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petardierI went to the altwheels festival this past Saturday at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum. There were all sorts of alternative vehicles, alternative energy exhibits, and sciency stuff.
http://www.altwheels.org/
The first thing I saw after entering was two guys with Segway transporters. They were showing interested attendees how to ride. Since I've long wanted to try one out, I lost no time in queuing up. It takes perhaps a minute to learn. I thought it was great fun, but I doubt I'd get one. It would probably just encourage me to ride for errands where I currently walk. Still, if one had the right sort of commute, it could be practical. It takes about 10 cents worth of electricty to go for 10 miles on a Segway.
More below the cut:
One of the exhibits was the Naked Prius whose owner, Hobbit, had thoughtfully disassembled various portions of his Prius and added labels so one could actually see various key working parts. It wasn't naked down to the planetary gears, electric motors, and regenerative brakes at the heart of the Prius phenomenon, but it was still very interesting. He has made a number of modifications to his Prius to give him better instrumentation. With better information, he can modify his driving habits and get 70 MPG.
Here's Hobbit's page of Prius info:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/#prius
One other cool thing I saw was Honda's CNG-powered car. It's a regular Honda (I forget which model) converted to burning CNG which is very clean It has a range of 200-250 miles per tank. With only 12 places to re-fill it in eastern MA, it wouldn't be appealing to most consumers, except that they can set you up so that you can fill up at home - if your house has natural gas. Filling up at home currently costs half the price of a fill-up at a station. I'm not currently in the market for a car, but I'd think seriously about this one for a commuter/local errands vehicle if I was. The Prius is cooler, but this seems more economical and quite very likely cleaner too.
There were also SmartCars on display (without anyone to answer questions about them). These are quite popular in Europe. Sue and I saw lots of them in Paris. The SmartCar is a jazzy-looking two-seater with a top speed of 85 MPG and gets about 60MPG.
So which is the car of the future and what is the fuel to bet on? Also worth considering are are diesel hybrids using cleaner-burning diesel engines now available in Europe.
http://www.altwheels.org/
The first thing I saw after entering was two guys with Segway transporters. They were showing interested attendees how to ride. Since I've long wanted to try one out, I lost no time in queuing up. It takes perhaps a minute to learn. I thought it was great fun, but I doubt I'd get one. It would probably just encourage me to ride for errands where I currently walk. Still, if one had the right sort of commute, it could be practical. It takes about 10 cents worth of electricty to go for 10 miles on a Segway.
More below the cut:
One of the exhibits was the Naked Prius whose owner, Hobbit, had thoughtfully disassembled various portions of his Prius and added labels so one could actually see various key working parts. It wasn't naked down to the planetary gears, electric motors, and regenerative brakes at the heart of the Prius phenomenon, but it was still very interesting. He has made a number of modifications to his Prius to give him better instrumentation. With better information, he can modify his driving habits and get 70 MPG.
Here's Hobbit's page of Prius info:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/#prius
One other cool thing I saw was Honda's CNG-powered car. It's a regular Honda (I forget which model) converted to burning CNG which is very clean It has a range of 200-250 miles per tank. With only 12 places to re-fill it in eastern MA, it wouldn't be appealing to most consumers, except that they can set you up so that you can fill up at home - if your house has natural gas. Filling up at home currently costs half the price of a fill-up at a station. I'm not currently in the market for a car, but I'd think seriously about this one for a commuter/local errands vehicle if I was. The Prius is cooler, but this seems more economical and quite very likely cleaner too.
There were also SmartCars on display (without anyone to answer questions about them). These are quite popular in Europe. Sue and I saw lots of them in Paris. The SmartCar is a jazzy-looking two-seater with a top speed of 85 MPG and gets about 60MPG.
So which is the car of the future and what is the fuel to bet on? Also worth considering are are diesel hybrids using cleaner-burning diesel engines now available in Europe.
