alternative fuel vihicles
... Our society has made various technological advancements the last 15 years. We have come up with many different types of fuels, and types of cars. These fuels include hydrogen, ethanol, and batteries. The vehicles that use the aforementioned types of fuels are called AFV’s the other type of vehicle that seems to be one of the more popular car that has good efficiency is called a hybrid car. The hybrid car uses a two phase engine, this means that it can use both gasoline and batteries. In Japan there is a vehicle that is being worked on, the car is the Toyota Prius. This is a hybrid car that can travel at speeds of up to 100 mph, and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 14 seconds; on top of this it gets 66 miles to the gallon. A known model of car which is available to us at this time is the Mercedes Benz, this is a AFV which uses hydrogen as an alternative fuel, this vehicles maximum speed is 70 mph, and has a limited range of 80 miles. A known electric car is the Saturn, this vehicle can only travel at 80 mph and can only travel 79 miles before it needs to recharge. One of the more popular car manufactures, Honda says its electric model, which was available on spring of 2000, is capable of carrying four passengers. However it takes the car 18.7 seconds to speed up to 60 mph, and they quote “As you see, neither car goes very far between charges.” In fact no AFV on the market in the U.S. at this point in time can travel more than 85 miles without having to recharge or refuel. (Honda) There are many advantages to owning an AFV’s or a hybrid car. The first thing people need to think about is why we are trying to use different types of fuels. The U.S. uses about 17 million barrels of oil per day. Half of this oil is imported, and obviously the other half used is out of our own supply. Every time that a person fills up there tank with 16 gallons of gasoline 135 kg of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Cars are responsible for 15 to 20% of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions. (Baird) This has a great effect on our society and it is not good. We can already see the effects of pollution in the big cities like Los Angels where the sky already has a yellow film that covers the sky. It is not just that the sky looks yellow that is bad, but that our natural defense, our ozone layer is falling apart. The pollution that humans make is making this planet fall apart. This is why the world needs to work together and use the AFV’s. The hydrogen cars on the market have a very high efficiency and a gallon of hydrogen is about 30 cents less than a gallon of gasoline. It also only costs about $2000.00 dollars to change a car from using gasoline to using hydrogen. There is also the hybrid vehicle that will work just like a regular car, and uses gasoline and batteries. This car will drive 80 miles on one gallon of gasoline. If this car is driven in the city where the speeds are low it won’t even use gasoline it will use its battery source which has zero emissions. In order to help ourselves we need to take care of the place that we live in this is why we should take car of the problem of pollution and begin to use the AFV’s which will not deplete our fossil fuel supplies and will give us a higher efficiency which will in turn not let us release so much carbon dioxide into our sky’s. These AFV’s do sound like a good idea to help out our environment however there are always two side to everything. The bad part of these types of vehicles is the amount of money that these vehicles cost and how much money it will take to make this project any everyday thing for people; the amount of time that it will take for everybody to have one of these vehicles and for the community to be ready for these vehicles; and the accessibility that the community needs to provide in order for people to be able to refuel their own cars. As everybody knows money makes the world go round, and unfortunately a great deal of money is required to make the AFV project possible. These AFV’s and Hybrid cars cost more than gasoline powered vehicles. The standard electric car cost about $33,000 dollars, a natural gas car cost about $20,000 dollars. On an average AFV’s cost about $5,000 dollars more. On top of this price there are also fees for the loaned out charger for your house which would run about $50 dollars a month. ...