if it were possible, i think toyota or someone else would have figgered it out by now. imagine the advantage a car company, (or country for that matter) would have with that kind of technology.
Thank you for posting. I had not heard about it. I do not have time to watch now but will try to. Meanwhile, I found a detailed review on Amazon.com, assuming this is the same "GasHole". Seems at first glance to be in the same vein as Who killed the EV, which I never watched because I finally realized it was just conspiracy theory gone amuk. But now I have a historic interest in the "Who killed.." and I may finally watch it.
I didn't watch the entire movie. There is some factual basis. Water injection was used during WWII in fighter aircraft. As I remember the stories, run it too long & your Crew Chief won't be happy because he has an engine to rebuild. I suspect the rest of it is a bunch of witnesses that saw something & either a paper trail that goes nowhere or doesn't exist. These things are popular because they make good stories. Basically it is a modern version of the quest for the Holy Grail. If you want a car capable of 100mpg buy a 1Gen Insight & learn to drive it.
There is not hardly anything you can watch that does not have a bias. I would recommend watching Who Killed the EV. You can sort out the facts from the opinions with ease and get some interesting insights into unusual aspects of the story. For example, Most would think it highly unusual that a large group of California electric vehicle drivers keep claiming that GM has made an exceptionally good car, far better than anything Toyota or Honda has. It's fun to watch and you are not supporting or opposing anything just by watching.
Make that a Gen 1 Insight MT: the Gen 1 CVT's are generally around 60mpg. And getting >100mpg with my MT is possible only with summer gas in warm temps (for me at least!). In the winter in CT I struggle to get 80mpg.
crude oil is initially set by oil future contract which is suspectible to commodity speculation and by cartel agreements(OPEC). Hubbard's prediction of US oil production peak oil is a fact. Many oil experts believe that global peak oil has already occured. After a region reached peak oil production, a region will also experience what is called a peak oil refinery-supply capacity which is when gasoline supplies are outstripped by demand. Within in the next 20 years, the global supply of gasoline will be outstripped by global demand which will likely drive the cost over $6/gallon. An ultralight smaller fuel efficient vehicle is not necessarily uncrashworthy but it would require that the chassis be made of a carbonfiber shell and not of steel. For an example, see the Edison VLC2 ( Fuel Efficiency Xprize winner for the 4 passenger sedan category) The USA currently bans the import of Brazilian biofuel ethanol (from sugar can) to protect the price of domestic biofuel ethanol (from corn). Unfortunately, the USA doesnot have the production capacity to create biodiesel. Biodiesel has a higher operating temperature ( it will solidify in colder temperatures so northern climate operations need a fuel tank heater). Past Shell eco-marathon fuel efficiency results cited by Gashole depend on hypermiling techniques. Today Shell eco-marathon fuel efficiency results are also dependent on special custom vehicle designs. if given the right conditions, hypermiling can achieve very high mpg using a regular production car - for example... 2007 Prius 146.25 mpg - Cleanmpg.com KinAir4U 2002 Honda Insight = 213.8 mpg - 2008 Cleanmpg Fuel Economy Championship (car is prewarmed up, a smooth slightly hilly 16 mile route with little traffic is used, the max speed is 20 mph, the car is driven by an expert hypermiler-- Wayne Gerdes) 2010 Shell Eco-Marathon Competition best USA contestant results, Mater Del High School (1300 Harmony WayEvansville, In 47720) = 1522 mpg but this is a custom single seat ultralight vehicle Mater Dei Supermileage Team Shell Eco-marathon 2011 Shell Eco-marathon - Global Gashole is like ... A Crude awakening: A Crude Awakening / The Oil Crash
tl;dw; Some information on water injection on gas/diesel engines: Water (and sometimes alcohol/methanol) injection[1] is commonly used today to improve the maximum power output of forced injection engines. It is done to prevent detonation - the latent heat of water injected into the air/fuel mixture lowers combustion temperatures allowing one to increase pressures in the combustion changer without risk of detonation (premature ignition of the air-fuel mixture which is very hard on the engine). This could also be done to improve efficiency of an engine rather than improve maximum power output - remember the higher the compression ratio, the more useful energy you will be able to extract from the amount of fuel burned. So water injection would allow you increase the compression ratio while improving power output and efficiency without having to limit maximum power output due to detonation. None of this is going to convert a Prius from a 50 mpg machine to a 100 mpg machine, though. Maybe a 60-65 mpg machine at best. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)
