How Not To Save Detroit

intellectual property laws can only exist with the force of the state and be used by those with the money and connections to use the government's courts.

That sounds like it was taken directly from a GM press release. They couldnt have been too worried about the reverse engineering, as Alan Cicconi, the lead powertrain engineer now sells the exact same controller and motor to anyone who wants it. In fact, that's what powers the Tesla. HTH Ben

Because it's the truth. Or maybe you don't think that someone would have sued GM after an EV-1 developed a corrosion issue after long term use (that these pilot program vehicles were not intended for) which lead to a short circuit which in turn caused a fire that then spread to the garage and the attached house... They could even point to GM's lack of long-term experience with the vehicles as the cause and win a few million dollars. And that's not even getting into penalties the government might impose because of various regulations.

That's covered under a no-compete clause, which is far different. GM must have felt that it couldn't win a court case since it isn't building electrics and/or anything in the Tesla's price range. (provided that what you state is true)

Batteries are the main part of the problem. Solve that issue (which requires a breakthrough, or as you say, revolution rather than evolution) and the rest could be solved with known (though politically infeasible) techniques. If an electric car, from grid-based generator to wheels, requires half the energy of a gasoline powered car (due to higher efficiencies in the generator compared to the ICE), then building coal plants (and associated infrastructure) to power electric cars makes sense, even from a CO2-reduction perspective.

But the batteries ain't there. Not even close.

This may be of interest to you

HTH Ben

It's real simple. We have functional BS detectors. You apparently do not.

nate

I am pretty sure the batter was sold to Exxon who closed the company and BURIED the battery.

I think you are wrong. Production is by hand and they can sell all they can make.

NO - it is NOT! It is shit you are making up to TRY to convince people that the eclectic car is "TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE" and the ones available are DANGEROUS and flawed. All we need to find out is what YOUR stake in all this issue is.

The thing is, we have been waiting a century years for that revolution to take place.

A hundred years ago there were dozens of companies making practical electric cars, guys like Detroit Electric and Columbia. Even Olds made one. They all used lead-acid batteries with limited range. A lot of people bought them and they were very popular for city driving but the limited range kept them out of a lot of markets.

The range has improved a lot in the past hundred years, but the performance of gasoline vehicles has improved a lot more. Consequently by the time the Model A was out, there weren't too many electrics on the road. But the only problem is the battery.... once we have that licked, we're good to go.

--scott

Right, that's why you need an electric car that can be refueled in 5 minutes as well... either with a high current charge or a high voltage charge or by physically removing the battery pack from your trunk and dropping a new one in with a crane.

Right now we have charging time down to an hour or so, which is a lot better than the overnight charges that used to be required. We're most of the way there.

--scott

You're pretty sure, are you?

LOL

Well, he is right in a sense. They dont have a marketing department, but a lot of marketing is done by these sorts of universities. There are grants, prestige, etc.

PhD's would rather publish a paper and be recognized professionally than sleep with Britney Spears.. (Profession recognition might be the more difficult of the two, as I think about it ;>)

Well, they are not really really close, but if you consider the crude designs, yes you can have an electric car today.

An electric car must also have small frontal cross sectional area and must be lighter than a butterfly's kiss....meaning a small and perhaps dangerously light vehicle, when meeting

18 wheelers head on.

In Michelsens Institute in Norway, I saw some of the work they were doing with fuel cells. A fuel cell approximately one foot on a side was putting out some 10-15 Kwh. With these things, which are nearer reality, heat losses can be minimized and there is good conversion of the fuel - carbon monoxide in this case. Of course, 10 KWh wouldnt be more than about 10 hp.

But, in a desperate society, 10 hp CAN get you down the road. And you can convert essentially any hydrocarbon fuel into CO.

Who was it who said something like "I can find a hundred men who will tell me it cant be done. Give me ONE who says it can."

I said that - a couple times. But maybe somebody famous said it too. But that reminds me of a sci-fi story I read years ago, about removing shackles from the mind. The head of an defense industry engineering crew wanted his guys to come up with an anti-gravity device for a vehicle. Of course they told him it was impossible. So the guy had a film fabricated. The film was purported to be top secret and showed such a vehicle being tested by the Soviets. So it wasn't impossible. His crew had a prototype running in 6 months. Yeah, just a sci-fi story, but it did tell a truth of sorts.

--Vic

Agreed. I don't think anyone is actually saying "the electric car is impossible" JRP's inferences notwithstanding.

What we *are* saying is that the electric cars either can't compete with gasoline engined cars on range or ease of "refueling" *or* if they can, they don't much resemble "cars" as we know them - think more like motorized bikes with fairings. Which, if the fecal matter hits the ventilator, we may end up "driving." But so long as gasoline or Diesel is as cheap as it is, we won't see that without a technological breakthrough that allows electrics to be more like "cars" as we understand the term. The same obviously goes for other technologies like the fuel cell you mention. I really WANT to see these work, but I'm realistic enough to understand that there's a lot more work to be done before we can call them commercially viable.

nate

It's pretty well documented.

SUCH AS:

"The film also showed that the company who had supplied batteries for EV-1 had been suppressed from announcing the improved batteries that can double the range of EV-1, and General Motors had sold the supplier's majority control share to an oil company. "

Oil companies Fearful of losing business to a competing technology, they supported efforts to kill the ZEV mandate. They also bought patents to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in US electric cars. The film also used the crash of oil prices in 1980s as an example of foreign governments and oil companies trying to keep customers from moving towards independence from oil."

Not to mention the demonstration in the Documentary CURRENTLY showing on HD-Net on the Eliica. Yes, I'm pretty sure.

I think this is a good thing. But then, I like driving MGs. I think more people should investigate small and light cars and that this is the way we can improve efficiency right now today with no additional research.

Right, but five of those is pretty respectable power, and not an outrageous amount of space. Problem is that CO is a pain to make and store (although the storage issue is a lot less than with hydrogen).

What we need is a fuel cell that can be run from long chain hydrocarbons like gasoline without being poisoned. That gives us a route toward electric vehicles while taking advantage of existing infrastructure.

Dunno, but he wasn't an investor, I bet.

--scott