How to improve the performance of a smart car....

[Grendels]

2011 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive Passion - Inside Line Video

 

[13aceofspades13]

im not much for a smart car, but i like how people complain about how un safe it is, when you got motorcycles.

 

[Grendels]

LOL, yes a smart car is safer than a motorcycle, but with a zero to sixty time of 22.4 seconds, I think that the smart car will be creating traffic hazards just by how slow it is.

 

[13aceofspades13]

that is a good point, i want my Corvette with a 0 to 60 ten times faster 2.2 seconds XD

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Funny!

While I an no advocate for the Smart Car (or the Prius, or the Volt, or any others), to be fair....the Smart Car wasn't designed to go drag racing. Hell...is wasn't even designed to even be on North American roads, never mind an interstate, autobahn, or similar.

It was designed initially for European city streets, narrow streets with cities that have big pollution laws/taxes (London, England is a good example).

As far as it being safe? Actually safer than most compact and sub-compact cars these days!

 

[13aceofspades13]

Funny!

While I an no advocate for the Smart Car (or the Prius, or the Volt, or any others), to be fair....the Smart Car wasn't designed to go drag racing. Hell...is wasn't even designed to even be on North American roads, never mind an interstate, autobahn, or similar.

It was designed initially for European city streets, narrow streets with cities that have big pollution laws/taxes (London, England is a good example).

As far as it being safe? Actually safer than most compact and sub-compact cars these days!

good point, in Europe you don't need to drive far, in fact you can drive from one country to another in about the time it takes us US Citizens to drive from one state to another. in addition the smaller streets mean slower speeds, the smart car does not need to go fast, beacuse driving in europe is not always very fast, with a exception of Germanys Autoban and a few other highways with no speed limit.

 

[Just Mike]

Electric care have a lot of torque. Besides, if I don't have to pay out the nose to pay for gas because of political BS, I'll gladly travel 45 rather than 65.

 

[Grendels]

Electric care have a lot of torque. Besides, if I don't have to pay out the nose to pay for gas because of political BS, I'll gladly travel 45 rather than 65.

LOL Mike, It is very obvious that you don't live in Texas!!! Lots of driving down here, nothing is close to each other. That is slowly changing as things develop, but if I had to go everywhere at 45, I would never get there......

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Electric cars is not the future anyway, heck it is the past.....the oil companies will keep the electric car from reaching its potential, as more electric cars means less profit in their pockets. As well...electric cars are nothing new, first road going electric cars were out in the 50's, battery technology wasn't there to sustain them, and the oil companies were scared of it. Even today with the advance in batteries, electric cars still haven't reached (nor do I think they ever will or be allowed to) their potential.

No different than a cure for HIV....I fully believe that a cure has been found, but the drug companies are making money hand over fist with all the controlling drugs that it would mean the end of them if they offered a cure.


The future fuel for vehicles.....Hydrogen!!!

 

[Grendels]

I agree with your comment on the electric car part. Battery tech, just isn't there and won't be for a while. Hydrogen scares people. (Hindenburg) So until they get the safety concerns around Hydrogen figured out, electrics are just for people that need to feel good about doing something to save the environment. The recharge time is too long and the range is too short. Not to mention check out the replacement cost on the batteries some time.

 

[Quaralane]

Can't speak for a lot of the so-called hybrids, but I know that the Hyundai Sonata's replacement battery is about $10,000 USD

 

[Grendels]

And the Nissan leaf is much worse, replacement cost for the batteries is near $18000 US. Keep in mind that these batteries have to be replaced every 5 to 6 years. With those kind of cost, we will soon turn into a throw it away car market. Buy a car, five years later throw it away....

 

[13aceofspades13]

Electric cars is not the future anyway, heck it is the past.....the oil companies will keep the electric car from reaching its potential, as more electric cars means less profit in their pockets. As well...electric cars are nothing new, first road going electric cars were out in the 50's, battery technology wasn't there to sustain them, and the oil companies were scared of it. Even today with the advance in batteries, electric cars still haven't reached (nor do I think they ever will or be allowed to) their potential.

No different than a cure for HIV....I fully believe that a cure has been found, but the drug companies are making money hand over fist with all the controlling drugs that it would mean the end of them if they offered a cure.


The future fuel for vehicles.....Hydrogen!!!

i believe in Biodiesel and Ethonall, as it is more stable and safe than a compressed gas in a can, with a exception Ethonall burns hotter and gasoline, and is more sensitive to air and fuel mixture, it will give farmers more jobs, and Corn and other plans you can extract Ethonall is a renewable resource.

Same with Biodiesel, Rudolph Diesel designed the diesel engine to run on all sorts of different oils, the first diesel engine ran on peanut oil, and the right diesel engine could run on just about anything Oil. Used motor oil, Canola oil, Vegetable oil, Peanut oil, Olive oil, Soy bean oil, Hemp oil, and straight up Diesel Fuel. emagine after a oil change just filtering out the oil and dumping it in the fuel tank, or when your done cooking your bacon, filter it out and put it in the fuel tank. and once again, a renewable resource in most cases, the Automotive market limits diesel engines use to Diesel fuel, only beacuse it would effect the Oil companies.

 

[Grendels]

Ace: You should check out what the fall out is for bio diesel and Ethanol. The crops that are grown for these two products are not very efficient. And they take away land for food crops. Go look at the third world countries and what happened to them when they started to grow fuel crops. For some, their population started to starve because they were no longer growing enough food to support them.

 

[13aceofspades13]

Ace: You should check out what the fall out is for bio diesel and Ethanol. The crops that are grown for these two products are not very efficient. And they take away land for food crops. Go look at the third world countries and what happened to them when they started to grow fuel crops. For some, their population started to starve because they were no longer growing enough food to support them.

the products we already use for cooking can be used to fuel a car... after using cooking oil for food... we can use it in a autombile... so there will be no starvation, in essence, most boidiesels, are a buyproduct of consumed foods...... therefore the last thing we will be doing is starving... in fact we would be well fed.

any cooking oil, used or new, could be burnt in a diesel engine, Motor oil used or new can be burnt in a diesel engine, it does not matter, with the right modifications, may i add, not many, and a diesel engine can run on cooking, motor oil, used or freshly refined and or made.

 

[Gundamhead]

Hydrogen is the best answer. And as for creating jobs, it would start much like propane. You'd buy your hydrogen canisters in a similar way. As for it being more dangerous, not really. You'd give it the same respect propane or gasoline get, and you'd be OK.

Bio/Diesel is much dirtier, and slower burning. Biodiesel is not an efficient way to fuel our needs. It is not simply sucking up McDonald's oil. Even if it were, that's maybe 5 gallons per McD. It's not gonna get your needs very far. As a side, yeah it's neat,but not a real solution. It might work for a delivery company corporation gimmick, but even then, they'd have to be able to feed their fleet 'normal' fuel. Sort of how UPS feeds it fleet propane.

 

[Grendels]

the products we already use for cooking can be used to fuel a car... after using cooking oil for food... we can use it in a autombile... so there will be no starvation, in essence, most boidiesels, are a buyproduct of consumed foods...... therefore the last thing we will be doing is starving... in fact we would be well fed.

any cooking oil, used or new, could be burnt in a diesel engine, Motor oil used or new can be burnt in a diesel engine, it does not matter, with the right modifications, may i add, not many, and a diesel engine can run on cooking, motor oil, used or freshly refined and or made.

Ace: We are not producing anywhere near enough cooking oil to fuel the entire United States. Yes Diesel engines can run on it, but it is less efficient than using actual diesel fuel. And if everyone did so, I know that I alone would need 10 to 15 gallons of it a week, just to go to and from work. Now multiply that by 300,000,000 and you need one huge supply. (There are 300 million people in the USA) That oil has to come from somewhere, and we are not producing that much of it now. No where near that much.

What I posted about people starving really did happen in Africa and a few other countries. This is a problem with a lot of new technologies, sometimes people don't think about the side effects.

I do agree that some people should do this, so that we don't just throw that oil away, but not all of us can. It just won't work.

 

[13aceofspades13]

i wonder how many gallons of Used motor oil, and cooking oil is just wasted every year...

 

[Gundamhead]

i wonder how many gallons of Used motor oil, and cooking oil is just wasted every year...

Not much. It gets dumped into a waste tank. The waste is then sold to be recycled into, (you guessed it) diesel. Diesel, as in home heating oil. Then the really nasty left over gunk gets mixed in with tar, and makes blacktop for roads.

 

[13aceofspades13]

yea you guys are probably right, even with the thousands of fast food restorants in the united states that use gallons, and gallons, and gallons, and gallons, of cooking oil and just dump it, however there are Tuns of fast food restorants in the united states and each of them use Gallons.... of oil at a time, there are thounsands of Mcdonalds, burger kings, Wendies, Arbies. you have your Chinese restorants that deep fry a lot of there food. that is a LOT of fuel! and it has its downsides too like getting thick when it gets cold...

but Hidragen as a fuel of the future... im not too sure... i mean yes it burns real clean, but is it easily renewable. i mean the advantage of Biodiesel is it is literally the byproduct of the food we eat. and does it offer a practical range... it may work fine in Europe were getting from one country to another is just as far as driving from one state to another here in the us... i mean i remember seeing this Show on TV where this one guy had to drive some 500 miles or so and he had to put these massive tanks in the back of his truck just to get that far. when with the fuels we are already using it just means re filling the 10 15 17 20 gallon tank you have in your car or truck, and that will give you some 200-300 miles to drive... also what about re fueling, yes just get a new Tank, but wont that get expensive after a while, and will it be convenient? in addition you stated it burns cleaner than Biodiesel, but... Biodiesel does actually burn quite clean... it burns very clean compared to normal patroliom based fuels beacuse its composed of few hydrocarbons.