"TrevorF" (TrevorF)
06/23/2015 at 16:34 • Filed to: None
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"TrevorF" (TrevorF)
06/23/2015 at 16:34 • Filed to: None | 3
| 15 |
Maybe Jalopnik can help me get to the bottom of this.
I saw a post on Tanner Foust’s Instagram about his participation in a cross-country trek. He’d be participating with a team from CLP Motorsports, a race shop out of the Bay Area, driving a VW Diesel Powered Superlite Racecar 2,400 miles from Florida to California, along I-10, on one tank of synthetic diesel. It’s being sponsored by Neste US, a company that manufactures the synthetic diesel, and, possibly Volkswagen, since it seems that they were the ones who offered up Tanner. The team would be taking stops along the way, and would complete the drive in a few days. Apparently they left on Sunday, and are currently, as I type this, somewhere in West Texas.
So, Racecar + BioDiesel + VW TDI motor + One trip across the USA. Cool, huh? But here’s the kicker. Just how big is that tank? No one seems to know. None of the press releases list the details.
I get it, the press is going to list it as a “One Tank Trip”. It’s a good headline. But wouldn’t it be a better headline to talk about the drama of only having 10 gallons? or 20 gallons? I’ve tweeted @CLPMotorsports asking about this, to no reply.
Links to their info:
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Will with a W8 races an E30
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 16:42 |
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Lighweight, streamlined car like that, driven very conservatively (like 30mph at peak BSFC), could probably pull off 80 mpg with diesel. At 80 mpg, you only need a 30 gallon tank to go 2400 miles. Numbers could be off quite a bit, but 2400 miles on a tank of diesel with super low drag and conservative driving is not unreasonable.
Patrick Nichols
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 16:48 |
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What would make it even funnier is if it were a plug in hybrid and they are making stops to charge it up and just saying that they’re giving the drivers a break.
But assuming about they’re doing just border to border, if the car somehow gets 100 mpg that’s about 18 gallons. If it gets a more realistic 75 mpg, that’s about 24 gallons. But if it’s similar to the XL1, i.e. plug in hybrid, I could see it getting around 150 mpg and only needing around 12 gallons.
Berang
> Will with a W8 races an E30
06/23/2015 at 16:52 |
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It’s actually perfectly reasonable, considering how many mpgs a stock Lupo will give if driven carefully. I would imagine with a lightweight, streamlined body, and relatively low speeds 100+mpg would be attainable with a car like this.
StingrayJake
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 16:59 |
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Come on, man. Everybody knows that the Europeans have cars that do 200 miles per gallon but the Big Oil execs in America won’t let the Euro companies import those cars.
DrJohannVegas
> StingrayJake
06/23/2015 at 17:17 |
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Wake up, sheeple!
HammerheadFistpunch
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 17:18 |
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Neste is a dick to reverse gears.
TheOnelectronic
> StingrayJake
06/23/2015 at 17:19 |
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It wasn’t enough for them to kill the guy who made the 200mpg carburetor, now this!?
kanadanmajava1
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 17:21 |
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Neste is a Finnish company but for some reason they decided to use a bit misleading name for their campaign. They make that synthetic diesel in their refinery near Porvoo (~40 km from our capital).
At work we have been doing vehicle test on a chassis dynamometer with that same nexbtl fuel. It’s as good as a diesel fuel gets but the energy density still isn’t much different than regular diesel so it will help by burning better (the cetane number is really high) but not magically double your range. I don’t dare to estimate any values though.
It’s less dense than regular diesel so calculations with gallons or liters can be misleading. But it’s nice stuff for a diesel. It looks completely transparent and it’s nearly odorless.
My friends at Neste hinted that they were doing this promo stunt couple of months ago. Still I couldn’t have guessed that they might hire so well known driver (for rather boring task). But they did use Buzz Aldrin as their spokesperson for their last big PR campaign.
blacktruck18
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 17:28 |
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I just called them 48.6 gallon tank. The girl I talked to doesn’t know the overall mpg so far but it she said around 70-80 mpg depending on traffic and whatnot.
904 GTS
> StingrayJake
06/23/2015 at 17:30 |
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The VW L1, as the type suffix implies, did use 1 liter of diesel (0.264 gal or 1.057 qt) per 100km (62.137 miles). Thus 1 US gallon = 3.786 liters x 100 = 378.6km or 235.251 miles. Therefore, if 20 gal tank x 235.231, theoretically, VW L1 will cover 4,704.62 miles on 20 US gallons of diesel.
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904 GTS
> 904 GTS
06/23/2015 at 17:35 |
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Here, the second version, the VW XL100, which Volkswagen made a bunch and leased them to customers.
Tapas
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 18:00 |
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The size of the tank should be clearly marked on the fuel truck following it through the journey XD
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TrevorF
> blacktruck18
06/23/2015 at 21:13 |
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Seriously? 48.6 gallons? In a super lightweight race car with 1.9L TDI? They should’ve made it a challenge!
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blacktruck18
> TrevorF
06/23/2015 at 21:32 |
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It’s not for the challenge, it’s for the publicity. Of course they are going to make sure they get there. Would you be impressed If they almost made it?
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TrevorF
> blacktruck18
06/23/2015 at 22:56 |
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Like Audi with the A3 drive from Albuquerque to San Diego. A publicity stunt that actually created drama... They should have done the science thing -Calculate the mpg, provide just enough fuel, and make it a challenge for the drivers to achieve.