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Car-puccino Cranks Up With Coffee, Chugs 56 Espressos-Per-Mile

by Lee Bains on March 8, 2010 at 10:40 AM

We've told you about power plants that pull electricity from garbage. We've reported on a Formula 3 car that draws its power from chocolate. We even knew a guy that knew a guy, back in high school, who rigged his father's riding lawnmower to run on his grandfather's white lightning. Well, thanks to a few brainy Brits, we can now add coffee to the ever-growing list of funny fuels.

According to the Daily Mail, the Car-puccino, thanks to a gasification process that breaks the beans into hydrogen and carbon dioxide, runs, like the editors of Switched, entirely on ground coffee (and, thanks to its goofy name, proves we'll never get British humor). The responsible engineers, who come from the BBC show 'Bang Goes the Theory,' claim that the 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco will get around three miles to the kilo (2.2 pounds). Apparently, that's in the neighborhood of 56 espressos per mile.

Car-puccino



In order to show off their caffeinated creation, the group will cruise the 120 miles from Manchester to London in the next few days. Geekosystem reports that the trip will see top speeds of 60 mph, and will burn somewhere between $379 and $2,759 worth of coffee. Sure, that's an awful lot of money for a two-hour trip, but we'd imagine the technology could be refined to get more mud for your money. And we know we'd rather have two nostrils full of java than diesel fuel next time an 18-wheeler blows past. [From: The Daily Mail, via: Geekosystem]

Tags: AlternativeEnergy, AlternativeFuel, biofuel, car, carppuccino, cartech, coffee, green, greentech, top, weird

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