greenslinky

If Mazda offered to trade your RX-8 for an RS-8 would you do it?

...what if you had to pay for the "upgrade"?

...what if it meant getting a brand new 2010 car for you 2004?

Glyphon

EW! Focus? not a chance. they'd have to pay me a lot of money to drive one of those things.

rx8wannahave

I thought....he ment what if Mazda said:

Give us your RX-8 (rotary) and we will give you a RS-8 (Piston engine) type sports car. I forgot the RS-8 was actually the focus...

But, my answer is no...the focus aint pretty enough...lol

zoom44

if you are going to give me a brand new car in 2010 for my 2004 car straight up then ill take it. i can always sell it adn get soemthign i want if i dont like it.

therm8

If it were the T5 powered euro spec, maybe. And if it came with this interior, maybe.

greenslinky

ok let me clarify here...rs-8 as in the rx-8 with the hydrogen engine, not a stupid focus sheesh guys come on.

zoom44

where did the S come from? yeah id take a hydrogen 8 in 2010. by then ittl have mor epower than it does now. make it a hybrids and ittl even have gobs of torque

LittleDevil

I would take the Hydrogen 8 anyday!!!
gas sucks.

therm8

no 10-15000psi tank for me, thanks. I worry about getting creamed by SUVs enough as it is.

mikeschaefer

I watch a video highlight on the BMW hydrogen race car that is currently setting records.

Apparently hydrogen is a much safer fuel then gasoline. They guy on there said something like, 'Getting hydrogen approved by today's standards is much easier than it would be to get gasoline approved by today's standards.'

mjd

I don't know about that hydrogen RX-8. It seems an electric hybrid would be the better way to go. You would think you could generate some electricity by the spinning rotors. I wonder if Mazda has looked into this at all. There is no way hydrogen will be feasible, even by 2010.

ZODIACQ

It's just too expensive right now.

If only enough people would jump on the project, maybe they could invent something to make hydrogen cheaper.

Because in ways of making the engine, i don't think that would be a problem for mazda.
I thought they already had such a project underway

tantal

Do you guys know where we get hydrogen from? Cracking hydrocarbons - i.e., directly from oil. The power density of liquid hydrogen is 1/2 to 1/3 (cant remember at moment) that of gasoline. It takes 2-3 times the weight of hydrogen to take you as many miles as gas. Hydrogen simply doesn't make sense. Yes, it can be made to work, but until we have storage materials which can store hydrogen at 3x the density of Liquid hydrogen, it's not even close to practical.

Then, we have to have a way to get hydrogen without using oil. For that, we need efficient solar power - so invest in solar and lobby your congressmen =)

fullsmoke

I can see someone smoking at a H-fuel station... Anyone up for HindenCARburg?

Glyphon

try again. hydrogen is obtained from natural gas.

Tirminyl

Even if you did mean the Focus..if I had an 8 I would be all up on the trade. 2700lb rwd v8 hotness.

Steiner

Remember the Hindenburg?

rx8wannahave

Ohhhh....

What would be the spec's on this car? I don't care about saving gas (too much) if I have to sacrifice my sports car soul to attain those savings.

draco067

Try again, yourself. Hydrogen production isn't limited to natural gas.

"Primary energy production presently means hydrogen production from fossil fuels via natural gas reforming as well as the partial oxidation of heavy fuel oil (or Diesel) and coal."

See: http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogena...ogy_areas.html
for an extensive list of hydrogen sources.

Sure, maybe most commercial hydrogen production comes from reformed natural gas, but that doesn't mean it can't be done with other hydrocarbons - natural gas just may be the cheapest (at the moment!) Did you forget about water, which is 33% hydrogen on the atomic level? Hydrogen can be extracted from water in many different ways, including by electrolysis or reaction with zinc or other catalytic metals. The previous poster's statement was not incorrect. Natural gas is, surprise! a hydrocarbon. Next time you try to correct someone, make sure you're not making yourself look even worse.

babylou

Simple semantics when you are throwing out a bunch of ifs and buts. Originally you stated that hydrogen comes from oil. Not that it can come from oil. It can also come from farts or decomposing Chiapas natives killed during their uprising in Mexico. The fact is current hydrogen production comes from natural gas.

draco067

Where? Last I checked, the post you are quoting was my first in this thread.

Isn't the point of hydrogen production (beyond industrial uses) to move away from fossil fuels? This is what is driving research in all of these other production areas (as listed on the DOE site I posted before). As such, although natural gas may be our primary (not SOLE) source of industrial hydrogen today, it is not a viable source for realizing independence from foreign fuel - in 2003, the US imported almost 4 million cubic feet of natural gas, while exporting only 700,000 cubic feet.

All I'm saying is that a blanket statement of "hydrogen comes from natural gas," while true for 90% (95%? 99%?) of industrial hydrogen, is only partially accurate and leaves out many other sources, most notably electrolysis of water.

greenslinky

ok so one, there is the idea of making a closed circuit engine with water, but most people think thats a hoax because no one has offered to show their creation yet...

and two, one of the major contributions to the hindenburg was the fact that the stupid thing was painted with rocket fuel-based paint. Granted, the hydrogen didnt help, but there would have been a significantly smaller chance of disaster had that not been the case. not really sure whose bright idea it was to use a highly volitile substance surrounded by a highly flammable shell...dumb ***!

Aseras

hydrogen cars will not be a gas or a liquid only way to go is hydrazine.

edit: check out Bob Lazar's Project on United Nuclear. he's almost ready to go with it. http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/h2.htm

Aseras

you appently know nothing. hydrogen is obtained from running DC current though water. at each anode ( + and - ) on the - side you get 1 molecule of oxygen and on the + side you get 2 molecules of hydrogen. it's very effiecent but it takes time. like days of cooking very finely filtered water ( you don't want impurities.. you'll get other gases, corrosion etc ) to get enough hydrogen to power a car for 300 miles or so. the next big breakthough will be either a reverse catalyst that breaks water down better or microtubules that convert it through more surface area.

edit: and hydrazine can hold 1000 times it wieght in hydrogen as a solid. it's what the space shuttle uses for manuvering thrusters. it works well the main problem is that is cannon touch nitrogen or it bonds to it and becomes useless that is it VERY expensive right now, but under mass production it'd get relatively cheap.. you pump hydrogen into hyrdrazine pellts under pressure it soak up the hydrogen like a sponge. to get the hydrogen back out you just heat the hydrazine up and it releases the hydrogen.

Aseras

that's right because hydrogen is renewable. combustion of hydrogen results in water which can be turned back into hydrogen and oxygen fairly easily with solar power or another renewable resource. it's off the grid independence. hydrogen is everywhere.