heres one I have been waiting for for like 20 friggin years…and they are STILL selling for over 80k
you would think that a vehicle like that with the fuel economy and comfort combination would go into mass production and kick out some cheaper models but who the hell is going to pay for an 80k economy vehicle?
Here’s an announcement from Mazda about their plans for clean diesel. Targeted for 2011.
Who the hell is going to pay any amount of money for the world’s ugliest motorcycle?
Newsflash! Diesel cars are already as fuel efficient as hybrids.
Dunno… looks like the Toyota is about 11% better.
The Golf is heavier and less aerodynamic. If you combined the Golf’s engine with the Prius’ bodyshell and regenerative braking system it would almost certainly be more efficient.
Wait, how does that work? Do the training wheels come down at every stoplight or is it gyrostabilized?
I disagree that diesels are niche cars. They are populur everwhere except the US and that is changing. VW already has an entry in the states and Honda is coming out with a 62 mpg diesel in 2010. Toyota is bringing a diesel hybrid which will serve both markets.
The breakthrough in battery technology has already been made and that is rapid charging. Cell phones will be able to be recharged in a couple of minutes.
Could we not just standardize electric vehicle batteries and then install an automatic battery swap system in every vehicle?
Just kind of use a robot arm in place of a gas pump and do a quick change?
Yep… diesels account for nearly 50% of European auto sales now.
>Are there going to be any revelations, any great new technologies in the next 2 years?
There are two ways to interpret this. The first way is asking what new discoveries are happening in research. For instance there was abig lithium-on breakthrough recently but its still in a lab. That wont trickle down to you and me for several years. If it ever does.
The other way is asking what can you buy in two years that you cant buy today.
Well, the former will probably have to do with the battery industry and the latter will be what we are seeing today. Expensive electric vehicles, less expensive hybrids, and cheap high mpg gas vehicles.
Frankly, if we had a good idea on what the future holds we’d be millionaires from playing the market.
Also spin battery invented:
It would take a lot of money to create the inventory for enough battery-swap stations to serve everyone. Also, since batteries have a finite life, a station could lose a lot of its investment by swapping out new batteries for used ones.
And yet this is exactly what Shai Agassi at Better Place is planning to do. He’s proposing to treat miles in your car like minutes on your cell phone. The cost of buying the car will not include the batteries, which will belong to his company. In many circumstances it will make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, they include islands, small countries, and other closed systems, but not large parts of the U.S.
Well, then damn. My Expedition is good, too. It weighs more, has a bigger engine, and is less aerodynamic. A difference of 11% is still 11%. :rolleyes:
Did you get a new car yet? I just found out about adaptive cruise control; appears to be available on quite a few models. It would be a nice feature to hold you over until the road trains arrive.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43386207/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
I see this thread’s a few years old. Does any manufacturer anywhere make Diesel hybrids? (yes, I know that’s what locomotives are, sort of, but we’re talking cars here). It seems a well set-up Diesel hybrid car could do better than a gasoline powered version.
cost would be the killer for such a thing right now. add the cost of “hybridification” and the cost of the diesel engine along with the required aftertreatment to meet NOx emissions regulations, and you’re looking at something the size of a Fiesta costing $30,000 to start. Fuel costs would have to be a lot more expensive than they are even in other parts of the world in order for that to be an attractive proposition. locomotives are diesel-electric in part to eliminate the need for an extremely heavy and failure-prone mechanical transmission.
Diesel-electric hybrid city buses have become a lot more common since the thread started. There have been some diesel-electric concept cars, but I don’t believe anything is in production. Part of the problem is simply that you have to pay a premium for diesels and you have to pay a premium for hybrids, and the resulting vehicles don’t seem to justify the price tag yet. Part of this is because there’s some overlap in the advantages of a hybrid and a diesel-- two of diesel’s big advantages are low fuel consumption at idle and lots of low-end torque, both of which are moot in a hybrid.
The Volvo V60 hybrid is a plug-in diesel/electric hybrid, and is supposed to be available next year in Europe. But inexplicably they’ve announced that the US model will have a gasoline engine.
By the way, hybrid locomotives do exist, but they are still very rare. Most diesel-electric locomotives are not hybrid, as they do not have batteries; the generator/motor system is simply a power transmission mechanism for the engine, and not an alternate source of power.