Teenage-Built Diesel Hybrid Does 0-60 in 4 Seconds, Soon to Break 100 MPG
Students from West Philadelphia High School have built a diesel-hybrid race car that goes from 0-60 in four seconds. While the car currently gets 60+ mpg, they hope to soon break 100 mpg.
Why? They are competing for $10 million in the Automotive X-Prize .
Called the Hybrid Attack, the car was built by kids from West Philly’s Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering. And if that alone doesn’t make them cool, they are the only high school team competing out of 90 different teams from the U.S. and overseas.
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The students were inspired by the gasoline-electric Prius they saw at the 2003 competition. But their car had to meet the proverbial requirements of a teenager: fast and cool-looking! “The Prius, it’s OK,” said Chris Millsip, a 17-year-old in his third year with the academy. “But it needs to go faster.”
Kids believe they can do anything. And I have to say I believe these kids can. According to Autoblog Green they are a top 10 contender for the prize.
“We didn’t design the car to win but to break the stereotype of what a hybrid car could be,” said Simon Hauger, the academy’s director since its inception in 1998.
In order to make the cut they must get the Hybrid Attack up to 100 mpg, make it road safe and easily mass produced.
In 2002, 2005 and 2006, the team won the Tour de Sol, a competition for alternative vehicles to drive at least 150 miles while getting 100 mpg or better. In fact, in their first attempt they beat out 40 other teams including one from MIT.
“I know we’re going to win,” said 15-year-old student Stefon Gonzalez. “We’ve got a good history of winning competitions and we’ve got the engineering background and the experience.”
Though, this time their competition includes a team from Cornell University, engineers from Ottawa and Silicon Valley, and a group led by an inventor created the voice-recognition software for the BlackBerry.
Stiff competition aside, these kids aren’t just holding their own against the likes of MIT… they are doing what the auto industry can’t (or won’t).
For me, that’s the real win.
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Source: EcoFriend
……In a related story, Chrysler is spending 900 million dollars in a 5 year development and testing program to raise its fleet economy 3%.
It is pathetic that 1) the destructive company Exxon-Mobil is trying to soften their image with a photo opportunity with these students (see the sign in the photo), and 2) why do only upstart (and brilliant) start-ups like Tesla seem to come close to the vision these HIGH SCHOOL kids (surely with some adult help, but still…) have shown. GM, Ford, and Chrysler, shame on you all.
to get to 100mpg try some ultra caps and reduce the transients on your battery! good luck
The Tesla Roadster is $120,000. This is basically a Telsa Roadster with an additional diesel engine. I wonder how much it will cost now?
These “high schoolers” *Cough* engineering teachers *cough* haven’t come across anything special. They’ve found out what happens when you take a dumb concept and throw a lot of money at it: You get something slightly better. Amazing.
Sorry, green freaks, no mental masturbation here. Buy a Corvette that will absolutely obliterate this thing in every measurable factor of performance and reliability, then donate the $70,000+ you saved to a cause that doesn’t suck. If you can stand suffering through the Corvette’s measly 27 highway mpg, that is. Damn you GM for making a 428HP car get only 27mpg! You clearly need to work harder! Hell, buy the Z06 with 505HP and a reworked chassis for $70,000, save $20,000 for gas (not that you’d need half that, because the Z06 gets 26mpg), and then you still have $30,000+ to donate to a real cause.
“In order to make the cut they must get the Hybrid Attack up to 100 mpg, make it road safe and easily mass produced.”
Is that all? While they’re at it, maybe they can solve cold fusion as well. LOL
It’s great to see these kids giving it their best, but there’s not a chance in heck this particular car could meet these requirements in time for the competition.
Carbon fiber parts, at this present time, can’t be mass produced, so not only will they have to increase efficiency by 40 mpg, but they’ll have to do it with a substantially heavier car. By the time they recreate the body from steel, they’ll be lucky if they can get 50 mpg.
I’m not saying that an easily mass produced hybrid that goes from 0-6 in 4 seconds and gets 100 mpg can’t EVER be made, but it won’t happen within the next 5 years- THAT I guarantee you.
It’s one thing to cheer on inner city kids winning awards for engineering, but to post things like “soon to break 100 mpg,” I’m sorry, but that’s just bad journalism.
Scott, I’m going to take a screen shot of your comment and e-mail it to you in 5 years to remind your how big of an idiot you were.
“I’m not saying that an easily mass produced hybrid that goes from 0-6 in 4 seconds and gets 100 mpg can’t EVER be made, but it won’t happen within the next 5 years- THAT I guarantee you.”
By the way, the chassis is a K1 Attack Kit car which can be purchased online for roughtly 20k. The talent is in the choice of parts that they put in it and the modifications required to fit everything. By no means did these kids actually design this car from the ground up. The kit comes with the chassis and the body and most of the hardware from the factory.
Unlike some of the negative comments here, I am behind these kids. Not only are they making a statement that a Hybrid engine is not just for the slow and light plodders of the road, but a substantial competitive machine in higher performance street legal automobiles. To those that think it is just a waste of time to save money on less gas usage, that’s not the idea. The idea is reduction of dependency to fossil fuels. This car is using Diesel. Yes, regular diesel uses fossil fuels, but bio-diesel can be created from anything that creates sugar. Going in the direction of hybrid power plants further decreases dependency and allows more room for other resources. Instead of growing fuel grade grasses for bio-diesel, we could plant more human consumption grade foods. It’s not a “Who can make a better car” contest. It’s a “Who can make a more practical automobile that does less an impact on our future” contest.
How can this be negative? Why the comments? Kids getting great, real-world engineering experience and even pushing some established companies in the process. Great job guys!
“Why the negativity?” Precisely because it’s easier to snipe at people trying to achieve something than it is to actually achieve something. Go back to eating cheesy poofs, naysayers.