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49 Comments
- mattnyc99, on 05/01/2008, -0/+12God I wish I could afford a diesel R8. Guess I'm settling for VW... again.
- rwert, on 05/01/2008, -0/+8Aww man, you coulda had an R8! (Hits head with heel of hand!)
- dusingaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7how much extra are going to spend on a hybrid in order to not pay these high gas prices.
- RoshanK, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4but what about the even higher diesel pricing though? I've considered it with the higher fuel efficiency, but diesel costs more than gasoline.
- wrestlingnrj, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4Because scooters are too slow for those of us with speed addictions
- BigPapi, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Right... except that the R8 was based off the Gallardo.
- AlKo, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Because "hybrdizing" any car (with today's technology) means a significant weight penalty... as well as packaging for a car as tightly wrapped as the R8 TDI.
To make it a hybrid, you'll to add the weight of some electric motors, drivetrain, battery packs, and supporting electronics. That's not even adding peripheral things typical in a hybrid like a regenerative braking system. All those additional items will kill the performance of the R8 and ultimately make it much slower and not much more efficient.
Only Toyota is currently campaigning any hybrid in motorsports, while diesels are gaining in popularity where the rules allow. Audi's R10 (from which the R8 TDI is a tribute to) and Peugeot's HDi are cleaning up. Toyota has done OK so far with their hybrid racer but the diesels are cleaning house. - karan1003, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3It's usually far too cold in the north for scooters and motorcylces.
- fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2You have to maintain a proper air fuel mixture for two reasons: 1) Heat & 2) Emissions
Running an engine lean under load can cause excessive heat in the combustion chamber and melt the pistons
Running it lean under partial load will causes issues with meeting Emissions regulations
Diesels have a great advantage because they can run VERY lean mixtures, not to mention the motor doesn't have to waste energy by sucking against a throttle plate.
The way to have your cake and eat it too is to use a small displacement motor and turbo charge it. Pressurizing the intake air is a really simple way to vary the "effective displacement" of a motor. Modern ECUs coupled with direct injection & boost can allow for a really good fuel economy at partial throttle while providing lots of power when you put your foot down.
The problem is getting people to manage the throttle properly. You have to pretend there is an egg on the gas pedal and avoid using the brakes as much as possible. - fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2The uninformed are digging you down.
E85 DOES offer some great possibilities, such as high compression + high boost + advanced timing for a lot of power from a small package.
Anyone bitching about the price of food going up isn't seeing the whole picture. If the government can avoid interfering, economics will prevail. High priced corn will give entrepreneurs & investors incentive to invent methods for extracting ethanol from alternatives, such as switchgrass, and the US will become less dependent on foreign oil. - RomeyRome, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2DOD: Displacement On Demand. Look it up.
- GeorgeStone2, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2*facepalm*
- oo00mige00oo, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2a 500hp diesel giving 23mpg hwy is not bad at all but the price kills it :(
- inactive, on 05/01/2008, -1/+3E85 is a JOKE....want to know part of the reason everything is going up? Look no further than your E85 gas. Turning a food crop like corn into fuel, with reduced MPG's is just plain criminal. Want to produce E85? Use a food that millions of kids across America would LOVE to give up. The purple sugar beet.
- bjzq8, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2E85 also has much higher octane rating than "normal" gasoline; instead of 87, it's 100-105. That means that your engine can have a higher compression ratio, and utilize its fuel better. Engines that are dual-fuel are a compromise in this regard; if we had E85-only engines, they could be made much more efficient than the current gas/E85 combos.
- 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2E85 is loads of fun for performance as well since it is so resistant to knocking.
LS1+110 octane = very aggressive timing opportunities. - hokie47, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2A sports car could really get good gas mileage if it wanted to. It is already light and aerodynamic. The only problem is that the engine is set to pump as much air and gas together as possible to produce a lot of power. It would not be that hard to have a switch that would change the fuel mixture or even shut off a few cylinders to save gas when the driver wished to.
- wrestlingnrj, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Too bad E85 leaves a crap load of deposits in your engine and gets worse mileage than gasoline.
- ShutItDown, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2E85 is sweet but then the price of corn goes up and it puts us where we are now.
- 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1oh I think that food for fuel is going to be the last straw and the whole world will be hating the US for it. (1 gallon of E85 requires 44 pounds of grain which is an atrocity)
But if you have a high compression motor and want to tune without paying $5 a gallon for race fuel - E85 is a cheap answer.
I'm not trying to say at all that it's totally ***** that we are burning food though. - zeebo, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Ok so this car is cool, but when are we going to see the MetroProject Quattro?
- 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1no kidding.
Try buying any used VW tdi, they are worth something like 40% more based on their mpg alone. - fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Do the math. The average diesel car can achieve 50% better milage than their gasoline counterparts. Is diesel 50% more expensive than gasoline?
- fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1You're wrong.
Stoich for gasoline is 14.7:1. Stoich for E85 is 9.765:1.
Which means for every 14.7 parts of air you need 1 part gasoline vs 9.7 parts of E85 for 1 part air. - fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1E85 Doesn't have to come from corn.
- Amazetbm, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Aside from that the downside of reduced economy and messing up the food supply. You can make better ethanol from cellulose...something that every plant has. Hell, you get it out of algae. But if I go alt-fuel, i'm going diesel. Better mileage, you can run it off used veggie oil, if you have to and you can make diesel fuel from coal...we have 250 years worth of that in this country alone.
- bjzq8, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1I couldn't agree more. This is a temporary thing, caused by governments. Near my house, there is a "Federal Wildlife Protection Area" that used to be almost 20,000 acres of some of the highest-producing corn in the state...now it's a soggy mosquito breeding ground. Like always, though, the government makes the problem, and naturally will come up with a solution that involves yet more government and fewer freedoms. Still, many farmers around the area are turning formerly fallow ground (where they got government money NOT to plant) and returning it to production. Wait a year, and the world will be awash in grains of all sorts, and people will again be complaining that it's not economically viable for people in other countries to grow their own crops because of cheap prices.
- mohrt, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1scooter != car... No good in the winter, no good to take the family on a trip, no good to get the groceries. If you only need a vehicle to get yourself to and fro and your always in good weather, then sure go get one.
- bjzq8, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1You can then take the leftovers from the 44 pounds of grain and feed it to cattle...so there's not THAT much loss there. Does the world hate Brazil for using "food for fuel" or are you overreacting?
- InfidelAl, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Weather
Speed (or rather lack of it. Not interested in turning my 20 min commute into an hour.)
Safety
Utility (Hey man, wanna go to lunch? Jump on the back of my... scooter... Also, it'd be hard to get my boy to football practice on a scooter.) - DrIce926, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1I'm excited for the Honda CR-Z, though it is still only in concept right now (and as a result is probably going to look more like a turd when manufactured). It's inspired by the late CRX of yore.
For lazy noobs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CRZ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CR-X - fahrvergnuugen, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1*****, I wrote that backward. 9.7 parts of air for every 1 part E85.
- 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Brazil has just a couple fewer SUV's than the US.
Thats a good point on the cattle though. I figured the waste from ethanol was totally unusable. - bincoder, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1What would be wrong about hybridizing this little red beast? If 500HP is good, then 50HP more added temporarily on acceleration from the energy that was stored from stopping it the last time(s) upon demand is better. It wouldn't hurt to get 30 MPG too which would be easier to make happen with a hybrid type thing (electrical storage or flywheel, take your pick) it would all just lead to a speedier and cheaper to drive pocket rocket.
- Stitchopoulis, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1I have a jetta tdi that's gotten 59 mpg hwy on a road trip. Figuring mileage at 50 mpg and diesel fuel at $4.40 a gallon (bay area pricing) it costs 8 cents a mile in fuel. A prius would generally get around 37 mpg, and at $4/gal that's 10 cents per mile. A while back I did the math for how much more diesel would have to cost for a prius to have lower fuel costs but I forget the final figure.
- bjzq8, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1According to the USDA:
"Currently, about 55 percent of corn produced in the U.S. is used as animal feed for livestock and poultry"
So perhaps we should be angry at the United States for eating too many cows and chickens? Then again, the 25 percent of grain going to ethanol can still be fed to those same cows and chickens, and humans can use what would have otherwise gone straight to animals. - 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1The $:mile ratio is still higher since gasoline only has about 73% of the fuel density of diesel. E85 is far worse yet.
Diesel has almost twice the energy density of ethanol so even if diesel spiked to $5 a gallon, it would still be cheaper to drive on that than E85 priced at $2.85 - jakeson2, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1Better check your math. I own diesel trucks both gas and diesel. I also have HAD both diesel and gasoline pickups. I use ethanol-gas mix anytime it is available. One pickup uses both E85 and gas. YOUR MATH IS A FAILURE. Properly tuned the E85 is near the mileage of straight gas. YOUR MATH IS A FAILURE.
- SeasonedBeef, on 05/01/2008, -0/+0We can't even settle for a VW until they get their '09 diesels out here in the states... C'mon hurry up VW.
- mydave, on 08/12/2008, -0/+0amazing car. I want to have one for me!)
http://sooslic.com/?id=625
http://search.ashtech.info/cars - 80hd, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1maybe in ***** work trucks that get 14mpg no matter whats in the tank but for sedans it's different.
I would argue that a jetta TDI vs. a GLS running E85 would get no less than 40% better mpg on the highway. - dezertrat, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1at least a motorcycle can get out of the way, on a scooter you are road kill
- Vodd9, on 05/01/2008, -4/+4Seriously, why don't people buy more scooters?
Is a 170 mpg vehicule too much of agood opportunity or what?
*sigh*
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/857/ - ChrisshEnzo, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0really impressed with how fast some of these auto dealers are going green before these fuel admission laws drop. asides from that the R8 is sick.
- GeorgeStone2, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2The only difference between the two is the badge.
- AlKo, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1Hear it for yourself...
http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,544840,0 ...
Idle it sounds like a big rig on crack... but the note inside the cabin and outside the car is dominated by the turbos. I love the sound of air spinning through a turbo. - GeorgeStone2, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1I've heard a recording of the R8d and it sounds like crap.
Not that it's a slow car, but it sure sounds like hell compared to the R8 petrol.
I would still give anything to have one though... - ShutItDown, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1id give my left nut and my GTI for a R8 in a second.
- volz0r, on 05/01/2008, -4/+2Dugg down for misleading title. Thought this was an article about programmers using meth! :P
