5 mpg = green in NASCAR
NASCAR has already gone solar and wants to help you (not themselves) use less fuel, but the cold hard reality is that those ovals are being made in cars that get around five miles per gallon. Not exactly hybrid SUV territory there. So, to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used in each race, race organizers are looking to maybe – maybe – using alternative fuels in the some of the cars.
Before NASCAR gets that ca-razy, though, there are other ways the series might use fewer resources, but at least NASCAR's first director of green innovation, Mike Lynch, makes it clear that, "We're not attempting to take any high ground. [...] This is a pragmatic approach to green, and what we're doing now is just the beginning."
Part of the problem is that NASCAR fans don't want to give up what they've become accustomed to. Lee White, president of Toyota Racing Development, told USAToday that, "Doubling fuel mileage means half the horsepower, and putting fans in the stands requires a show." Driver Sam Hornish, Jr. added, "No one is going to come watch us run battery-powered cars. I don't see anyone making enough electric power to go 200 mph."
Driver Brian Vickers is also more than willing to take the let's-all-do-something-but-you-go-first approach, said that, "Do our cars need to be more fuel efficient? Absolutely. But I think as a whole there's a lot bigger low-hanging fruit we can go after as a sport. There are a lot of fans that come to these races, and there's a lot we don't recycle that we could."
Some of that low-hanging fruit is carbon offsets, maybe replacing carburetors with fuel injection and Coke's race-side display that "highlight(s) its recycling businesses and has placed more than 2,600 recycling bins at a dozen tracks that have collected more than 65,000 pounds of recyclable material." When you have such a history of going in circles, maybe progress isn't your forte.
[Source: USAToday via Domestic Fuel]
Photo by pocketwiley. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
paulwesterberg 8:27PM (10/30/2009)
NASCAR = the problem
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Ignatius 9:08PM (10/30/2009)
I'd wager going around in an oval at 200MPH wouldn't garner much fuel efficiency.
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jake 9:44PM (10/30/2009)
Yeah, no matter what technology you use, it's going to waste a lot of energy anyways since at 200mph I wager much of the energy is going to pushing air.
The only way around it IMO is to have renewable energy.
I don't feel I'm the right person to comment on NASCAR but IMO having half the horsepower and spicing up the layout of the track can be a lot more interesting than looking at cars go around in an oval.
And there's no reason why an EV can't go 200mph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliica
nrb 12:09AM (10/31/2009)
"And there's no reason why an EV can't go 200mph:"
Imagine the pit times as they recharge every other lap.
JustZisGuy 2:34AM (10/31/2009)
Actually, there is a 380 tonne vehicle that, at a nearly identical speed (300 km/h = 186 mph) uses the gasoline energy equivalent of 203 L/100 km, or 1.16 mpg. So, about 1/4 as efficient as a NASCAR car to go the same speed - except that this vehicle has 545 seats.
It is, of course, a train. A TGV Duplex trainset, to be precise.
I think it would be funny to set up a track which has a high speed train going faster than NASCAR cars can go, lapping them with ease while 545 people enjoy conversations, a good meal, a trip to the restaurant car, ...
The speed record for a TGV trainset (specially modified) is currently 574.8 km/h, or 357.2 mph.
NASCAR ICE-cars are really quite lame by comparison to what can be done with electric traction.
JustZisGuy 2:39AM (10/31/2009)
My source for the energy efficiency figure, btw, is a 1997 EC study, which found that on the Paris-Lyon route with 3 intermediate stops, the TGV Duplex consumed 18.0 kWh/km. These trainsets have an average occupancy in service of 80%. It's quite a profitable route.
Let me amplify that 18.0 kWh/km figure for you. At 10 cents/kWh, that's $1.80 / km to move, at 80% occupancy, 436 people. That's 0.41 CENTS per person-km, or 0.66 cents per person-mile.
nrb 10:14AM (10/31/2009)
JustZisGuy,
We've an electric train here too. It's far from profitable. Taxpayers subsidize 66% of the cost to run it. That doesn't include building the train and the track, just the day-to-day operation. Even with only having to pay only 33% of the cost, it would still cost me less to drive my car.
Quite honestly, it surprises the heck out of me how a car could be more efficient than a train.
As to racing around the track, that's apples and oranges. Adapt those Nascar cars to rails and they'd do pretty well. The train wouldn't be able to handle the corners all that well.
JustZisGuy 11:02AM (10/31/2009)
"Adapt those Nascar cars to rails and they'd do pretty well. The train wouldn't be able to handle the corners all that well."
That makes no sense. A NASCAR car "adapted" to rails would be exactly the same thing. In either case, it's just a question of getting the superelevation right.
There are rail routes which are subsidized and rail routes which are not. The same is true for air. So? As for roads - depending on how you do the accounting and what you include, I think you'll find that roads in general are subsidized. In many cases, hugely subsidized.
why not the LS2LS7? 1:15PM (10/31/2009)
A TGV duplex cannot take a turn as tight as a NASCAR track is I don't think, especially at speed. The minimum curve radius at 130mph for the train is 2.5miles! That'd be an oval 5 miles across!
Also, even in a train, turning takes energy (energy lost on centripetal force), so it wouldn't be able to maintain speed with as little energy as you say.
In the end, I think he's right, you couldn't get enough energy into a car-sized vehicle using batteries to sustain speeds of 150+ mph around an oval.
Doug 6:25PM (10/31/2009)
What's all this silly talk about trains. Clearly a train is more efficient in terms of energy consumed per person mile traveled. But really, different tools for different purposes.
@nrb
"Imagine the pit times as they recharge every other lap."
Actually, while I don't think it makes sense right now at the consumer level, this is where fast charging (above 100 kW) and battery swaps make perfect sense. How cool it would be to have to have the battery switched out in seconds by the pit crew. Spare batteries could be fast charged during the race. The high iteration rate and competitive environment could really help push the technology, which would eventually filter down to into consumer vehicles.
xyz 9:17PM (10/30/2009)
Sebastian,
you could block this spammers IP (comment above) so we don't get those ads anymore.
Cheers
Reply
Sebastian 12:14PM (10/31/2009)
just banned that IP address. He was changing emails after we banned them. Hopefully this will work. Thanks.
jpm 10:58PM (10/30/2009)
Abolish NASCAR at once. It's boring and wasteful.
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Joe 12:42AM (10/31/2009)
Motorsports just needs to move back towards being less restricted. If teams were allowed to do whatever they wanted, you might see hybrids out there now. Teams would be trying to squeeze all the laps they could out of a gallon of gas.
If they released engine development to the teams, but capped horsepower, teams would be forced to researching more efficient ways to make that same power. Eventually that tech would find its way to passenger vehicles.
Instead they still run carbs.
I hate NASCAR.
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mister nomer 1:21AM (10/31/2009)
Oh please.
43 cars start each NASCAR race.
43 cars * 500 miles / 5 mpg = 4300 gallons
A single cross country charter flight for a NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB team consumes almost 7,000 gallons of fuel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737).
The NBA has 30 teams and 82 games in the regular season. The NFL has 32 teams and 16 games, the NHL has 30 teams and 82 games, and MLB has 30 teams and 162 games.
That's a lot of flights.
Pass me a carbon tax - something I strongly support - and we'll see who cries uncle first: NASCAR or MLB. My money is on MLB.
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Tyler Mayes 2:10AM (10/31/2009)
Thank You!
Come on people. I get it... go green = cool. Let's get real here. How much energy does it take to cool the INDOOR Diamondbacks ballpark and the Cardinals stadium? How about to keep those lights on in Yankee stadium? Here's an idea... Let's cancel all night time activity and stay home while we read by candle light.
NASCAR isn't the problem. As much as that sport bugs me to no end and I can't stand it's fans at all, it still is not the problem.
BlackbirdHighway 7:49PM (10/31/2009)
While I basically agree, to be fair if you are counting the fuel used to move other teams from place to place, you also have to count the fuel used to move the NASCAR teams from track to track as well.
While NASCAR is symbolic, there are much bigger problems to address. A typical rush hour(s) traffic every day in any major city probably wastes 10 times as much fuel just in the traffic backups alone without even counting the actual commutes.
FitFan 2:34AM (10/31/2009)
Who cares about NASCAR? It's such a minor use of gas in the grand scheme of things it's not worth antagonizing people over it.
The focus needs to remain on making the everyday commute more efficient.
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Brian P 10:31AM (10/31/2009)
The fans traveling to the track will use more fuel than the race cars use (by far).
The race team transport trucks will use more fuel transporting the cars, teams, tools, spare parts, and other stuff between tracks than the cars themselves will use on the track.
It's as close to a non-issue as it can be without actually being a non-issue. Having said that, I'm not a NASCAR fan; I prefer two wheeled racing, but as far as cars are concerned, I prefer ALMS because it has been more progressive with adopting new technology and Audi among others have used it to prove out and demonstrate first their FSI direct-injection gasoline engines and then their diesel engines. And World Rally drivers are awesome.
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matt 11:42AM (10/31/2009)
American Le Mans is a fairly green series by comparison. NASCAR would never want to follow their lead, though. NASCAR's TV audience for a single race is probably bigger than a season of ALMS.
Besides, they move way too slow. They will be using fuel injection in the next couple of years. If they continue to move at the same pace, then they'd switch to hybrids about 4 decades after hybrids take over the majority of the domestic car market.