The most fuel efficient car ever built: 2072 miles with 1 liter of fuel | Hacker News Reader

The most fuel efficient car ever built: 2072 miles with 1 liter of fuel

camarocarplace.com

45 pointsmtgred52 comments

Very cool car, very poor quality article. It reads like it was written by a syndication algorithm that throws in weirdly subjective statements at the end of every paragraph.

Here's a slightly better one with a video: http://wonderfulengineering.com/new-car-designed-by-french-s...

Ha. Its not even a car - it's a tricycle[1] ! The distinctin may sound pedantic but legally speaking they are quite distinct: It’s lack of a four wheel, and low production volume, exempt the Morgan from most safety and emissions regulations. At least in the US...Quite Ironic.

[1] see, eg> http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/morgan-three-wheeler-is-it...

There may be legal differences between types of car, but I don't see why three wheels should make it "not even a car".

For example in the UK we had a mass-market three wheeler called the Reliant Robin, which was culturally considered to absolutely be a car (albeit a car worthy of having jokes made about it). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin

From your citation:

It is markedly different from most mainstream cars due to its fibreglass bodyshell and compact three-wheeled platform which allow it a special taxation and licensing class under British regulations.

Also, the Morgan I linked to is British and is very capable--far more so--as a piece of engineering.

My guess is that three-wheel regulations were originally set up for motor-cycles with side-car. These evolved a seperate lineage of both engineering and regulation. For modern examples, see: Can-Am Spyder.

My point is that culturally they can be considered cars, if they look like cars and function like cars. I'd argue that they are cars, even if they get taxed differently than most cars.

Fair enough, but in the linked article the example would not meet even your test of "Look like cars and function like cars"...because the thing is basically a luge-position with an aero-fairing. This was the starting point of my comment--its not a "car" really in any sense--because it fails the technical/legal/regulatory (not obvious) in addition to the practical/function (more obvious).

I prefer the Bond Bug as the exemplar of classic three-wheel design ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_Bug

The Aptera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_2_Series (RIP) may be a better example, it's generally classified as a motorcycle in US states but since it's enclosed a helmet or motorcycle license isn't necessary.

I assumed it was written by someone not using their first language and found it endearing as a result. Have to admit that wondering if it's written by an algorithm gives me an opposite reaction.

Definitely a translation, or written by a non-native English speaker. Things like using a comma as a decimal (0,03 liters) are a pretty big giveaway.

I think what threw me the most was how SI and US units were mixed right in the title (liters and miles).

Flipping through the rest of the site, it does unfortunately read like they're just churning out content to draw search traffic primarily for advertising.

"Flipping through the rest of the site, it does unfortunately read like they're just churning out content to draw search traffic primarily for advertising."

Sounds like most online news sites. And I see many errors (uncorrected typos) in articles written by professional journalists using their first language, and even after a proofread from an editor!

Wow you weren't kidding.

"That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? Yes, it is!"

A nice engineering project, sure. But it has nothing to do with cars. They only thing that their results show is that you can get vastly different results for vastly different constraints and requirements.

It does have something to do with cars - it shows that if we changed our requirements we could be driving much more efficient cars. Even if safety and comfort meant than we could only get 1/10th of the demonstration, that'd still be a good deal better than what we have now.

You need to drop a lot of the safety, grossly raise the price, or both though.

I've got some family in the auto industry, and their consensus is that we are either really rapidly coming up on the point where we've got just about all the safety and fuel economy we can have without sacrificing safety, or we're already there. You're getting into the space where arguing for increased fuel economy is going to be directly arguing for killing more people. You may find this a tough sell. Especially since telling the automakers to "make less safe cars" is also going to have to come with an ironclad guarantee that when people die in these cars, the car companies won't be sued. And getting that law passed is going to be a tough sell, too, for a lot of reasons. The safety advocates aren't exactly going to stand passively by while you try to tear their stuff apart.

Basically, you can't have it all. Not even if you pass a law saying that you have to have it all.

And while we're at it, let us also not forget that "grossly raise the price" also is not something you can just wave into being. The Democrats can hardly try to make "inequality" into a major issue, then do something that unambiguously makes cars much more expensive for everybody.

I don't have any family with a vested interested so perhaps I can be more impartial. ;) There is a very straightforward way to make cars both more efficient and safer - make them smaller and lighter. Then they'll require less energy to move around and they'll have less energy if they hit things.

The challenge to overcome is that driving a small and light car is actually more dangerous while big and heavy cars are still on the road. So we have to get rid of them. That's actually very easy too - ramp up taxes on fuel to the point where people actually give a damn.

It's what we're doing here in Europe, and the proliferation of small, light cars is very noticeable.

I don't have a vested interest either; I don't work in the industry myself. What I have is a bit of a view into just how far down the road we are on the engineering tradeoffs already.

Small and light cars aren't a miracle cure anyhow. It's amazing how small the gains are from shrinking a car. Yes, there are gains, but we're not talking taking a 40mpg sedan (in routine manufacturing now, BTW) and turning it into an 80mpg sedan "just by shrinking it a bit". You might get it down to 50mpg, but, per other articles observing that "mpg" is the wrong way to view it and "gallons per mile" starts making more sense, a 40 to 50 mpg gain is not actually that large.

No, the environment can't be saved just by "making cars smaller". You don't win anywhere near as much as you think, because of the way drag works (it's nonlinear in speed). And you can't just start taking panels off and stripping out airbags.

From what I gather, having trimmed just about everything they can from the spare tire, they're on the verge of dropping it off entirely. That's the level of optimization we're down to. There isn't much left after that. The seats are what they are due to safety regulations. The airbags are there because of safety regulations. The bumpers are there due to safety regulations. The body panels are what they are due to safety regulations and the need to survive a certain number of years out in the elements. There's just not much freedom in car design anymore.

My family doesn't include designers in them, but they relayed the designer's complaints to me that the constraints are becoming so strong that it's becoming very difficult to differentiate between cars anymore. If it feels like they all look the same lately, excepting perhaps the exact location or shape of the lights, it's because they do look the same; the combination of safety and efficiency regulations is rapidly converging down to one solution for a given form factor. Again... this is the sign of an optimization process reaching its Pareto frontier, and that you can't get big gains anymore without big sacrifices somewhere else.

You can look out in the world and see that last bit of evidence yourself, without anyone in the automotive industry. It's the same systems optimization problem faced by any engineer, even programmers.

"smaller and lighter" means more deaths when not all the potential impact cars are not also "smaller and lighter".

Also, "smaller and lighter" and certainly what they used in the test isn't FAMILY practical.

If we have self-driving cars that are dramatically less likely to be involved in accidents, then we can start relaxing the safety requirements.

Yes, this truly is the phase change that will get us out of this hole. Self-driving cars could also practically use battery-switch-out technology and very rich rental models where we don't all have to own our own cars anymore, reducing the actual cost of manufacturing by making fewer cars, another big win that you simply can't optimize the current system into.

Here are the detailed results of the contest (and yes, the original results are in km/l): http://s08.static-shell.com/content/dam/shell-new/local/corp...

There are more than ten contestants who beat 1000 km/l. That's a lot of contestants ignored by an article about a research contest.

Without getting into a long argument about how science and collaboration works, narrow sighted articles that cover events like this do a lot of damage.

To be honest with you, even the second place was not even close to this car. In all seriousness though, the top car beat the 2nd place vehicle by 50%. While the other vehicles were impressive (even the last place one achieved 200+ mpg) this one was much more impressive than all the rest (yes it is!) I'm not sure what damage you think this article is going to do.

Calling it a car does not make it a car. 3 wheels and space for one passenger makes it closer to a Can-Am Spyder Motorcycle.

I'd give them 'vehicle'...not 'car'.

Amazing. Anyone has an idea what kind of bearings used in the wheels? The if you would spin its wheel, it would not stop spinning for almost 2 miles, whatever that actually means, makes it sound like they are something special.

Also somewhat funny how such competitions are usually sponsored by fossil fuel companies. It's like they are preparing for the future with a business model idea like 'so, within x years there's going to be not enough fuel for the cars. Prices will skyrocket. Hmm, better make some cars that don't use a lot of fuel so we can stretch it to the fullest'. Perfectly understandable from an economic point of view, but would't research into alternative, cleaner mobility a better solution for everyone in the long run?

Cup and cone bearings are about the best you can get with some manual fine tuning. If you carefully hone the surfaces with wax and toothpaste, and then select the beads running between the two halves of the bearing to have almost equal size, you're already good enough for track cycling championships.

Regarding the sponsoring by Shell, I doubt Shell cares. They are paying for this with pocket money, and they get some greenwashing in return. Doesn't sound bad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't moving the same distance using less fuel cleaner?

It's probably better than where we are (assuming, as someone else pointed out, emissions standards aren't reduced).

I think the point being made was more about local minimums versus global. The most optimized ICE car possible will be impressive, but the emissions will never beat electric (assuming clean electric sources, obviously), and the rolling resistance will probably never beat trains or canals (which are of course only useful for arterials, and possibly only freight).

Not always ... the emissions of a push mower are dramatically higher than automobile emissions (on a per horsepower basis).

Depends. If you have to build a new car to do it, the answer is almost certainly no.

Project page: http://www.la-joliverie.com/projets-pedagogiques/microjoule-...

Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microjoule_%28vehicle%29

I am wondering how far is this from getting to mainstream city cars! I would be happy with a 100 miles per litre!

The VW I mention in another comment has the goal:

"The 1-litre car was designed to be able to travel 100 km on 1 litre of diesel fuel (280 mpg-imp; 240 mpg-US), while being both roadworthy and practical."

Edit: I do find it amusing that VW Group make the super efficient XL1 as well as Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Bugattis.

There are those that prefer form over function. There are others that don't.

This is pretty cool. But at what speed did the car travel that many miles?

These types of articles gloss over what the researchers are trying to perform. To say its a "car" is an exaggeration. They are basically piston engine prototype vehicles. They are testing the limits of piston engine fuel efficiency and that is their main and only objective.

The driving strategy is very different to normal car driving. They do a lot of pulse throttle acceleration where they tap the gas and then coast for as long as possible. They also drive very, very slowly to minimize wind resistance. The idea is to test conditions to optimize fuel efficiency and not for practical every day driving.

That said there is a lot of benefit to the research. They are testing which conditions work best for fuel efficiency in all sorts of designs from engine performance to vehicle body.

Here is a great site to look at DIY improvements to help with fuel efficiency. http://www.ecomodder.com

This one has always intrigued me, especially the modifications done to get it to perform that well:

http://www.59fiattestcar.com/

I don't understand where the 2072 mile figure came from. The Shell competition was only 16km. And why describe fuel economy in miles per liter?

http://www.shell.com/global/environment-society/ecomarathon/...

Why shouldn't they just extrapolate? 1 l / (fuel-used-for-16-kilometers-Shell-competition-in-liters / 16 km) * 0.621371 mi/km

> And why describe fuel economy in miles per liter?

err, why not?

The most common fuel efficiency ratios are expressed either in miles per gallon or kilometers per liter (or liters per 100 km). Mixing imperial and metric units is pretty unusual.

In the UK road distances are almost entirely expressed in Miles, including all road signage. Fuel is sold by the liter.

This is a bit of clue that the article is written by a non-technical writer, or the editor is also sloppy.

what's the difference between a car that does 20 mpg and 40 mpg? what's the difference between a car that does 40 mpg and 60 mpg?

I wonder what the maintenance efficiency of this car is.

Your too generous, its not a car. It is a rolling science project, a trike, something no one could drive to work or play.

I want to see work done with existing vehicles, full safety and comfort features, where through inexpensive aerodynamic changes and propulsion tricks improve on what manufacturers offer now.

Thanks for posting this. My own first thoughts on seeing the project were: looks like a soapbox racer (and I laughed watching a video where they gave it a manual push down a slope to get it going), does France not have speed bumps or steep driveways or road litter, what's its top speed, and how survivable is a collision? This competition is just pure PR for Shell and other companies, engineering constraints for an actual car don't seem to matter. (I'm sure the students enjoy it and learn a lot though.)

Speed bumps would be prohibitive for F1 too. Yet, many technologies perfected in F1 made their ways into every day cars.

This is a race car. The purpose of the race is not to be the fastest but to consume the least amount of petrol.

Have you seen the VW 1-litre car?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car

Not to bad... But you do need two helpers to close the "door" for you.

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