave Of The Future

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Via The Globe and Mail:

There’s just one problem. The fantasy that electric cars are right around the corner doesn’t survive even the most cursory reality check. As Dennis DesRosiers, a leading auto consultant, points out, consumers simply won’t pay a $20,000 premium for a vehicle that doesn’t go very far, isn’t very convenient, and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner.

Consider hybrids. After a decade on the market, they’ve captured only 3 per cent of sales. To get to Mr. McGuinty’s 2020 target, green-minded Ontarians would have to buy at least 100,000 electric cars a year every year, starting right now. Total U.S. sales of electric vehicles are about 10,000 a year.

Of course, electric cars aren’t in mass production yet. And the technology is bound to get better and cheaper. Right?

Not so fast, says the University of Manitoba’s Vaclav Smil, who’s among the world’s foremost scholars of energy economics. Electric cars, he says, aren’t microchips, and Moore’s law doesn’t apply. “The myth that the future belongs to electric vehicles is one of the original misconceptions,” he writes in his book Energy Myths and Realities. In an interview, he notes that recent history is filled with energy breakthroughs that turned out be duds. Electric car crazes have come and gone before. Perhaps some people may remember a Canadian company called Ballard, which claimed to have developed a breakthrough fuel-cell technology. Many brainy people swore that Ballard was the future. It wasn’t.

It gets better. If all those electric vehicles are hooked up to our electric grid, with its diminished capacity (due to the adoption of the RES), electricity prices will skyrocket.

The interesting thing is if the issue truly is conservation and being efficient the real teleological winner is direct injection diesel engines. For example look at the 62 mpg Ford Fiesta (that crushes the 51 mpg Prius):

If I were a Ford dealer, I would jump at the chance to park a diesel-powered Fiesta in front of my dealership. I’d light it up with spotlights all night long. No rebates. No zero percent. I’d give every salesperson a pocket-sized job aid with a single sentence on it to counter every conceivable customer objection: “But (insert customer name here) this car gets – 62.5 miles per gallon.” And I’d have my waiting list right out front so customers could sign up.

I guess if the US government started push diesel engines, it would be even more difficult to justify handing millions of our dollars to multinational corporations to construct lithium ion battery factories. 

Video: World’s only actual turbine powered Batmobile

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Via YouTube:

This is the only Batmobile created that makes fiction reality. It is powered by a military spec Boeing turboshaft engine driving the rear wheels through a semi automatic gearbox. It features a custom tube frame/monocoque chassis with fully independant suspension, disc brakes, and a sequential shifter. It runs on kerosene, diesel, or Jet fuel and has a power to weight ratio comparable to a Dodge Viper.

This is too cool.

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Limousine Liberals: What is good for the goose is not good for the gander

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What is good for the goose? Number of government-owned limos has soared under Obama.

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News.

Most of the increase was recorded in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Obama administration officials said most of the increase reflects an enhanced effort to protect diplomats and other government officials in a dangerous world.

Many of those new limos will are armored, adding to the costs. Remember this story and the thousands like it the next time you hear an elected official suggest we need to increase taxes.

Moving on to us ganders…

While our government is on a limousine buying binge, Obama and his minions at the EPA have pushed an edict for a new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard on automakers. Of course to meet these new CAFE requirements, automakers (both domestic and foreign) will incur significant costs that must be passed on to consumers.

The government claims that these costs will be offset by fuel savings offered by the new CAFE requirements. However, the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research (CAR) points out in an exhaustive study that this is not the case:

Table 12 summarizes both total consumer savings from the adoption of higher levels of fuel economy technology and incremental savings gained by the consumer from moving to higher scenarios. As can be seen in the final two columns of Table 12, consumers maximize their net savings at 37.6 mpg at $2,107. Moving from 37.6 mpg to 40.8 mpg actually reduces consumer net savings by $976 which is shown in the final column. Moving higher to 44.8 mpg reduces total consumer net savings by an additional $873. Moving to the highest level of fuel economy of 49.6 mpg from 44.8 mpg reduces total savings by an impressive $3,309. It is true that total net savings are positive through 44.8 mpg (supposedly paying for the technology) but no rational consumer would pick a level higher than 37.6 mpg where total net savings are maximized. In fact, it is likely that total net savings are maximized below 37.6 mpg but the NAS/NRC study does not provide finer technology cost levels for mpg levels below this target. It should be repeated that it does not matter whether net savings are sufficient to pay for a level of technology cost. What finally and ultimately matters is what is maximal for the consumer.

As Table 12 illustrates, there is no five-year payback to support the increased vehicle costs required to archive a 62 mpg CAFE target.

And if gas doesn’t reach $6.00 / gal, these technologies will become even more expensive for consumers.

So, what will vehicles that conform to 62 mpg CAFE standard be like?

Look no further than Europe for answers because this is where all the bad eco-ideas start:

At an event held at the RAC, Pall Mall, London Gordon Murray Design has today unveiled their latest ultra compact city vehicle, T.27, the world’s most efficient electric car.

The design and development programme for T.27 is a £9 million project, made possible through a £4.5 million investment from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board. From a clean sheet of paper to a running prototype the programme has taken just 17 months including the design and build of a completely new electric powertrain by Zytek Automotive Ltd, one of the Consortium partners.

T.27 specifically targets the urban city environment via a unique, holistic, manufacturing process (‘iStream®’) developed by Consortium lead partner Gordon Murray Design, it aims to significantly reduce lifecycle impacts and enable low cost, efficient manufacture within the UK. The electric car sets new standards in weight, footprint, small car dynamics, safety, packaging and efficiency whilst addressing full lifecycle CO2 emissions, congestion, parking and low cost motoring.

While government ‘officials’ are literally chauffeured around in armored limousines on our dime, we are being relegated to eco-boxes like this.

Isn’t this great?

* An extra big tip O’ the hat to my friend on StumbleUpon, Leopardess, for sending me the Limousine Liberal article.

Would you trust your economy to Debbie Stabenow (Democrat-MI)?

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Debbie Stabenow, Michigan’s other Democrat Senator, is taking it upon herself to direct the future of America’s auto industry, and to a large extent Michigan’s economy, all by herself.

Her plan? The Battery Innovation Act:

The Battery Innovation Act is the first coordinated plan that incorporates all aspects of advanced battery production, from research and development, to the availability of raw materials, to the manufacturing of these high-tech products. The Act will build off of initiatives authored by Senator Stabenow in 2009, which helped A123 Systems ramp up advanced batteries manufacturing and create jobs in Michigan.

The idea that Stabenow thinks that she can put together a “coordinated plan that incorporates all aspects of advanced battery production, from research and development, to the availability of raw materials” would be right at home in the Russian Politburo of the 1950′s.

Debbie continues:

The Battery Innovation Act will boost the research and development of advanced batteries and components. This will not only spur the development of more fuel-efficient passenger vehicles but for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles for our military as well. Stabenow’s bill also creates a competition that will provide incentives for researchers to help develop an advanced vehicle battery that can go 500 miles on a single charge.

It is no coincidence that Stabenow is pushing this idea about Michigan becoming the economic hub for Li-Ion battery production (just as politicians from Indiana, Kentucky and just about every other state in the union are doing as well). The reason for the push? Obama is mandating electric vehicles through regulation.

As pointed out by Henry Payne @ the MI View, Obama and his EPA minions are out to kill the internal combustion engine through their ridiculous CAFE requirements. And through pure coincidence, Debbie has a solution to the Obama problem. A solution, and gobs of tax payer & borrowed Chinese cash:

In their regulatory plot to make the gas engine go the way of the incandescent light bulb, Obama’s EPA is not just mandating 56 mpg by 2025 – effectively creating a standard only hybrid electrics can meet – but putting in place harsh fines for companies that make engines they don’t like.

Not only does Debbie Stabenow’s plan to create an industry using government central planning reek of old school (and failed) Politburo economics. Stabenow’s Battery Innovation Act (and the whole green energy idea in general) defies the very fundamentals of economics.

To illustrate the how flawed her plan is, read Economist Frédéric Bastiat’s essay titled What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen (published July, 1850). In his essay, Bastiat includes a short parable about a young boy who breaks a window. It is uncanny how this parable from 1850 describes the fatal flaw in Stabenow’s economic central planning today.

Suppose that it will cost six francs to repair the damage. If you mean that the accident gives six francs’ worth of encouragement to the aforesaid industry, I agree. I do not contest it in any way; your reasoning is correct. The glazier will come, do his job, receive six francs, congratulate himself, and bless in his heart the careless child. That is what is seen.

But if, by way of deduction, you conclude, as happens only too often, that it is good to break windows, that it helps to circulate money, that it results in encouraging industry in general, I am obliged to cry out: That will never do! Your theory stops at what is seen. It does not take account of what is not seen.

It is not seen that, since our citizen has spent six francs for one thing, he will not be able to spend them for another. It is not seen that if he had not had a windowpane to replace, he would have replaced, for example, his worn-out shoes or added another book to his library. In brief, he would have put his six francs to some use or other for which he will not now have them.

Let us next consider industry in general. The window having been broken, the glass industry gets six francs’ worth of encouragement; that is what is seen.

If the window had not been broken, the shoe industry (or some other) would have received six francs’ worth of encouragement; that is what is not seen.

And if we were to take into consideration what is not seen, because it is a negative factor, as well as what is seen, because it is a positive factor, we should understand that there is no benefit to industry in general or to national employment as a whole, whether windows are broken or not broken.

Stabenow’s plan, if implemented, will divert hundreds of billions of dollars (through taxation, regulation and inflationary monetary practices) from endeavors that will add value and grow the economy to the flawed and absurd idea of duplicating and replacing existing automotive infrastructure- including simple and effective things like gas stations.

Much like replacing a broken window.

Finally, there is one last huge flaw in Stabenow’s central plan. It doesn’t doesn’t violate the fundamentals of  economics. It violates the fundamentals geology:

Finally Stabenow’s plan will spur the domestic supply of lithium, the basic raw material used in advanced battery production,

Apparently, someone forgot to look at the USGS report on Lithium:

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The United States has almost no Lithium reserves to speak of. How, exactly, is she planning to increase Lithium production in the United States?

With thinking like this, do we really want to trust Debbie Stabenow (Democrat-MI) with our economy?

Liberal Democrat Carl Levin Loves His Chevy Volt

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The designers of electric passenger carrying vehicles have made great advances in the past few years, and these machines have retained all their early popularity and are steadily growing in favor with both men and women. They are very handy for use in the cities, and numbers of the best known and most prominent makers of gasoline cars in this country use electric cars for driving between their homes and their offices.

New York Times, 1911

Today’s Detroit Free Press has a fawning article about Democrat Senator Carl Levin (one half of Michigan’s liberal ‘dynamic duo’ in the Senate) and his love for his Chevy volt. The article is really and truly nauseating. Here is a sample.

But its electric power was the reason he bought it.

“It’s much cheaper to run it on electricity. And cleaner, of course. So I bought it to get those savings downstream,” he said.

Uhhh, Carl, electric vehicles are essentially coal powered vehicles. The electricity doesn’t magically appear in your wall outlet and it didn’t come from a windmill or solar panel.

The article continues with its sickly sweet prattle.

“This has a terrific pickup,” Levin grinned. “Watch this.”

The Volt shot forward, pushing passengers against the seat backs.

No one is going to confuse a Chevy Volt for a Dodge Challenger or a Ford Mustang.

Then the article get’s to its supposed point about the lack of charging stations for EV’s. Senator Levin want’s to set the example about charging stations and EV’s.

“It’s kind of a chicken and egg problem, I think,” he told the Free Press. “But as the number of cars increases, I think you’re going to get more companies to install charging stations.”

Levin said he figured it would be easy enough to charge the car at the Senate office building. Set up a plug and a charger in the garage. Pay all the expenses, so no taxpayer money is used.

Let’s get this straight. Carl Levin, the Senator who voted in favor of the $800 billion flop of a stimulus bill AND voted in favor of the largest government entitlement program known to man – ObamaCare, is now concerned about spending tax payer money.

Unbelievable.

I think most Americas would gladly foot the bill for an EV changing station at the capital in exchange for the repeal of ObamaCare.