Hypermilers - bow down to your master - Cal Poly car gets 2,752 MPG!

At 96 pounds, I would hope Cal Poly's car would post some serious economy numbers. I don't see their car being practical, however. I wonder how long it takes to run the EPA highway cycle? If it can run the cycle.

 

From the article:
" . . . If all goes well, they’ll take first place with fuel economy more than 13 times higher than the 230 mpg General Motors claims the Chevrolet Volt will deliver — and Cal Poly car doesn’t even need batteries . . . . "

First, GM/Volt refuses to divulge Volt mpg's once the 40-ish mile battery range is depleated. Volt range MUST necessarily mix those numbers into the equation, if stated mpg ranges are to be taken seriously. Until then, like the Volt (affordable factory PHEV) itself, it's simply illusory.

As for things from Cal Poly? Well, they make some inovative hypermilers. But their projects have been beaten by U.C. Berkley, where Dr. Andy Frank (perfecter of the modern day Plug-in Hybrid Electric vehicle) put the auto industry to shame. The industry said the plug in hybrid was a fiction, as it was not practical. Dr. Frank's group proved them wrong. His work is the primary driver for the soon to be made available to the public, first factory made PHEV's. Whoot! Although 90lb solo ocupant vehicles with 50cc / 3hp motors are novel ... Frank's group sparked an auto revolution that'll hopefully change the world!

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Dr. Andy Frank is at UC Davis, not Bezerkly. One of my friends at UCD hated Andy Frank.

 

Hi All,

Well, this is not a car, but a motorized street luge. Still, it would be fun to have a .12 Cd Prius !

 

oops ... thanks for noting ... my bad. I was thinking of where he went to school ... not where he's working now. Sorry for the confusion.

You know, the funny thing about this tiny little hi mileage thingie is that it can NEVER come to market. The closest thing to try, is the Aptera:




. . . . and they're so far behind in actually making it into production (since GM exec's took over less than a year ago) that now it's becoming more doubtful that anything this streamline will ever make it into production.

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Just vividly demonstrates that most of the gas we burn in cars is not to move us, but to move the 3000 - 4000 lb bucket of bolts, wires, metal and material we surround ourselves with, in the name of comfort and convenience. As long as gas was cheap, it really hasn't mattered much. But reducing that weight is becoming more important as time moves on.

Kudos to the students at Cal Poly (aka horse college according to a former work colleague!).

 

Yes, it is a horse college.

 

Drag coefficient of 0.12 is one of the things that really impresses me.
Given its general airplane wing profile (backwards?), I wonder what the lift is.

 

Since Volt is for a niche market, this can be a great competitor.

 

To comfort and convenience, I'd add safety, which adds its fair share to the final weight of a vehicle, both in protective structures and safety devices.

 

True enough .... should have included that first!

 

A motorcycle only weighs a few hundred pounds, why so much concern over safety to delay vehicles like Aptera? Simply because the people who get to decide how the rest of us spend our money and live do not share our interests. Yes, we get to make choices but cannot really choose. Its like electing a president, we don't even have a say in who the candidates are but we have to elect one of them?

My friends you call it Democracy or whatever word you think rings of freedom off your tongue, but it is not freedom when motorcycle riders can go without helmets yet the government sets the double standard and deems Aptera unsafe, too wide, too light, or lithium-hazardous.

 

I've been following Aptera at the Automotive X-prize. Today they were putting up over-200 mpgs on the telemetry during the highway knockout qualifier. They came into the contest with a big presence. Hopefully they are for real.

 

Not sure what you mean by horse college. The school was founded back in the day by Mr. Kellogg (cereal guy) and he donated the vast land to the state with the condition that the school keep Arabian horses on campus to run free in fenced areas.

The Bronco is the school mascot, but not much school spirit about that.

-Cal Poly Pomona Alumni

Edit: I was actually studying EE (in the same building as ME people) for a while and in 2005 the school did start launching an aggressive campaign to compete on solar-powered car competitions, etc. Glad to see some news-worthy results now...

 

The Cal Poly Supermileage Team (the original subject of the thread) is from Cal Poly SLO not from Cal Poly Pomona.

Cal Poly SLO mascot is the Mustang, also it is a big Agricultural School - hence the horse college comment.

 

Ah, my apologies, thanks for the correction.