Sign me up! I mean sure, I'd have to go for the GT version, as 0-100kph in 19 seconds just isn't cutting it, but I can deal with 9.
Main Site
PeakOil is You
Loremo [car / toy] - 157mpg
Loremo [car / toy] - 157mpg
by J-Rod » Sat 25 Feb 2006, 21:54:09
Loremo
Sign me up! I mean sure, I'd have to go for the GT version, as 0-100kph in 19 seconds just isn't cutting it, but I can deal with 9.
Main Site
Sign me up! I mean sure, I'd have to go for the GT version, as 0-100kph in 19 seconds just isn't cutting it, but I can deal with 9.
Main Site
Reality is agreed perception. Unfortunately there is also a reality imposed by nature.
http://thisis.peakdoom.com - For all your doom needs!
http://thisis.peakdoom.com - For all your doom needs!
-
J-Rod - Lignite
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Tue 17 May 2005, 03:00:00
- Location: Northeast Ohio
Re: Loremo - 157mpg
by Novus » Sat 25 Feb 2006, 23:31:21
That is basically an expensive toy and probably not steet leagal in the US but what else is new. Bottom line is it will never be produced in large enough numbers to have an impact on PO. Even if they had been producing these cars ten years ago and there were millions of them on the road today it would only delay the effects of PO for a decade at most. The spralling suburbs and the global economy that support them are ultimately unsustainable and no amount of super efficient cars will ever change that.
-
Novus - Intermediate Crude
- Posts: 2450
- Joined: Tue 21 Jun 2005, 03:00:00
Re: Loremo - 157mpg
by The_Toecutter » Sat 25 Feb 2006, 23:46:44
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat is basically an expensive toy and probably not steet leagal in the US but what else is new.
Did you not read the article? Apparently starting at $11,000 Euros, or about $13,000USD.
It remains to be seen whether the company will deliver on its promise, but everything seems plausible in theory. This technology is by no means new or untested.
Street legal in the U.S.? Maybe. If anything, the oil whoring government might outlaw them just to keep them off the roads, like they did to the limited number of Citroen, Renault, and Pugeot electrics Europeans used to have access to.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ottom line is it will never be produced in large enough numbers to have an impact on PO.
Depends on when peak oil hits. If they are made and sold just at the start of the peak, the rate at which the fleet turns over, about 7% a year, may be enough to more than offset the decline, if and only if cars like these become the norm. Keep in mind that automobile fuel is 40% of America's oil consumption. Addressing the fuel consumption issue(along with reducing auto dependence in its entirity) certainly can have a major impact, the trick is doing so before the effects of peak oil set in and render such a prospect economically infeasible.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven if they had been producing these cars ten years ago and there were millions of them on the road today it would only delay the effects of PO for a decade at most.
Say not 150 mpg, but instead 60 mpg started to become in demand 10 years ago in 1996. It takes the auto fleet 15 years to turn over, or about 7% of on road cars per year. 40% of oil is consumed in automobile fuel today, or about 32 bpd. Switching the entire fleet to a mere 60 mpg fuel economy average from 22.5 mpg, would bring this down to 12 bpd.
Today, assuming 60 mpg cars are now 67% of our fleet due to the 15 year fleet turnover rate beginning in 1996, we'd be consuming 18.7 bpd for auto fuel, instead of 32 bpd.
So that would drop total oil consumption to 66.7 bbd. A drop of 17% over today! This is such a significant drop in consumption as to significantly delay peak, more than enough time for a full adoption of renewables to be set in place. With a 3% decline rate post peak, it will take 6 years for oil production to drop 17% from what it was if peak were today. Further, we'd have saved over 3 years worth of oil, so that's at least 9 more years to implement a solution, half of what the Hirsch report specified was needed to mitigate the effects of peak oil.
That would have been a very good start, halfway to a solution.
150 mpg? We'd have definately made plenty of time to scale renewables up. n the order of 15 years.
The problem is, we didn't do that. The oil industry wanted immediate short term profits, so did the auto industry, so did the utility industry. It was status quo, gas guzzling SUVs, oil wars, dirty coal electricity, and not efficient cars and EVs, addressing poverty, or clean wind and solar electricity... TPTB chose unfettered growth over sustainability and smaller government, and the people will pay the price.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he spralling suburbs and the global economy that support them are ultimately unsustainable and no amount of super efficient cars will ever change that.
Agreed. But super efficient cars go contrary to maximizing growth, and if the subsidies for suburban living were eliminated, it wouldn't be nearly as attractive. Cars and suburbs may support each other today, but the two things can and have survived without the other. Suburbs and sprawl were present when America had mass transit and before the autos took hold in the early 1900s. People commuted by trolley. It wasn't until after WWII that America's sprawl increased in size with the government taxing city dwellers to encourage buying more homes, and it was not the suburbs that spurred auto dependence, it was the oil and auto industries buying out all of America's light rail systems and dismantling them, that encouraged car buying. Tearing down the trolleys in Cleveland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City caused riots. 1/3 of those who were driving age had a car then, and they only needed to drive about 5,000 miles per year.
The government wanted rapid economic growth, and to achieve that goal they encouraged sprawl and forced auto dependence by allowing the mass transit to be torn down. Billions of tax dollars went to highway bills and tax rebates for home purchases as city dwellers footed the bill. Increasing consumption made various industries and the government money, and that is why we are in this situation today. Big government and industry doesn't want to give those excessive revenues up! Joe American simply followed what was easiest, living the subsidized American dream on someone else's dime, as opposed to being those suckers forced to foot the bill.
Forward to the present. 1 car for every person of driving age in America, 12,000 miles per year per car. Pathetic excuse for mass transit. Riding a bike is now dangerous, with cities having outlawed people from riding them on sidewalks.
Now comes peak oil. Who will pay the piper? Will industry give up its desire for unending growth in a world of limited resources? Will government transfer power away from itself? It could happen, but if it doesn't, this what will be our doom. Pigs will probably fly first anyway, unless there is massive public outcry resulting in ousting the politicians by whatever means necessary. Again unlikely.
157 mpg is very plausable. A car like this would only need about 6 horsepower at the wheels to cruise at 60 mph, considering it can apparently hit 100 mph with a 20 horsepower engine. I ran through a little math and calculated that this car would need 17 rear wheel horsepower to go 100 mph, assuming low rolling resistance tires with about a .006 Cr, so 20 horsepower engine and 160 km/h is doable with properly selected gear ratios.
If you work through the math, it makes a lot of sense. The largest culprit in fuel consumption is the aerodynamic drag, a factor affected by the drag coefficient and frontal area of the vehicle, both very small, along with the speed of the vehicle and outside air speed/direction/pressure. 12.8 square foot frontal area, .20 coefficient drag, yielding a Cd*A of 2.56! That is crazy low, with most cars having about a .35 drag coefficient and about a 25 square foot frontal area. Weight is also significantly low, 1,035 pounds. With some low rolling resistance tires having a .006 Cr, the car's rolling force might only be about 6.5 pounds or so at highway speeds!
This is the type of car we could have done 15-20 years ago, but the major players in the auto industry don't want people driving around in such clean, low maintenance vehicles, nor does the oil industry want to compromise 40% of its market: automobile fuel. I hope this is not a bunch of hype and is a real product, as from a mathematical standpoint, the numbers add up perfectly. Further, similar cars to it have already been made as prototypes.
Opel made a concept car called the Eco Speedster back in 2003. 112 horsepower 3-cylinder turbodiesel, 1,400 pound vehicle weight, .20 drag coefficient, 15.8 square foot frontal area. It got 97 miles per American gallon fuel economy and topped 160 mph. Unlike Leremo, the Eco Speedster was a race car. It was fast, 0-60 mph around 6 seconds.
This appears to take after the Eco Speedster, only lighter, smaller, and capable of seating 4.
Hell, 20 horsepower may not be much for a car, but 157 miles per American gallon is. Considering Americans wouldn't accept that low level of performance 20 horsepower can provide, we could still make due with the 50 horsepower version and 0-60 mph in 9 seconds, this performance being slightly above average among the American auto fleet, and we'd still see 90 mpg from it. For < $18,000 USD, there'd certainly be a market for that, even in gas guzzling America. Toyota can't even keep the more expensive Prii in stock and there is a waiting list months long to buy one!
It is said that biofuels can replace about 20% of our automobile oil consumption without severely encroaching on the environment. Well, a 90 mpg fleet fuel economy average would certainly allow us to achieve that, assuming 12,000 miles per year per car. Albeit keeping the current level of car use as today would be stupid, as people want options besides cars to get around, and I don't blame them one bit. Plus we'll need those biofuels to replace oil for plastics, machine oils, heating, ect.
While it's again comforting to know the tech for efficient cars is here, it's disheartening we're still not using this technology, just for the sake of lining oil industry profits with our wasteful oil consumption. If we reduce oil consumption and leave a huge unused surplus, the oil industry would no longer make their record profits, governments would lose oil tax revenue, and less money would be placed into the economy causing negative growth. The power elite doesn't want negative growth, as it relies on constant positive growth for profit.
2009 is a bit far off to have a major effect on PO, unfortunately, but should peak oil come later than we expect, this deomonstration of technology could have an impact.
I'm hoping Loremo actually produces and sells this car and that it's not all hype, and does so without interference from the oilies or tax dependent governments. But knowing history, that is not something I'd bet on.
This would also make an awesome electric car would someone convert one, negating the need for liquid fuels, even biofuels.
Removing all the IC related components is probably about 200 pounds or so eliminated.
With a simple lead acid battery pack, having a dismal specific capacity of 30 wh/kg(versus gasoline at over 12,000 wh/kg), it would be possible to make a pure electric car, capable of seating 4 people, with 150 miles range at 60 mph, top speed over 150 mph, 0-60 mph < 5 seconds, and a price tag of under $30,000, *without* volume production of the EV components. To get a car with that performance will usually run you at $50,000-80,000.
I imagine converting one to these specs might look like the following:
-Netgain WarP Impulse 8'' series DC motor x2 $2,800
-Exide Orbital AGM lead acid battery x29 $2,900
-Cafe electric Zilla Controller(72-348V DC, 1,000 amp max, reversing and series/parallel contact control, Hall effect pedal input) x1 $2,900
-Manzanita Micro PFC 30 Charger x1 $1,800
-Todd DC-DC converter x1 $400
-Steel for battery racks $50
-Battery Cable $50
-EV200AAANA contactors x1 $75
-Feraz Shawmut A50QS400-4 fuse x2 $109
-E-Meter x1 $235
-Solid-State Ceramic Heater Core x1 $75
-Adaptor Plate x1 $1000
-Miscallaneous components(Heat shrink tubing, tools, ect.) $500
-Manzanita Micro Rudman Battery Regulators x29 $1,450
-Loremo LS $13,000
Total: $27,344.
This car would have about 150 miles range at 60 mph to full battery discharge, and consume a mere 100 wh/mile at 60 mph. 33,800 wh of energy in a gallon of gasoline, that's the energy efficiency equivalent of 338 miles per gallon if you count straight from the batteries. 15 times the American fleet average!
With a 75 kW fast charger(Rich Rudman of Manzanita Micro has developed and tested one on a pack of Exide Orbital batteries, charging it from 20% state of charge to 80% state of charge in 7 minutes), the 15 kWh battery pack might be charged in 15 minutes from 0% to 100%, for an additional 150 miles range. All we need is the infrastructure, and these lead acid batteries used in this theoretical concept are by no means advanced and are the extremely low energy density ones you find in use today. 150 miles per charge is really good range, 1/2-2/3 that of a gas car.
Weight with all the EV components would be about 2,400 pounds assuming a 200 pound driver. I ran a performance simulation on this proposed car and 0-60 mph came out to be a blistering 4.5 seconds, 1/4 mile drag in 13.2 seconds, and with appropriate gear ratios, top speed over 170 mph! A true hypercar.
Now, imagine that the EV components, the controller, charger, regulators, fuses, DC-DC, motors were not hand built by small businesses with one or two employees(Manzanita Micro and Cafe Electric are both one man operations!), but instead mass produced. And figure that Loremo supplies gliders pre-stripped of all IC related components so that they were not part of the cost, shaving off perhaps $4k from the $13,000 car.
The price tag could creep below $15,000. $15,000 for Ferrari performance, and 100% electric drive.
Who WOULDN'T want to buy a car like that? For that matter, the Loremo as a diesel version is still remarkable. But eliminate need for liquid fuels in transportation and allow cars to be fueled by wind and solar, or even coal, natural gas, hydroelectric dams, and nukes if needed, would do a lot to ween us from dependency on a single fuel source.
Too bad we haven't adopted this technology yet. It's been around for ages. The proposed EV above? Take out the 1,200 pounds of lead acid batteries at 12.5 wh/lb specific capacity and replace with 500 pounds of lithium ion batteries at 70 wh/lb specific capacity, and you would have a 1,700 pound electric car that consumed 80 wh/mile @ 60 mph, and had 430 miles range. Mass production of lithium ion batteries for automotive application would peg the price at $250/kWh according to AC Propulsion, or an $8,750 battery pack for over 400 miles range, versus the $2,900 cost of the Exide Orbitals. With a 700 pound reduction in weight, 0-60 mph would drop to 3.5 seconds, and 1/4 mile time to 12 seconds, and cost would only increase about $5k.
That would be fucking nuts. Imagine a hyper efficient musclecar era, that is oil independent. The possibility is certainly there. We just need to implement it pre peak. Imagine a cross between technofix and ecotopia, a sort of have your cake and eat it too without raping the environment scenario...
Last edited by The_Toecutter on Sun 26 Feb 2006, 01:06:41, edited 3 times in total.
The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson
-
The_Toecutter - Intermediate Crude
- Posts: 2142
- Joined: Sat 18 Jun 2005, 03:00:00
