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Drive Coast to Coast on 10 Gallons of Gas? — Parallax Forums

Drive Coast to Coast on 10 Gallons of Gas?

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
edited 2013-11-07 07:05 in General Discussion
Bodacious claims for this 3D printed car which is "two years away", but an interesting read nonetheless.

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/urbee-2--the-3d-printed-car-that-will-drive-across-the-country-000601366.html

Comments

  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2013-11-05 18:07
    10 gallons would be nice. I recently moved from San Diego to Boston, and in my Mitsubishi Outlander and towing at 5x8 Uhaul it took me 191 gallons over 3448 miles for a total gas cost of $772. Plus the $1000 or so for the trailer.
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2013-11-05 19:29
    It's basically promotional hype. It's just plastic parts made by a 3D printer over a custom hand built frame used in race cars. All the critical and important parts are still made of metal in traditional factories. The fact it costs over $3 million is pretty pathetic.

    Technically it seems ludicrous, we have what amounts to a toy car with a 7 HP engine supposedly getting 300 MPG whilst hauling about 300 lbs of meat(people) and who knows how much car averaging 75 MPH over a 3000+ mile course. I'd love to see that thing handle a steep grade or some black ice. Factor in with no power steering, no a/c, no heat, seats made of hard plastic that only a sadist could love, it's going to be one miserable drive.





    This is hype.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-11-05 19:58
    A 10 MPH headwind would make all the difference in the world in that car.

    I drove coast to coast RT last year, solo. Three days in each direction, ~900 miles a day, ~$100 a day for gas. Rented a car from LAX, unlimited mileage, $140 for the entire trip. They were pretty surprised to see nearly 5400 miles on the car when I turned it in. :)

    I learned what DEF is on that trip at the truck stops. Who knows? No Googling!
    divide.jpg
    480 x 639 - 57K
    cadranch.jpg
    640 x 480 - 44K
  • PropGuy2PropGuy2 Posts: 360
    edited 2013-11-06 06:24
    Back in the 1980's there was a cross country road rally sponsored by Future Fuels with many cars that easily got over 300 miles per gallon. Tricked up engines for sure - heavy diesel, peanut oil, corn oil. Most used turbo charged engines and 6 to 8 speed transmissions, rock hard tires, Ams Oil synthetic oil. I personally built & drove a few of these cars, so it can be done.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-11-06 12:02
    The best I've seen with a 'modern production car' is 80Mpg.

    And that was the Citro
  • PropGuy2PropGuy2 Posts: 360
    edited 2013-11-06 14:31
    Throughout the 70's and 89's there were a relative large number of speed shops that catered to the stock cars racers and street rods - California, Detroit & Daytona. I worked with Smokey Yunick in Daytona when he built from scratch, some very fast race car engines. You don't learn this stuff from a book. The best was a total silicon carbide V8 engine, one teaspoon of oil in the crankcase, no wear after 100K miles. Later I helped with the Space Shuttle engines - 0 to 100mph in 300 feet Sadly, a lot of that technology has been lost.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-11-06 18:22
    Very impressive, Propguy2. Smokey Yunick was a genius (much more than a mechanic) and certainly one of the more colorful and memorable characters in NASCAR and motorsports in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2013-11-06 22:46
    The engine Smokey made only used Silicon Carbide pistons and cylinder liners, problem is the material is a serious pita to machine and not suitable for mass production due to costs.

    What I have been able to read on the Future Fuels Rally, no one even mentioned 300 MPG engines. If they did achieve it, the contestants kept their traps shut and took that information to the grave.
  • pmrobertpmrobert Posts: 675
    edited 2013-11-07 05:37
    The world record is somewhere north of 12600 mpg/us - but you wouldn't want to use the vehicle for a daily driver to say the least. That's 1 gram of hydrogen to travel 20.6 km. They used a fuel cell, not a classic ICE. Of note, they have basically open-sourced all their R&D - pretty cool of them to share that data. http://www.paccar.ethz.ch/
  • PropGuy2PropGuy2 Posts: 360
    edited 2013-11-07 07:05
    Smokey built a lot of special engines for research, most worked, some didn't. The SC engine was one of them- to build a sealed, no-maintenance, engine for the life of the car.
    For the Future Fuels 300MPG engines, they basically followed TD to the extreme. High exhaust temps, turbo charged blow-the-heads-off pressures, long stroke & low RPMs, all machining to mirror finish, plasma coated bearings through out, constant engine speed into an 8 speed transmission, rock hard tires, you get the idea... Plus we drafted a lot and even turned the engine off when going down hill or following a semi. And yes we helped each other out, but the technology in the engines was off limits. You either just knew how to do it, or you didn't.
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