BRIT TV SHOW BUILDS THE CARPUCCINO

+ Click to Enlarge CARPUCCINO: The 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco will be driven from Manchester to London powered only by roasted coffee granules.

March 8, 2010
By Ray Massey

Meet the VW Carpuccino. It runs on coffee but won't be restricted to the filter lane or take the grind out of commuting.

It also won't save you any cash because, at around 30 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won't please the motor industry's bean-counters.

It's been nicknamed the Carpuccino and was created from a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for the equivalent about R4800 and chosen for its resemblance to the time-travelling DeLorean in the movie "Back to the Future".

It's to be driven the 330km from London to Manchester (see bottom of story for how it went) powered only by roasted coffee beans and was built by a team from the BBC1 science programme
"Bang Goes The Theory". It's scheduled to go on display at the "Big Bang" science fair in Manchester to show how fuels other than conventional petrol and diesel can power vehicles.

The team calculates that the Carpuccino will do five kilometres to a kilo of ground coffee - the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.

The journey will use about 70kg of ground coffee which, at British supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1820 (about R11 000 and R22 000) or between 25 and 50 times the cost of petrol for the journey.

In total, the trip will use the equivalent of 11 760 espressos and the team will have to take a coffee break roughly every 30 to 45 miles to pour in more granules.

They will also have to stop about every 100km to clean out the coffee filters to rid them of the soot and tar generated by the process.

So, despite a top speed of 100km/h, the many stops mean the going will be slow - about 10 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 pellets to allow the air to move through the pile of coffee as it burns. The brand doesn't matter."

He said the same gasification process could be used to power a car on other unusual fuels, such as woodchips or walnut shells, construction debris or agricultural waste. - London Daily Mail

DID IT MAKE IT? Sadly, no. The BBC was left red-faced when the car ran out of caffeine and stopped at the side of a motorway.

The trip had trouble from the start in London as it sputtered on its way to Manchester before breaking down outside Birmingham for two hours.

The modified 1988 Volkswagen Sirocco broke down about four times, forcing the driver - Bang Goes the Theory's Jem Stansfield - to wait on the side of the motorway while his team cleaned the engine.

Francesca Bennett, a member of the team travelling with Stansfield, said: "It's not the most reliable form of transport, but we knew that."