Nissan claims 367 mpg for electric Leaf

[Lite]

OK, these ridiculous mpg claims are starting to get out of hand. Earlier this week, General Motors announced an estimated 230 mpg for the upcoming Volt extended-range EV--a claim that was later undermined by the EPA. No doubt attempting to steal a bit of GM's thunder, Nissan claimed (via Twitter) that its upcoming Leaf EV could do better:

"Nissan Leaf = 367 mpg, no tailpipe, and no gas required. Oh yeah, and it'll be affordable too!"

At first, we thought this was an odd claim to make, seeing that the Leaf is fully electric and (as stated in the same tweet) doesn't actually use gasoline or diesel fuel. Nissan, followed up later with another tweet stating that they were using a DOE formula to estimate the 367 mpg equivalency for the electric LEAF, but doesn't that just confuse prospective customers further with obtuse conversions?

What do you think, wise and noble reader? In a world where vehicles run on gasoline, diesel, hydrogen, ethanol, alcohol, natural gas, and electricity (to name a few), is it time for a new efficiency metric or should we stick with old faithful (if not sometimes inapplicable) miles per gallon?

View: Original Article

[Bizarre™]

To see is to believe

[HX1]

I think that it would be hard to measure all cars by MPG...I mean there would need to be something to put in its place, because when you consider buying a vehicle .. sometimes MPG is a consideration of daily maintenance and budgeting. Those of us who are choosing to shrink our carbon foot-print want to know exactly how LARGE the impact is going to make, by choosing to buy one of these vehicles...but making a claim that it still uses fossil fuels? I see that as a problem, yet at the same time I could see how it would be a point to making a statement that in fact .. it gets huge gains over the competition.

I think the measure of its efficiency should be an engineering note. Weight/Power/Range/Class/Emissions...An equation that would rate each vehicle. Something that could be applied to both vehicles of the past and present... and probably in a range of driving conditions...

It would probably take time for people to be able to understand any new rating system, and hat that meant to them when purchasing a new car, and in the location..

...IMO

[LeetPirate]

I think electric cars are the biggest load of crap ever to be associated with saving the planet. The majority of those things need to be plugged into the electric grid to be charged and where does the bloody electricity come from? Space? Magic green leprechauns? Of course not! It comes from the same power plant that either uses fossil fuels or nuclear power.

What is even worse that today's average dimwit does not understand is that energy conversion is never 100% efficient so tell me which is more wasteful; converting fossils to electricity to be stored into a car's DC battery then converted from electrical to magnetic for the motors then to mechanical energy to spin the wheels or direct conversion from fuel to chemical to mechanical energy in traditional engines? Bear in mind that batteries also self discharge and dissipate heat as they release energy, not to mention the internal resistance losses. These green saving the planet imbeciles are doing more harm than good in my opinion.

The better cars are solar powered, ethanol powered or water powered (although having a fusion reactor in a car is dangerous :D).

Ok now that I'm done with that rant, I think gallons per mile is the better measurement, miles per gallon can be deceiving in some cases.

[HX1]

See now that isn't a rant its common sense on the electric power thing..

I opt for a Hydrogen powered electric hybrid.. Electric from Hydrogen would only produce water vapor.. and you could switch the fuel/power source using the Hydrogen power like a gas hybrid, charging and running the car at the same time..Of course knowing human nature, we would drown. I had a disagreement before between me and this other guy who was going for electric.. and I was hydrogen...Fueling stations, charging stations...Its like when the first gasoline engine was created.. you know.. many of them could/did run on several types of fuels..but it could be MILES between stops... A lot of change .. in every aspect of it.

Supposedly by 2010/2012 we are supposed to be seeing full electric GT/Formula One on the track..This I am interested in seeing. I have seem already one full electric, with four engines at each wheel turning .. I can't remember seems like 400kw-something at each wheel...We already have hybrid LMP's running the field and winning..

It would be nice to break the view go outside the box and make changes starting at the base of the whole system, but I do feel that even a small step in that direction is something at least. People are very slow to make change they always wait until it is too late, grasping new views of an area yet to be explored by they themselves is something slow.. They have to sneak up on it and watch before they go for it.. Financially speaking government programs and private firms funding a global change, that in some countries barely works as it is properly.. Its like ludicrous money..again held back by that in may ways.. not to mention disruptions for that change.. Many obstacles.. I think.. all have to faced with a CAN DO attitude... BUT I see it as nothing against the loss the planet and everybody on it face if they don't.. I mean everything here is resilient enough to survive.. but who wants that, and why continue to create something that disgustingly horrid...For the sake of what?

I dunno.. some things .. I think my own drive inside forces me past reason.. The answers are there.. they are simple, straight forward...clarity....

[Lite]

@leet, i guess you fail to realise that energy production via power plants is alot more "green" than via a vehicle.

[jalaffa]

Myself is biking to work :lol:

[donizme]

I think electric cars are the biggest load of crap ever to be associated with saving the planet. The majority of those things need to be plugged into the electric grid to be charged and where does the bloody electricity come from? Space? Magic green leprechauns? Of course not! It comes from the same power plant that either uses fossil fuels or nuclear power.

What is even worse that today's average dimwit does not understand is that energy conversion is never 100% efficient so tell me which is more wasteful; converting fossils to electricity to be stored into a car's DC battery then converted from electrical to magnetic for the motors then to mechanical energy to spin the wheels or direct conversion from fuel to chemical to mechanical energy in traditional engines? Bear in mind that batteries also self discharge and dissipate heat as they release energy, not to mention the internal resistance losses. These green saving the planet imbeciles are doing more harm than good in my opinion.

The better cars are solar powered, ethanol powered or water powered (although having a fusion reactor in a car is dangerous :D).

Ok now that I'm done with that rant, I think gallons per mile is the better measurement, miles per gallon can be deceiving in some cases.

I am one who believes electric cars are a great idea.

1. Fossil fuels are going to run out, some researchers say in 20 years! How will you power your car then?

2. Cars do not need to be powered into electric grids. You can power them through solar energy chargers/wind power/others.

3. Energy conversion using batteries is much more efficient than petrol/diesel conversion, anyway no man made thing is 100% efficient, so that point is irrelevant.

4. Technology in batteries is constantly improving meaning you can expect electric vehicles to be even better, a report I read recently highlighted a discovery by scientists which can recharge a laptop battery in 20 seconds, normally it would take hours. This is still in early development.

5. There are proven health problems caused by fumes from exhaust pipes of cars, what comes out of electric cars? nothing.

6. Hydrogen powered cars are still too expensive/complex to match electric cars yet.

Just some of my opinions.

donizme.

Natural Gas:

Some experts believe that current natural gas deposits fill around 6000 trillion cubic feet that could, with the current level of usage, last for about 50 years

Oil:

Current estimates suggest we will not actually run out until between 2025 and 2070.

Coal:

If we carry on using coal at the same rate as we do today, we could have enough coal to last well over a thousand years. However, as other fossil fuels run out, particularly oil, the use of coal may increase, reducing that time span considerably.

Source: carboncounted

[HX1]

The recent discovery about battery charging had to do with a smaller battery and it was with using the left over matter from Nuclear Energy production.. Radioactive material..

article here...http://www.danaquarium.com/article.php?sto...050218182306134

I remember reading about that.. a long time ago..

I think they have probably.. 'Overcome a few obstacles..' since then ..LOL

[LeetPirate]

See now that isn't a rant its common sense on the electric power thing..

I opt for a Hydrogen powered electric hybrid.. Electric from Hydrogen would only produce water vapor.. and you could switch the fuel/power source using the Hydrogen power like a gas hybrid, charging and running the car at the same time..Of course knowing human nature, we would drown. I had a disagreement before between me and this other guy who was going for electric.. and I was hydrogen...Fueling stations, charging stations...Its like when the first gasoline engine was created.. you know.. many of them could/did run on several types of fuels..but it could be MILES between stops... A lot of change .. in every aspect of it.

Supposedly by 2010/2012 we are supposed to be seeing full electric GT/Formula One on the track..This I am interested in seeing. I have seem already one full electric, with four engines at each wheel turning .. I can't remember seems like 400kw-something at each wheel...We already have hybrid LMP's running the field and winning..

It would be nice to break the view go outside the box and make changes starting at the base of the whole system, but I do feel that even a small step in that direction is something at least. People are very slow to make change they always wait until it is too late, grasping new views of an area yet to be explored by they themselves is something slow.. They have to sneak up on it and watch before they go for it.. Financially speaking government programs and private firms funding a global change, that in some countries barely works as it is properly.. Its like ludicrous money..again held back by that in may ways.. not to mention disruptions for that change.. Many obstacles.. I think.. all have to faced with a CAN DO attitude... BUT I see it as nothing against the loss the planet and everybody on it face if they don't.. I mean everything here is resilient enough to survive.. but who wants that, and why continue to create something that disgustingly horrid...For the sake of what?

I dunno.. some things .. I think my own drive inside forces me past reason.. The answers are there.. they are simple, straight forward...clarity....

I'm with heath28m on this one, I agree that if they want to build something to save the planet then they should not waste time with electric cars that need to charge via regular means. If they wanted to truly save the planet then they could easily modify current gasoline engines to use ethanol, and diesel engines can be modified to use waste cooking oil. I have seen both of those things in action already and it is clean. The water powered car was truly one of the best invention of recent times however it uses the same technology as rocket ships where it separates water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and both are highly explosive which is where the system needs to be improved.

@donizme: I fully agree with your point #1 which is why I am against these electric cars that require charging from the national grid. Solar power is very difficult to harness and requires too much surface area to be a viable source at this time. Wind and Hydroelectric power is limited to certain geographic locations only and these are few in number compared with fossil power plants. The only alternative to these geographic locations would be nuclear which is the least environmentally friendly and we all know the waste is going to somehow end up under the ocean or in poor countries. My point is that these cars require charging and fossil power plants are the most widespread.

Their whole argument about making electric cars to save fossils is flawed because as I said before a gasoline engine can be easily modified to run on man made synthetic ethanol and diesel engines can run on cooking oil, the fossil companies will never allow these things to become popular because it is not in their best financial interest. I will bet anything that the day oil runs dry we will miraculously hear about how well a car can run on ethanol but for now it isn't in their best interest.

I disagree with your point #3 however. Bear in mind the majority of these cars still use lead-acid batteries to store the energy so until Li-ion becomes more prevalent I can't consider agreeing with that point you made.

@Lite: I really cannot agree that energy production via power plants is alot more "green" than via a vehicle. All power plants do the same thing, convert energy to spin turbines to create magnetic fields and thus electric currents. Anyway I guess it depends on the your interpretation of "green" because a natural gas power plant is obviously more "green" than diesel cars that produce harmful smoke. With regard to the energy conversion from start point to end point, fossil power plant to electric car can't possibly be more efficient than gasoline to car; I have never seen the mathematics for it so I base my belief purely on the number of conversions that take place from starting fuel source to end product.

In general I'm not saying I am against the concept of an electric car, just against the current way in which they portray the whole idea and it is misleading to the general public. Long story short is I don't think they should release these so called green cars to the public when they really have not made any significant leaps in green energy production for them. At least Brazil has the right concept and promotes gasohol and other ethanol based fuels, a car running on alcohol is much better for the environment than one of these electric cars that pack a load of lead batteries in the trunk and need recharging. At present nano solar is one of the best options for powering a truly green electric car.

Just my opinion of course, I hope nobody take anything personally. ;)

[shought]

Electric cars are better than what we have now(in 'mass production' of energy there is less waste than separate production in each car), but there should be better alternatives(which there are, but not yet developed enough).