Interesting article....

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/artic...&topart=luxury

Donna

 

I don't see it happening...at least I hope not.

BTW, the Vette pic is on the back straight at VIR.

 

The day they kill obnoxious amounts of horsepower is the day there will be mass suicide across the world.

 

It's true that tougher CAFE rules make it tougher to sell high power/ low economy cars but if the "limited production" loop hole doesn't get axed the companies can still slide in that way or they will have to make that power cleaner. Some of the hybrid systems are offering good power but still good enough economy to satisfy the CAFE standards. Remeber it's the average that matter so if GM offers a very high MPG hybrid car and continues to evolve the hybrid trucks they can sell as many ZR 1's as they want (which at 100K won't be a huge amount).

 

Yes, we're entering a whole new world...just wait til the latest climate change reports hit the fan. Anyway, I look at is all as an opportunity for more sustainable technologies to develop. The electric Tesla Roadster is a performance car like none other...we just have to rethink things a bit.

 

we will find a way out of this much like happend in the mid 70's with the advent of emission standars and Cat's. the only thing that saddens me is there will (most likely) be a departure from the traditional internal combustion engine meaning that my children will never get to appreciate the sound of an american big block run through straight pipes or the sound of a ferrari/lambo/porsche/(insert any supercar here)/F1 car at full hell raising, spine tingling shreak. there will be high horsepower cars again, it just wont be gasoline.

one question that i have is if we can make a synthetic motor oil that protects better than the traditional motor oil (which i believe to be fossil based), why is producing a synthetic gasoline been so elussive? i am sure there is a reason for this and it is probably something obvious that i am over looking.

 

I think one of the bigger reasons for another form of fuel is that big oil has done a lot to keep it down (competition). Ethinol is pretty close to the synthetuc fuel you mentioned, presently it takes a lot of energy to produce but that could be improved. In Brazil they widely use sugar cane sourced fuel so yes there are other fuel sources to be developed but I'm not sure that will clean up emissions enough.

The one fuel source that will produce the power more efficiently and emits only distilled water is hydrogen. This has the potential of really being the answer but the delivery of the fuel has to be sorted and that is going to be expensive. California has a limited hydrogen delivery system in place and it's testing several options-Jay Leno has a BMW 7 series that runs off hydorgen.

For bigger boosts in air quality we have to look at power plants and factories- another expensive problem and unfortunatly a lot of the old "dirty" technologies are in countries that aren't in the discussions-like China.

 

100% electric !

 

it costs over $100,000. i dont know about you, but i cant afford that...yet

 

The whole purpose of CAFE, as opposed to specific vehicle standards, is to allow for the production of just such vehicles.

 

Too bad it looks like a $100,000 Mitsubishi.

 

Does Tesla use Lotus bodies and re-do them a little? That looks kind of like a Elise from the back.

 

My understanding with Telsa is that they have pancake electric motors on all four wheels...so wrap your mind around that in terms of acceleration and braking!!! 0-60 in under 4 seconds, 135 mpg equivalent, 220 miles per charge. I'm not saying anything about the technology pro or con, but it is fast and uses different mechanisms from what we are used to to do it.

 

The Tesla is based on the Elise. Good writeup in Automobile Magazine.

Uses a ton of cell phone batteries.