In Michigan: A New Fuels Paradise

“General Motors doesn’t want people wandering around on their own in there,” says a student guard. He points to the fence beyond which innocent-looking woods and fields stretch away through southern Michigan. The only authorized way in proves to be a shuttle bus. Bearing two Chrysler engineers and an average American car owner, pitifully eager for any word of mileage efficiency to come, it cruises along winding roads with nothing except trees in view. Nothing, that is, until the road opens on a vast stretch of black tarmac, 67 acres of it, set in the hills near Milford, a GM proving ground. Right in the middle, three circus-like tents and a maze of yellow rubber cones point skyward like the towers of some futuristic Camelot. A long line of odd-looking vehicles is strung out in front of them. Some appear to have wings. Some look like your average tired little foreign sedan. One, with a bright red body but made mostly of glass, could be a fire chiefs dream of glory.

The Chrysler folk swiftly head for the spot in the line where the car brought by a team of student engineers from the University of Minnesota sits. A mumble of talk ensues about the interesting hydraulic “hybrid” gas engine the team has built.

The humble car owner does not really understand hybrids (engineer jargon for automobiles that use more than one source of power—like a diesel engine combined, with a battery-powered engine, for example). What he really wants is a decent replacement for his air-conditioned, 8-m.p.g. ’71 Chevy Impala. He was pretty disappointed when the so-called Moodymobile raised hopes and made headlines by getting from Florida to Washington, D.C., at 84 m.p.g. only to flunk its EPA emissions test.

It is the second day of the S.C.O.R.E. (student competitions on relevant engineering), an “energy-efficient vehicle competition.” Thirty-four cars from 28 different colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada are on hand. If they do not have a better idea, who does?

S.C.O.R.E. officials are mostly graduate engineering students serving managerial stints in a nonprofit, Boston-based organization founded to promote “handson” engineering technology in North American schools. The Detroit manufacturers usually contribute not merely the testing site but also special testing equipment and engineers who serve as judges. James Paisley of GM’s product planning group and his partner, John A. Nattress of the University of Florida, are scheduled to review the experimental-car contestants on something called “costs to the consumer.” The bemused car owner finds Paisley and Nattress hard at work on the line evaluating a front-wheel-drive, hydrogen-powered, hydraulic-assisted entry from the University of Wisconsin’s Stout campus. Even with some donated parts, the exotic power plant modestly housed in a blue Dodge Omni body cost $25,000 in cash. Student Steve Mann insists that the car would be “as cheap as or cheaper” than any current production model to massproduce. Mann is young and tousle-headed. But with poise beyond his years he points out that if society were to switch from petroleum-based fuels to hydrogen, fuel would cost the consumer only about 180 a gal. in gasoline equivalent. “But it’ll take ten years before people realize there are oceans of water out there full of hydrogen.”

The hydrogen car is quite safe, Mann says, despite the volatility of hydrogen. He dismisses the “Hindenburg syndrome,” which makes people associate hydrogen with blazing death because of the famous dirigible disaster in 1937. Disregarding Mann’s assurance that putting a bullet through this engine would not cause a fire, the car owner involuntarily takes a step back from the open hood. But he perks up at hydrogen mileage figures. The car “should” get about 60 m.p.g. and, because of the hydraulic accumulator designed to take over during stop-and-go traffic, close to 100 m.p.g. in the city.

On down the line David Kravitz, faculty adviser to the Penn State team, outlines the virtues of a modified 1975 Honda CVCC that students have converted into a diesel. The rival University of Pennsylvania crew has taken a Rabbit diesel, added a turbocharger to burn fuel more efficiently and stuck it in an elongated Honda chassis designed to seat six passengers. Says a team member: “We call it aDachshonda.”The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, team has put a two-cylinder, 25-h.p. Onan industrial engine (usually used to power an electric generator) into a British Austin Mini, added an electronic microprocessor to fine-tune the motor while it is running and hooked up a hydraulic accumulator to store unused energy. The Colorado State team has used graphite and Kevlar in the frame to shave 600 Ibs. from an already light Audi. The name of this entry is Scab I, for “Screw the Arab bastards,” the team cheerfully proclaims.

Another entry is already tooling around the giant lot testing a tiny, one-cylinder gasoline engine in preparation for the 250-mile endurance run. This job would never carry the wife and three kids to the lake each summer. It is a three-wheeled “people-powered” gadget that relies mainly on its two nearly reclined passengers’ ability to pedal an attenuated tandem bike. The little go-cart engine is only for the hills. Explains Student Paul Fromm, “;We can go 40 or 50 m.p.h. … at least it seems that fast when you’re this close to the ground.”

There is not much noise—now and then the throaty roar of an improperly muffled diesel, the grating whine of a hydraulic accumulator and sometimes a distant cheer from students who get a cranky car started. Many entries are over in the repair section. Berkeley’s yellow, gull-winged two-seater, with students draped all over its chassis, is splayed open like’ a turkey awaiting stuffing.”A little overhaul?” asks the car owner. “Overhaul, hell!” snaps a student mechanic. &”We’re building it for the first time.”

Feeling fairly gloomy, the car owner ambles by the Minnesota entry again. He wonders aloud about a row of plastic tabs placed at odd angles just above the rear window of a Plymouth Volare. “Vortex generators,” explains a student. The little tabs cause turbulence in the air as it passes over the car, reducing “drag” and saving fuel. “Wanna see another innovation?” pipes another student from under the hood. “How ’bout this clothespin holding on the accelerator cable?”

Inside the headquarters trailer, Paisley explains why one-shot experimental vehicles often fall short of the standards required of mass-produced cars. Having to run at least 50,000 miles without fall ing apart is one problem. Another is meeting costly, complex Government require ments that carmakers consider an outrageous cross to bear. “When you think of all the things the industry has to do to get a car on the market, you realize what a gap there is,” says Nattress. The words sound more reassuring from an independent academician. Convinced, however, that Detroit is holding out on him about the fuel-efficient car, the car owner asks Paisley why VW and Datsun and Honda get such good mileage and Detroit can’t?

“European and Japanese cars have had to be more economical because they haven’t had our resources,” Paisley replies smoothly. “They probably have a five-or ten-year jump on us in small-car development, but we’re catching up.” The old challenge and response trick.

Paisley is optimistic about S.C.O.R.E., far beyond the skeptical car owner’s inclination to agree. “You’re not seeing cast iron out there,” Paisley says, nodding toward the tarmac. “You’re seeing aluminum. You’re not seeing eight-cylinder engines. You’re seeing four and even two. You look at some of these drive trains and you can put them in a bushel basket — that’s how small they are. That’s an indication of the cars of the future.”

When the tests end, the overall winner is a dark horse: a turbocharged, fuel-injected, gasoline-burning entry from the University of Manitoba. It is not the most fuel-efficient entry, however. That title goes to the car from Mankato State University in Minnesota, which burned propane gas at a rate of 11.41 miles per Ib.

But Mankato, like many others, failed to meet the EPA’s minimum emissions standards. The best diesel got 89 m.p.g., the best gasoline entry only 56. Poor old Wisconsin, Stout, apparently could not keep all that wonderful, inexpensive hydrogen from leaking out of its canister and never got going long enough to complete a road test. The disconsolate car owner makes a date with his local garage to tune up the old Impala.