Comments on: Suck It OPEC: 13 Amazing Gasoline-Free Supercars

By: Phoghat

Phoghat — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:13:22 +0000

Exactly where did you get your information? I've been following this company since2007 and to the best of my knowledge has no connection with Gary Starr or zap motors (which started as Dale)

By: Phoghat

Phoghat — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:05:51 +0000

At the moment the Aptera is only sold in sunny CA. They say that eventually the car will be available elsewhere, but since I live on the right coast I think it's going to be some time before it gets to NY City.
I still want one though. I heard it's making an appearance in the new Star Trek movie.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:30:17 +0000

This is a great article and covers a few cars I didn’t know about. It will be nice to see electrics and alt fuel cars come down to the normal user

By: Mike Payne

Mike Payne — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:28:40 +0000

E85 is a mix of 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline. The ethanol part can come from corn, sugar cane and a long list of cellulosic matter. So E85 is not a specific fuel type, but rather a blend of fuels including biofuel and gasoline. The nice part– while we progress to algae biofuel, we can use resources that are currently at market, like corn. And don’t worry, that progression to next gen biofuels like algae won’t take longer than a few years, and in the mean time we can use currently available biofuels.

“The truth is we still got a hell of a long ways to go before we get off oil”

The real truth is that we can be fully independent of foreign oil in LESS than 10 years. Barack Obama has said that he will mandate that all new cars sold in the US must be flex-fuel capable, meaning they can run on any mixture of gasoline and biofuels (like E85, which you can’t regularly run in your car now). This will cost car manufacturers pennies per product, its a very simple change. And in doing so, the US is already leading the market on flex fuel autos– so it will be a big win for Detroit.

If we were to go a step further and provide tax credits/rebates for Americans who purchase an inexpensive (and self-installing) kit to allow their engines to run on ethanol, we could convert the 250,000,000 cars on the road today to be capable of running biofuels.

This would instantly inject competition into a market dominated by gasoline. If I take my car around the corner to my closest station, I can fuel it with E85 for $1.50/gallon or gasoline for $2.00 a gallon. You’re damn right I’m choosing E85…

for more info, I suggest reading this article I wrote for Gas2.org:
http://gas2.org/2008/08/11/beyond-obama-a-biofuel-stimulus-for-president/

And I suggest you read this (amazing) book by Robert Zubrin:
http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Victory-Winning-Terror-Breaking/dp/1591025915

By: Mike Payne

Mike Payne — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:04:40 +0000

@Freeskier:
“I donâ€™t care what people say about all this E-85 crap”

E-85 and other ethanol blends are boundless. If there’s not enough space for growing biofuels, then we’ve got a much bigger problem on our hands.

Algae Biofuel gets so much production per square mile that a few hundred square miles of algae farms could run our country tomorrow. The process is still in R&D, but there are a long list of algae biofuel producers that have a fuel product that is months away from market. As algae is the fastest growing plant on the planet, these firms have developed methods of quickly and abundantly producing biofuels.

Not only that, but Algae sucks more C02 out of the atmosphere than a car that runs on algae biofuels can produce– making that process a net positive carbon killer.

Point being, as long as there is harvestable plant matter, there will be resources for fuel. We’re already beginning the transition to non-food biofuels, algae is as of now the final frontier.

By: freeskier

freeskier — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:30:24 +0000

I totally agree with you. All though I was talking mostly about E-85 fuels. I probably shouldn’t have used the work Biofuel. I did know about the algae that produce these clean burning fuels, but you have to look at reality. It has taken nearly a century for electric vehicles and hybrids to catch on. Think how long it would take to get these algae Biofuels going. In the meantime we have to get of our oil independence and not “Drill Baby Drill”.

We can argue about this all day, but its not going to change anything. The truth is we still got a hell of a long ways to go before we get off oil, and on to clean, renewable resources. If it were up to me I would run all cars on hydrogen…

By: freeskier

freeskier — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:20:05 +0000

Am I the only one looking at the Chevy Volt thinking how sad it is? I mean 40 miles on one charge is sad when this Tesla gets almost five times the distance in a car about the same size. I don’t care what people say about all this E-85 crap, we’re just going to end up in the same place in the next hundred years when we cannot produce enough Biofuel. The Volt should be a 100% electric car. But hey, at least its something.

We should also be looking at ways of switching out the batteries in electric cars. There was an article in Wired magazine about this. Just like gas station except you just pull into a garage and switch out for a new battery, no charge! It would work like a cell phone. You pay a monthly fee of so many miles or something.

I realize that the Volt would not be a practical car for long driving trips, but that is not something we should be basing our decision on when buying a car in the world today.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:41:20 +0000

Correction on the Scorpion. I work for HydroRunner who put their HydroRunner G3 in the scorpion and HHO generators do not work how you described them. The Scorpion has an Acura 3.5L I.C.E. in it, and it does in fact burn oil-based gasoline; however, the HHO generator works on the same principle of most hybrids and uses the extra electricity produced by the alternator to run a rather simple experiment that most 7th graders perform. The extra electricity is used to perform electrolysis which separates the water into Oxygen and Hydrogen in perfect stoichiometric ratios which is then fixed to the air intake of an engine and burned in a ratio of 40% with the gasoline. In fact, you can add these units on any I.C.E, diesel or fuel-injected. Check out hydrorunner.com to buy a unit or water4gas.com on tutorials on help to build your own!

By: Willy

Willy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:01:24 +0000

The Chevy and Pininfarina are ugly as sin. And to the author: the CCXR has over 1000 hp (I don’t remember the exact number) when run on E85.

By: The Coolest Gadgets we missed this week - 25th October 2008 | Geeky Gadgets

The Coolest Gadgets we missed this week - 25th October 2008 | Geeky Gadgets — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:49:49 +0000

[...] Suck It OPEC: 13 Amazing Gasoline-Free Supercars [...]

By: The All Electic MINI IS Coming | GearCrave | The Mens Buying Guide for Gadgets

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:07:43 +0000

[...] Note– While it didn’t make our 13 Gasoline-Free Supercars list yesterday, this is some pretty cool news on its [...]

By: Mike Payne

Mike Payne — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:11:26 +0000

@Uncle B:
That concept of “versioning” will be tough to kill in the auto industry, its woven deeply into its existence (and consumers expectations). I’d prefer to see it go in the direction you mentioned, as it would provide for a much more open market environment.

Its like software– for example, how long will designers continue to pay a premium for “planned obsolescence” for the Adobe Creative Suite software until switching to The GIMP? Sure, the GIMP is far from a direct competitor, but look at Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice? The feature margin is narrowing…

I’ll join your hope for an equivalent revolution in the auto industry (although that “planned obsolescence” did pay for my up-bringing…)