Hydrualic Car 170 MPG IngoCar

• OneBuckeye

  

  Interesting...
  
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  http://green.autoblog.com/2010/03/16/valentin-technologies-releases-teaser-images-of-170-mpg-ingocar/
  

  Interested in a five-seat, four-door, sportwagen that "is brimming with innovation" and was designed in Elm Grove, WI? How about if the car were to get 170 miles per gallon? Yeah, that got our attention, too.
  
  The car in question is the IngoCar from Valentin Technologies. But how does this mid-size passenger car wring that much distance out of a gallon of fuel? Here's how Valentin describes the powertrain:
  
  This extraordinary fuel efficiency is achieved by a revolutionary hydraulic-fluid drive. This hybrid gasoline/hydraulic drive system can deliver acceleration from 0-60 in 4 seconds. Using a small gasoline engine, fluid is pumped into an accumulator. The fluid then drives hydraulic wheel motors for shiftless acceleration. During braking, motors are reversed and pump the entire recuperated braking energy back into the accumulator. This innovative technology and the car's light weight give an estimated range of 1,000 miles for a full 6 gallon tank of fuel.
  Sound reasonable? It could work, but energy isn't free and we don't know how much of the energy spent to move the vehicle forward is recuperated back into the accumulator. Still, Valentin Technologies has a been working on hydrostatic powertrains for a while, so we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. An earlier version of the IngoCar got "just" 130 mpg and, but the designers dropped 600 pounds (down to 1,600 lbs.) and improved the engine efficiency by 20 percent. We want to see the technology in action, but Valentin says that $3.8 million would be needed to prototype the IngoCar.
  
  For now, we'll have to make due with the video posted after the jump and the first teaser sketches by Davide Tonizzo, of designD, from Toronto. Sure is a lot of the original Honda Insight and the Nissan Leaf in the rear end, don't you think? You can hear Tonizzo discuss his design on the CBC Radio show Metro Morning. Find the March 5th episode and click on "Futuristic Car Design" to listen.

• El Jefe Grande

  Sounds good in theory, but the automobile and oil companies will not let that car go into production.
• tk421

  

  I agree, we will never see a 100mpg+ car mass produced. Way to much to lose from both the car and oil companies.
• ZWICK 4 PREZ

  

  I'd hate to see the mess/repair bill when the seals go bad.
• OneBuckeye

  

  ZWICK 4 PREZ wrote: I'd hate to see the mess/repair bill when the seals go bad.

  I think it would be totaled pretty easily as well... wouldn't take much to crack that main cylinder.
• Swamp Fox

  I only drive my Lincoln a mile each way. I'm keeping it.
• ManO'War

  

  Where is Jmog...I value his input on topics like this, instead of arguing about the age of the earth.
• jmog

  I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but with the sounds of the physics after reading the article, this is the best "water car" idea out there.
  
  FYI, the "we turn water into hydrogen/oxygen and burn it back to water vapor" cars are a gimic and would NEVER work at reducing total energy consumption since it goes against the laws of physics (they spend more energy in the separation than they get back in the combustion).
  
  Anyway, on this topic its basically a hydraulic pump/pressure system that is designed to work in "reverse" (braking) as well as the forward direction. It only uses combustion as a way to overcome the efficiency and mechanical losses in the mechanical equipment.
  
  Its quite ingenious to be honest. Zwick is right about one thing, the hydraulic pressures required to pull this off in a car would be so high the mechanical seals would have to be VERY high tech/expensive. I'd love to get a "spec sheet" on the car to see the hydraulic pressures they are using to do this, because I'd rather have a fire "internal combustion engine" unter my butt than a very high pressure water system.
  
  Fire you can survive with some burns, if a very high pressure water system springs a wrong leak, it cuts you in half (known to happen on high pressure boilers in industry if they spring a leak in a high pressure line).