For at least a decade, the new models have run on alternative fuels ranging from solar power to a thermophotovoltaic generator (basically, an engine powered by burning methane to simulate solar energy). NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke to VRI’s director Michael Seal about the feasibility of using alternative fuels from soybean oil to solar power, and which–if any–is most likely to replace gasoline in our cars in the future.
NEWSWEEK: Tell me about the latest car designed at the Vehicle Research Institute? How is it powered?
Michael Seal: It’s a hybrid vehicle, powered with natural gas on the engine side and an electric drive on the other. It’s a little different than those currently on the market. It is a four-wheel drive. The front wheels drive electrically with 100-horsepower electric motor and the rear wheels drive with a 100-horsepower natural-gas engine. But it’s a full-sized, four-door vehicle, and our goal is 50 miles per gallon in the city or on the highway. It’s the 32nd vehicle we have built, and we are basing this on what we’ve learned from building other vehicles in the past, so it is not just a pie-in-the-sky dream. But we are still working on it. The engine comes from Honda and it already meets super ULEV (ultra-low emission vehicle) standards. Our vehicle is different in another way as well. It rises to the height of a sports utility vehicle, so it has the same ground clearance and the high driving position that people seem to look for. But above 30 miles per hour it drops to car height, so there is the increased stability and general increased drivability. It lowers itself to normal car height.
An SUV that drops to regular car height while you’re driving? Why?
You can drive at the low height at low speed, too, if you wish, but you can’t drive it up high over 30mph. There are too many of these high vehicles rolling over, and I can’t think of any that have rolled over at less than 30mph. So this is a way of forcing people to have a safer vehicle. Most of the reasons for a sport utility vehicle is to drive it in the snow or off-road. Most of the reasons for a sport utility vehicle is to drive it in the snow or off-road. Most people who drive in the snow or drive off-road at full speed, though, are probably doing something foolish.
On the current project, not much. They all have similar hybrid projects they are doing themselves now. But the current high-performance Subaru uses an engine that was designed here in our labs. We developed the natural-gas systems that became widely used in Canada. And we did do one a few years back that Daimler-Chrysler was interested in. DaimlerChrysler has a hybrid vehicle in the works now–it is just not out yet. Virtually every automaker has a hybrid ready to spring on the market as soon as Toyota and Honda prove there’s a market, which they seem to be doing. Unlike electric vehicles, people will buy hybrid vehicles.
Beyond better fuel efficiency, why buy a hybrid vehicle–especially if it costs more?
There’s no loss of range or loss of performance or loss of utility and a bonus is that you get substantially increased fuel economy. Of course, in today’s America, fuel economy is just about the last thing most people look at when they buy a new car. However, when one looks at recent events in the Middle East, that might be foolish. I also think that most people, given the opportunity, will spend a couple thousand extra on a new car if it is really doing something to clean up the environment. I think the current national government misreads the American public in its view that no American gives a damn about the environment. I don’t think that’s true at all. Most Americans do care about the environment, but they are not willing to buy a car with very limited range and a very high price just to do their bit. Except for a few movie actors and scientists, no one bought the electric vehicles that were available. But people are buying the hybrids because they are not giving up anything–well, except a little more money. But that’s returned in fuel economy. Plus, it is buying a little security against the next energy crunch.
So why aren’t automakers putting more hybrid cars on the market in the United States?
It entirely depends on our willingness to do something about the refueling network. That is entirely the case. If we decided to do it now, in a year or so we would be there.
Canada has a lot of natural-gas vehicles because they have a refueling network. But it took the Canadian government buying a fuel company, Petrocan, which sells natural gas at its outlets. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened there. Mexico could do it quite easily since they have a nationally owned fuel company. But we don’t have such a thing in the United States. And it would be unthinkable for the U.S. government to take over any oil companies. We are not likely to do it given our political views. I think in general Americans resist the idea of a nationally-owned fuel chain, even if it is the right thing to do. There would be a strong resistance of a government-owned company competing with private industry even if it was doing something the private industry refuses to do.
What about electric cars?
The electric car makes no sense. A typical electric vehicle has about the same amount of energy in it when it is fully charged as a standard car does when the gas gauge reads empty. On the other hand, electric cars are much more efficient than gas cars so you do go further on that energy. But in the middle of winter in Boston, an electric car is likely to go about 20 miles before it needs to be recharged. The same electric car in the middle of summer can go about 100 miles. Now, if it was able to go 100 miles all the time, people might accept that. But it also takes overnight to charge, and there’s the matter of providing a place where you can charge your car. It is that inconvenience. Once people realize what they are getting into, then they lose interest pretty quickly. There are some places where it would make sense: on a golf course or in a retirement community–any place where people don’t go more than 10 miles a day.
So what is the best alternative fuel for vehicles?
Natural gas is the clear winner when you are looking at alternative fuels. All the other alternative fuels are in very short supply or don’t exist at all. Natural gas is cleaner and it’s in better supply worldwide–far better–than oil. And it is correspondingly cheaper on a miles-per-dollar basis. It is much better than gasoline. With the natural-gas Honda engine we have, we are routinely getting 250 miles between fill-ups, so it is quite adequate. We have a refueling station at the institute. There are not many refueling stations in this country, but we’re 22 miles from the Canadian border so we can just drive up to Canada and refuel if we need to. A faculty member is using it to commute from Seattle–that’s 90 miles from here. And he can do it pretty comfortably. This natural-gas car is purely run on natural gas. It won’t run on gasoline. But most natural-gas cars will usually run on either fuel. But the dedicated fuel engines run better. They are cleaner and get better efficiency then those that have to run on both.
If it’s that easy to convert, why have we been so slow in adopting natural gas-powered cars in the United States?
We don’t get any government support for either hybrid or natural-gas-only vehicles. Essentially, our current government has said that global warming isn’t a problem, fuel economy isn’t a problem. They have voted down any participation in the worldwide effort to reduce global warming and voted down any increase in the fuel-economy standards. I suspect that they think–and they may be right–that they are expressing the will of the American people in these things. Then again, they may be wrong. I hope they are wrong.
But Americans like big cars. I guess it’s the mentality that really goes for monster trucks and things of that nature. Consumption of fuel still seems to be something to be admired.
What would it take to change that attitude?
A fuel shortage. That does it. That’ll do it overnight. And that’s likely to happen again. It’s happened in the past and it’ll likely happen in the future. The technology is not the problem. It exists. We have been attempting to show that not only does the technology exist, but you don’t have to give up anything you like to get it.
Have you ever used cooking oil to run one of your cars? How does it work?
It works. We are running a car now on biodiesel, as it is called. But the supplies are not good, and I don’t know what the potential supplies are. I have a team of students that is very interested in using these fuels. They have already converted a pickup to run on it, and they now have a little one-litre turbocharged diesel we’re putting in our experimental car to run in the American Tour de Sol. It’s a hybrid. Cars would even run on McDonald’s grease. There’s not enough to run every car in America on McDonald’s grease but there’s an awful lot of that grease and rather than doing what we are doing now with it, it’d probably be better to run it through diesel engines.
