11,193 MPG !??!???!!
Apparently, this was Team Fancy Carol at the Super Mileage Car Contest at the Hiroshima License Center on August 24, 2003.
And we're saying CAFE standards of, oh, say, 50 MPG are undoable?
posted by The Last American at 9:32:00 AM
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I'm gonna go with "not" there Ripley. That's even assuming this isn't another of your photoshop deals
I've gotten too deep into the math and I'm lost, but here are a few things to consider:
A gallon of gas yields 124,000 BTU or 130,820,000 Joules from combustion. But that's a perfectly efficient combustion with no energy loss.
A joule is the force to accelerate 1 kg 1 meter sec/sec.
To travel 30 miles an hour, you need to accelerate to 804 meters per second.
Even small cars weigh in excess of 500 kilograms.
So with a perfect engine, that gallon of gas will accelerate you from a standing start something like 325 times. Of course, it's more efficient to maintain motion than to recelerate (rolling coefficient of friction being lower than standing and all), but it still doesn't look like the energy is there to accelereate to any reasonable speed and maintain it for that many miles. And would you have to brake 300 times in an 11,000 mile journey? Probably.
Throw in the fact that, as I understand it, inefficiency is a necessary part of any heat engine; that is, a perfectly efficient engine won't turn.
But you know the best argument re this justifying CAFE standards ss this: At $2 a gallon, if the Japanese can actually build this, they'd be building a car that would only need $20 worth of gas for its normal life. Even assume it would run 500,000 miles, they could market it as "we'll buy all your gas as long as you own it" for a cost under $100/car and sell them like hotcakes. No need for !!!GOVERNMENT MANDATED!!! CAFE standards. Vote REPUBLICAN, the Libertarians want big government!
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