Fuel-Efficient-Vehicles.org

Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Sports Car

Futuristic After-School Project Wows Crowd At Philly Auto Show
updated 2009

"0 to 60 in 4 sec. and over 50 mpg on soy bean oil"

CBS News Feb. 17, 2006

(CBS) The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn`t a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car - one that combines performance and practicality under one hood.

But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been waiting decades comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean bio-diesel fuel to boot.

A 2,000+lb car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No - just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School.

The five kids, along with a handful of schoolmates, built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year - rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren`t exactly the cream of the academic crop.

"We have a number of high school dropouts," he says. "We have a number that have been removed for disciplinary reasons and they end up with us."

One of the Fab Five, Kosi Harmon, was in a gang at his old school - and he was a terrible student. The car project has changed all that.

"I was just getting by with the skin of my teeth, C's and D's," he says. "I came here, and now I'm a straight-A student."

To Hauger, the soybean-powered car shows what kids - any kids - can do when they get the chance.

"If you give kids that have been stereotyped as not being able to do anything an opportunity to do something great, they'll step up," he says.

Stepping up is something the big automakers have yet to do. They're still in the early stages of marketing hybrid cars while playing catch-up to the Bad News Bears of auto shop.

"We made this work," says Hauger. "We're not geniuses. So why aren`t they doing it?"

Kosi thinks he knows why. The answer, he says, is the big oil companies.

"They're making billions upon billions of dollars," he says. "And when this car sells, that'll go down - to low billions upon billions."

The kit car these West Philadelphia High School students used was an "Attack" kit. It adds even more to their accomplishment to note that in the Sept. 2007 issue of "Car and Driver", (page 120) there is an article all about a guy who is building and selling a "K-1" Attack kit car pre-built with a 220hp gasoline motor which only does 0 to 60 in 7 secs. and he is charging $75,000 for it!

---

TDI (Turbo Direct Injection Diesel)

While TDI's are available in many countries around the world, Volkswagen (and Audi) has been the only manufacturer selling diesels cars in Canada or the US since 1999.

The VE engine found in the A3 Jettas and B4 Passats were rated at 90hp and 149ft.lbs of torque (1.9 liter and 50 mpg). The A4 Jetta, New Beetle, and A4 Golf were rated at 90hp and 155ft.lbs.

The B5 Passat with it's 2.0l TDI pumped out 134 hp and 247 ft.lbs of torque. The king of power is the 5.0l 310HP V10 Touareg (until the Audi R10 came out) that puts out 553 ft.lbs of torque.

The high-pressure pump-injection system achieves the highest injection pressures currently available in any direct-injection process. The associated fine atomisation of the fuel ensures that a high degree of thermodynamic efficiency is attained and the highest specific torque per litre is at the driver's disposal. This system also permits controlled pilot injection as a means of ensuring low engine noise levels and minimum emissions.

---

"0 to 60 in 4 sec. & 50 mpg on soy bean oil"

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News

Feb. 30, 2006

I spoke this morning by phone with Simon Hauger who is the director(instructor) of the West Philadelphia High School auto program.

He said that his students have been working on this car for a couple of years, and that they ran it in the Tour de Sol and won their division in May 2005. The 50 mpg mileage was well documented there.

They were then able to enter the car into the Philadelphia Car Show, where the car was the star of the show.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a feature, which CBS News then noticed and came to the school to run the feature which they aired a week ago.

Hauger said that the camera crews were there for an entire day and took four hours of footage.

"You never know what they will select to include in their three minutes of air time," he said.

The coverage had generated a lot of favorable media interest.

The question that gets asked over and over, he said, was "Why aren`t the major automobile manufacturers doing this?"

"It kind of begs the question," he said. "This is all off-the-shelf stuff. These kids are not geniuses, and look at what they have been able to come up with on a shoestring budget."

What's under the hood is a VW turbo diesel in the back, and an AC propulsion electric motor in the front.

They're still working out some issues with the hybrid aspect of the car, and did not use that in winning the Tour de Sol.

In other words, the technology exists in presently-manufactured automobiles to achieve these kinds of efficiencies and power. Why aren`t the major automobile companies doing this as a matter of course?

Maybe they should take Hauger's course.

West Philly Hybrid X Team

High school students from Philadelphia's inner city, the West Philly Hybrid X Team, are bringing their winning record to the to the $10 million Progressive Automotive X PRIZE competition. The Team will provide a powerful example of how urban young people can impact climate change and create important roles for themselves in the new green economy. The students, and the cars they develop, will be models for the future.

The West Philly Hybrid X Team is based at the West Philadelphia High School's Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering (AAME), a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia. The Team of students and teachers, with support from business and higher education partners organized by Philadelphia Academies, Inc., has achieved unprecedented success that positions it perfectly to participate in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE competition.

The West Philly Team has built and raced electric, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles for the last eleven years. As entrants in the Tour de Sol, they outperformed university teams and production vehicles, winning the competition in 2002, 2005 and 2006. In 2007, they won the 21st Century Automotive Challenge.

The Team's participation in the Tour de Sol, in particular, has equipped it to undertake the much larger challenge of the X PRIZE. The technological rigor of the Tour de Sol has created a body of knowledge at the AAME unexpected at a public high school. The Team has also developed an articulate group of student experts, advocates and spokespersons who have achieved remarkable attention and respect within the automotive and greater Philadelphia communities. The Team is the front line of our marketing strategy.

The Team's success has also depended on its extensive partnerships. Philadelphia Academies, Inc. (PAI) serves as the primary conduit to the team's corporate and academic partnerships. The Team is currently working with the LeBow School of Business at Drexel University to develop our business plan. Drexel engineering students are working with the Team on development of our hybrid control system. We will continue to be supported by PAI in other partnership efforts including sponsorship and public relations.

The Team is entering vehicles in both the mainstream and alternative divisions.

Mainstream Entry:

The EVXb vehicle is a parallel plug-in hybrid based on the Ford Focus Chassis. This vehicle uses a two-cylinder 80 HP Harley-Davidson engine coupled to a 60 HP Azure Dynamics electric motor driving the front wheels. The electric motor is powered by a 10 kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery pack from K2 Energy. This vehicle is a four-dour sedan that seats five people.

The EVXb vehicle will demonstrate that a high school team using off-the-shelf technology can create a vehicle that is safe and affordable AND meets the competition guidelines. Coupled with a professional business plan, we believe this vehicle will make a social statement unlike any other in the world.

The EVXb is a true flex fuel vehicle, capable of burning both gasoline and biobutanol. We want to test and highlight biobutanol as a next generation of renewable fuels and we will demonstrate its benefits outside of the competition. During the competition, we will run this vehicle only on the fuel sanctioned by the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.

Alternative Entry:

The first hybrid sports car that our team built has continued to attract tremendous media and public attention. It has taught us that there is a viable market for a super-fast, fuel-efficient sports car. While we know this vehicle alone cannot change the automotive market, it is an important piece of the equation in changing public opinion about earth-friendly vehicles. This car also targets a viable market in our business plan.

The EVXd will be a two-seater, diesel electric sports car built on the Factory Five GTM frame. The drivetrain will be a VW TDI 1.9 liter engine and an Azure Dynamics electric motor driving the rear-wheels of the vehicle. The electric motor will be the primary drive motor for cruising around town under 50 mph. This biodiesel hybrid sports car uses the same 10 kWh LFP battery pack powering the same 60 HP Azure Dynamics electric motor that is in our sedan.