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A car that runs on coffee is unveiled (shown to the public for the first time) today but at between 25
and 50 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won't please any motor industry accountants.
Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for ￡400
and it was chosen because it looked like the time-traveling 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
(颗粒). It has been built by a team from the BBCI science programme Bang Goes The Theory and will go
on display at the Big Bang science fair in Manchester to show how fuels other than traditional petrol can
power vehicles.
The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee (咖啡粉)-about 56 cups
of espressos (浓咖啡) per mile. The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket
prices of between ￡13 and ￡26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between ￡910 and ￡l,820,
or between 25 and 50 times the ￡36 cost of petrol for the journey. In total, the trip will cost 11,760 espressos,
and the team will have to take 6coffee breaks' roughly every 30 to 45 miles to pour in more granules. They
will also have to stop about every 60 miles to clean out the 'coffee filters' to rid them of the soot and tar which
is also generated by the process. So despite a top speed of 60 mph, the many stops mean the going will be
slow, with the journey taking around ten hours.
Sadly, the inventors will still have to pay duty on their coffee fuel-even though tax collectors at Her
Majesty's Revenue and Custom haven't yet worked out how much.
Nick Watson, producer of Bang Goes The Theory, said, "Coffee, like wood or coal, has some carbon
content so you can use it as a fuel. The coffee needs to be very dry and in granules to allow the air to move
through the pile of coffee as it burns. The brand doesn't matter." He said the same technology could be used
to power a car on other unusual fuels, such as woodchips or nut shells, construction or agricultural waste.
1. Which is the right way to choose the coffee used as fuels to run the Car-puccino? [ ]
A. It should be very dry.
B. The stronger, the better.
C. The smaller the granules are, the better.
D. It should be of a certain brand.
2. What can be inferred from the passage? [ ]
A. All kinds of materials can be used as fuels.
B. The Car-puccino will be put into the market soon.
C. Nick Watson is the designer of the Car-puccino.
D. Much remains to be improved for the Car-puccino.
3. The Car-puccino has its disadvantages EXCEPT that _____. [ ]
A. it makes a lot of noise
B. it runs at a very high cost
C. it has to stop to be refueled very often
D. it's not good enough for long-distance journey
4. How much ground coffee will be used to cover a distance of 126 miles in this car? [ ]
A. About 70 kilos.
B. About 42 kilos.
C. About 32 kilos.
D. About 30 kilos.
