Chinese Showcase Fuel-Saving Cars

[dArKeR]

ANTING, China - The Habo No. 1 looks like any one of the legions of Volkswagen sedans in China. But a peek under the hood reveals an array of chrome canisters instead of the usual engine ¡X the Habo is fueled not by gas but hydrogen peroxide.

"This car only emits water vapor and oxygen," said He Limei, project director for Shanghai Habo Chemical Technology Co., showing the Habo at an exhibition of ecologically friendly cars outside Shanghai.


"It uses rocket technology."


The Habo was one of 150 experimental and advanced-technology vehicles on display at the Challenge Bibendum, an expo named for sponsor Michelin's puffy mascot. The event, held at a new Formula One track outside Shanghai, reflects China's growing awareness of the dark side of its love affair with the car ¡X dependence on imported oil, traffic-choked roads, cities awash in smog.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=753&e=...

As aWol would want us to forget, the Space Shuttle hasn't flown in some 3 years and no definite date in the future. The Hubble's mirror was manufactured wrong and never tested on Earth and the program 'corrected' the mirror defect? I wonder if it really did? A Mars lander crashed because Lockheed did the calculations in the Standard system wrong when they were supposed to use the Metric. (Miles and Kilometers). America was supposed to convert to the best, easiest system in the world, the Metric, back in 1970. The program was initiated throughout America but the people were unable to learn it and it was abandoned. I think this was the turning point in America which foretold the coming of the Satan Bush Family!

Chinese is going to kick America's ass within ten years. aWol and the murdering christian republicans have done a great job preparing America!

[aquart]

1. The Chinese language is going to defeat our ass?

Most likely. China has all our industrial capability now. If we want something, we have to wait till it arrives from China.

That includes parts for our weapons systems, I believe.

[Chicago Democrat]

2. Chairman Mao! Housy! Housy!

;)

[slackmaster]

21. Not the language, it's the METRIC SYSTEM they're using to kick our butts

Our nation has failed to join the modern world in that regard.

:dunce:

[ladybugg33]

27. Didn't you just know that either Japan or China was going to get the lock

on fuel efficient cars? America is too busy courting the oil companies to bother with REAL progress in auto efficiencies.

[Rjnerd]

3. Chinese machine tools.

If we were suddenly to need to go into WWII style production, we would have a real problem. The US doesn't make basic machine tools anymore. (at least the heavy metal shaping stuff) You want a milling machine? Except for one or two miniature (hobby model-makers), your machine will have to cross an ocean. If you are an amateur, it will be the pacific. (if you get to deduct it, it might come from someplace like Spain)

Never mind that we haven't been making new toolmakers for years now. (and it takes the better part of a decade to build up sufficient cynicism, sarcasm and skill in a person, to consider them other than an apprentice. Some contend that you can't be a real toolmaker if you aren't old enough to need bifocals.)

[htuttle]

10. Tell me about it!

15 years ago, there were thousands of unemployed or under-employed highly skilled tool-and-die people in the Great Lakes region. There were probably a thousand in Milwaukee alone.

Now most of them have died or retired without passing on their skills to an apprentice.

We're going to practically have to start over again when (not IF) the time comes.

[NuttyFluffers]

4. well thank god they are pre-empting our last great industrial market!

/subject line sarcasm

y'know, we could've been the world's industrial leader in environmentally responsible products - but alas china's listened to the way the wind is blowing and went ahead, and we decide to go backwards instead.

well, it was a wonderful country, but the man, he's bringing it down... {thanks 4 Non Blondes}

[natrat]

13. funny i used to think china would precipate the ruin

of the enviroment and as it turns out it might be our gracious leader's policies

[mahina]

22. First of all there are sooo many great projects happening here....

Hydrogen from solar energy, wind (OK that's not rocket science but it works)
Take a lookee over here, http://www.hnei.hawaii.edu/template.asp?userID=38
A really cool lot of links from renewable and appropriate enerfy lab http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~rael/

You might know someone interested in studying the field; UC Berkeley course info in Energy Resources Group :http://socrates.berkeley.edu/erg/courses/
Plus it's not an either or question.

The whole world needs China to grow sustainably, if they follow the fossil fuel model like the coal burning pattern now in use, it's going to get pretty ugly.
Ya, there is great potential to turn our economy around selling leapfrog technology to the Chinese....we're working on it!

[aquart]

5. Think they'll open a factory in the United States?

With crude at $55 a barrel, I can imagine a market for such cars, and LOOK! Here they are, ready to go.

[shraby]

6. Link doesn't work for me

[FLSurfer]

8. Found a new link

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/24-10162004-384134.html

[Dover]

7. They could potentially leapfrog over the U.S. if they could skip a lot

of the carbon fuel based industries and focus on 'the next big thing' in energy. Of course we'd love to dump our old industries and goods into their markets, and our fast foods and cigarettes.....but China may not buy into it, in the end.

[leesa]

9. Dang! Don't tell me we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for nothing!

This is the market we were lusting after and they are mucking it up!

Oh well, at least we got the opium our CIA and banking industry needed. Foolish Taliban, trying to shut down our drug market.

[gula]

11. 2.5 litres per 100 kms and nice looking to boot

http://www.blick.ch/PB2G/PB2GA/pb2ga.htm?snr=78039

[daleo]

14. That's 113.3 mpg if I did my math right

For those of us that find this measure easier to relate to.

[BiggJawn]

18. The only way the "Big Three" would make something like that...

...Is if they made it ugly, uncomfortable, or glaringly unsafe.
Then, after a disappointing 2-year market run where they made every mistake you could in marketing the ugly little deathtrap, they'd declare it something that the Murkan buying public "just isn't interested in" and in the same breath announce their 24,000 Lb., 2-gallon-per-mile "Freedom Wagon" SUV...

[thecrow]

12. I hear that China is holding most of our debt and now this?

They instantly invent the car we were promised by * in 2000?
And we are slaughtering the iraqis for their oil?
To paraphrase a slogan of the 60's...
"the whole world is laughing."
At us.

[calimary]

15. Poo! Link doesn't work.

Any ideas?

[Greyskye]

17. Working for me

Here is a pic from the article:

[silverpatronus]

16. i still can't believe that mars lander thing

i was in shock when i heard about it the first time, and it still shocks me today. why does the US have to be the only country in the world that thinks multiplying and dividing by ten is harder than remembering random conversion factors? (how many yards ARE there in a bloody mile anyway?) the rest of the WORLD uses metric. when i came here from trinidad to start my engineering degree, i got a nasty shock in my statics classes. i thought that at the very least, ENGINEERS would use metric. i was wrong...and since i grew up in metric, all these feet and inches give me a headache.

i don't mean to come down on y'all, but it's indicative of a national intellectual laziness that it was 'too hard' for america to learn metric. IT'S MULTIPLICATION/DIVISION BY TEN! add/remove a zero, shift a decimal point...that's IT! and then things like the mars lander fiasco happen and y'all look stupid in the eyes of the world. brilliant scientists look like morons because it was 'too hard' for america to learn metric...and apparently 'too hard' for the scientists to remember that THE REST OF THE WORLD USES METRIC.

[Gregorian]

20. Absolutely!

There are only two countries in the world that have not adopted the metric system.
I grew up in this country. I thought it would be next to impossible to learn the metric system. Boy, was I wrong. In fact, to this day, I curse this stupid pound inch system. It is so much more difficult. One is based on mass and the other on weight. I never did completely understand G sub C. The conversion factor for going from slugs to pounds mass. It is so utterly complicated. I don't even know many engineers who know who understand it.
And you are so correct in your evaluation of our attitude. We just don't want to join the world. And I'll never know why not. Because the metric system is a dream.
Again, it comes down to leadership. They continue to keep us in the dark ages.
I'm glad to hear this from another engineer. Thanks. :)

[MisterP]

28. I don't THINK the Dark Ages were caused by failure to adopt the metric sys

but that's just me
And my thumb contains a measure precisely of 1", but nothing of 1 cm, so :P

[bermudat]

23. FtM?

> ... and apparently 'too hard' for the scientists to
> remember that THE REST OF THE WORLD USES METRIC

It's not a matter of difficulty with the metric system.
It is the way it is because so many American decisions are made based on monetary considerations. And I wouldn't even call all those decisions short-sighted; perhaps it's even better long-term FOR A GIVEN SUPPLIER to retain more US business by selling into a standards-created niche where it has an historical advantage in fully amortized production tools. I don't KNOW that large US suppliers lobby Congress NOT to mandate metric, but it's easy to imagine that lots of INCUMBENT suppliers might want to hang on to their non-metric buyers.

Among other things, standards are a way to limit competition. Even where tariffs may be unacceptable, or politically unattainable, having a different standard means a smaller pool of suppliers you're obliged to compete with. While surely it's not the only reason, many would argue that protectionism-via-standards is why the US and EU have different television, telephone, and now digital radio transmission formats.

[silverpatronus]

26. so better yet, it's not intellectual laziness as such, it's greed.

so the country must remain a step behind the rest of the world because suppliers can make more money staying 'standard' (what a ridiculous term! imperial measure is far from 'standard' in this world). y'all need to get rid of the corporate stranglehold on your country before it causes even MORE damage than it already has.

thank you for the explanation. it was a new angle to consider.

[Gregorian]

19. The pendulum swings.

There isn't a single university in America with an automotive studies department. I'm sure there is some kind of program like it at some school. But it's not something we are actively involved in. I went to one of the finest engineering universities, and we did not have anything remotely like that. And in fact, a few years before I went to university, I was lucky enough to get a degree in machine tool technology. I just discovered recently that the machines were auctioned off and sold. I suppose it's because we don't feel the need to educate people in that area anymore. There are almost no trade schools with technical courses in manufacturing, in the US. It used to be we trained people to make things. And as noted in another post, if we needed to gear up for another "real" war, we couldn't.
My dad came home from his engineering job at Applied Materials one day, in the 70's. And he said a group of Chinese had come to him asking for a special chip. They had designs for an electric car. Back then! They've been working on this stuff for decades.
What this country has done, is flagrant and stupid. We stopped manufacturing. And when we did that, we gave up our power.
So, as I continue to say- stretch your neck muscles, because China is growing extremely fast. And it'll take a lot of looking up, to see what they're doing. We've been left in the dust, playing with our puddle of black crude. This is not news, for anyone who's been watching where the goods are made. Made in China. If made in Japan was a challenge, then you can imagine what 2 billion people can do.

[bermudat]

24. Automotive Engineering

Automotive Engineering


Master of Science in Engineering - Automotive Systems
http://www.kettering.edu/graduate/msas.asp

University of Michigan, USA (engineers)
http://auto.engin.umich.edu/academic/courses.html

Student Central - SAE International
http://students.sae.org/

Cornwall College, UK (engineers)
http://www.cornwall.ac.uk/auto/courses/courses.htm


Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, NZ (engineers)
http://www.chchpoly.ac.nz/courses/eng.htm


Oxford Brookes University, UK (engineers)
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/


Wide Bay TAFE, Australia (engineers - engineering)
http://www.widebay.tafe.net/courses/engin/aur10199.htm


Otago Polytechnic, NZ (engineering)
http://www.tekotago.ac.nz/polyweb/


Cranfield University, UK (engineers)
http://www.drive.cranfield.ac.uk/teach_eng.htm

[Cocoa]

25. Commies!

fuel conservation is for godless Commies!