The End of the FGT (and Supercars) in Sight!
- Thread starter AlohaGT
- Start date
C'mon guys...new lightweight materials and smaller displacement engines or electric/engine combos will dictate car design, and supercars will be the epitome of horsepower-to-weight factoring. The new performance car has a long way to go when it comes to design possibilities for the future. They may become expensive, but they will not disappear. I fully expect we will see increased performance rather than decreases...so, take heart. Ferrari has already announced its plan to lighten cars and use smaller displacement engines to increase/maintain performance characteristics, while meeting fuel mileage and emission requirements. I look forward to the brave new world!
mousecatcher
GT Owner
one major flaw
the title of this thread is "the end of the supercar", based on a report about the demise of the gasoline engine. before you go connecting those two things, note that the fastest car in LeMans is a diesel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10
there are a bunch of technologies that will ensure the future of very high performance street cars.
- direct injection
- electromechanical valvetrains
- exotic materials (magnesium, carbon fiber)
now excuse me while i fill up my diesel converted McGT with used fry oil.
the title of this thread is "the end of the supercar", based on a report about the demise of the gasoline engine. before you go connecting those two things, note that the fastest car in LeMans is a diesel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10
there are a bunch of technologies that will ensure the future of very high performance street cars.
- direct injection
- electromechanical valvetrains
- exotic materials (magnesium, carbon fiber)
now excuse me while i fill up my diesel converted McGT with used fry oil.
mousecatcher
GT Owner
I blame 1) the market and 2) the gubmint.
Buyers of cars do not care about fuel economy or oil dependence. This is evident by the vast numbers of SUVs on the roads. A recent survey showed that buyers cared more about the cupholder capacity than fuel economy. It's hard to find too much fault in consumer behavior though; when you buy your meat in the supermarket you don't appreciate that it came from a live animal.
The automakers cannot afford to be more proactive in the face of these market conditions.
"The government", however, should be looking out for us and subsidies and other incentives should be in place full force to develop alternative fuels. But when you have an ineffective congress and look at where the prez and vice prez are coming from (hint: oil) you can see this isn't going to happen in any meaningful way.
i think it's too early to tell. i'd like to hear why you think they won't make it.
Mark06GT
GT Owner
Maybe it is too early to tell, maybe they will work out the kinks, but there are a number of issues that concern me.
Fuel cell technology has been “just around the corner” for a long time (it was first demonstrated in 1839). If you read articles about it from 10 to 20 years ago, many of them predict cost effective fuel cell technology by the year 2000. Oops, missed another deadline.
What bothers me the more, however, is how it’s being marketed as a panacea for our energy problems. There’s a dark side that doesn’t get the headlines.
President Bush’s recent hydrogen energy proposal requires 90% of all hydrogen to be refined from non-renewable resources (e.g. oil, natural gas…). Generating hydrogen from fossil fuel doesn’t solve our oil dependency problems, nor does it help resolve our environmental issues. I’m sure Shell, Exxon and Mobile were very happy about this legislation.
There are concerns that hydrogen production will cause a damaging build up of hydrogen gas in the upper atmosphere and do more damage to the ozone layers.
Current fuel cell fuel prices are astronomical ($4,500 per kilowatt vs. $400 for a natural gas turbine). This will probably come down with new technology and as they become mass produced, but the price differential has been huge for a long time, so it’s clearly a significant hurdle. The operating lifetime of fuel cell cars is also significantly less than current vehicles (1,000 driving hours vs. 5,000). Again, this will probably get better, but it’s still a huge gap.
Hydrogen has very little energy per volume at low pressure. Hydrogen (a gas) is very light with a molecular weight of 2. Gasoline (a liquid) is 57 times denser. Storing large amounts of hydrogen in a car will require very special equipment. We could store it as highly compressed gas, but the tanks would have to be very heavy duty and because of the size of the hydrogen molecule, leaks could be an issue. It would also take additional energy to pressurize the tanks. We could liquefy it, but liquefying will also take energy and the tanks would need to be heavily insulated and constantly refrigerated in order to keep the pressure down.
Some companies are experimenting with devices call reformers. These convert non-hydrogen fuel into hydrogen while you drive. This gets them around the problems with hydrogen since you could run your fuel cell on gasoline, but it really doesn’t address the emissions problems because once reformers extract the hydrogen from the fuel, they still spit out carbon pollutants. They also reduce engine efficiency by about 50%.
Fuel cells are very efficient at converting energy to electricity, but there’s something called “well to wheel” efficiency which takes into account all of the energy required to drive your car; from the “oil well” to the “wheel” of your car. Right now, there’s 42% energy loss in the production of hydrogen. The energy loss for gasoline is about 12%. So even though it’s much more efficient on the road, the upstream costs for producing the hydrogen are significant.
If you know something I don’t that would make me more optimistic, I’d be happy to hear it.