|
It has to be April Fool’s Day, you mutter, as you stare at the specs of this modified 2005 H3 HUMMER.
How can a HUMMER—whose very name conjures up wasteful fuel extravagance to the Prius-driving crowd—get 60 miles per gallon? And even if it can get 60 mpg, how can it also deliver 2000 pound-feet of torque? Shouldn’t the two statistics be mutually exclusive?
Obviously, you’ve never been in Goodwin’s garage, the Mecca of eco-friendly motoring mods. The secret to his fuel-sipping Hummer lies in a 1985-vintage turbine engine, originally designed for the military. Said turbine spins at 60,000 rpm, and is used to charge supercapacitors mated to a powerful electric motor. What Goodwin has done is to turn this stock Hummer into a powerful biodiesel hybrid vehicle—when the electric motor’s power runs low, the turbine jumps into action, its 60,000 rpm speedily flash-charging the supercapacitor-type batteries in seconds—thus allowing the electric motor to continue performing its feats of strength and acceleration again and again and again.
The turbine runs on biodiesel fuel, whose lower emissions than standard petroleum diesel fuel are further aided by a periodic shot of hydrogen from an on-board tank; by adding hydrogen to the turbine’s fuel mixture, emissions are therefore cut in half. To top it all off, adding hydrogen also makes the horsepower double, from 300 to 600 horsepower.
"Conservatively," Goodwin declares, "it'll get 60 miles to the gallon. With 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. You'll be able to smoke the tires. And it's going to be superefficient."
This sort of behavior is making Goodwin legendary in the world of car modders, especially the eco-modders. As the reigning king of fuel-sipping car hacks, he transmogrifies the biggest, baddest American cars on the road and turns them into vehicles that get quadruple their usual gas mileage while burning renewable fuels. That, and the fact that the horsepower is usually doubled, are why people with the desire to drive those kinds of wheels (and who have the money to burn) are beating a path to his door. California’s “Governator,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, has given him a 1987 Jeep Wagoneer to convert to biodiesel, and Neil Young is sending him a 1960 Lincoln Continental to convert into a biodiesel hybrid, with a target efficiency point of 100 mpg.
One way to improve efficiency is to explore other fuels, as Goodwin has done with biodiesel. GM's director of environment, energy, and safety policy Mary Beth Stanek concurs with that approach—and notes that this is how Brazil decoupled itself from its reliance on gasoline as the number-one fuel. "They pull up to the pump, and they've got a whole bunch of different choices," she added. Stanek also thinks that diesel-powered vehicles will be seen again in greater numbers because of its greater fuel efficiency compared with gasoline-powered ones. "You will see more vehicles going back to diesel over a lot of different lines," she concluded.
But Detroit automakers—and others around the world—are loathe to ditch the gas-burner engines anytime soon, even though they may be making strides in developing other technologies. Meanwhile, Goodwin continues in his quest to come up with new and more inventive ways to squeeze more fuel bang out of a driver’s buck. He doesn’t understand why some of his ideas haven’t found their way into the mainstream, noting that he’s just a problem-solver, and that some folks make things more complicated that they ought to be. After all, if he can make cleaner, fuel-sipping cars and SUVs using off-the-shelf parts and a bit of “hot-rod elbow grease,” why can’t the big car companies do that?
|
|