Hybrid Cars & Efficient Gas Mileage

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

Also, have you ever tried walking or biking 30 miles to work?

Have you ever thought about:

A. Moving closer to your workplace? (People do it all the time.)
B. Taking mass transportation? If you're living 30 miles away from work, you live in a town big enough to have something.

[bloodzombie]

Have you ever thought about:

A. Moving closer to your workplace? (People do it all the time.)
B. Taking mass transportation? If you're living 30 miles away from work, you live in a town big enough to have something.

actually, I bet if he lives 30 miles from work, he's in the middle of the suburbs somewhere.

[Galleleo]

In our volvo you can drive about 140 km/h and keep the milage to 9 litre per 100 km. And if you really try, drive slow and shit (most our highways are 120 max) you can get like 7.5 to 8 litre per 100 km. But driving slow is boring.

[Epinephrine]

80 KM? holy shit thats low, I can get around 100-200 KM on my car depending where im driving

EDIT: For around 40$ a tank of full gas

Holy shit that's pretty shitty. Are you driving a hummer or something? Even my SUV can get around 400 km city/550km highway on a full tank of gas...

[Epinephrine]

actually, I bet if he lives 30 miles from work, he's in the middle of the suburbs somewhere.

I was reading an interesting article a few months back talking about developers. Apperently what they have been doing the last 10 years or so is to look at maps or satellite photos then find major highways. Then they do some calculations, and if a plot of farmland beside a major highway (an interstate) is within 1 hour to 1 1/2 hour to a major business area in a city, they will buy it up and build subdivisions.

It's a strategy repeated over and over again with amazing success. It's actually kind of scary how people would want to live 1 1/2 hours away from work and commute every day, but then again I used to commute 1 hour to school every day and that was taking public transit too (1/2 hour subway, 20 min bus, 10 mins waiting inbetween).

[Money]

There's a little company who makes electric cars in Norway, Think, it was owned by Ford last time I read about it. They're small and ugly.

what car on that side of the world ISNT ugly, besides the obvious italian sportscar or luxory cars..

i het 8 miles a gallon in my car...hahaha gotta love the LS1 350

[Galleleo]

It depends on where I am gonna work later on, but I would rather commute for an hour to my work later and live in a "suburb" as you Americans would probably call it, then live in the middle of the city and walk to work. I like the peace and quiet off the kind of villages I live in now.

[Galleleo]

Sorry for the double post, but to come back on what I stated earlier:

Volvo Cars’ philosophy is to develop cars that combine high safety with low environmental impact. Textiles and leather upholstery meet Öko-Tex Standard 100, the world’s leading eco-labeling norm for fabrics and leather. Exhaust filtering eliminates 98 percent of the carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons emitted. Most Volvo carengines already meet the extremely stringent exhaust emission standards scheduled for Europe in 2005. In 2002, Volvo Cars launched an engine in the U.S. that meets California PZEV requirements, the toughest emission standards in the world. This has been made possible thanks both to new techniques for heating up the catalytic converter in cold starts and to zero evaporation. So far, the engine is only available in California. The Volvo S80, V70, S60, S40 and V40 are available with a Bi-Fuel engine that runs on gas (methane or LPG) withgasoline (petrol) as the backup fuel. Volvo Cars are among the most economical in their class. One of the company’s environmental goals is to reduce average fuel consumption by 25 percent by the year 2008, compared to 1995. Every Volvo car must beat least 85 percent recyclable. Volvo was the first manufacturer to introduce an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).The EPD, which is verified by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), provides a uniquely comprehensive picture of thecar’s environmental profile throughout its lifetime.

Source: http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/Ba...t____3701.aspx

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

actually, I bet if he lives 30 miles from work, he's in the middle of the suburbs somewhere.

Might be, but even Chicago has those big trains that commute out to the suburbs.

[Richard Creager]

And pace stops are all over here as well.

[Bioture]

actually, I bet if he lives 30 miles from work, he's in the middle of the suburbs somewhere.

Or you live on the outskirts of the city, but work in the suburbs to avoid the city tax.

[ajaxee]

* One Top Fuel Dragster 500 inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first four rows (eight cars) at the Daytona 500
* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ½ gallons of nitromethane per second. A fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced
* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine does not make enough power to turn the dragster’s supercharger
* With 3000 cfm of air being rammed in by the overdriven supercharger, the fuel mixture is compressed in to a nearly solid form before ignition
* Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle
* At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane, the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.
* Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, disassociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gasses
* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder. Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ½ way, the engine is dieseling from compression, rather than firing on the ignition, aided by the red-hot glow of the exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down at this point by cutting the fuel flow.
* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.
* In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4 g’s.
* In order to reach 200 mph well before half track, the launch acceleration approaches 8 g’s.
* Dragsters reach 300 mph before you can finish reading this sentence
* Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from start to finish line
* Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load
* The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.
* The Bottom Line: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated US $1,000 per second.
* The current Top Fuel elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03 Tony Schumacher)
* The top speed record is 333.00 mph as measured over the last 66 feet of the run. (9/28/03 Doug Kallita)
* Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter Twin Turbo Z06 Corvette. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down the quarter mile as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the ‘Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The tree goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him
* Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.


edit: oh wait, is thread about fuel efficiency?

[Bioture]

Have you ever thought about:

A. Moving closer to your workplace? (People do it all the time.)
B. Taking mass transportation? If you're living 30 miles away from work, you live in a town big enough to have something.

A) A 30mile/30minute commute is pretty standard regardless of where you're coming from or where you're going. If you're settled down in a house I doubt you'd move because saving 15 minutes to work is a top perogative. I agree that location is important.
B) Mass transportation only works if you live within the city or suburbs where you can actually get to the transportation in a reasonable time. Since I moved to the suburbs, yes, it IS possible for me to go to downtown philly via public transportation, but it takes a 30 min walk to the bus, 30 min bus ride, then a 30 min trolly ride to bring me to 6th and walnut. This isn't accounting for the waiting time in between. Most of the time I take a 5 min drive, then the 30 min trolley. But thats still killing your beloved environment isn't it?

[bloodzombie]

It's a strategy repeated over and over again with amazing success. It's actually kind of scary how people would want to live 1 1/2 hours away from work and commute every day, but then again I used to commute 1 hour to school every day and that was taking public transit too (1/2 hour subway, 20 min bus, 10 mins waiting inbetween).

Some people have crazy commutes... I could've bought a beautiful house in the suburbs, but opted to buy a small older house in the city because... who wants to live in the suburbs? I walk a block to the bus and i'm downtown in 15 mins for work, or less than a 10 min drive if i'm going out at night.

There are a lot of people in seattle who drive to a ferry, take a 45 min ferry ride then take a bus to downtown.... it's not that uncommon for people to commute 3 hours round trip.


also.. aside from just convenience... if you're buying a place, appreciation is WAY higher within the city limits.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

But thats still killing your beloved environment isn't it?

If you choose to do so in an SUV, then yes. There's no fucking reason outside of having 6+ kids that most people would own/drive an SUV. Need a lot of carrying capacity? Buy a fucking station wagon. It's all a big status game, and status is (in itself) stupid. All I'm asking is that people use a little common sense beyond trying to surpass the Joneses.