Jay Leno's ecojet Concept Car - 50673262117

The EcoJet concept car is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

designed to run on

biodiesel Biodiesel is a form of diesel fuel derived from plants or animals and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made by chemically reacting lipids such as animal fat ( tallow), soybean oil, or some other vegetable oi ...

fuel, using a Honeywell LTS101

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

instead of a

reciprocating engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common fe ...

. The engine is normally used in

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

s and provides 650 horsepower and 583 ft-lb of torque. Drive is to the rear wheels through a four-speed automatic transaxle adapted from a C5 Corvette. An automatic transmission had to be used, because the turbine requires a constant load and operating a clutch with a manual gearbox would cause the turbine to

overspeed Overspeed is a condition in which an engine is allowed or forced to turn beyond its design limit. The consequences of running an engine too fast vary by engine type and model and depend upon several factors, the most important of which are the du ...

. This concept car was the result of a collaboration between

Jay Leno James Douglas Muir Leno (; born April 28, 1950) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and actor. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's '' The Tonight Show'' from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 20 ...

and

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primar ...

and

BASF BASF SE () is a German multinational chemical company and the largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries ...

. Unlike other concept cars, it was meant to be driven on the road in a regular fashion, as well as for show purposes. It is a two-seater car of a coupé design with a

hydroformed Hydroforming is a cost-effective way of shaping ductile metals such as aluminium, brass, low alloy steel, and stainless steel into lightweight, structurally stiff and strong pieces. One of the largest applications of hydroforming is the automoti ...

aluminum chassis and

carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

bodywork. The car contains two separate

fuel tank A fuel tank (also called a petrol tank or gas tank) is a safe container for flammable fluids. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propelle ...

s; one contains the main biodiesel fuel,

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu ...

oil, and the other contains a conventional clean-burning jet engine fuel, Jet A (

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning " wax", and was re ...

). The kerosene is used to start the turbine easily at the beginning of a trip and also to run the engine at the end of a trip to clean it, since biodiesel fuel tends to gum up the fuel system if not cleared. The

exhaust gas Exhaust gas or flue gas is emitted as a result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, fuel oil, biodiesel blends, or coal. According to the type of engine, it is discharged into the atmosphere through an ...

temperature is 1000 degrees Fahrenheit in normal operation and 1800 Fahrenheit at full power. Exhaust is directed upward from two ports on the rear deck. In essence, the car runs on refined cooking oil, thus producing the same kind of smell created by cooking

French fries French fries (North American English), chips (British English), finger chips (Indian English), french-fried potatoes, or simply fries, are '' batonnet'' or ''allumette''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. Th ...

. The car has an Azentek in-dash car computer running

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, with two LCD screens on the dashboard — one for the aircraft-style digital gauges and another for the multimedia and navigation controls — as well as the standard PC functions, such as

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

and

Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

access through a

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

system. Two other smaller LCD screens are placed on the dashboard to provide rear views, as the car has no rear-view mirrors and uses cameras instead. The functions are controlled by

Touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

or by

Speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...

software, using an array of microphones. The car was assembled by the Big Dog crew, mechanics employed by Jay Leno to help him maintain his large collection of cars.

References

{{Reflist

External links

*http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/custom-built/ecojet-definitive-edition/ *https://web.archive.org/web/20080929184614/http://www.motodash.com/article/10283/Azentek-Takes-CES-2008-by-Storm/ *https://web.archive.org/web/20080928153738/http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/nov2006/bw20061102_790939.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_autos *http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/green-garage/4334674 Concept cars Mid-engined vehicles Sports cars