As Gas Prices Soar —

Doug Rogers Gets A Charge Out Of His New Car

By Steve Bigham

Doug Rogers swears he had no idea the gas prices were going to skyrocket when he put a down payment on his new car last October. He purchased his state-of-the-art car for the simple joy of owning something new and exciting, not to mention innovative.

But as the price of unleaded gasoline climbs to more than $1.50 per gallon, Mr Rogers is getting 70 miles to the gallon in his new hybrid vehicle, which runs on both gasoline and electricity. The Newtown resident recently picked up his new Honda Insight – one of just a couple of thousand currently traversing America’s roads.

“It has three cylinders operating on gasoline. It also has an electric motor,” noted Mr Rogers. “The real clever part of the design is that when you burn gas to bring the car up to speed, you’ve built momentum into the car. When you come to a stop, that momentum is wasted as heat through the brakes. Not so in the Insight. The Insight will stop using brakes, but the first thing that happens as you start to stop is that the bulk of the momentum goes back into the battery pack that sits behind the driver and the passenger. That electric motor used for power in acceleration now becomes a generator.”

Made out of aluminum, Mr Rogers’ new toy is a very light car (1,840 pounds) and is built to slide through the air. It has a drag coefficient of only 2.25.

“The big battery is a reservoir of energy. You’re either using it to get going or recharging it as you slow down. It has a great deal to do with the efficiency of the overall car,” Mr Rogers said.

The Honda Insight is known as an interim car in that it is simply a step forward toward a fuel cell automobile or some sort of breakthrough battery design that would allow cars to run 400 to 500 miles on a single charge.

“Once the general public starts to think about more efficiency and lower cost, this hybrid vehicle will fall to the wayside and fuel cells or 100 percent electric cars will take over,” Mr Rogers predicted.

The Newtown resident fears that oil prices may not go down much any time soon. These high costs could persist as the worldwide well of fossil fuel continues to run dry.

“The future is very clear to the oil industry,” Mr Rogers said. “Today’s oil prices may not back off very much. They know they’ve got a product that’s got a finite history to it.”