Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

• 

  Brian, 13 Jul 2001 @ 4:30pm

  
  

  dopey cars

  No dopey cars here: the only difference between BMW's proposal and a normal gas powered vehicle is a modified engine. The reason you think EV's are dopey is the aerodynamic package required to get any kind of range on an EV. Less drag + less energy used = more distance. An IC hydrogen engine will produce about the same power as a gas IC engine; therefore no dopey looks required. ;-)

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2003 @ 9:29am

    
    

    Re: dopey cars

    this is stupid!! you suck

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • 

    Evar, 28 Sep 2007 @ 4:51pm

    
    

    Re: dopey cars

    I think today the designers want cars to look different for marketing purposes. Different means not exactly with the best aerodynamic efficient shape. That is why many cars today are so ugly.
    At the contrary, there are few machines as beautiful as airplanes, and they are pure aerodynamics. There is nothing farther away from being dopey as a jet fighter!

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2001 @ 6:46pm

  
  

  Hydrogen Powered Rotaries

  Info snagged From: http://www.monito.com/wankel/hydrogen.html
  Hydrogen burns to produce water. Hydrogen is relatively safe because it vents upwards. Gasoline (petrol) is more dangerous because its vapors creep along the ground and pool in engine bays and around tanks. New multiple evidence conclusively shows that the Hindenburg burned because its outer cover ignited and burned before any hydrogen and faster than the hydrogen.
  ...
  The hydrogen-fueled engine has been identified as a viable power unit for ultra-low emission series-hybrid vehicles. The Wankel engine is particularly well suited to the use of hydrogen fuel, since its design minimizes most of the combustion difficulties. In order to evaluate the possibilities offered by the hydrogen fueled rotary engine, dynamometer tests were conducted with a small (2.2 kW) Wankel engine fueled with hydrogen. Preliminary results show an absence of the combustion difficulties present with hydrogen-fueled homogeneous charge piston engines. The engine was operated unthrottled and power output was controlled by quality governing, i.e. by varying the fuel-air equivalence ratio on the lean side of stoichiometric. The ability to operate with quality governing is made possible by the wide flammability limits of hydrogen-air mixtures. NO{sub x} emissions are on the order of 5 ppm for power outputs up to 70% of the maximum attainable on hydrogen fuel. Thus, by operating with very lean mixtures, which effectively derates the engine, very low NO{sub x} emissions can be achieved. Since the rotary engine has a characteristically high power to weight ratio and a small volume per unit power compared to the piston engine, operating a rotary engine on hydrogen and derating the power output could yield an engine with extremely low emissions which still has weight and volume characteristics comparable to a gasoline-fueled piston engine. Finally, since engine weight and volume affect vehicle design, and consequently in-use vehicle power requirements, those factors, as well as engine efficiency, must be taken into account in evaluating overall hybrid vehicle efficiency.
  

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]