Fuel economy . . . 56 espressos per mile???

The Daily Mail reports on a rather unusual fuel for cars.

A car that runs on coffee is unveiled today - but it certainly won't take the grind out of commuting.

And at between 25 and 50 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won't please any motor industry bean-counters either.

Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a converted 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for £400 [US $606] and chosen for its resemblance to the time-travelling DeLorean in the movie Back To The Future.




The car will be driven the 210 miles between Manchester and London powered only by roasted coffee granules.

It has been built by a team from the BBC1 science programme Bang Goes The Theory and will go on display at the Big Bang science fair in Manchester to show how fuels other than conventional petrol and diesel can power vehicles.

The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee - the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.

The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1,820, or between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.

In total, the trip will use the equivalent of 11,760 espressos, and the team will have to take 'coffee breaks' roughly every 30 to 45 miles to pour in more granules.

They will also have to stop about every 60 miles to clean out the 'coffee filters' to rid them of the soot and tar which is also generated by the process.

So despite a top speed of 60mph, the many stops mean the going will be slow, with the journey taking around ten hours.

Sadly, the inventors will still have to pay duty on their coffee fuel - even though tax collectors at Her Majesty's Revenue and Custom haven't yet worked out how much.

There's more at the link, including a good schematic showing how it works. It sounds rather like the gazogene, the wood-gas-generator-powered vehicles used in France and elsewhere during World War II. An Adler automobile with a wood gas generator is shown below (image courtesy of Wikipedia).




In this case, of course, coffee grounds take the place of the wood. At least the exhaust should smell more appetizing than usual!

Peter