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pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
::sings:: They call me mellow yellow.. ::sings:: :cool:
I clicked on the pic to see a close up of the Days Of Thunder Mellow Yellow sponsored race car-esque paint job and then realized it was actually painted as an ear of corn popping out of its green leaves. Pretty wild. |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
The cars there were really neat, hopefully someone took pictures of their futuristic looking seats. Someone managed to set off the alarm in one of the cars though :x
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
My 1999 Ford Ranger can run on E85. Can I buy it anywhere? No. Cars that run on E85 certainly aren't anything new and aren't anything to make much news over. When gas stations start selling E85, then lets get excited.
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
I was under the impression all you had to do to run a conventional car on ethanol was to re-jet the carberator (if it had a carb, making the jets about 15% larger)
I would think with a fuel injected engine it would be a trivial tweak to the engine control SW, or even a switch on the dashboard so I am sitting here wondering, what exactly makes this an 'ethanol powered car' ? I remember reading about people running cars and tractors on pure ethanol in The Mother Earth News (magazine) back in the '70s |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
Ethanol is not really that great if you think about it. My dad told me that consumer reports did a test with it and found out that it is actually cheaper to buy gas (more miles to the gallon). Also, if you were to take all of the kernels of corn in the U.S. it would only supply about 16% of the demand per year. Now how useful is ethanol in reality? I think I'm going to stick to the petroleum for now!
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and I believe the pollution from burning ethanol is near zero. |
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Why does it always have to be a massive pickup or SUV? It kind of negates the benifits of the Ethanol drive train. Quote:
Personally, I believe conservation is the only true solution. All alternatives fuel resources have major flaws and we can't really wait for all the solutions. It will be too late! |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
I actually took the picture of this car because it was a neat display (and the other side of the car was MOE green :D ). I did talk to the rep about their fuel cell prototype car, but that was a bland color.
If you look closely, and you may not be able to see it in this pic, the yellow is actually painted to look like rows of corn kernels. The rep did say to someone there that E85 is just a temporary solution to the gas crisis and more work is being done to improve cost and efficiency. |
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Thanks for putting up all the pictures, they are amazing. Jane |
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then we can run 33% of our vehicles on ethanol instead of gasoline, but those billions of dollars can still be pumped back into our economy, instead of handing it to foreign goverments to pump sludge out of the ground. |
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So, would you accept higher prices for fuel, just to keep jobs in America? What does that accomplish, on average? The American worker pays more for transportation, causing a decrease in consumption (i.e. buying things), because of reduced disposable income. On the other hand, employment levels presumably increase due to the need to produce locally. Except that reduced consumption could easily cause reduced production, meaning that jobs may be eliminated. How can you be sure that you're balancing these factors? Quote:
Also, at present, infrastructure and transportation costs for ethanol exceed those of gasoline. This has plenty to do with the inability to transport ethanol through pipelines, or store it in tank farms, for fear of accumulating water in the fuel. The current solution is to use trucks to transport the fuel; this is impractical given the volume of fuel needed to serve the North American market. Brazil, which has been using ethanol for years, has a significant advantage over North America: tropical climate. This allows them to grow sugarcane locally, for conversion to ethanol fuel. They therefore eliminate the transport and storage difficulties. But recall that the price of this convenience is a dependence on slash-and-burn agriculture to sustain many cane plantations—they cause environmental damage by eliminating rainforests, rather than by necessitating more transport trucks. When you look at the whole picture, the operating energy costs of an ethanol infrastructure are at best insignificantly better than gasoline, and in reality, probably somewhat worse. Improvements in transport and storage technology may eventually bring this around, but for today, especially in the Northern U.S. and Canada, a 6-month growing season is not a practical way to sustain a year-round need for fuel. |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
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and it would also drive the growth of an ethanol based transportation system, resulting in the needed infrastructure being created and built up over the years the best part is this is a renewable resource. It wont be gone in 50 or 100 years. people have demonstrated the will to do the right thing regarding our economy and our environment. The hybrid electric cars that are being purchased in large numbers today cost more to drive in the long run than a base-model gasoline car, but people are still willing to pay more for them. |
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Is ethanol really worth the massive fertilzer run off into our streams and rivers? These are not grown organically folks. Quote:
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
Perhaps WVO is the answer.
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"Hey mom, can we get some corn?" "No, it is too expensive" "But it's on sale for $4.50 a can." :ahh: |
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And realistically, no matter who's running the hydrocarbon fuel show, the profits get absorbed by those in positions of power. It's not just sheikhs; Americans, Europeans, and eastern Asians all have their own homegrown oil magnates. If you don't like the profit sharing, simply transferring responsibility to the domestic arms of Exxon or Texaco (or maybe Monsanto, if corn-based fuel becomes popular) won't solve the problem. And while I certainly can't make a definitive prediction based on such a small set of evidence, remember that even if thousands of jobs are created in America, if higher fuel costs make disposable income decrease, the standard of living might well follow. Even a small (percentage) decrease, because it's due to something as ubiquitous as automotive fuel, will have significant effects on GDP. So one can only hope that the increased consumption due to slightly lower unemployment will mitigate this. Quote:
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
My wifes best friend recently purchased the Toyota Hybrid (the Prius?)
she is the head nurse at a hospital, and her husband is an industrial engineer. Nobody tricked them into buying the car, they understood the long term cost vs the money they would save on fuel and they had to take what they could get from the dealer when they could get it, at the list price, because the car had a 3 month back order. |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
Think I read that they can now take cellulose ethanol from just about anything that grows. If I remember the article right, the speculation was that it would be switchgrass and not corn that would fuel our cars if we made a move to ethanol because switchgrass can be grown almost anywhere and harvested multiple times per year giving a much greater energy yield per acre.
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Of course, there are some comparisons that can be made, that do save money—between buying something like a Dodge Magnum and a Toyota Prius, for example. These are comparably-priced cars. Or if you really do drive 45 000 km per year, the Prius can save some money. The trouble is, people see "hybrid", and think that they're automatically doing something fantastic by buying it. It has to be right for the use that you put it to; current hybrids are not a solution for everybody, so long as cost is a factor. *U.S. gallons, Canadian dollars, and gas is currently around $0.78/L. |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
last time I worked out the math it was cheaper to buy a base model Saturn Ion (5 speed) that got 38 to 42mpg than to buy a hybrid electric car (several thousand dollars more) that got 55 to 65mpg, if you planned to drive the car 120k miles
this has been all over the news this summer. It only takes a few minutes to run the calculations if you know the specs and prices of two cars, and the price of gas. Hybrid electric cars do cost you more than a base model economy car to own and drive. People know that, and there is still a back log of orders for hybrid electric cars- which is what I was trying to point out - people are buying them for other reasons than to save money. I know of at least one hyrbid owner whos son is a Marine in Iraq. Maybe its their way to take a step towards breaking the strangle hold the middle east has on our transportation system. If I could buy a one passenger electric car that could hit 45mph, with a 30 mile range, for $7 or $8k, I would, for the sole purpose of driving to work, 15 miles each way. I could design a car myself in a few days that would meet my requirements, but it would be very expensive for me to build one in my garage. The problem is the economy of scale. For a new car company, or a new car line to be viable you have to build hundreds of thousands, or millions of cars a year, to compete against the gas models that are presently available. That requires a huge startup investment (probably $1B or more). So far no one has stepped up to the plate to do it. |
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A Honda Spree? (I know it is not electric, but it probably uses less energy than the electric company would use to power your electric car) |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
My opinion on alternate fuel cars:
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- going in circles - hitting a blank wall - losing my train of thought, keyword - train - other than that I think my mind could power/drive a car very well. |
Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
What I want to know is why does Diesel cost so much more than gasoline. Yet it cost 30% less to make diesel than it does gasoline. Why does the price of a gallon of fuel go up the day after the price of a barrel of oil go up on the open market. Yet it takes for ever for the price to come down. I can tell you how much diesel fuel went up between 2004 and 2005.
I drove appox. 59,000 miles in 2004 I drove appox. 60,000 miles in 2005 THE COST OF FUEL ??? 2004 was $12,000 2005 was $18,000 |
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In Northern Virginia, there is another cost to factor into your hybrid benefit matrix: time. Up until June 1st 2006, a hybrid qualified for special licence plates that exempted you from HOV restrictions. In the heavily congested 95 and 66 corridors, this could save you an hour or more a day in sitting in traffic.
That has much greater value than a few gallons of gas each week. Wetzel |
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Economics of supply and demand. Semis use Diesel, enough said. Quote:
Hydrogen is the next gasoline that oil companies want to make money from. It has nothing to do with the enviornment. |
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Environmentalism can be expensive, but the alternative could be much more costly. Wetzel |
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Re: pic: Ethanol powered car from GM
I live right across from the General Motors Technical Center in Warren,MI and we have 2 E85 stations within a mile and 18 in the Metro Detroit Area. Right now the price is $1.95 a gallon. If you calculate fuel mileage through and all that, you really don't save much. Although at the pump it's 10 cents less than regular, fuel economy is worse.
Just dropping some info. Tomasz Bania P.S. I am planning on getting an E85 SUV soon (not for the savings since their is none, but just to be cleaner) |
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