Ditto.
This Golf Ecomatic was built using off-the-shelf technology around a 64 hp, bio-diesel certified engine. It sounds pretty wimpish but it has more guts than the Golf with a 1.3 petrol engine. Top speed is 100 mph and 0-60 is an exhilarating 17 seconds. It has a very large starting battery (1,000 cranking camps) plus a 9 a-hour standby battery for the consumer electrics. Power steering, heating circulation pump, etc. is all electric. It's got a 5-speed manual gearbox but the clutch is controlled electronically by a diaphram and a learning computer so no pedal. It learns how you drive the car and adjusts the clutch control and engine shut down according to your personal style. The system completely disengages the engine and drivetrain when the engine shuts down. It coasts like a Red Flyer on ice. My wife says it's always a bit freakish when I hand it back to her after a day of driving it myself because the computer has learned my bad habits! VW chose the diesel because it is quick to start and because bio-diesel is widely available in Europe (a bit harder to find in the UK and the HM Customs & Excise doesn't really like us making it ouselves). It's one of the few engines certified to run on 100% bio-diesel. Yes, again, 100% bio-diesel costs a bit more than standard diesel but doesn't contribute much to net CO2 emissions.
In the book I just finished writing I mentioned the new cars being touted with their 300 hp engines. Sometimes the solution is so plain and simple that we don't believe it and, hence, don't adopt it. If all of us were tomorrow driving cars like your 78 Rabbit we would see more than a 50% reduction in fuel consumption--which would put it back to pre-1960 levels--as well as a similar reduction in emission of greenhouse gases (which is mathmatically dependent on the mass of fuel consumed and not any emission controls that might be in effect).
I realise that in the US there are objections to diesel as a "dirty" fuel. Manufacturers are not selling the incredibly well performing and efficient diesels in the US because they cannot meet the emission requirements. This is not the fault of the engines but the fuel. Currently, in the US, diesel fuel is allowed up to 250 ppm of sulfur content. This year, throughout Europe, the limit was reduced once again to effectively zero ppm sulfur (0.47 ppm I believe). The fuel is so clean that catalytic converters are used without problems. Both of my Golfs are so equipped.
This link takes you to a talk before the Committee of Energy and Commerce in 2002 about the future of clean diesel technology and how the US is being cheated out of cars that routinely get 78 mpg and perform as well as their petrol counterparts. I'm not making it up about the overall fuel efficiency of Euro cars.
http://www.house.gov/commerce_democrats/press/107rm5.shtml
VW has reintroduced this technology in Euro versions of the Lupo and I understand the mileage figures are near 100 mpg. Citroen has also introduced this in several of its models. The focus is on reducing emissions and consumption in congested areas so typically, like mine, the engine shuts down if more than a second passes without it being needed and it starts up again when needed. It is considered a first level hybrid (or zero-momentum drive) in that no electric motor is used for propulsion and it doesn't recover energy through braking. Instead it relies on a large starter and battery to simultaneously start the engine and the car at the same time. It's simple technology and once you get used to the weird feeling of the engine going silent at 70 mph or when you come up to a roundabout it's okay to drive.
I don't necessarily think hybrid technology is bad, but the way I see it suddenly being marketing in the US aboard Ford Explorers and Lexus luxury cars suggests that the technology--which has great potential-- isn't actually being used to solve a problem, but to sell more cars as a marketing gimmick.
Cheers...
