1000 miles on a tank of gas
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2015-06-17
Auto advertising is full of calls-to-arms recently--more horsepower, more torque, speed, handling. All the stuff you need to "blow away the competition" and "kick butt" on the roadway. Now it looks as if the British Department of Transport wants to reverse the trend, and it's prepared to put up some cash to back up the idea.
A few days ago, Alistair Darling, UK Secretary of State for Transport, asked car makers to design and build a new affordable, ultra low carbon family car. Since hydrogen-powered cars are likely to be 15 to 20 years away, the UK wants a "stepping stone" model to bridge the gap, so it's pushing a project it calls the Ultra Low Carbon Car Challenge. The DOT's New Vehicle Technology Fund, which has a budget of £10 million over 3 years, will help fund building of a demo model.
What it's looking for:
- A full size family car
- Affordable and capable of being mass produced within a near to medium term timescale
- Has tail pipe CO2 emissions of less than 90 grammes per kilometre (compared with over 175g/km for a similar new petrol car today)
- Be fuel efficient and travel around 1000 miles between refills, with today's 12 gallon (Imp)tank.
- Capable of doing 80 miles per gallon or more, compared to today's average of 36 miles per gallon.
“ We must cut down on air pollution caused by cars," said Alistair Darling. " I want the industry to produce an affordable family car for the mass market, within 4 - 8 years."
Ultra-low carbon cars could us a range of technological advances, including lightweight materials, advanced transmission and gear systems, and 'hybrid' engine systems which use a combination of internal combustion engines and battery power to get maximum overall engine efficiency at every level of speed.
There are currently two hybrid cars on sale on North America--the Toyota Prius, and the Honda Civic hybrid. The Prius is also on sale in the UK, and the Honda Civic will soon be. In the UK, buyers of these environment--friendly vehicles get a government grant of £1,000 (US$1600)
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