An Alternative to Alternative Fuels and Vehicles 322
markmcb writes "While the world is working to solve energy and environmental issues with today's petroleum fuels, some vehicles simply don't have good alternatives, namely off-road platforms. For those not willing to give up their gas-guzzling habits, Matt Vea offers an innovative alternative. Using the OBDII interface in his Jeep, a laptop, and the infinite power of Excel, Matt conducts some performance tests and uses the results to tweak both his vehicle's engine and his personal driving habits for optimal fuel consumption both on and off road." Rigorous testing and good use of available technology; nice work.
Re:Works for a limited audience (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice piece though, I must commend the author for at least trying to provide a non-biased look at what impacts fuel economy.
Alternative Fuel Offroad Vehicles (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:not a bargain (Score:4, Interesting)
And for the cost of raising him, his parents could have not had kids and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars... enough to buy all the fuel that his non-existent self will never need!
Re:It's approaching immorality at this point... (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people need to tow something? Not a huge percentage, but they won't be doing it in a honda civic.
How many people have a couple of kids and have to fit a car seat? A lot. Sure they could drive a minivan, but the mileage isn't too much different in a lot of cases.
did you read my post at all?
all wheel drive and adjustable suspensions handle snow, when we moved from detroit to atlanta we towed trailers beind *surprise* a mazda 626 and an oldsmobile cultass sierra. cars have gotten peppier since the 80's.. a honda civic has decent torque now compared to its puny 1992 counterpart. as for kids.. my mother used to take my brother, my cousins, and myself (4-5kids, her, and my grandmother), trick or treating through multiple neighborhoods in a station wagon which had fold down seats in the trunk. You don't need a minivan.
Um, so what? You're using energy to post on Slashdot. No vanity there?
yes.. energy which would be produced for the powergrid weather I used it or not, and energy produced from more plentiful resources than gasoline, which now costs upwards of $3.15 a gallon, and arguably would be cheaper if suv's were only drivin by people with actual demonstrating use of their offroad capacity (read park rangers, the army, construction workers, loggers, and people who actually participate in offroading as a sport)
Re:It's approaching immorality at this point... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Best way to conserve energy: (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, very few people actually live anywhere near food-growing land. Most people in industrialized countries live either in the suburbs, or in cities. Given those options, city life (including at least moderate use of public transportation and non-detatched housing) is clearly the less-energy-intensive option.
Second, people in the country get almost all of their food from supermarkets, too. Local farmers markets can't supply food out of season, much less things that can't be grown locally. And even country bumpkins drink Coca-Cola and eat frozen pizza, Oreos, and other mass-produced foods.
Only, in their case, the nearest supermarket might be 10-20 miles away. And of course, it uses the same distribution network that the major cities use, except the trucks have to travel even farther.
In the grand scheme of things, you may believe that reducing a commute to work makes a big difference in the energy consumption equation, but, it's not your major source of energy consumption.
In the United States, "Transportation is the greatest single use of petroleum, accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all U.S. petroleum consumed in 2004". (source: DOE) Yes, there's more to transportation than the daily commute, but that's hardly insignificant.
When you turn the heat off, living indoors at ambient outdoor temperature (same for the air conditioning), and stop eating, then you'll make a BIG difference.
I'll stop eating if you will.
Re:aeordynamics, mass, and speed (Score:4, Interesting)
On a side rant, everyone bitches about the SUVs, like somehow the SUV has caused gas prices to rise dramatically, while ignoring the obvious growing population, ignoring social aspects of the middle east and south america, and ignoring the cartels that control said oil and the companies unwilling to allow prices to drop. And it's always the guy in the humvee the guy in the humvee! Where the F is this guy? I hear about him all the time but I never actually see him! Apparently he is the one causing all of the problems. It's not those GOOD PEOPLE(tm) in their more eco-conscious cars burning the same gas. It's those other people, yeah that's it!
Want to cut gas consumption in half? Start by clearing up the traffic people sit in every day. There, billions saved. It's a start.
Hmm... He May Save More Gas... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Construction equipment needs it too! (Score:3, Interesting)
though neither is the solution for the whole fleet of ICE transit, they'd be great
for bulldozers etc.
Re:Works for a limited audience (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Peak Oil and Grasping at Straws (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point can we just admit we are all screwed?!
What a cowardly thing to say. I for one am not about to give up.
Ethanol - Not going to happen. Best case EROEI of just 34% compared to 3000% for light sweet crude???!! Ethanol is not going to happen
Wrong. In fact, I am currently trying to open a E85 station in Florida to coincide with the multiple new ethanol producers scheduled to open up shop in 2008. Yes, ethanol does not offer a cheaper price than gasoline in all areas right now, but if you live in WI or MN you could be using E85 and saving 10-25% of your car's fuel costs right now.
Florida is one of the USA's major sources of sugar cane, a crop that can produce nearly TWICE as much ethanol per acre than corn, which is currently our main source. In fact, most economists attribute the recent surge in ethanol prices to a jump in demand. Once our capacity has caught up with current demand, the price of ethanol will drop again. Mark my words: within the next 5 years American biofuels will be significantly cheaper than foreign petrol, and once this paradigm has shifted, the mass exodus to E85 is only a matter of time. Add hybrid technology to an E85 vehicle, and suddenly you can double the output of ethanol, and reduce petrol use even further.
It is not *we* who are screwed, it is *you* who is screwed. You have allowed frusteration to lapse into cynicism. The change *is* coming, believe me. These things always take longer than we would like them to, but the economic reality is obvious to all: oil's days are numbered.
Re:Peak Oil and Grasping at Straws (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm already driving plan B: a Hyundai Accent.
Cars don't get any cheeper, it's got pleny of room unless you have kids (& more headroom than a lot of cars costing twice as much) and gets 7-8L/100km (I think thats around 40mpg for Americans). When gas gets up around $4/L ($14/Gallon) it will start to cost more than my insurance. I'm pretty sure that for that price we can find some sort of fuel for many years to come.
I realize not everyone WANTS to drive an Accent (or other small car) but really, the world won't come crashing down if gas gets more expensive. People who need a big vehicle will either have to decide they don't really 'need' it, or get a runabout for day-to-day driving and leave the F-350 in the garage when it isn't hauling anything.
I don't have a car (Score:1, Interesting)
For the record, I haul refridgerators, 13' sections of carpet, etc from stores in my area to my house on a bike trailer I built. I am in better shape than most of the people that I know and have more money in my account than most of them. There are options.
an alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
An alternative to off road vehicles? How about a horse?
Re:Best way to conserve energy: (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with what you wrote but not what you meant; both are excellent solutions. You complain that the outside temperatures where you live regularly exceed 100F, and that this can be deadly. Yes, it can--and yet somehow man has been living there for quite a long time. In fact, man has lived in a low-tech fashion just about everywhere from the Arctic to the equator. Now, one can't dress like a New Yorker in Arizona without modifying one's environment, true. But where is it written that one must follow Yankee fashions in the desert? Why not try dressing like a Berber or one of the Masai?
Yes, a Colonial-style home is very poor in Arizona (or here in Denver). What about a thick-walled adobe? What about a yurt? We carry assumptions on housing from a country with lots of cold, wet winds--those assumptions don't hold when living where it's hot, dry and still. Rather than trying to live like Englishmen, Europeans or Yankees, why not try living like natives of our area?
I'm not actually arguing for a duplication of aboriginal or primitive clothing and living arrangements; I'm arguing that we should study them and learn therefrom. For example, I really can't see many modern Americans living in cloth-walled dwellings, simply because solid homes are too deeply ingrained in our culture. But I can imagine more intelligently-designed homes becoming fashionable; I can even imagine more locally-appropriate clothing becoming the thing. Even now clothing styles vary between LA and Minnesota; why could they not vary still more?