[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Tata reveals the world's cheapest car

Fri Jan 11 16:45:45 CST 2008

If we're talking about cars, I'd hesitate to call anything that gets 50mpg
'incredibly inefficient.' The US fleet today gets a real world average of
something just over 24mpg, I believe.

That said, you're onto something about the shift in priorities of automobile
designers. I have been led to believe that if you took the batteries and
electric motor out of a Honda Insight that you'd  get substantially better
mileage than the stock hybrid car offers. ...and, as you point out, slightly
less testosterone in the hill-climbing department. Not that we're offered
any of these choices in today's car market, mind you.

The theoretical possibilities are limitless: pick favorite small fuel
efficient engine available today and put in favorite light/small car of
yesteryear: voila... exceptional fuel economy.

Then you can try to actually do this.... It is possible, but more work than
I decided I wanted. Going this route I am certain you could hope to get
better than 60mpg and possibly evening something approaching 80mpg if you
really paid attention. But I've decided I prefer a bike and bike trailer.

Reuben Deumling

On Jan 11, 2008 2:34 PM, Benjamin Pratt <prattb at uwstout.edu> wrote:

> I think this little car's engine, two stroke or not, must be
> incredibly inefficient. I have a toyota corolla--a lot bigger and
> heavier and with 140 horsepower--that gets 40mpg highway. I believe it
> burns gas as cleanly as a Prius as well. I'd love it if toyota would
> be willing to cut that engine in half. It could power the corolla just
> fine. it would probably be just a little slower, get the same mileage,
> and be much cheaper, than the (much heavier) prius. Most people never
> need or use 140 horsepower. I used to have a 63 porsche, one of the
> faster cars of it's day, that had only 90 horsepower. The VW beetle of
> the time had about 36 horsepower and got around 40 mpg.
>
> This Tata  is no more advanced, smaller, and offers less amenities
> than a 63 beetle--and that came with a radio! Now that's progress.
>
> Ben
>
>
> On Jan 11, 2008 11:28 AM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It is probably good to be scrupulous about our language when we say
> 'clean'
> > in relation to a car. Until a few years ago this term would have
> referred to
> > criteria pollutants emitted out of the tail pipe: CO, HC, NOx, PM, and
> such
> > like, emissions that fouled the air. Now that global warming is edging
> out
> > local air quality in terms of column inches in our daily papers, it is
> CO2
> > we are more concerned about. All of these still come out of our tail
> pipes,
> > and will come out of this interesting new car's as well. Historically US
> > regulators have managed to reduce the criteria pollutants by a very
> large
> > margin (see *http://tinyurl.com/3bndsl* ). On CO2 emissions,
> though--which
> > is much more closely linked with fuel economy--our national track record
> is
> > notably less stellar. Since you can't add a filter to scrub CO2 out of
> the
> > air coming out of the tail pipe we've done very little about this
> pollutant
> > in this country. Although CAFE (corporate average fuel economy)
> regulations
> > are much touted as a means of dealing with this problem, because we
> continue
> > to drive more miles every year than the year before and now
> preferentially
> > buy cars labeled as light trucks, the gallons of fuel burned per capita
> in
> > US passenger cars is higher than it ever was. In my view, the new CAFE
> > updates aren't likely to change that very much either. See
> > http://www.epa.gov/oms/fetrends.htm for an excellent report on historic
> fuel
> > economy of US vehicles.
> >
> > On whether India *should* produce such a car as the TATA NANO on a large
> > scale, my sense is that until we in the US demonstrate a low carbon
> > lifestyle we have no moral standing to criticize others for emulating
> our
> > long-standing material and energy profligacy (see
> > http://www.myfootprint.org/ for more on that--and if this link doesn't
> work,
> > you can try this one:
> > http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ ).
> >
> > Finally, Lawrence is correct to point out the differences between
> > two-cylinder and two-stroke, although there are folks who claim to have
> > overcome the two-stroke designs' historically crappy emissions
> performance.
> > This does not mean you can go out and buy such a car, however.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-stroke_cycle
> >
> > Reuben Deumling
> >
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>
> --
> Ben Pratt
> Professor, Design
>
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