Automotive News, Media & Press - 0-60 in 4 seconds, 50mpg, runs on soybeans

Check it out:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml

Pretty cool :D

I definitately wouldn't have suspected 5 kids from West Philly (borned and rasied ;) ) to have done anything useful...

I agree with the oil compaines as being the reason we haven't seen this technology yet. 5 kids from west Philly can build one but the engineers at Ford, GM, Daimler can't :eyes: .

Oil companies and car companies.


Pharmacical companies and medical universitys.


"As the world turns"


Actually, I am not surprised. We have many very intelligent people doing menial jobs. We also have many average intelligence people (with college degrees) doing Top management jobs. Simply put, a piece of paper (college degree) is more important than a person's intelligence and true ability.


Great article.

All that in a badass looking car, It's a tube chassis kit car, but I love the design of those!
Why can't the big 3 offer something that looks like that. I wouldn't be offended if the Camaro/Firebird name ended up on something like that.
http://www.k-1attack.com/menu.php

ummm... DAMN!!! :eek2:

Kick ass ride,the big three will say it cost to much to bring it up to gov. specs. blah,blah blah. Then the car will be bought a mystery person and crushed, after they patent everything.

since car companies and oil companies work with each other, they try to make the most money together.

I've heard of cars running on vegetable oil, but oil companies wouldnt like that.

stupid people.

I saw that in person, badass car. THe kids knew what they were talking about.

So here's the real question- how the hell does that engine work? How much does it weigh? How many gears?

Sounds very similar to the Diesels running on old cooking oil.

0-60 is great but what is the 1/4 mile maybe that badboy falls flat on its face after 60 miles per hour or maybe they ment 0-60 feet :confused: :jest:

Actually, I am not surprised. We have many very intelligent people doing menial jobs. We also have many average intelligence people (with college degrees) doing Top management jobs. Simply put, a piece of paper (college degree) is more important than a person's intelligence and true ability.


wrong. It only means something if you let it. How do I know? I made over $99,000 last year as an Information Technology professional. I support a family of 5 and we still have 2 newer cars, a nice 4 bedroom house, awesome health insurance (albeit stupid expensive), etc.

Know what degree I have? None. Never got even close to finishing college, realized I wasn't learning anything in my second year and skipped out to get a job. I worked my way up from making $8/hr in a datacenter where everything is pretty much shown to you and you're expected to be an idiot to what I do now (this all in about 10 years). My best friend was a high school dropout that got his GED, he's now the Director of IT at a financial company making as much or more than I do. Its not a piece of paper that makes a person, its their drive to succeed, ambition, willingness to do what it takes to learn as much as possible to further themselves. These kids showed that to the Nth degree.

I agree 100% with the oil company comments though...we could easily have stuff like this already :bang: :bang:

the technology is out there, but we wont really see it until the oil runs out. Oil companies won't let it happen, and once it does who do you think will release it? Duh, oil companies, all this stress over gas doesnt bother me, the faster its gone the faster we'll have new technology, i think its funny that everyone thinks the world is rushing to try and find a replacement, im not worried, let the gas burn, just the prices piss me off

Sell that engine technlogy to one of the American manufacturers so they do not have to spend $10 Billion on the research. This is a great bit of research and engineering. Now let's actually USE this information to help get us free from Middle East oil.
:burn:

To say it's a slap in the face to GM/Ford/Toyota/whoever, is just plain silly.

1) It's a kit car with a VW 1.9L tdi motor converted to biofuel, which needs almost NOTHING to run on bio fuel in the first place.

2) The kit came with the tube chassis already built, they just had to bolt the components down, that are prefabricated from a factory, a factory that spent time and money developing the concept, money on the jigs/machines, and money on manufacturing them.

3) The kit car has not gone through any crash tests, which are required by law from the major automakers. This costs $$.

4) The engine has gone through development stages with CAD models, prototyping, and production. All which cost $$, engineering man power, and lots of time. $$, engineering design, and time that ANOTHER company spent.

5) The painting was done at a local paint shop. To produce 5000 or more vehicles, you need a commercial grade shop with multiple spray booths, which cost $$. $$ that Ford/GM/etc spend.

6) There has been no road testing to work out bugs such as rattles, squeaks, and road noise. All of this testing costs $$.

7) There were donor parts off a Honda Accord, which means that if you wanted to reproduce the car, you'd have to fabricate your own parts, not keep borrowing off old accords. Hennessey anybody?

What this car boils down to is a blinged out kit car with an efficient VW tdi power plant. Case closed. Sorry if I sound like I'm being hard on the kids, but to say it's shames automakers is a little ridiculous.

To say it's a slap in the face to GM/Ford/Toyota/whoever, is just plain silly.

1) It's a kit car with a VW 1.9L tdi motor converted to biofuel, which needs almost NOTHING to run on bio fuel in the first place.

2) The kit came with the tube chassis already built, they just had to bolt the components down, that are prefabricated from a factory, a factory that spent time and money developing the concept, money on the jigs/machines, and money on manufacturing them.

3) The kit car has not gone through any crash tests, which are required by law from the major automakers. This costs $$.

4) The engine has gone through development stages with CAD models, prototyping, and production. All which cost $$, engineering man power, and lots of time. $$, engineering design, and time that ANOTHER company spent.

5) The painting was done at a local paint shop. To produce 5000 or more vehicles, you need a commercial grade shop with multiple spray booths, which cost $$. $$ that Ford/GM/etc spend.

6) There has been no road testing to work out bugs such as rattles, squeaks, and road noise. All of this testing costs $$.

7) There were donor parts off a Honda Accord, which means that if you wanted to reproduce the car, you'd have to fabricate your own parts, not keep borrowing off old accords. Hennessey anybody?

What this car boils down to is a blinged out kit car with an efficient VW tdi power plant. Case closed. Sorry if I sound like I'm being hard on the kids, but to say it's shames automakers is a little ridiculous.

thanks for clearing that up it makes it seem better that we aren't getting raped by the car makers :D

Youre more than welcome. LOL :judge:

Youre more than welcome. LOL :judge:
i agree with everything you said. However, do you not agree that things like this are easily made but the oil companies and parties who make millions from gas and oil are standing in the way?

do you not agree that things like this are easily made but the oil companies and parties who make millions from gas and oil are standing in the way?

I would have to say no to a large extent. The oil companies ARE making a lot of money, but right now the arabs are the ones making a large amount of money. Manufacturing gasoline and motor oil from crude oil is cheap, and we dont get charged very much for this process. Buying the drums of oil from the arabs is whats expensive.

Right now a lot of university and corporate research is being done in the field of biofuels, fuel cells (hydrogen), and electric power, all of which are viable alternative fuel sources. These are 'old' technologies, but have not been applied as widespread in the automotive industry as gasoline has.

Are the arabs keeping us from switching fuel sources? No. Check out the gas prices. If a gallon of gas cost $5/gallon, we'd still be pumping it into tanks at the same rate. We are dependent on petroleum because we don't have widespread alternatives.

So how are we going to get widespread alternatives? Produce vehicles that RELY on alternative fuels. GM is taking a half-step in the right direction trying to market their E85 fuel-compatible vehicles, but the ultimate resolution is to have ALL American manufacturers produce vehicles that do not need petroleum to operate.

I want to give you an example. If microsoft stopped at windows 95, what drive would the chip makers to produce anything faster than a 100mhz pentium 1 and 32mb of ram. Now that you NEED 3ghz just to have windows operate decently, the chip makers have to catch up and figure out a way to make fast enough to run the software.

The same thing applies for the auto industry. If all of the cars run on gasoline, why develop biofuels if they can't use them. Sure the gas cost is high, but if you can't use the fuel there's no since in having it for sale. The only way to makes sales is to have cars on the road that NEED the alternative fuel, thus driving the SALE of the alternative fuel.

So no, it's not the oil giants keeping us from using alternative fuels, it's the lack of alternative fuel cars on the road. They are just at the right place at the right time, and have us to line their pockets.

Fortunately for us, in the next 5 years, we are going to see a move to alternative fuels, which is going to SIGNIFICANTLY drive down petroleum price, trying to keep us using it.

Either way, when the consumers get to set the market value of fuel will be the greatest day in automotive history.

I think its pretty damn cool, doesn't look like a bad looking car either.
-Joel