Lil4X
Elio Addict
Reading over this thread for a while, a couple of points come to mind. The urban legend of the 100 mpg carburetor - aka the "Fish Carburetor" has been around since the '30's. If you think about it from a scientific standpoint, it's about as logical as perpetual motion. A car, any car, requires a certain amount of energy to move it. The baseline energy requirement is really set by the user. Sure, we could run a Cadillac with a Briggs and Stratton engine, but who'd want it? We want to cruise at 70 mph, accelerate at a pace that won't get us run over by traffic, and still save money on gas. It's going to be a trade-off somewhere.
Now, if you are going to burn pump gas as a motor fuel, there is a ceiling set on fuel efficiency. The air-fuel mixture has to be 14.7/1 to extract the maximum amount of energy from the gasoline. Too rich or too lean simply won't burn. You can lean out the mixture all you want to "save" gas, but you won't go anywhere, or will produce large volumes of NOX that nobody wants to breathe. Catalytic converters can help reduce emissions, but functioning as an "afterburner" don't contribute to motive power while involved in cleaning up the exhaust from a too-lean engine. It's more than a problem of carburation, its the design of the entire engine, drivetrain, and even the car itself.
EM has addressed aerodynamics in a rather unique way by providing tandem seating, thus a slender shape that moves through the air with greater efficiency. The current engine being developed is being designed and tuned for torque - the number that is most important to moving the vehicle. Actual horsepower is for barroom bragging, it's not really important to getting your vehicle off the line and up to speed. Keeping weight to a minimum is another key to Elio's design concept. Weight tends to multiply itself. Put a motor on a bicycle and suddenly you're faced with other issues like a heavier suspension to carry the increased load and larger brakes to stop it . . . which further increases weight, and so on.
As to the big oil companies stifling automotive development in fuel efficiency, that's not a problem. I've worked in and around the oil industry all my adult life and there is no logic in hampering fuel efficiency, particularly in autombiles. Oil companies are saddled with vast expenses for finding, extracting, transporting, refining, and marketing their products. It only makes sense that they maximize their income to attract and retain their investors. Motor gasoline represents a loss leader for them, even at $3.50/gal. They can make considerably more money turning that crude into pharmaceuticals, chemicals, plastics, and even construction materials that sell at higher prices. One of the problems with making motor gasoline is that it goes through the engine, out the tailpipe, and it's gone. There is no recycling, no cooperative use, and certainly no benefit to burning their hard-won product in an internal combustion engine.
We'd all like to find someone to blame for high fuel prices, but the truth is in constant dollars, we aren't paying much more for gas today than we did in the '50's. Although there have been spikes in the cost of gas, the same gallon of gas you bought at $2.52 in 2007, would have cost (in constant dollars) $2.19 in 1950*. Sure, without that inflation adjustment, that gallon of 1950 gas would have been about 26¢, but that's only part of the story. Not only is your dollar worth less, but motor gasoline is taxed heavily by both the federal and state governments**. There's your "fair tax", charging you for the miles you drive, giving tax benefits to those who choose to save their gas (taxes) by adopting more fuel-efficient driving practices and purchasing more efficient automobiles. That one is already in place and has proven to be fair . . . and it doesn't require that Uncle Sugar monitor your monthly driving habits to soak you for a few more bucks because of your irresponsible use of fuel.
__________________________
* http://oregonstate.edu/cla/polisci/faculty-research/sahr/gasoline.pdf
** http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php
Now, if you are going to burn pump gas as a motor fuel, there is a ceiling set on fuel efficiency. The air-fuel mixture has to be 14.7/1 to extract the maximum amount of energy from the gasoline. Too rich or too lean simply won't burn. You can lean out the mixture all you want to "save" gas, but you won't go anywhere, or will produce large volumes of NOX that nobody wants to breathe. Catalytic converters can help reduce emissions, but functioning as an "afterburner" don't contribute to motive power while involved in cleaning up the exhaust from a too-lean engine. It's more than a problem of carburation, its the design of the entire engine, drivetrain, and even the car itself.
EM has addressed aerodynamics in a rather unique way by providing tandem seating, thus a slender shape that moves through the air with greater efficiency. The current engine being developed is being designed and tuned for torque - the number that is most important to moving the vehicle. Actual horsepower is for barroom bragging, it's not really important to getting your vehicle off the line and up to speed. Keeping weight to a minimum is another key to Elio's design concept. Weight tends to multiply itself. Put a motor on a bicycle and suddenly you're faced with other issues like a heavier suspension to carry the increased load and larger brakes to stop it . . . which further increases weight, and so on.
As to the big oil companies stifling automotive development in fuel efficiency, that's not a problem. I've worked in and around the oil industry all my adult life and there is no logic in hampering fuel efficiency, particularly in autombiles. Oil companies are saddled with vast expenses for finding, extracting, transporting, refining, and marketing their products. It only makes sense that they maximize their income to attract and retain their investors. Motor gasoline represents a loss leader for them, even at $3.50/gal. They can make considerably more money turning that crude into pharmaceuticals, chemicals, plastics, and even construction materials that sell at higher prices. One of the problems with making motor gasoline is that it goes through the engine, out the tailpipe, and it's gone. There is no recycling, no cooperative use, and certainly no benefit to burning their hard-won product in an internal combustion engine.
We'd all like to find someone to blame for high fuel prices, but the truth is in constant dollars, we aren't paying much more for gas today than we did in the '50's. Although there have been spikes in the cost of gas, the same gallon of gas you bought at $2.52 in 2007, would have cost (in constant dollars) $2.19 in 1950*. Sure, without that inflation adjustment, that gallon of 1950 gas would have been about 26¢, but that's only part of the story. Not only is your dollar worth less, but motor gasoline is taxed heavily by both the federal and state governments**. There's your "fair tax", charging you for the miles you drive, giving tax benefits to those who choose to save their gas (taxes) by adopting more fuel-efficient driving practices and purchasing more efficient automobiles. That one is already in place and has proven to be fair . . . and it doesn't require that Uncle Sugar monitor your monthly driving habits to soak you for a few more bucks because of your irresponsible use of fuel.
__________________________
* http://oregonstate.edu/cla/polisci/faculty-research/sahr/gasoline.pdf
** http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php
