That's one way to *brick* a turbocharger.
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One of these things is not like the other one
Yes, because marketing speak is always truthful.
The reality is, they get boost by using 18,000 watts. On a 12V system, that is 1500A.
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I don't understand how quoting a current-consumption figure supports a claim that "there are a shitload of problems and it constantly breaks".
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I doubt there's a wire gauge used in cars that can handle enough power for nine kettles…
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Seven starter motor cables plied into a rope should deal with it OK.
Need some big FETs to switch it, though.
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And a massive battery to provide the punch; your standard lead-acid 40Ah job isn't going to be up to the task…
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Article recommends four extra batteries. It also recommends a 42V electrical system, which would cut the required current back to a much less scary-looking 500A.
Battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids routinely deal with cabling and controlling more power than this. The tech is available.
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And a massive battery to provide the punch; your standard lead-acid 40Ah job isn't going to be up to the task…
Never took Circuits, but how about a whomping huge Capacitor?
what could possibly go wrong?
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Yellowstone Super-Volcano erupts
If that happens, we're all fucked. I mean, fucked.
So, no point in preparing your house for that.
I mean, that's like Fallout scenario.
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It's Friday. My brain is fried. I find all kinds of shit funny right now.
I even considered making a Fryday joke. Because fried, you see? But I didn't. Be thankful for that.
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The reality is, they get boost by using 18,000 watts. On a 12V system, that is 1500A.
That's pretty much pushing the envelope as far as how much electric boost you're going to get. If you need more than four batteries and five thousand dollars worth of controllers and turbo, you might as well do a full electric conversion.
After all this, he's only running 8psi of boost and making a bit over 200 horsepower. Traditional turbocharged cars like this one make more than 20psi and run the quarter mile as fast as an exotic like a Ferrari or Koenigsegg.
I doubt there will ever be a sizable market for electric boost. All electric has better throttle response and exhaust driven turbos have much better peak power output.
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@Bulb said:
If you care about fuel economy, you have diesel and diesels are almost always turbo (surprises me Prius is not diesel).
I heard they tried it, but they got better performance and fuel efficiency from the motor by leaving out the hybrid drive train and the batteries, so a product development VP made them quietly bury it.I suspect the answer is much simpler: target market. In America at least, all consumer gas stations carry unleaded, some carry diesel and of those that have diesel, it's one pump out of the 8 or 12 on the lot. The occasional BMW needs diesel? No problem. Lots of Priuses coming in to fill up diesel? Hmmm.
Then don't forget these green types not realizing there's a difference between the two and what happens when you fill up a diesel engine with regular unleaded...
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Diesel took a huge hit in the US back when diesel cars were slow-to-start, noisy-as-shit, belched huge clouds of black smoke-- my older step-sister had a 1980s diesel Rabbit, and I tell you, anybody who owned a car like that would never buy a diesel again in their lives.
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diesel cars were slow-to-start, noisy-as-shit, belched huge clouds of black smoke
The latest European diesels are a hell of a lot better. The only time that they're at all slow to start is when they've got very cold, colder than they get in our garage, and the noise and emissions are both greatly reduced from what they used to be.
Having just looked them up, they're now at the same sort of level that applies to gasoline-based engines.
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Amusingly, mine is actually broken (no coils) but still starts in 1-2 seconds.
Modern diesels are often unrecognisable as being any different to petrol - hence people putting the wrong fuel in, I suppose.
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hence people putting the wrong fuel in, I suppose.
I think there's a keying mechanism on pumps round here so that you at least can't put diesel in a petrol tank (?); while the other way round isn't great, diesels can at least recover from that without needing the entire engine stripping.
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IIRC, a diesel nozzle is too large to fit in a petrol filler
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IIRC, a diesel nozzle is too large to fit in a petrol filler
I thought that was because of some sort of keying thing on the side. Not that I spend a lot of time worrying about it; I just use the correct colour-coded pump when filling up.
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Yes, petrol nozzles are skinny, while diesel comes in 'normal' and 'huge' (for lorry) sizes.
The petrol peg looks like it ought to rattle badly in a diesel hole, but presumably some people don't feel that quick enough.
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Did you ever see one of those ads for "electric superchargers"? They promise 2-3 lbs of boost with an easy install. Everyone who has tried one has shown zero boost, even on small engines.
My dad always said that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Even if they could deliver on those numbers, 2-3lbs is puny anyhow. That's like 25 HP on a Honda Civic (their likely target market).
Considering that even small turbos or superchargers use a lot more than that, even a massive electrical circuit would do jack shit towards moving air and creating pressure. It is just not possible. Efficiency would have to be > 100%.
There are reasons why a proper FI system costs between four and five figures.
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I suspect the answer is much simpler: target market. In America at least, all consumer gas stations carry unleaded, some carry diesel and of those that have diesel, it's one pump out of the 8 or 12 on the lot.
That problem would solve itself pretty quickly. A bigger problem where I live -- diesel fuel costs 35% more than gasoline, so if a diesel vehicle doesn't get significantly more mpg than a gasoline vehicle, it's more expensive to operate.
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We're only paying about a 5% difference.
Yeah, and diesel takes less effort to make than unleaded. Or at least a friend who has worked in the refinery industry has said.
Historically, at least here, we have seen periods of time where diesel was twice the price of unleaded. There's TRWTF.
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We're only paying about a 5% difference.
Where are you? Here is a chart of prices in various parts of the US.
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IIRC, a diesel nozzle is too large to fit in a petrol filler
They're the same size here. Usually diesel nozzles are green or sometimes yellow, and gasoline nozzles are black. I nearly got in trouble at a station in Iowa that used green nozzles for gasoline, was about 1 second away from pumping before I realized it was wrong.
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True here. Of course, that means you can put gasoline in your diesel car, but there's no way to do it the other way around.
Saved my bacon once, actually. Went to tank gas while I was very tired (good thing I was on the way home otherwise I'd probably be a (even greater) hazard on the road), and due to lack of concentration almost pumped diesel into my car. The fact that the nozzle didn't fit made me reconsider
Also, they do the colours as well here. I honestly can't remember which is which now, I visit the same gas station 99% of the time so I already know where pumps are by heart and don't even look at the nozzles. But I'm leaning towards black for diesel and green for gasoline.
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But I'm leaning towards black for diesel and green for gasoline.
Here, it used to be black for diesel, red for leaded gasoline, and green for unleaded gasoline. It's virtually impossible to get leaded fuel now. (There are also some blue pumps about, but I don't know what they dispense.)
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Here, it used to be black for diesel, red for leaded gasoline, and green for unleaded gasoline.
Sounds about right. Don't remember ever seeing red for leaded, but then again the pumps that dispensed the gas were very much different (read: very old) in the time when you could still get leaded.
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Suspected that, but I've never driven a vehicle that used it.
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You have pumps for that? Lucky bastards.
All we get is a weird looking tank somewhere off to the side (on select few gas stations, of course), with the hose hidden away somewhere or even locked, so you have to call up a gas station worker to pump the stuff for you, like you're some kind of baby or something!
Actually... knowing most people... Maybe that last bit is not a bad thing...
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It could also be AdBlue, although that's less common from pumps.
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You have pumps for that? Lucky bastards.
All we get is a weird looking tank somewhere off to the side (on select few gas stations, of course), with the hose hidden away somewhere or even locked, so you have to call up a gas station worker to pump the stuff for you, like you're some kind of baby or something!
Actually... knowing most people... Maybe that last bit is not a bad thing...
Sounds like Oregon. You are not permitted to pump your own gas in Oregon. Ever.
Every time I drive to visit my mom in Washington, I make sure that I won't have to stop for gas in Oregon.
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Sounds like Oregon. You are not permitted to pump your own gas in Oregon. Ever.
New Jersey is the same way. I did not realize it and was yelled at and chastised by the guy working the pumps when I went to get out of my vehicle. They take forever to pump your fuel and waste a lot of time in that state.
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New Jersey is the same way. I did not realize it and was yelled at and chastised by the guy working the pumps when I went to get out of my vehicle. They take forever to pump your fuel and waste a lot of time in that state.
By contrast, there's quite a few entirely staff-less filling stations in Sweden. You pay by card (or rather give authorization up front) and then that turns on the pump for you. The only time there's company employees on site is when the guy comes round to fill the underground fuel tanks.
I've yet to see anywhere go that far in the UK. They usually prefer to have someone on site and operate a mini-mart at the same time.
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Entirely staff-less filling stations... I've yet to see anywhere go that far in the UK. They usually prefer to have someone on site and operate a mini-mart at the same time.
We do have plenty of pay at pump stations these days. With extraordinarily scant instructions. And the machine insists that you put your card in, not merely before filling up but while it's still displaying the last sale. If you've done it often enough to be expecting that then no worries, but they're still fairly new and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been alarmed by that.
But the station is never completely unmanned. There's usually a 'pay at till' button, and I think they must make a fair profit out of the invariable (and invariably overpriced) shop - there's even a shop at supermarket petrol stations.
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The latest European diesels are a hell of a lot better. ... Having just looked them up, they're now at the same sort of level that applies to gasoline-based engines.
Seems great up until you have to buy your first bottle of Diesel Exhaust Fluid, at which point you think you're in crazyville where the price of purified, refined pee has skyrocketed.@dkf said:(There are also some blue pumps about, but I don't know what they dispense.)
Could be kerosene.
Filed under: Almost as bad as inkjet ink!, we need a new tag cloud to attack
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We're only paying about a 5% difference.
But how much of that is tax? Which is to ask, what's the actual difference in the price of the fuel itself?
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But how much of that is tax?
Don't know, but “far too much” will do as a description for both kinds of fuel.
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Don't know, but “far too much” will do as a description for both kinds of fuel.
Right, which is to say that the difference in the cost of the fuel perhaps isn't so different. Still, increased demand would change refining output and could have all sorts of possible effects.
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But how much of that is tax?
It is pretty likely that enough of it is tax that the cost of the fuel itself does not even matter. ;)
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A bigger problem where I live -- diesel fuel costs 35% more than gasoline, so if a diesel vehicle doesn't get significantly more mpg than a gasoline vehicle, it's more expensive to operate.
Near my house it varies from station to station. At one gas station, diesel could be 5% higher than unleaded, and across the street it's 50% higher than unleaded. And the two stations will have comparable unleaded prices. There was even a while when one station was charging 75% more for diesel while most stations were only charging 10-20% more.
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But how much of that is tax?
At the moment, tax on both petrol and diesel in the UK is the same, at 58p/l.
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At the moment, tax on both petrol and diesel in the UK is the same, at 58p/l.
Is that inclusive of VAT or is that just Fuel Duty?
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Doesn't say
This does:
There is another 20% VAT on top of the 58p/l
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There is another 20% VAT on top of the 58p/l
That's what I thought. Our gouging bastards are the government…