HIGH-PERFORMANCE ELECTRIC CAR GETS 200 MPG

There's nothing impossible here, of course. Just a bit of unobtanium materials. This is the Volt concept taken to the extreme (in both performance and cost to build).

Easy to say that they'll "use" this stuff - quite another to make it at a price the consumer can swallow.

"The Velozzi will be constructed of space-age lightweight composites, including liquid metal. In addition they are using the lightest, most efficient lithium ion batteries in the world. "

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 26 2007, 09:03 AM) [snapback]430490[/snapback]</div>

Yep. They're currently a 501c3 non-profit trying to raise $3 million so they can buld one prototype.

$3 million a car might be more than most consumers want to spend.

 

sell it to the actors and other rich publicity stars first.

liquid metal.. wow... i wonder what part of the car.. what's the crash rating on that... lol

 

Holy Redundancy!! Did I mention that there's a micro turbine battery charger that runs of gasoline to feed electricity to the electric motor?

 

cute car.... any other designs available probably made in a CAD class. looks like scam to me... donate a dollar to this vapor car. sure, here ya go.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Apr 26 2007, 12:49 PM) [snapback]430587[/snapback]</div>

I was wondering why a car with such a little combustion engine needs such big air scoops on the side.

 

Hmm, may not be a scam. Have a look at this Liquid Metal site...

 

Liquid metal??? Hmm, that's the first strike.

Second strike... With regards to the turbine, that seems as a very inefficient way to produce electricity. Turbines by nature are less efficient than a well designed 4 cycle conventional engine. They do have a much higher power to weight ratio which of course lends themselves to the use on aircraft. Or maybe a high powered Naval destroyer class type of ship or a M-1 tank (and even that one is disputed vs. using a strong diesel). But a passenger automobile, I don't think so.

Turbines are expensive, noisy, require vast amounts of very clean air... They just don't lend themselves to powering a typical automobile.

Third strike. High price to the masses. No doubt it will be a neat concept car. Maybe make the cover of Popular Science. But that's as far as it will go.

I'd imagine if turbines had any value in powering passenger vehicles, Toyota, GM, or Ford would be on top of it.


Rick
#4 2006

 

So they're trying to raise the money to built the first prototype, but the're saying, in the present tense, that the car gets 200 mpg??? RED FLAG,

Then they're calling it an electric car, but it gets all its energy from gas or other liquid fuel? RED FLAG.

Then they're claiming it'll be made of a material that has never been commercially produced before, and might itself be a scam? RED FLAG.

How big, how heavy, and how safe will it be? I'll bet any class of university-level engineering students could build a car that gets 200 mpg. It'll seat one person, it'll be the size and weight of a go-cart, though it will have a beautiful and stylish body if they have the materials available. It will run on flimsy but ultra-efficient bicycle tires. And in a collision with an SUV it will disintegrate completely. But it will go 200 miles on a gallon of gas.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wiyosaya @ Apr 26 2007, 09:56 AM) [snapback]430594[/snapback]</div>

Liquid metal looks like a scam to me. They claim liquid metal differs from ordinary metal in being amorphous rather than crystalline. I could be mistaken, but I think metals are amorphous.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 26 2007, 06:17 PM) [snapback]430799[/snapback]</div>

Part of my tennis racquet is made of liquid metal, http://www.head.com/tennis/technology.php?...tag=liquidmetal

 

Hi All,

While not a "Liquid Metal", most efficient motors are made from amorphous iron stampings. The Iron is made by pooring a ribbon of molten iron on the a water cooled spinning copper disk. The ribbon hits the circumference of the disk and is spat out solid so fast, that there is no time for the normal crystral structure to form. This has been a production industrial process for years and years. The advantage to this metal is less magnetic losses.

I am having trouble envisioning what would be the big deal about liquid metal in this car. Some F1 springs are made from Titanium. Could be this "Liquid Metal" material. But the low melting points for die casting would be problematic for a turbine. Might be OK for the compressor portions. Using such a high Q material for a chasis would be like driving a tuning fork!

Turbines can be made much more efficient that car engines. But typically, they have to be quite large to reduce the compressor losses, or have unique operating conditions. I read an online paper about power plant gas turbine that ran at 55 % efficiency. It used regeneration (recovery of waste heat from the exhaust to preheat the intake air), and reburn (exhaust gas of the first burn was injected with fuel, and passed through another tubine). The French/British Supersonic transport could not get across the Atlantic at sub-sonic speeds, because the shock wave was passed into the engine ducts at Mach 2, and gave the engines an effective compression ratio of 60 to 1. Which so improved the theromodynamic efficiency, it had range to spare at supersonic speeds (even with the increased drag!). The HCCI piston engines that have been proposed have about that compression ratio.

I doubt a Micro-Turbine could be made more efficient that a piston engine. The problem has to do with the Reynolds number of the flow in the small diameter tube.

And Turbines require nickel alloy turbine stages as there is no cooling in a turbine blade, unlike a piston. Machining such durable high temperature metals is very problematic. Cermet materials might be practical, but again expensive to finish machine.








Daniel -

Metals are crystaline, but not like the typical salt crystal one sees. Depending on the intended metalurgy the crystals are carefully compositioned and sized through quenching and tempering. Under a microscope a metal looks allot like an amorphous-crystaline solar cell. With intergrain boundaries of carbon (for steel) or other alloy phases.

 

There is a very similiar, slick-looking site that somebody posted here a while back. It was trying to raise money for the world's first perpentual motion car. It explained very clearly how when you drive on the freeway and take your foot off the gas, that the car keeps going. That is the energy they plan to tap into!

Ug.

 

i guess i need to clarify that i am not saying that the technology mentioned was not feasible, what i have an issue with is just that... there is nothing but talk here. there is no picture of a prototype even... nothing but words on a page and an image of a vehicle.

read the website... 500 million dollars worth of publicity for any sponsor... but at the same time asking for $1 donations? it simply does not make any sense

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Apr 26 2007, 08:15 PM) [snapback]430934[/snapback]</div>

Thank you.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 26 2007, 08:47 PM) [snapback]430953[/snapback]</div>

A friend of mine designed a perpetual motion machine. It's based on the fact that 9 is greater than 6. A 6 and a 9 are mounted on a rotating armature. Because 9 is greater than six, the nine falls while the 6 rises. But when the armature becomes vertical, the 9 becomes 6 and the 6 becomes 9. The new 9, which was a 6, is now greater, and falls, allowing the rotation to continue forever. Now if you install a pully and drive belt, you can use it to turn a generator (or run any other sort of equipment). The amount of energy you can extract is roughly proportional to the size of the numbers. If you build it so the 6 and the 9 are really large, you can extract a lot of energy.

 

Dear Prius Owners,


A member of Prius Chat group has contacted us to participate in your forum to clarify some points about our laboratory Velozzi. We are a big fan of the prius. We are very glad that Toyota is making great advances in the auto industry. Like yourselves, we at velozzi care deeply about our environment and are putting our best efforts to develop transportation technology to alleviate both global warming and the energy crisis.

Some statements have been made and some questions have been asked in your forum regarding Velozzi and its projects. We will attempt to address all issues and questions brought up on this chat by the following statements...


1- Velozzi is a non-profit laboratory dedicated to develop environmental transportation technology.
We have 2 main projects. One is the development of the Velozzi vehicle project and the second is the
hydrogen generation program(We have a fleet of hydrogen generators and we are in talks with the City
of Los Angeles and the state of New Mexico to help them develop a hydrogen infrastructure to provide
free hydrogen. The fuel use by the generators to produce hydrogen, comes from the trash collected )

2- We are raising the money to build the Velozzi. We have been invited/selected to participate in the
Automotive X Prize ( a non profit organization ) http://auto.xprize.org We are one of the few teams in
the world that the X Prize is endorsing and supporting. This is reflection of the strength and quality of our
team. The goals of the X Prize are to develop a car that will do 100 miles per gallon, reduce harmful
emissions and that people want to buy. There will be a race in 2009. The winner will receive a $25
million prize to produce the car for the masses. If we win, we intend to produce the vehicles and in
addition we will license the technology to all the auto makers.

3- Team Velozzi is comprised of world class scientists, engineers and car builders.

Weismann R&D

The best transmission company in the world. Some of its costumers include most of all major
automakers, including Toyota. Their transmissions have won 10 FIA Formula 1 championships,
5 24 hours of Le Mans, 4 indy 500s, several world records. They developed and construct the
McLaren super car, which is considered by most as the best super car ever built.

NASA scientits- Power division

We are very fortunate to have in our team NASA scientists working in the drive train area of the project.
They developed the batteries for the Space Shuttle. They are considered to be the foremost experts in the
world as far as alternative power and batteries is concern. Again some of their clients are the US
Government, most automakers, and most major international corporations. NASA is a non profit
organization.

Please go to our website to read about our team members and their accomplishments.
http://www.velozzi.org

4- "100 to 200 miles per gallon"

We cite this number because that is what our scientific working model indicates. The way we approach
this is the same way NASA develops their working models. As we stated before in our team we have
NASA scientists. The same scientists that worked on the MARS project. The point is that we can forecast
the results based on scientific facts before we build it. The rovers Spirit and opportunity are still working
fine.

5- "liquid metal"

We are trying to build the lightest car possible. Liquid metal is a great new material which we plan to use
to build certain components of the vehicle. We can not tell you at this time what and where because we
are in a competition and can not reveal all of our plans and secrets. For more information please go to
http://www.liquidmetal.com We are going to use several composites in the construction of the cars.

6- "Velozzi will construct 2 cars"

We are going to build the Velozzi. This will be similar in construction to the Enzo Ferrari and the McLaren
F1 super car. The second car, we are being very secretive about it. All we can tell you is that it will allow
for 4 passengers to fit comfortably. It will be compact in size and will have a price tag under $30,000.
Both cars scientific working models indicate 100-200 miles per gallon. Both cars will exhibit the same
technology. The 4 passenger car will be more practical for the masses. The Velozzi super car will be
use to showcase the technology. All the automakers have both high end vehicles and smaller affordable
models.

7- "Multi fuel micro turbine battery charger"

The velozzi vehicles will have multi fuel battery chargers on board. The energy to power the vehicles will
come from the LI ion battery packs. The Micro turbines are very special and light weight (some one in the
chat group mentioned that we intended to make them out of liquid metal This is not so at all. These
turbines will charge the battery as needed while the car is operating or not. This micro turbines are new
and you will surprised how shortsighted the automakers can be at times. Someone in the forum asked
or indicated that if turbines were a good idea, the automakers would have used them already.
The automakers can not incorporate every new technology that comes to market not matter how good it
might be. It is not cost effective for them. Microsoft started in a garage. Some times is good to think
outside the box. Thank god for the X prize.


I hope we have answered some of your questions and concerns. We want you to know that we are committed to develop environmental transportation technology to benefit all. We would be proud if in the near future Toyota would use our technology in your prius.

In conclusion, we want to congratulate you for your forum and to invite you to visit and support the automotive X prize. Our e-mail is [email protected] if you have suggestions, questions, or need advise
with your amazing alternative cars please contact us any time.

kindest regards,

The Velozzi Team

 

Good luck to you.

I drive about 8,000 miles a year. In my Prius, I get about 50 mpg, so that's 160 gallons per year. A 100-mpg car would save me 80 of those gallons, and when gas hits $5 per gallon, that will mean the car would save me $400 per year.

Next month I'll get my Zap Xebra, because I don't like gas. All my short, in-town trips will be electric. So if that accounts for half my yearly driving, a 100-mpg car will save me $200 per year.

My point in all this is that what we need is not a 100-mpg car, but a change away from fossil fuel to renewable fuel. I think your project to produce fuel from garbage is more useful than a 100-mpg car. And I think what the automotive indistry needs is an electric energy storage system that overcomes the drawbacks of batteries. Perhaps ultra-capacitors, eliminating both the chemical charge/discharge losses, and the long charge times and limited current output of batteries. And along with it, renewable electricity generation.

Nonetheless, I wish you the best of luck on both your hydrogen-from-garbage project and the X prize.