What factors might detract from creating cars with higher fuel efficiency or cars that use alternative energy?
What factors might detract from creating cars with higher fuel efficiency or cars that use alternative energy sources?
Cost. The best 3 technologies we have to reduce fuel consumption are:
1 – Idle off and brake regeneration technology (hybrids)
2 – Ultralight weight materials – aluminum, fiberglass, thermoplastics, magnesium, carbon fiber and titanium.
($, $$, $$$, $$$$ and more $$$$$)
3 – Clean diesel technology, that uses urea injection and particulate traps to control emissions, as well as the extra cost of the engine itself which is built twice as strong to handle higher compression ratios. Also most diesels come with a turbocharger, which if you look on ebay, sell for $5,000. So OEM car manufacturers probably pay less than $1800, but thats still $1800.
So there you go the factor that is detracting from making cars with higher fuel efficiency is cost. But as time goes on, and more and more people buy fuel efficient cars, the cost of the technology comes down.
Tomorrow’s Transportation – Alternative Energy Cars
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