Kids Build Soybean Fueled Sports Car 558
Sterling D. Allan writes "High school students from West Philadelphia High School have designed a sports car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon on soy bean oil. CBS News reports that this unlikely car was the star last week at the Philadelphia Auto Show. Once again, are we seeing the fabled instance of revolutionary technology coming not from the big corporations, but from some unlikely garage. Maybe these guys will open source their design."
close to first post??? :) (Score:2, Funny)
Re:close to first post??? :) (Score:2)
Tis unless i had to sit next to them.
Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
Anyways, its cool to see technology like this floating about. It's too bad the higher institutions of learning aren't seeing developments like they should be.
Now I also wonder what the emissions are like on these things... That is after
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
No we don't. We just have to wait for the price of the oil we currently use to increase to $8.99. It will eventually. At that point, an even cheaper alternative will be present, or we can switch to soybean oil (or soybean oil with a combination of other methods).
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the "50 mpg" estimate is based on actual real life road testing, rather than the artificially inflated numbers that hybrid cars carry, it's not that bad. This is roughly twice the mileage that most cars get, so either soybean oil
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
Which, interestingly enough, is precisely what these kids have put in the vehicle. Here's the link [philly.com]. They pulled the engine out of a junked Jetta.
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:4, Informative)
it should also be noted that their car is getting 50-miles-to-the-gallon with an engine big enough to do 0-60 in 4 seconds. cut that engine down for 80mpg, then hybridize it for 120mpg, and $9 a gallon for oil suddenly sounds a lot less (7.5 cents a mile as opposed to 8.3 cents for a 30mpg car at $2.50 a gallon for gas)
Um, it's a diesel. (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, the main reason diesels are so much more efficient than gasoline engines is the way they are throttled. In a gasoline engine (Otto or Atkinson cycle), if the fuel burns too lean (too much air), the combustion temperature increases significantly and increases NOx emissions, and more importantly, tends to melt parts of the engine. The result is that to throttle down a gasoline engine, you can't just remove fuel - you need to remove AIR and adjust fuel delivery as appropriate, by essentially choking the engine's air supply. Thus at low loads the engine is essentially breathing through a tiny straw, and paying penalties in pumping losses.
Diesels, on the other hand, usually do not have any throttles in their air intake, they CAN be throttled simply by adjusting fuel supply. (I'm not sure why it is that they don't have to deal with lean burning, I'm guessing that one reason is that fuel is injected during the combustion cycle, rather than being premixed prior to ignition.) Since the engine never has to breathe through a straw (Although I think some large trucks do have options for switching a restrictor into the exhaust to allow for engine breaking), it can operate much more efficiently at low loads.
Diesels also happen to have higher peak efficiencies, but that doesn't affect choice of engine sizing nearly as much as the lack of pumping losses at low loads.
Food grade is expensive (Score:2)
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
slashdotters and slashdaughters that attempt
"first post" until the soy leaks out.
There are about 50 gallons in each firstposter
( I read it on slashdot, so it must be true ),
and it works great in cars. ( doesnt work for
food, the smell is aweful ).
I think we can get prices down to about $1.29,
even with us exposting half what we make.
Soy-lent green. It's people*
*well, OK, first posters, they kinda *look*
like people.
Actually the price isn't that bad! (Score:2)
I think that since the biggest market for soybean oil is for human (and animal?) consumption that the refining process is more expensive than it has to be--fuel grade soybean oil using exising technology might be a bit cheaper, plus there is economy in scale--much larger batches would be produced/distributed
Re:Actually the price isn't that bad! (Score:2)
No, they couldn't, but that's just because of how Alfred Nobel wrote his testimony - the prizes are awarded in the following areas: physics, chemistry, pshysiology/medicine, literature, and finally, the peace prize. None of them really seem appropiate. Possibly, it could be awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, for making a big-scale effort of avoiding a worldwide recession, but that also seems a bit far-stretched.
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:4, Insightful)
The best solution is to use oil-laden algae, which can create biodiesel fuel and heating oil several hundred times more on a per pound basis than from plant sources. A company called GreenFuel Technologies is looking at using the exhaust emissions from coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants to "feed" vertical tubes of oil-laden algae, which can grow these algae at very fast rates. Also, the "waste" from the processing can be used to make animal feed, plant fertilizer and/or ethanol fuel!
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
I have always wanted to drive one of those, but after seeing one in person, you'd have to be friggin' insane to drive on the city streets with that thing!!! You'd get squashed like a bug!
And yes, it's offtopic. sort of.
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
It will raise prices in the short term, but in the long term prices would come down. More capacity would be developed if this caught on. All of the oil that currently gets dumped down drains at fast food places would start getting recycled.
In the end, it probably would never get anywhere near the current price of gasoline but it would certainly get cheaper than i
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
That's because the industrial stuff is intentionally contaminated to make it undrinkable, which hardly shows that there's some material difference between 95% industrial ethanol and Everclear - you don't have to denature the industrial ethanol, after all.
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
Re:Price! oh and emissions... (Score:2)
It certainly is, else one would have to pay excise taxes as a consumable product. Typical additives are methanol, gasoline, tert-butyl alcohol, methyl ethyl ketone, etc., etc.
Cars are not software (Score:2)
As opposed to what? Weld the hood in and equip each car with a self-destructing anti-tamper device?
Like in the old story about "If MS made cars".... (Score:2)
Re:Cars are not software (Score:2)
Doubt it (Score:2)
b) If they had invented something worth patenting they've established prior art ( if a big 3 tried to fake prior art it would cost them an arm and a leg). But they haven't so it doesn't matter , see (a)
Excellent project for a school, I don't know how they funded it.
Re:Cars are not software (Score:2)
Also, they don't really have to weld the hood shut. There is only a single car available - it would be quite sufficient to lock the garage door properly...
I laud them for their efforts... (Score:3, Insightful)
I really really doubt ... (Score:2)
No... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. While this is an amazing thing for these kids to do, I'm sure it's far from revolutionary. The article is pretty sparse on details, but it sounds like they just pieced it together. So probably the reason for the great acceleration and fuel mileage is that it's super light from missing a bunch of important things, such as safety.
Those solar powered vehicles are great, infinite mpg, but if you turn too sharply you're sure to splatter yourself on the pavement which is one of the reasons everybody isn't driving one, not because the big oil companies won't let you (although I'm sure they prefer that you don't)
Re:No... (Score:2)
There is really almost no design in this thing, these are all off the shelf parts that you could buy today, and put togeather tomorrow. Plus you would be safe in this car.
The down side is that
Re:No... (Score:2)
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
When you optimise for a specific situation instead of general performance you can get good results. An Australian artist developed a simple engine modificatation which dramaticly improved the idling fuel efficiency of an engine on a test bed but gives no advantage in a vehicle. I've seen an electric motorcycle with amazing acceleration made by engineering students - but with a top speed of 65km/h and not very good battery life. They could
Re:No... (Score:2)
Right. There's nothing new about diesel sportscars. Audi's latest Le Man's car is a diesel [topgear.com].
Re:No... (Score:2)
Re:No... (Score:2)
Maybe that's just what we need?
Cute story, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Garage tech (Score:2)
Dropout students go straight A
Bad guys (big oil)
Philly (tenuous Rocky ref: cue: Gonna Drive Now)
Hoping for the all-in-one grease/solar/bio/gas-if-need-be transition vehicle (from a Southern California garage most likely) but for timely media hype this story is good; get kids working on something besides beats. Not that big oil has anything to worry about - nothing ever gets started in a garage
NOT show-stoppers. (Score:2)
This story is a half-step to a story of a car that goes 0-60 in 4s at 50mpg of biodiesel and passes emissions and crash testing.
The points are valid but not show-stoppers. This is a working prototype, a point about half-way between the idea and a final product, and more importantly a point beyond most stumble-and-crash obstacles, that is ones that make the final product impossible. Now that they have something to show, they can
So What? (Score:2)
However, you take away safety requirements, and I will make you a fast high mileage car.
Big Deal.
Food-as-fuel (Score:3, Insightful)
'Biofuels' are not only an incredibly inefficient use of farming land promoted largely by farmers eager to drive up the price of their produce, they are also a startling example of just how completely oblivious we are to the needs of human beings unfortunate enough not to live in modern technologically advanced nations.
I say, screw the car. Send the soybeans to Africa where they would quite literally and without any doubt whatsoever save lives.
Cue vitriolic abuse from 'realists'...
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:3, Insightful)
Biodiesel is not much more expensive than regular diesel gasoline, I think it is around $3.50-$4.00 a gallon.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Actually... 3rd world countries tend to have very high birthrates because
When income levels rise and child mortality rates improve, birth rates drop.
Most first world countries have very very low birth rates and population growth is mainly driven by immigration and immigrant's high birth r
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Yeah? What's the birth rate in Japan these days?
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
It turns out that biodiesel isn't all that hot ecologically. Why? Because excess corn is a lousy way to make biodiesel. Countries are plowing down rainforrests to plant palm trees to make palm oil biodiesel.
Nobody's going to starve over biodiesel, we'll be plowing down rainforrests to make room for the crops.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
We're throwing out so much food in the farmer welfare programs. Send that food to Africa and use the soybeans for oil. It would probably be more nutritious.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Actually, the US regularly produces surpluses of food. This drives down prices and hurts farmers both here and in poor countires. Using farmland to produce renewable fuels would reinvigorate the American farm which is in crisis and soak up excess production in America expanding demand in poor countries where the majority of the population are poor farmers.
Here [foodfirst.org] is an article about that and a quote about f
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
I mean, in a way I feel your pain, but at the same time why suddenly get up in arms now when we've already (yes every last
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
One news camera and they'd be back up and running with donations from all over the world the next day.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
What they said was, you can't serve food in public without a permit. And, by the by, they did away with the permit process. Oh, you could still feed people in public if you had a permit, but no one could get one. We kept doing it anyway. So he called in the special squads.
I've watched these goons slam my friends into the ground and drag them off by their hair. For feeding people. They dumped the soup in the gutter, in front of all the hungry people. They poured bleach on the bagels. So we got creative. We would stage five or six fake servings, and while they were hassling the people with the empty buckets, the real serving would go on quietly. Or we would stand in the fountain and serve. The cops hate to get wet.
There were plenty of cameras. I still have tapes. I could show you one where they slam this cute little 5'1" girl down onto the pavement and stand on her back while cuffing her hands behind her, then nearly dislocating her shoulders dragging her off by the cuffs. Fun stuff, but oddly none of the monied interests that own the media had any desire to show those videos.
Sure, there was a big backlash against dear old Frank, and some people even credit the bruhaha for helping get someone else elected. Unfortunately, that someone was Willy Brown, a slick machine Democrat who knew that if he just made things very difficult without actually using the sort of over the top fascist antics that Jordan had, eventually the silly hippies would get bored and go chain themselves to trees somewhere, which is exactly what happened. At the height of Jordan's repression, Food not Bombs served twice a day. Last time I checked, they were serving twice a week.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
There is a substantial surplus of calories today, and the world has never had a higher number of calories per person as this year. The problem that leads to starvation in some areas of the world is a failure of distribution, usually because local despots create an economy where all resources go towards military superiority, leaving
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:2)
Mr. Dictator would rather feed his army, than the people who might depose him.
Re:Food-as-fuel (Score:3, Interesting)
The high school kids have a website [penn-partners.org] and picture/video gallery [gambitdesign.com]. The kids didn't build the car from scratch; it is a kit car [k-1attack.com] based on a Honda Accord chassis. It uses a 1
sounds a lot like.... (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting.... sounds a lot like this vehicle by San Diego State University Department of Mechanical Engineering HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) Team [sdsu.edu].
It also uses a AC Propulsions electric motor (200hp) (which is what the kids used [penn-partners.org]) and a Volkswagon turbo-charged direct-injection diesel engine [sdsu.edu].
The SDSU site goes into great d
if gas or diesel I would buy it (Score:2)
As for open sourcing the desi
Re:if gas or diesel I would buy it (Score:2)
Re:if gas or diesel I would buy it (Score:2)
This article [philly.com] explains why they used biodiesel. Basically they entered the car in the "Tour de Sol" and the race rules required that they not burn gasoline (or diesel in this case). The interesting thing about this design is that it is built around an existing kit car. Heck, the thing's probably street legal.
Re:if gas or diesel I would buy it (Score:2)
The answer is, because the profit would (and most likely will) come from some big$$$ oil companies, who will buy the patent, the project and silence, and this will be the last we see of this car. There -already- are quite a few revolutionary alternative fuel/power technologi
Photos and Diagrams (Score:2)
They've also got a flash presentation with exploded diagrams of the structure of the car. http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/philly/inquir er/KRT_packages/archive/graphics/hybrid_car/index. html [realcities.com]
Re:Photos and Diagrams (Score:2)
The kids did a fine job, but they didn't do anything "revolutionary". A big auto company did the R&D on the engine (courtesy VW/Audi)and the frame and body are from a kit car. A wonderful hack job (and I mean hack in the most complementary way).
I assume the nice acceleration specs are from the light weight (I presume, I don't believe it has safety features like airbags, and probably no A/C) and the fact that it also has a 200hp
Re:Photos and Diagrams (Score:2)
West Philadelphia High School's Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering
I read about a hybrid put out by the "Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering" but didn't realize it was the same highschool kids.
They're using a 200 HP electric motor under the hood and a 1.9 liter VW turbo-diesel in the trunk. The article I read said it puts out close to 400 peak horsepower AND will comply with 2007 EPA standards.
Okay so... (Score:2)
Why Farming for Gas Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
While it is commendable that these kids put together a working car that runs off soybean oil, this isn't a case of "the man" ((TM)) ignoring innovation for evil gasoline powered cars. Soybeans just are not competitive with gasoline. In fact, the entire idea of using crop land to meet our energy issues is a horrible idea in general.
Don't take me for a tree hugging hippy when I say this, but farming is a necessary evil. Don't get me wrong, I love farmed foods. I merrily buy my vegetables without bothering to glance if it is organic or not. I do recognize though that there is a price that comes with this. Very little land in the world can renew itself year after year. Farming by its very definition sucks up nutrients from the ground to be hauled off. Even organic farming is grossly destructive to the ground. More then one civilization in the world has simply collapsed because the soil died. There are entire continents, namely Australia, where there is absolutely no natural soil renewal. Farming almost always has a very high ecological cost. This isn't a trivial cost that we associated with other renewable energies like windmills where a handful of birds die. These are very serious nation threatening costs.
Certainly you can use fertilizers to keep the soil alive. With good farming practices like what are seen in the US and much of the first world you can keep the land fertile almost indifferently. Even so, these nations pay a heavy cost to keep their farmland fertile and watered. The environmental damage outside of the farm can be serious. When lesser educated farms in third world nations use these methods to keep the soil alive the result can be catastrophe for the environment.
We don't want more land to go to farming. We don't want more third world nations to burn down their trees to try and feed the agro business. Resorting to farming as a source of energy should be the last resort we fall back on, not the first. Algae, solar collector making, and wind power to make more fuel? Great. Creating a greater demand for farm land to make more fuel? Terrible idea.
So, congratulations to these kids for making a fun proof of concept, but this isn't the future of fuel.
Re:Why Farming for Gas Sucks (Score:2)
Except that soybean, being a legume, with the help of rhizobia bacteria, will fix nitrogen and leave it in the soil, thus IMPROVING the soil.
Search "Legume Inoculants" for more info.
Re:Why Farming for Gas Sucks (Score:4, Informative)
A main component of healthy soil is the availability of organic matter in addition to the clays and sands. Growing a healthy root mass (as legumes do) improves the soil in just that way. Fixing nitrogen is a tremendous aid to that. Fixing nitrogen with bacteria is still better because it leaves behind a more complex matrix than ammonia and roots alone.
Re:Why Farming for Gas Sucks (Score:2)
Some Info (Score:2)
http://www.xceedspeed.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=
Fuel nothing new (Score:2)
Ecoracer & Algae (Score:2)
What we'll see in about a week... (Score:3, Funny)
GJC
sports car? what about a SUV (Square Ugly Vehicle) (Score:2)
But we Americans need to transport many big boxes. Therefore a cubic shape is ideal. The Hummer was a little big, and the Scion/Squarion was a little small. But a perfect cube would be the ideal shape. It is obvious how the SUV positively differentiate themselves from Minivans. They are squarer(?).
Soy bean fueled sports car (Score:2)
Inventions? (Score:2)
Inventions do not come from corporations. The modern workplace is simply incompatible with entrepreneurial thought. Period.
Re:Inventions? (Score:2)
100 years ago. Telling the average middle management fuck "I've got a great idea" goes straight to voice mail while they move to the salad course.
Hey, you're missing the point! (Score:2, Interesting)
BIO-DIESEL IS ABOUT CLEAN ENERGY!
While petro-diesel adds extra amount of CO2 (carbon-dioxide) to the atmosphere it causes the green-house effect that heats up the Earth, melts the glaciers, the icecap on the poles, dries out lakes, kills species. Yes, the green-house effect is caused by YOU, too!
Bio-diesel is clean. The soy (peanut, canola,
You've gotta tell them! (Score:2)
Open Source? (Score:2)
What TF? No, I hope these guys do not Open Source they design, you see, neither Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell nor Marcus Samuel made their buisness by giving away their technology.
I hope these people can get some funding and maybe start a company, who knows, it may become a good energy source.
Open source the design? (Score:2)
Now, if you're wondering whether or not they'll take out any patents on it, that's an entirely different question - and in fact, in order to patent something, you have to "open source" it; how it works is *in* the patent.
even more info (Score:2, Informative)
Re:vegetable oil running cars already exists (Score:2)
LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine [wikipedia.org]
It's funny that you said "convert any diesel," when the engine was originally designed to run on veg
Re:vegetable oil running cars already exists (Score:4, Informative)
Re:vegetable oil running cars already exists (Score:2, Informative)
Re:cost of fuel (Score:2)
What about availability?
There's been long thought of to have all public transportation run from colza oil, as it required minor to none modification to the engines. The problem though is that growing enough colza to supply the demand is impossible.
Re:cost of fuel (Score:2)
Re:cost of fuel (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a "glue" until alternative means (solar,nuclear,hydrogen,whatever..) can be built into the econemy. If we were to go completley (fossil)oil free today, there are so many cars and other machines that would be useless our econemy and possibly civilization would colapse. Soy oil and ethyl alcohols could keep these machines going until we can replace them with differently fueled vehicle or machines. The average car will last around 15+ years. After about 5 the first owner usualy gets rid of it and it changes hands until some poor sap gets it and it is the best they can afford and the cycle continues. After about 25 years, the car is probably scraped, recycled or preserved in some fasion were the transition from one type fuel to another totaly non dependent oil could be resonably done.
One of the most interesting parts of this article is the mention of sportscar and 50 mpg in the same sentence. Most if not all production diesel (soy bean oil's substitute)powered cars get less then 46 mpg. Some don't even get 25mpg if you count the trucks. Diesel fuel is said to have a higher amount of stored energy and is considered more efficient then soy oil. This same system getting 50mpg in soy might lend diesel fueled car the ability to get 60+mpg while still retaining performance.
Re:cost of fuel (Score:2)
Re:cost of fuel (Score:2)
Comercial soybean production also uses oil (or other energy) in the maunufacture of the fertilizer, and running the machinery that does the planting, harvesting and (if necessary) irrigation. You also spend energy shipping it to market. Oh yeah.. insecticides and herbicides should also be included in the energy costs.
After all of that, you might have an energy surplus, but it's not going to be quite as big as it first looks.
Re:Grow Your Own (Score:2)
I don't think that's going to be realistic for...well, virtually everyone. If my back-of-the-envelope math is right, an acre of soybeans should yield about 37 gallons of oil. Even at 50 mpg, that's only 1850 miles of driving, or about two months' worth for the typical car/driver - conversely, it would take just over six acres of soybeans to fuel the typical car for a year. That sounds like a lot of fucking work, really ;)
Re:Everybody down on the ground! (Score:2)
Re:Bio fuel is hype, just like hydrogen (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot is now OFFICIALLY dead, see why (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Biodiesel will have to run on Algae (Score:2)
Re:Mardi Gras beer goggles. (Score:2)
Charlton Heston?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)