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Old 08-30-2006, 09:11 PM   #1 (permalink)
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hottness of the future?

i would love to see this thing reach production...

06 Lotus Exige 265E Concept




Quote:
Lotus Engineering has developed a bio-ethanol E85 version of the Lotus Exige. The research vehicle is a true Lotus (it weighs just 2050 lbs unladen) and is called the Lotus Exige 265E. 265 indicates the approximate horsepower and is consistent with the naming strategy of other one-off and limited run Lotus variants such as the Lotus Sport Exige 240R; the E indicates the environmentally favorable bio-ethanol E85 fuel (85% ethanol alcohol and 15% petrol / gasoline) that powers this extremely high performing sportscar.

Key to this performance is a slightly modified version of the 2ZZ VVTL-i supercharged and intercooled high revving 4-cylinder engine from the standard Lotus Exige S. This now gives an estimated set of performance figures that would thrash the majority of "Super-Unleaded" performance cars: 0-60 mph in 3.88 seconds, 0-100 mph in 9.2 seconds and a top speed of 158 mph! In fact, the Lotus Exige 265E is probably the world's quickest road-legal E85 bio-ethanol car.

Key changes have been made to the fuel system, the engine calibration and the four fuel injectors mounted on the inlet manifold have been enlarged. Two additional fuel injectors have been fitted at the supercharger inlet to increase the amount of fuel being injected in to the engine under higher engine loads and to further cool the charge air prior to combustion.

Bio-ethanol E85 is a fuel which is a mixture of 85% ethanol (an alcohol) and 15% petrol / gasoline. The bio-ethanol can be made from bio-mass plant crops such as cereals, sugar beet, sugar cane and wood. As these plant crops grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which then partly offsets the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced during the burning of the bio-ethanol fuel in the car's engine.

The beauty of ethanol is its ability to produce more power in the engine than with conventional petrol / gasoline fuel. The Lotus Exige 265E now produces 264 bhp at 8000 rpm, and 184 lb-ft of torque at 5500 rpm, up by 46 bhp or 21% and 25 lb-ft or 16% over the standard petrol / gasoline Exige S.

Ethanol has less stored energy per unit volume than gasoline so the fuel economy is less, however as E85 ethanol is 85% sourced from renewable bio matter, there is a net reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2).
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Old 08-30-2006, 09:29 PM   #2 (permalink)
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I've always loved the Elipse, and this thing is gorgeous. Great stance.
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Old 08-30-2006, 10:29 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Exiges are already sexy. And now environmentally friendly?
Awesomeness.
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Old 08-31-2006, 06:46 AM   #4 (permalink)
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They're making it harder and harder for me to not have a Lotus. I've always loved the look and build of the Exige, even more than the Elise.
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Old 08-31-2006, 07:37 AM   #5 (permalink)
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If E85 were truly environmentally friendly, I'd be impressed. As it is they're delivering a Lotus that, if run on the E85, will get lower performance numbers and higher fuel use numbers than it would if it were run on regular gasoline. I can't say I'm impressed by Lotus here, and that means a lot considering it's the first time Lotus has EVER failed to impress me.
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Old 08-31-2006, 10:34 AM   #6 (permalink)
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I though that is in production already?
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Old 08-31-2006, 11:31 AM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pain Train
I though that is in production already?

not the E85 version of it.
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Old 08-31-2006, 12:08 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
not the E85 version of it.

Oh which looks the same....well it does to me.
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Old 08-31-2006, 12:41 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Ooo!! Can I have a biodiesel version, please?
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Old 08-31-2006, 07:06 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pain Train
Oh which looks the same....well it does to me.
looks the same, read the article... runs on e85 not gasoline, that's the difference

Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
If E85 were truly environmentally friendly, I'd be impressed. As it is they're delivering a Lotus that, if run on the E85, will get lower performance numbers and higher fuel use numbers than it would if it were run on regular gasoline. I can't say I'm impressed by Lotus here, and that means a lot considering it's the first time Lotus has EVER failed to impress me.
the 06 Exige S has 218hp, runs 0-60 in 4.1 and 0-100 in 9.98.

Quote:
The beauty of ethanol is its ability to produce more power in the engine than with conventional petrol / gasoline fuel. The Lotus Exige 265E now produces 264 bhp at 8000 rpm, and 184 lb-ft of torque at 5500 rpm, up by 46 bhp or 21% and 25 lb-ft or 16% over the standard petrol / gasoline Exige S.
and how the hell is E85 not environmentally friendly? or at least MORE environmentally friendly than gasoline (not to mention it's something we can grow HERE, not have to keep buying from the middle east)
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~You better watch who you're calling a child, Lois, cause if i'm a child than you know what that makes you? a pedophile. and i'll be damned if i'm going to stand here and be lectured by a pervert.

Last edited by Tech; 08-31-2006 at 07:13 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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Old 08-31-2006, 08:24 PM   #11 (permalink)
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It is not cost efficient to use ethanol as a fuel source versus gasoline.
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Old 09-01-2006, 05:27 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tech
looks the same, read the article... runs on e85 not gasoline, that's the difference
Actually the E85 version has racing stripes that are the logo colors of E85




Quote:
the 06 Exige S has 218hp, runs 0-60 in 4.1 and 0-100 in 9.98.
And the article mentioned they tweaked the motor in the E85 version. My point is, if you take the E85 version and run it on E85, it'll be slower and use more gas than if you run the E85 version on regular gasoline.




Quote:
and how the hell is E85 not environmentally friendly? or at least MORE environmentally friendly than gasoline (not to mention it's something we can grow HERE, not have to keep buying from the middle east)

this has been covered umpteen times in Tilted Motors, but it never hurts to go over it again. Sources have been cited elsewhere so I'm not gonna bother citing them here - if you don't trust me, search for E85 if you can get the search button to work

E85 in the US is primarilly made from corn. Basically all E85 is, is moonshine (corn alcohol) mixed with 15% (roughly - E85 doesn't mean a guaranteed 85% ethanol mix. In the winter it's in the 70's) regular gasoline. Ethanol can be made from anything with sugar in it, because when you're making alcohol all you're doing is fermenting sugar. This would tend to make you think that making ethanol out of sugar would be smarter - and you'd be right. Brazil makes it out of sugarcane and sugar beets, and their ethanol program makes a lot more sense than ours does because they get a much higher energy yield out of their raw materials than we do with ours.

In fact, corn is so relatively miserly in its sugar content (we're talking a corn that's closer in grade to feed corn than sweet corn here - all the sweet corn ends up at farmers markets, and not in your gas tank ) that it takes around 29% MORE energy to make the ethanol than you get out of the ethanol (to power the tractor, make the fertilizer, harvest the corn with the combine, transport the corn to the elevator, elevate it, dump it in a truck, transport it to the ethanol plant, process it into ethanol, then transport the ethanol - - -more on that transport in a minute). Put another way, if ethanol plants were energy efficient enough to make more energy than they put in to making the ethanol, why don't the plants themselves run on the ethanol?


So while the gasoline itself might be more environmentally friendly if you isolate it from its manufacturing process, all you're really doing is moving the environmental damage off to the coal/oil/gas/nuclear power plant that's providing the energy for the ethanol plant.

This analysis of course completely ignores the environmental damage large-scale corn farming causes, and it ignores the fact that studies show if we wanted to completely fuel the USA's vehicles on ethanol, we'd have to plant every square inch of land IN the USA, plus find another farm half the size of the USA, in order to grow enough corn to do it.

And I haven't even gone into the damage ethanol does to engines - it runs hotter than regular gasoline which makes it more likely to overheat (as an example at my station we've had to be extra careful not to get any ethanol-blended fuel (even the 10% stuff) into any of our news vehicles that have generators in them, because the generators run too hot and overheat).

Then we look at the octane of E85. It's 100-105 octane. Regular gas is 85-89 octane depending on where you live. The lower the octane rating the more energy you can get out of the fuel. 105 octane will make your car slower than 85 octane, whether it's ethanol or regular 105 octane race gas. The only reason you want to go up in octane is if your engine is pinging on lower octane, because higher octane fuels are more burn-resistant and therefore won't explode at the wrong time, while the piston is still on its way up the cylinder.

So basically, flex fuel vehicles are a publicity stunt by the auto industry to try and convince a public that (they hope) is gullible enough to believe they give a crap about environmentally friendly cars.

If the auto industry truly cared about the environment they wouldn't have basically halted development of ultra-efficient cars in the 80's. Even today's vaunted hybrid cars are underimpressive - they get 50mpg max, and that's if you get the rolling deathtrap that is the Insight. The 1988 Honda CRX HF got 50mpg and didn't have any exotic technology to do it with. Imagine if we'd continued to develop THAT line rather than worrying about who can stuff 500 horsepower into a supersized SUV?


Anyway, I promised to talk about transporting ethanol. Transporting ethanol is a lot of fun because ethanol absorbs water. Gasoline does not. So you can send gasoline through a pipeline and it'll stay separated from the moisture that gets into any underground pipe - all you have to do is drain off the water at the destination and you have your pure gasoline again.

Do that with ethanol and it'll absorb all the water and be useless by the time it arrives at the distribution center. So you have to transport ethanol by truck, which again adds cost and an energy-efficiency hit to the ethanol picture. In fact ethanol is significantly more expensive to produce than regular gasoline is - the only reason E85 and E10 (the 10% ethanol blend, usually the midgrade gas at the stations that carry it) are in line with or cheaper than regular gasoline is because the federal government gives ethanol a 50 cent per gallon blend tax credit. State governments also heavilly subsidize ethanol, with the net effect that ethanol is cheaper at the pump, but more expensive when you fill out your tax forms.

Last edited by shakran; 09-01-2006 at 05:31 AM..
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Old 09-20-2006, 04:38 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
this has been covered umpteen times in Tilted Motors, but it never hurts to go over it again.
I must have missed that, so thanks for an interesting and highly informative post
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