Luke returned after a day away from the auto show, driving a Twilight Blue compact sedan.
He got out, found one of the Auto Show’s journalists, then said, “Care to take an official report? Because this car just made it here, from Chicago to Detroit, without hybrid technology, and without a single drop of gasoline or diesel fuels.”
He waited for the reporter to get ready, then continued on with his statement.
Now, I believe you’re from the magazine, so I’ll answer what was asked. You asked whether more time should be spent searching for a replacement to the Internal Combustion Engine. I don’t think so, personally. Hybrids are a stop-gap forced upon the auto manufacturers by ever-tightening restrictions and regulations. Electric cars, while a nice idea, are a nightmare waiting to happen. I believe the bigger problem is the one everyone keeps ignoring. We need a fuel that is renewable as a stop-gap before we even think about getting rid of the internal combustion engine. Why? Because, like it or not, the automotive industry has put decades of work into the internal combustion engine to make it more reliable, more efficient, more powerful, but no work, no research has gone into bringing technologies that were competitive in the 1910s and 1920s up to the same levels.
What this means is that while electric cars, gas cars, and steam cars were all competitive in 1910, by 1920, gasoline had nearly killed electric and steam cars because it was cheap, easy to run, and had decent range. A modern gasoline engine is hundreds of times more efficient compared to the early 1920’s engines, producing more power at higher RPM with more torque and while consuming less fuel. But our electric motors are only dozens of times more efficient, because no regulatory standards were inflicted on factories building electric motors to power vehicles. Battery technology crawled along at a glacial pace because for nearly 100 years, no one cared about a lighter battery that produced more power.
Which brings me to the point I intended to make in the first place. Our problem is that we’re too focused on eliminating the internal combustion engine without first considering the results. The power grid can’t handle everyone switching to battery cars, it’d just wither and die and we’d have people calling off of work left and right because their car’s out of power. The power stations still rely on coal and oil and natural gas to make more than 70% of the nation’s power, so all we’d do by electrifying every car in the United States is force power companies to build more power stations.
Hybrids are a necessary stepping stone, yes, but they’re not the only half of the equation. We need to break our dependance on fossil fuels, and we need to do that sooner, rather than later. That is why we built the Storm Solara. It is our test-bed for alternative fuels. I drove from Chicago to Detroit with my 39 mile per gallon, $20,300 estimated cost, 5 seat economy car. Doesn’t sound that remarkable, does it?
However, as mentioned, I didn’t burn a single drop of gasoline on the trip, and that is because I made my own fuel for the run. The fuel tank on this car has a capacity of 30 gallons, and that’s only because I didn’t know what to expect when I assembled the engine. The result is a car that will travel 1170 miles on a full tank.
So, what is my fuel? Alcohol. In the 30’s or 40’s, it might have been called moonshine, but for the purposes of this trip, it is simply fuel. However, this engine will run on any flammable liquid that can produce an octane rating around 76. Yes, 39 MPG with such poor fuel. If I refined the engine for regular gasoline, I believe it could be possible to break 45 MPG, maybe higher.
My belief is that fossil fuels are the inefficient part of the equation. They don’t renew in a reasonable time span and their power outputs, while impressive, can easily be matched with modern technology and a fuel humans have been making for thousands of years.
Sure, there’s better fuels than alcohol, but the thing is, we don’t need a perfect fuel in 20 years time, we need a decent replacement for gasoline now.
Luke then got into the Solara and drove it back to where the other Storm Automotive cars were at, shutting it down and joining the rest of the Raceworks Division in signing posters of the cars.
