Nissan Says Leaf Will Get 367 MPG

[pk-sd]

http://wot.motortrend.com/6571574/green/my-mpg-is-bigger-than-yours-nissan-says-leaf-will-get-367-mpg/index.html

Volt - 230 MPG
Aptera - 300 MPG
Leaf - 367 MPG
Toyota - 500 MPG???

Its like LCD contrast ratio race. I think companies are pulling these numbers out of thin air (well almost).

[KarenRei]

They pretty much are. You could make a gigantic crawling PHEV bucket excavator and claim it gets a million MPG using the sort of method they use.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SA5flV_tb-E/ReRkTBsIymI/AAAAAAAABhY/TehkQ3scVgY/s400/trencher01.jpg

You just assume that it drives on diesel for one mile out of every 150 million that it drives...

[jhm614]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SA5flV_tb-E/ReRkTBsIymI/AAAAAAAABhY/TehkQ3scVgY/s400/trencher01.jpg


For some reason, that picture makes me want to cackle manically and shout "RAMMING SPEED". What the heck does that thing excavate? The Panama Canal?

[evmavin]

For some reason, that picture makes me want to cackle manically and shout "RAMMING SPEED". What the heck does that thing excavate? The Panama Canal?


Lithium mines.

[KarenRei]

For some reason, that picture makes me want to cackle manically and shout "RAMMING SPEED". What the heck does that thing excavate? The Panama Canal?

Here's another great shot:

http://www.landliving.com/image/Excavator_2.jpg

It's the Bagger 288. Believe it or not, it's not the biggest excavator in the world; the biggest is the Bagger 293 (but I couldn't find as cool of pictures of it). The 293 is the largest terrestrial vehicle ever built, but the 288 is close. Both are used for removing overburden for coal strip mining.

And they're electric ;) They use an external power source. The 288 takes over 16 megawatts to run full tilt. So just run it off diesel for one millionth of the time...

Update: Darn, the picture didn't like to be linked. Fixing.

[danieloneil01]

picture not found

[KarenRei]

Fixed the above image.

Really, it's hard to fathom how huge and powerful this thing is. But this sequence of pictures should help:

http://www.porridgehead.com/vortex/krupps1.jpg
http://www.porridgehead.com/vortex/krupps2.jpg
http://www.porridgehead.com/vortex/krupps3.jpg
http://www.porridgehead.com/vortex/krupps4.jpg

Um, whoops? ;)

(Sorry, I know, it's a tangent, but... come on, this thing is collossal!)

[danieloneil01]

Wow. Like getting a rock in the tread of a tire.

[NmGfan]

The D8R is one of Caterpillar's largest bulldozers. Indeed...

:happy0025:

[jhm614]

I want one. "And guess what, Honey? It's an EV!"

[zguitar71]

Wow! People tend to think of green house gasses and the destruction of the climate when they think of coal. When I look at that beast I see the other destructive side of coal (and other strip type mining). I really wish the US and many other parts of the world would be more progressive about how we produce electricity. That machine shows the dirty side of a coal fired ev.

[KarenRei]

Well, let's put it in perspective: after it's ripped off the overburden, this machine can excavate *240 thousand* *tons* of coal per *day*. That's 7.2e15 joules, or two terawatt hours of energy per day. Burned continuously in a 33% efficient power plant, that'd be 27.5 gigawatts -- the output about 30 typical nuclear power plants. To put it another way, it mines coal at a rate nearly sufficient to provide for the total electricity needs of the state of California.

Anyway, its days as a coal miner are numbered. German coal mining is kept alive through subsidies, and the German government is phasing them out by 2018. There's just too much overburden for German coal mining to compete with coal strip mining elsewhere (hence the need for monsters like the Bagger 288 to try to level the playing field).

[randyd]

Well, let's put it in perspective: it mines coal at a rate nearly sufficient to provide for the total electricity needs of the state of California.

One machine?!?!? (Nearly) the entire energy needs of California, the 10'th largest economy in the world?!?! One machine?!?!

Sheesh! Things have gotten a bit out of hand, literally and figuratively.

[jstdadd]

One machine?!?!? (Nearly) the entire energy needs of California, the 10'th largest economy in the world?!?! One machine?!?!

Sheesh! Things have gotten a bit out of hand, literally and figuratively.

10th largest economy? Last year we were like 7th!

Not that I don't believe you, mind you. Things suck here, economically. However, I just saw that my hometown held an "America's Fastest Dying Cities" function. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125011106498326993.html

[randyd]

10th largest economy? Last year we were like 7th!

Yeah, well, given the last year's dismal news, I was being conservative. You just don't know what's true anymore when the price of high quality wine grapes fall through the floor (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FARM_SCENE_WINE_HARVEST?SITE=TXWIC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT).

Rather than using the more optimistic Wikipedia page that reports Ca. as 7'th (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_nomin al_GDP), I chose the the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_economy) that has a variety of rankings for California, depending upon the source. And given that I was comparing the California economy to the output of one machine(!!!), I chose the lowest ranking on that page: 10'th. You may use other sources if you like.:happy0025:

[KarenRei]

To be fair, though, to get to that coal, the machine first has to strip through a huge amount of overburden. It's not like it just drives up and starts mining coal. In fact, from what I understand, they more often than not use these machines just to remove the overburden and then let smaller equipment take over the task of digging the coal out. But when it's digging coal, it produces 240,000 tons per day, which is nearly enough to power California.

[Rat]

Hey, so what's the scoop on the Nissan Leaf, as in, you know, the topic of this thread? The articles I've seen say it will be sold in the U.S. next year. Does anyone have a source for when next year?

[KarenRei]

According to AutoblogGreen, they'll only be doing EV1-style qualified-leases next year.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I want to know more about the Leaf's battery pack, and how it weighs just 200kg, but has ~28kWh of power. And apparently the cost is well below $500/kWh?

As to the original topic, by the Wikipedia conversion numbers, the Leaf would get ~119MPGe -- which again is already a very impressive number!

[KarenRei]

140Wh/kg isn't that unusual. Good, but nothing unbelievable.

And as for price, well, since they're looking to produce packs in volumes of over 100k per year...