[V8] Mercedes advances

[Dave Saad]

Glad I kept reading Roger...


On Dec 11, 2009, at 8:02 AM, Roger Woodbury wrote:

>
>
> Subject: Mercedes advances
>
> You probably all know that Mercedes is bringing a testing prototype  
> to the
> US that will have an operating fuel cell system.  The cars will be  
> available
> next year under lease only, primarily in California where there is  
> some
> roadside availability of hydrogen.
>
> The cars will be the "B" sedan, which is slightly smaller than the  
> VW Rabbit
> and will have a range of around 150 miles.
>
> The way that the things will work is that the hydrogen will create
> electricity by chemical reaction.  The components of the system will  
> live
> beneath the floor of the car in a sandwich sort of arrangement,  
> which is how
> true usable space for at least four passengers can be found in such  
> a small
> platform.
>
> This will be a very interesting experiment because refueling will  
> take about
> five minutes of less as opposed to however many hours it takes to  
> recharge a
> plugin hybrid.  Power is transmitted to the wheels of the Mercedes  
> by a
> reasonably sized electric motor, and it sounds to me like the car  
> will have
> extremely good performance and certainly move much better than most  
> small
> gasoline engine cars in the traffic conditions that the cars are being
> designed for.
>
> Now the cars will only be leased at this time, and I understand that  
> the
> lease terms and price are extraordinary.  The lease will be of  
> closed end
> design, and the lessees will be chosen by a secret "demographic"  
> scale and
> not be based on income parameters that are normal for a lease.  The  
> leases
> will be for a relatively short period also, and mileage will not be a
> consideration.  In fact, Mercedes hopes that at least 40% of the  
> lease fleet
> will be driven to exceptionally high mileage and there are  
> discussions that
> for those cars that exceed 250,000 miles in the short lease period,  
> there
> will be a "special reward" (spezialitaturdung) for those lessees.
>
> Mercedes feels that this is a major advancement in clean vehicle  
> development
> and will pay many benefits not only to the atmosphere but because of  
> various
> reasons, the driving environment itself.
>
> According to independent observers, the cars
> are quite light weight compared to other vehicles of their size.   
> The fuel
> cell equipment has been refined to weigh comparatively less than a  
> fuel tank
> with fourteen gallons of gasoline, and the electric motor is, while
> expensive, much lighter (31%) than a comparatively powerful  
> conventional
> engine.  In addition, due to the unique design and nature of the  
> vehicle,
> there are no airbags installed in the vehicle and passenger  
> restraints are
> traditional lap and shoulder harnesses.
>
> In severe impacts from the front, rear of side, the car immediately  
> combusts
> leaving only a tiny environmentally friendly residue on the street.   
> Thus
> the need for a wrecker service to tow away a damaged vehicle, a  
> traffic
> clogging rush of ambulances and fire engines required for normal  
> vehicular
> mishaps are eliminated.  These same observers have reported that  
> Mercedes
> spent 375 million Euros to eliminate the two major drawbacks to the  
> use of
> the technology:  the brilliant flash and the ear splitting noise that
> resulted from collisions involving these cars.  The flash is now no  
> greater
> than an old fashioned flash bulb commonly used in consumer cameras  
> in the
> 1950's, and the concussive noise of collision is now reduced to a mere
> "pfffft" sound inaudible at a distance of more than 2.67555 meters.
>
> Mercedes will be marketing this new technology in upcoming vehicles  
> as "The
> Ultimate Commuting Machine".
>
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