An Interesting Week For Cars

I haven't blogged about cars in a while. Suddenly, after no news, five stories come up in a day. Most of them were pretty good. I love it when articles talk about new cars and energy-efficient cars and HOT cars; most of these did.

First off, Road and Track talks did a story about the Dodge EV, which is every step in the right direction for what I want in a car; not the least of which is that the body is good looking. Remember the Lots Elise? The same guy designed the car. They want to use the same light-weight material to make it. The Elise weighs just shy of 2000 lbs, which gives it some quickness with a relatively small engine. Also, as the "EV" part suggests, it is fully electric. Just awesome. The drawback? It will probably be expensive for a while, just like the Elise.

Second, and equally cool (if not more-so for the design), the Honda FC Sport. It looks awesome and it is a fuel cell vehicle.

Another quick note is that Mini is releasing an electric Cooper. The Mini Cooper is already a fantastic car, what with it being light and fuel efficient and nimble.

One of the main points that we haven't seen before (in my opinion) is that a sports car can be both ecologically good and still look good. It's a trend in the right direction. I just pray that my car will hold out until these types of cars are widely available.

Finally, and this is of note just because I really like these cars, Nissan is releasing the next version of the 350 Z; the 370 Z. It's faster. It's better designed. It's just as hot. It's probably as inefficient as the 350 Z, though. Of note, however, is that Nissan has introduced a rev-matching component that could replace the heel-and-toe rev-matching requirement for all of you performance drivers out there. I rev-match while coasting, so I'm less efficient than I would be using heel-and-toe. However, I have big feet and I don't have the right pedals.

Update: This site talks about some changes to the 370 Z, including aluminum door panels, a shorter length, VVEL, etc., which would initially make it seem like it gets better gas mileage than the 350 Z. But, the site also talks about how its fuel economy is rated at 18/26. Bummer.

Just One Word: Duh

I'm not really knocking this article. Rather, I'm knocking the fact that other people didn't realize this. "What do you mean? If we make cars weigh less, then they'll consume less fuel?" What a ludicrous thought (that was sarcasm for those that don't speak the language).

Maybe someday in the relatively near future, auto manufacturers will finally do what I want; make a car that still performs, but weighs significantly less. How do I get a job making these choices? Could I be the technology director for some auto manufacturer? I can already tell them where things are going and what would be beneficial for consumers, auto manufacturers, and the ecology.

Ultimately, all I want is a 200 hp car with good steering, good suspension, a low weight, and good gas mileage. For my purposes, I'll define good gas mileage as a combined average of over 30 mpg. They've come close already. The Acura RSX-S is 200 hp, and gets just slightly under. My RSX (base) is 160 hp, but gets about 31 mpg on average. The Civic Si also comes close. The Mini Cooper S doesn't quite have the horsepower, but weighs not much. The Lotus Elise is 190 hp and weighs only 1900 lbs, but doesn't quite get the gas mileage for some reason.

OK, I'm sorry if that last part was boring for the non-automobilicly inclined. The gist of it is, they've come close, but still haven't quite done it, though it shouldn't be hard. Oh, and they stopped making the RSX, which came really close. The Civic is about the only thing left that comes close.

Our Amazing Solar System

Back to back interesting articles. This article is about energy. Specifically, it's about solar energy.

You see, a few problems exist with energy from water. First off, a water molecule is pretty hard to split, so it requires a bit of energy to be put into the system. Second, the yield is usually greatly less than the energy put into the system due to entropy. Enter the story, and a great deal of hope (at least for me).

A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.

A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods.

With this catalyst, users could rely on electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells to power the process that produces the fuel, said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who developed the new material.

Here is another link with a little more of a description.

So, MIT researchers discovered a nearly 100% efficient way, using a catalyst, to split water and save the energy. Chalk up one to science! The other benefit is that the way to do it doesn't involve destroying the environment around it. It's environmentally friendly. And, it is a really really good way to store photovoltaic energy as a result.

So, for the big picture, photovoltaics yield energy. Super scientist guys add a cobalt phosphate catalyst to water, and use that photo-energy-rificness to put an electric charge across the water, splitting the water, and using Platinum to bond with the Hydrogen and store it, and the allowing the cobalt phosphate to bond with the Oxygen. Then, when the current is removed (i.e., the Sun goes down), the separated components recombine into water and release almost 100% of the energy used to create the separation.

Ultimately, this is a good way to store solar power during the day and release it at night. Rock on, Sun! And the über-awesomeness award to MIT for figuring this one out.

Shortie McShorts-a-lot

Your car’s planet-destroying A/C. No matter how guilty you feel about your carbon footprint, you don’t have to swelter on the highway to the beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.

That's from this New York Times article. That's interesting. I have in the past wondered about this one. There is, however, something about the breeze on a cool Spring/Fall day that prevents me from keeping my windows up. Sometimes you just have to indulge in the simple pleasures in life.