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Non-hybrid Axon takes on Prius
The Axon
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Renita Jablonski: With that, here's something that's getting a lot of interest today. A British automotive company has just launched a new car designed to cope with the fuel crisis. The company claims its new vehicle will get more than 80 miles per gallon. From London, Stephen Beard reports.
Stephen Beard: The Axon is a two-door hatchback which will carry two adults and two children. The makers claim that at more than 80 miles per U.S. gallon, it's twice as fuel-efficient as the Toyota Prius, its carbon emissions are much lower, and it will sell for around half the Prius's European price.
Unlike the Prius, the Axon is not a hybrid. It uses a conventional gas engine. The key is the car's very light-weight carbon fiber body. It's half the weight of the equivalent conventional vehicle.
The company's boss, Steve Cousins, says there's a moral here for all carmakers:
Steve Cousins: We can, using our existing gasoline infrastructure and our existing gasoline engines, radically reduce the amount of fuel that they use and still have vehicles that are very attractive to use.
He says carbon fiber is used in Formula One racing cars and is perfectly safe. The Axon is expected to sell for the same as a typical family car.
In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
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There is no such thing as a silver bullet when it comes to energy consumption.
The answer resides in a proper mix of technologies and educating consumers.
Imagine if you will: A light weight and aerodynamic vehicle. With a small fuel efficient diesel, matched with a plug-in hybrid electric assist and a solar panel to help recharge during the day and while driving. Combine this with solar panels on the house in which the person lives. I suspect all that would yeild 150+MPG with technology we have TODAY. All while adding more conveniences (fueling up at home, while parked at the mall in the sun, having multiple fuel options). I look forward to the auto manufactures making this all a reality, and so will their investors.
Well said, Arthur Page! The electric car should be the focus by our government and scientists/inventors now. Then hopefully one day soon will come the family solar car. Let's dare to make our dreams into realities. Let's stop being used by the greedy, powerful tyrants in this world.
I am amazed at the lack of positive feedback on this vehicle. If available I would buy one in a minute. If everyone in the USA was getting 80mpg, imagine the reduction in oil use. Droping the use of oil all together is going to take a long time, vehicles like this would help make that transition. The alternative vehicle are not perfect green machines either. What about battery disposal? Battery acid? Can the power grids take that much more use? Etc etc.
the big problem with thus car is the gasoline engine. Let's get that out first and replace it with an electric motor that is four times as effeciant and four ones as powerful for the same size dementions. Let's make it charge on 110AC so every person in the U.S. Has access to a refueling infastructure and we dont need to waste billions on retrofitting fuel stations for an obsolete fuel like hydrogen or petroleum. The next grenoration of nano engeeniered Lithium ion batteries are right around the corner and will solve the range and refueling problems that cripple current electric cars. We'll be able to drive for 300 miles at highway speeds and recharge in ten minutes without emissions. The government should stop wasting there time on hydrogen and realize that investing in mass production of safe non explosive LiON batteries are the future not hydrogen. We can set up charging stations at grocery stores, heck almost any electrician could burry the cables and set up a simple meter to track charging costs. Its just around the corner let's make it real.
Amory Lovins' Hypercar (see http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid191.php) is a natural extension of this: low weight, low drag, efficient drivetrain. Go from gas-hybrid to diesel-hybrid to cng-hybrid to fuel-cell as the technology progresses. If battery technology has a breakthrough, then use the chemical fuel energy storage only as back-up to batteries.
Hey Chuck, cash that check from big oil yet? The Axon still weighs over 1000 pounds...unless you're a tornado chaser or driving behind 747's on the runway, no wind is going to "launch this vehicle off the road". Plus weight alone does not dictate the safety a vehicle; if it did, then the safest cars would be made out of lead. But they're not, because lead is so soft you bend it with your fingers. Carbon fiber is substantially stronger than steel, by about four times as much, IIRC. That's why they use it in Formula 1 racing...where crash protection is a bit more of a challenge than for your average everyday auto wreck.
The only place where extra weight really comes in handy is in the snow, where extra weight usually means extra traction. But that can be easily made up for by modern traction control systems.
Frankly, I'm amazed it's taken this long for carbon-fiber cars to come around. Anyone remember the 100MPG (actually 88) Ultralite from General Motors back in 1992? 1992!!!!! Hell, they even showcased it in the movies Demolition Man and Bicentennial Man (okay, not very good movies, but still!).
I don't deny that alternative energy cars are the way to go for the future...but a car that uses one-quarter the gas means four times as much money stays in your wallet after visiting the pump; that's a good interim step.
And thanks to companies like Nanosolar and advances in LiON battery technology, you could see all-solar tractor-trailer vehicles by 2010 if companies really wanted them.
This is no Prius competitor. It doesn't look like there's room for more than a couple bags of groceries behind those rear seats. Put US emissions controls on it and run it through the new EPA tests, and that 80 mpg will probably become 45 city/55 hwy. It would be a serious threat to sales of the Smart fortwo, if it weren't so ugly.
A buyer is trading their gas savings for safety. Simple physics- the lighter the vehicle, the less likely you are to survive a crash. Also one would wonder if a highway wind gust or a passing truck on a two lane highway would launch this vehicle off the road or into oncoming traffic. Same question with a pothole or road hazard. Nice mpg but no thanks for the tradeoff!
One more baby step toward sensible transportation. Why don't the mega makers have the clarity of vision to go ahead and use CRF in their bodies? Saturn did well with their plastic body panels. Anyone want to help produce an electric-drive 3-wheel commuter with a carbon monocoque body? Revive the Corbin Sparrow or re-design the Messerschmitt?
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