100 mpg car

For a normal, 4-passenger automobile, 100 mpg is not going to happen. When you work out the available energy in a gallon of gas, you cannot get there from here. Ignoring the nearly 100 year old 'big three-gas company' wives-tale, think about the Prius or other hybrid automobile. They are doing just about everything possible to first avoid using energy and second, to recover it when possible. Those small vehicles don't do 100 mpg and their makers would make them if they could.

Never is a strong word. If they build a car out of lighter material, or improve battery efficiency and make them lighter, or add efficient and discrete solar panels to help charge the battery, I think it's possible. No one says that all the energy needed to run the car needs come from the gasoline, just some of it.

Also, I'm not buying your "If it could be done, they would have done it by now" theory any more than I believe there is some "high level conspiracy to keep fuel efficient cars off the market". The truth is, they need to put more money into research and they could get it done, and someone will, you can count on that, it just won't be an American company. American car companies have a "Can't Do" attitude now.

Sure gasoline alone may not be able to provide the necessary energy for 100 MPG, but the automakers should not limit their thinking to gasoline alone. Some folks are using "plug-in" battery stack technology to dramatically increase the efficiancy of their hybrids - getting upwards of 250 MPG. The technology only costs about $3000 (USD) so it's certainly not out of the question.

Well folks, the initial posting was about gettng 100 mpg out of an automobile powered by gasoline, nothing else. Sure, you can get that kind of milage out of a one-person 3-wheeler (although strictly speaking, legally that isn't an automobile). But the practical American automobile (4 seats, reasonable safety) isn't going to get 100 mpg on gasoline. RE the other power sources. The energy required to move the automobile has to come from somewhere and it avoids the question to introduce other energy sources other than the gasoline or which are not ultimately powered by that gallon of gasoline. I stand by the statement that a useful automobile isn't going to get 100 mpg from gasoline.

Actually, neither the journal article nor the comment that started this chain indicated it must be gas only. Also, having solar panels would provide an energy source beyond the gasoline. If you made your car a third as heavy as today's by incorporating some novel material, you've already boost mpg by a third (maybe a little less). Also, how much gas is wasted idling? What if the car could shut the engine off at lights and instantly turn back on when you touched the accelerator pedal? On highways there is a lot of fuel efficiency lost to air resistance. What if you could somehow make cars more "slippery"?

I really don't see how you can say it's impossible.

MPG suggests a liquid fuel. No other sources are mentioned. The issue is 100 mpg with the liquid the only source of energy. And since we are on the topic of liquid fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel have some of the highest energy densities available so there is no magic liquid fuel that will do much better. The statement that started this all said that the 100 mpg technology exists but is blocked by special interests. So you cannot posit magic materials to solve the stated problem, the solution has to be in technology that is available today or their wouldn't be any 'suppresed' technology. Calculate the efficiency of solar cells and you will see that they are marginal at best. Remember the sunracers? Single-seaters covered with cells and they barely worked at the best of times. To be useful, the car has to meet the needs of the users. A single seat recumbent carbon fiber vehicle is not practical. The most common requirements are freeway speeds, 4 seats, reasonable safety, reasonable acceleration, braking and handling. BTW, losing weight does have an effect on the energy required to accelerate the vehicle but, in the range we are discussing, won't give you anything like a 1/3rd savings at freeway speeds (or any other speed for that matter). The practical 100 mpg car does not exist with today's technology. Even with the exagerations of Toyota and Honda, they don't claim more than about 70 mpg and those numbers are very very optimistic.

Yes, MPG suggests a liquid fuel, but not liquid fuel exclusively. As far as "The practical 100 mpg car does not exist with today's technology", that's the point, isn't it? Don't confuse my argument with neonerd's. I'm not suggesting there is a conspiracy to keep fuel efficient cars from the market. I think it's just laziness. You talk about efficiency? What about the gains can be made in solar cell technology? Magic materials? Plastic would be considered magical just 100 years ago.

I'll tell you what, forget 100 mpg, I want a 150 mpg car, in the next 5 years.

I have interest in getting additional information of this subject and its market potential. How can I contact you. Please contact me at mpmail@rgv.rr.com.