Mar 10 2010No, Seriously: A Car That Runs On Coffee
This is a real car that runs on coffee. Like, for real, dude. You just drop in, and just smack the lip, WAH-BAP!, drop down, SAN-BAAAAHHH!! And then after that, you just drop in, just ride the barrel and get pitted, so pitted.
Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a converted 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for £400 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.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 (154 lbs) of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost....between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.
You can click HERE to see an info-graphic on how the car works, but based on the efficiency, I'm afraid we're gonna have to go ahead and scratch coffee off the list of alternative fuels. Hey, it still gets me up and going in the morning though. But so do boner pills. Put a handful of those in your engine and internally combust 'em! You will be driving ALL. NIGHT. LONG. (Best performed with a passenger)
The cappuccino car that runs on coffee... so will you have to use the filter lane? [dailymail]
Thanks to Jeffrey and 23degrees, one of which is an acute angle, the other of which might be the dude.
Reader Comments
1. catch22 - March 10, 2010 12:31 PM
...why?
2. Closet Nerd - March 10, 2010 12:33 PM
@GW I can just hear the sound clip in my head while reading your description..... totally pitted..... guy sounds like Spicolli..... just sayin
3. dubba - March 10, 2010 12:36 PM
stupid pointless waste of effort
4. Cadoo! - March 10, 2010 12:40 PM
fist ;D
5. Jacob - March 10, 2010 12:50 PM
So this car is human? I run on coffee...I'm just sayin'.
6. nfo - March 10, 2010 12:55 PM
So the coffee is gasified by a 700C charcoal furnace in the back of a Scirocco....
I wonder how much charcoal the burn through in 210 miles.
7. Chris - March 10, 2010 1:01 PM
I say we pump this thing up to 88 mph and see if time will totally slow down. *watches a hummingbird slowly flap its wings.*
8. Di$hy D (dream car) - March 10, 2010 1:06 PM
The 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco looks just like a DeLorean.
Only much much cooler. It's a totally badass babe-scoop machinery cherry-poppin yumyum toy. It's like Viagra for chicks.
9. photoshop-police - March 10, 2010 1:09 PM
DAMN YOU METRIC SYSTEM!!!!!
so.. a british pound is about $1.50, a kilo is 2.2 lbs
A 12oz bag of coffee is about $7 (could be more or less)
so a pound (16 oz.) of coffee is about $9.33
154 pounds of coffee = $1436.82 / 210 miles = 6.84 miles per pound of coffee.
2464 oz of coffee...
128 oz in a gallon, so that's 19.25 gallons of coffee grounds =
74.64 miles per gallon of coffee grounds.
(and yes I know that liquid (gasoline) vs solid (coffee grounds) probably throws these numbers off)
Yes, my head hurts now too .
10. Di$hy D (dream car) - March 10, 2010 1:14 PM
It's a honey tractor beam, a love magnet, a horny XX ramjet for shaggin.
(I'm working on an ad campaign for VW.)
11. Stabbert - March 10, 2010 1:20 PM
Man.... my car shakes bad enough as it is.
12. Di$hy D (dream car) - March 10, 2010 1:21 PM
The bitches cannot resist awesome of this magnitude.
13. nfo - March 10, 2010 1:22 PM
good try #9
210miles / 19.23gallons = 11mpg
14. Otto - March 10, 2010 1:23 PM
It's not Steampunk enough to be really cool. Needs more copper.
15. Jimmy Fury - March 10, 2010 1:31 PM
@3 Correction.
Stupid pointless waste of coffee.
16. Otto - March 10, 2010 1:32 PM
photoshop-police: Your numbers are *way* off. Firstly, 128 ounces per gallon is for water only. The number of ounces in a gallon depends entirely on the density of the material in question.
The density of coffee is approximately 432 kg / m^3. Source: http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm
This equates to only 59 ounces per gallon. 154 pounds = 2464 ounces = 41.7 gallons.
210 miles / 41.7 gallons = About 5 MPG.
17. Closet Nerd - March 10, 2010 1:42 PM
@16
Gallon is a measurement of VOLUME
Ounces (fluid) is a measurement of VOLUME
Ounces is a measurment of MASS (WEIGHT)
Pound is a measurement of MASS (WEIGHT)
You can't convert from MASS to VOLUME without a density.
You go from pounds to ounces (fluid?) to gallons.... not possible without a density..... and 128 ounces of ANY LIQUID = 1 gallon of the same LIQUID
Otto, what weighs more? A pound of feathers, or a pound of rocks?
18. otto - March 10, 2010 1:47 PM
a pound of stfu.
19. Jazzman - March 10, 2010 1:49 PM
And i thought it was a home made DeLorean!!!
20. Goss Jerk (insert ... ... ... ... here) - March 10, 2010 1:50 PM
@ 17 i know!!!! a pound of manjuice with a coffe rush!!!
21. McFeely Smackup - March 10, 2010 1:57 PM
" 17. Closet Nerd - March 10, 2010 1:42 PM
..and 128 ounces of ANY LIQUID = 1 gallon of the same LIQUID"
Oh so close...you were doing so well right up to that last sentence.
128 FLUID OUNCES = 1 gallon of the same liquid. The important thing is "fluid ounces" are in no way comparable to "ounces" unless you're talking about water, and water only. If you omit the word "fluid", then you have people thinking a gallon of mercury will fit in a juice glass.
22. photoshop-police - March 10, 2010 1:58 PM
Hey, Geekoloigie... see how easy it is to find the REAL math nerds in here?
All you gotta go is fudge around with a bunch of numbers until your head hurts!
(it's like I planned it!)
Thanks for the corrections, people!
What i really wanted to know was which would be cheaper to run with.. gas or coffee.
23. McFeely Smackup - March 10, 2010 1:58 PM
Just to be pedantic, this car RUNS on charcoal, not coffee. The definition of "fuel" is kind of pesky that way.
24. Durand - March 10, 2010 2:06 PM
@23
I find your meatloaf rather shallow and pedantic.
25. cabbo - March 10, 2010 2:09 PM
Looks nothing like a DeLorian....just sayin'.
See how annoying that is? (not you CN).
26. 17plus4 - March 10, 2010 2:17 PM
My grandpa was pedonatic, then they but him in a special home.
27. Peter Griffin - March 10, 2010 2:45 PM
@24 - yes shallow and pedantic.
28. Ch4p3l - March 10, 2010 3:39 PM
@ 18 That was a great comeback! I lol'd
A pound of STFU for your face! Om nom nom!
29. Pitirosporun Ovale - March 10, 2010 3:44 PM
Assholes! with our great metric system, we dont have the problems you have with your fucking units!! Fucking imperial system, and i had to learn it at the Uni, thank god i never used it again and now is lost in some outdated country like yours!!
30. masa - March 10, 2010 3:44 PM
really funny car
31. itsnotthatgreat - March 10, 2010 4:04 PM
boring..... let me know when my car can run off of human blood or semen
32. RedickYouLosT - March 10, 2010 7:05 PM
Wow, so effecient Columbia will be itching to buy conversion kits, not!
33. allen_idaho - March 10, 2010 7:16 PM
This is just a simple gasifier. I don't see why they decided to add coffee at all. It would run fine without it, just using the charcoal.
And the charcoal itself could be substituted with any carbon-containing combustible material.
34. Phorcys - March 10, 2010 7:58 PM
A metric tonne of coffee is priced at £1,210 (GBP), wholesale price (i.e stock value)
that makes a single kilo worth12p (or 18 cents). It takes roughly 3 kilos of coffee to go each mile (a cost of 36p).
Additionally, I have heard that the car runs on used coffee grounds, rather than fresh coffee. Not sure how accurate this info is, but that would certainly make it cheaper.
35. BIff - March 10, 2010 8:01 PM
McFly, you bozo!
36. Lunchbox - March 10, 2010 8:48 PM
Mr Fusion???
37. Ginormagantuan - March 11, 2010 8:13 AM
so..... i run on hooker sweat and cocaine what;s the problem????
38. ghostDancer - March 11, 2010 9:17 AM
As a geek i can't accept this car , there is no enough coffe in the world for cars and geeks it's them or us. Sabotage for the coffe cars.
39. brad - March 11, 2010 6:00 PM
Geekologie has been punked by a press release parading about as fake science.
40. Mrow - March 13, 2010 6:14 AM
I saw this car yesterday at the Manchester Big Bang Festival, it was made by an engineer for the british programme 'Bang Goes The Theory'.
Very cool. :o