Social Anxiety Essay

The Making of Fuel-efficient Car

By Arjun Agrawal.

Introduction

I want to explore ways to increase fuel-efficiency of the car to reduce the environmental impact. When cars drive most of the energy is wasted in heat and only 30% of energy is used to move the car. There are several ways in which cars can be made fuel-efficient including reducing weight, increasing aerodynamics, changing the type of fuel, fast refueling, finding energy dense batteries, reducing battery degradation, and reducing the cost of battery materials.

Weight

Cars are made of metals such as steel that are heavy to be strong and hard. This makes the car protect the human being from getting hurt in an accident. But the weight of the car takes more energy to push it forward making the car fuel inefficient.

We have to use lighter materials that are strong. There are the following materials we can use:

·        Aluminum:  Aluminum is reasonably strong and light.  Aluminum is in mass production for various other uses. Thus it is readily available and reasonably inexpensive. Since aluminum is reasonably light, it will save 20% energy.

·        Polyurethane: There are light but very strong plastics called Polyurethane. Making polyurethane is a new technology, which is not in mass production. Therefore it is very expensive. Since Polyurethane is very light, it will save 25% energy.

·        Carbon Fiber: There are carbon materials known as carbon nano-tubes. These are strongest and lightest materials we know. It is not in mass production thus it is very expensive to make. Since carbon nano-tubes are very light it will save most energy being 30%.

We need to use material that is strong and light but also cheap. People buy products that are reasonably priced. Thus to make fuel-efficient cars successful, we should use cheapest material available that is strong and light weight.

Polyurethane and carbon fiber both save most energy up to 30%, but they are very expensive. Aluminum saves little less being 20%, but it is very cheap.  In near term, we should use aluminum. New cars such as Tesla Model S are using aluminum too.

New technologies like carbon nano-tubes and polyurethane can be made much cheaper if government helps. Government can invest money for making first factories that make these materials. Government can also subsidies its initial production. That will help make new technologies to become cheap and then widely used making them even cheaper in future.

Aerodynamic

When car moves, wind blocks it taking more energy to push the car forward. Aerodynamic shapes can reduce the force of air to block the car. The car should be designed to be aerodynamic. Rectangular prism and other flat shapes that are facing the front, will block the most wind thus slowing down the car the most. Pointy, roundish, and smooth shapes are aerodynamic that will cut through the wind. This will stop it from slowing down the car. Really good aerodynamic shapes can save as much as 15% of the fuel energy.

Type of fuel

Most cars use combustion engines that burn fuel. Combustion engines convert only 30% of energy into motion and rest into heat. Combustion engines are also very heavy which takes even more energy to move the car.

There is another class of engines that uses electricity. An electric car uses 66% amount of energy into motion. They also are 30% lighter saving another 10% energy. We should use an electric engine in the car.

Fast Refueling

A solid battery takes 8 hours to charge. At home it is ok to spend this time because you can charge while you are sleeping. But when on the road, recharging in gas station you don’t want to wait 8 hours. You will loose precious time of work! Here are following options:

Liquid batteries

Liquid batteries are easy to charge. You can refuel liquid batteries with charged sulfuric acid fluid. In the gas station we can charge the liquid in a big battery. Then we can pump charged liquid from big battery to the car battery. But there is only one problem about liquid batteries they are not dense in energy as solid batteries.

Solid batteries

Solid batteries are denser in energy than liquid batteries. In gas station people can build a robot machine that replaces your battery with a different one that is charged. This takes only 1 minute instead of 8 hours. Thus, we should use solid batteries.

Energy Dense Battery

Today batteries are very heavy and big in size. Batteries take up a lot of space at the bottom of the car making them bulky. If the batteries are heavy, the car will be heavy; therefore the engine will need more energy to push the car forward.

We need a battery that holds energy in small space and are lightweight. The current batteries are: Sulfuric battery, Ni CD, LiMH, LiIon. LiIon have the highest density today. We need to use this battery. We still need to improve energy density further.  We need to research to find new materials that can hold lot of charge in small space and light in weight.

Battery Degradation

Batteries degrade after several cycles of charge and recharge. This reduces the amount of distance traveled when every time you charge the battery. After 5 years typically batteries only charge to take you ½ distance than when they were new. Government needs to invest money into research projects to make the chemicals in the batteries degrade less.

Cost of Battery Materials

The materials that have high energy density such as LiMH and LiIon have rare earth metal that are very rare and expensive. It takes too much energy to refine these materials from mine.

We need to find cheaper materials. Zinc based batteries hold some promise. Fuel cell also holds a lot of promise that uses very cheap material and that is water. Water can be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen at home with electricity. Then you put the hydrogen and oxygen in cylinders. There are fuel cell batteries you can put in the car, that can take hydrogen and oxygen and give you energy and water.

Problems are water splitting is very energy inefficient and fuel cells are very expensive today. We need to increase ways of increasing their efficiency and price of money.

Conclusion

There are many things we can do to make the fuel-efficient car. First we will use aluminum to make the car, as it’s reasonably light and strong. The car will have an electric engine. The car will be pointy on the front and have a smooth surface to make the car aerodynamic. We will use the LiIon, as it is the highest density material for the battery.

The research community should work to make zinc based batteries or fuel cell batteries more efficient and cheaper. They also should find new ways to make chemicals in batteries degrade less. At the same time make them smaller, lighter, and hold lots of energy.

Government should invest money for making carbon nano-tubes and polyurethane base material cheap.

As result of all this, we will make most fuel-efficient car in history. My hope is that we will save the earth from being inhospitable for human beings and animals.