After talking to SA residents ....you don't need rocket science to figure out that the Royal Family pretty much owns SA . I can remember a time at Love Field a Saudi student at the school, I was attending. Looking in amazement at the sky.Only Royals can have private aircraft or even licenses in SA according to him and similar info on other things we take for granted in the US. He later showed up on FBI posters with three other friends from the same school ,but then that is a another story.
What are "royals" other than rich familes that have gotten away with robbing the rest of the population for a few generations ?
The cost of electricity obviously is less per mile than gasoline here, hybrid or not (6 cents).
If hybrids would have been phased in beginning in 1974, things would be a lot better now, but by the time the change is made, battery and ultracapacitor, fuel cells, and flow battery technology may have progressed to the point that the ICE is gone.
After reading too many Road and Track rags, sure, but I am tired of the things, I don't need the ability to turn at 5500 RPM to accelerate.
New from the factory, maybe, but check back after 50,000 miles.
Not dependable breaking friction, even with all the idle speed recovery vacuum solenoids and electronics, stalls are bad in traffic.
Without A/C.
I was a dealer mechanic, and even new engines well broken in would best be set higher, the test was not the tachometer, it was the match of the transmission and the engine to not try to pull too hard waiting for a light in gear, yet not stalling.
If all autos were hybrid, I would not be writing this, but they are not, and there doesn't even seem to be any real hurry to make the change. I just junked a 5.0L 1988 d'elegance, because the engine was such a dog, the carb was a monstrosity of confused engineering of vacuum hose and two electrical connections of 3 or 4 wires each.
I want an electric car so bad, quite, no stinky fuel, less grease and grime, and they have to be easier to work on.
Joe Fischer
Battery technology and electronic controls have come a long way since
1974. Hybrids weren't practical then.
It's called "reserve power" and it can save your butt in a sticky situation. This is not a downside to either ICE or electric though, an electric can move just as smartly, it just doesn't have the same range.
True, but there's nothing keeping even an old engine if well maintained from idling at factory spec. Usually if it won't, the remedy is a proper carb rebuild (including rebushing the throttle shafts, which a lot of "rebuilders" don't do. To get a proper rebuild, you generally have to send your carb away to a specialty carb shop, not have your local mechanic throw a jiffy kit in it or buy a "reman" from your FLAPS) and then everything is back to normal.
There's a solution to that problem, it's called a "manual transmission." Even so, if an engine is pulling against the brakes at a stop light, the idle speed is set too high and needs to be lowered. If it can't be set that way, there is a problem with the engine management, or else the torque converter is too tight.
Sure, as long as you don't ever travel more than 100 miles away from home and don't mind letting the car recharge overnight after each medium-long trip. And that is perfectly practical for *some* people and I imagine that as the price of gasoline goes up, we may see more and more mainstream pure electric vehicles.
nate
Well, Nate, what your going to get in the future with transportation is something along the following:
As fuel prices continue to rise, people are going to turn to the cheaper solutions.
First, they are going to move to where they work. Second they are going to start shopping close to home. Third they are going to take vacations closer.
Then when prices continue to rise they are going to start getting on mass transit. Then they are going to push the government into subsidizing mass transit more and more. Your going to see more and more rail built. More and more bus traffic.
As for the problems of hydrogen and batteries and all that, it's immaterial. All of these problems are the result of designing transportation that has an -independent- and -mobile- fuel supply.
Rail has no such limitations. You can design a cross-country "bullet train" that runs on electrical power, and goes 200Mph and the power is supplied by transmission lines that go 500 miles across country to the coal-fired power plant and are coupled to the train engine by contacts, just like a subway train today.
Sure, that will make taking a trip across country take 4 times longer than a plane ride.
But when fuel prices push the cost of the plane ride to 15 times the cost, everyone will get on the train except for some select few.
The losers in all of this are going to be the rural people. What your going to end up seeing is all of the small towns that can't afford to put in mass transit will dry up and disappear. People are going to end up in mega-cities because it will be cheaper to live close together. The only folks left out in the rural areas will be the real commercial farmers. And they will be producing thier own liquid fuel, alcohol.
Most long haul freight will end up on rail
Most short-haul freight distribution will be biodiesel-powered.
Electrical generation capacity will vastly increase. It will either be wind generation or nuclear.
What people always overlook in these discussions is that since it's going to be impossible to get cheap energy out of nothing, society will change.
150 years ago, there were no personal autos. Society worked out quite well without them. When personal autos came in, society radically adapted and changed from the form that it WAS in, to the form that it IS in today. When the personal autos go the way of the dinosaur, society will change to a new form THEN that is different than what we have NOW.Someone from the 1800's, adapted to that society, couldn't possibly conceive of our society now. And if he could, he very likely would dislike it very much.
Someone from today, adapted to today's society, cannot really conceive of society in the future. And if he could, he is most likely going to dislike it.
Do I like thinking that one day, I might have to give up my cars and motorcycles and be dependent on mass-transit? Fuck no. But, my children's, children, who will be raised from infancy in a world without personal transportation, won't see their society as wrong. Most likely, they will read in the history books and be mystifyed about why people made such a big deal about cars.
Today, we tie in personal transportation to this notion of personal freedom. Without personal transportation, we feel like we are in jail, trapped.
But I ask you - does a 15 year old in the middle of New York City, who has no drivers license, but has a subway pass, have any less freedom than an adult in the same city, who has a drivers license and a car? Well, I've been in NYC and I can assure you, he doesen't. He can go anywhere that anyone would want to go in a car, on rail and on his feet. It just takes a little longer.
Ted
"Ted Mittelstaedt" schrieb
Make that 'twice as long': Paris - London by train is 2:30h, by air it's 1:15h, for example But: Train is city centre to city centre, so you have to add the time to get from Paris to Charles de Gaulle and from Heathrow to London. min. 1 hour each, in rush hour traffic? Makes the train twice as fast, and you can arrive at the station 2 minutes before the train leaves. Try that with a plane
It doesn't hurt, you know? For the very rare occasions where I do need a car: There are plenty of firms around which have so many of them that they even rent them out: Hertz, Sixt, Alamo... You name them. ...and you'll never have to worry about maintenance, repairs; even cleaning your car is a thing of the past. I've given up owning a car 15 years ago: It feels strange at first but I wouldn't want one now even if you gave it to me!
That's what I am indeed: Mystified! What's all the fuss about?
Are you sure about that "takes a little longer" bit? ;-)
Jochen
No way. I'm holding out for a Ford Nucleon.
--scott
As a working EE, I would put my money on the ICE being around for another 100 years. Not necessarily in standalone shaft-to-the-wheels form as it has been, but it'll be around. You go ahead and bet on mythical technology if you want, but I'll bet on those technologies serving as aids to an ICE-core powerplant.
Exactly why a big V8 makes me smile. They accelerate like a bat out of hell at low RPM. Its all the buzzing little Honda 4-poopers that have to rev to 8000 to get moving.
My friend, there are THOUSANDS of 5.7s out there with well over 50k on the clock. Still idling at 400-500.
I cannot remember the last time I had a car "stall in traffic." Or stall ANYWHERE for that matter, unless I was a goob and dumped the clutch too quickly. Stalling cars are a thing of the past. And since when do cars have "idle speed recovery vacuum solenoids?!?" About 1975???
Yeah, just a few hundred pounds of heavy metals and corrosive electrolytes. Oh, and increase power grid capacity by 200% to charge everyones electric car. Oh, and all the safeties that have to be built into large battery packs to prevent cell reversals and other "rapid disassembly with report and heat" events in NORMAL operations, let alone what happens in a collision. No big deal at all. :-/
IOW, quality of life will go to hell and people will be forced back to either living in stinking high-rise cities ala 1900 New York, or back to the farms. I'll take the farm, thankyouverymuch!
The problem isn't energy, its population.
It's so damn inelegant, but so much engineering effort has been put into making it as good as an inelegant design can be, that I rather agree with you. It's a shame, though. The whole idea of slapping big pieces of metal back and forth in a reciprocating arrangement is just so silly, though. But there are so many of them, they are everywhere, they are cheap to make and the efficiency is amazingly good considering what they are.
--scott
Personally, as a working civil engineer, I would expect that the PHEVs will become popular, they get all the advantages of the pure EVs AND all the advantages of the ICE. I would also be kind of surprised if something similar to a combined cycle power plant isn't scaled down for them, possibly the "6 stroke" engine might be viable for phevs. BMW has a 2 stage steam heat recovery system in the works.
Of course there were, they either had four legs or had something with four legs in front.
Why do you think the highway in front of my house was built before 1800?
Joe Fischer
You think that single houses are rare in Europe ?
Whatever next !
Graham
rare, no. however, in the us, single family homes represent 75% of the total dwelling units vs 50% in europe, the average home is 2 rooms larger and has an average of 1 fewer person living there. Additionally, a higher percentage of the SFHs in europe are attached townhouse type units than here, and of the single family detatched units, a VASTLY higher percentage sit on lots that are less than half the size compared to the high energy countries (US, Canada, Australia). 5 minutes with google earth is more than enough to see the differences between european and us land uses. Europe has compact dense cities, america, australia and canada have large sprawled cities. that has more to do with property values than anything else.
Sharing big houses seems like a good idea when the going gets rough, but the partners need to be normal trustworthy people. :-)
In Shaker Heights, Ohio there are thousands of big homes, rather mansions, 20 rooms or more, all built by millionaires in the first half of the 20th century or earlier, most brick, covered with ivy, and a lot of them were converted to apartments beginning in the 1960s.
What else to do when the cost of space heating goes way up?
Joe Fischer
Oh, some day our level of technology may be such that some guy (though he may not quite be human) will remark that slamming hydrogen atoms together to get energy and helium is "inelegant." But the stars will continue burn by fusion despite its "inelegance." :-)
And its not for lack of TRYING to replace reciprocating engines. The wankel was a bust for all practical purposes. The gas turbine doesn't scale down to automobile sizes well.
But I would argue that the small community of single-family dwellings model is how humans are WIRED to live. Urban hives are an aberration, as the crime rate proves. One plague or natural disaster will wipe a big city out. Putting all your eggs in one basket is an evolutionary dead-end.
there is more than one city :) I can't really debate that cities run somewhat counter to how humans are wired to best enjoy life, having tried both lifestyles. however, the normal response for people in the city is to make a small group of close friends. that seems to work pretty well. High crime rates are a separate issue, mostly relating to cultural issues in the us and a few other countries. MANY countries have highly urbanized living conditions and remarkably low crime rates. Again, it's a bit of a frontier thing, americans are kind of a rebel culture prone to glorifying crime.
If not, the oil companies will need to make some major decisions.
The big change will happen in two or three years, but because of the large number of existing vehicles, and the relatively small percentage of people who have the ability to buy a new car at any time, the gross effect will be slow.
There is a lot of secrecy in some of the super- battery type devices, so it is difficult to tell if some of them are mistaken or have hidden problems. But I would bet at least 2 or 3 offer some real improvement, and only a 2 or 3 fold improvement over the lead-acid battery is needed if the price is right and the number of cycles is several thousand.
Did you say EE? :-) A 2500 HP dragline motor with precise speed control with Silicone Controlled Rectifiers running directly off a high voltage AC line makes me smile.
Not at what I call low RPM. Maybe my car is too heavy. :-)
I have never seen a V8 that ran as good as the 1939 Buick straight eight that I overhauled in
1949, I had to fit the rod bearings (they were not able to make ready to use rod bearings until the mid or late 1950s), and that made a big difference, it had double the torque of a V8 at anything lower than 1500 RPM.Not in my world if they have A/C. The number of accessories really do make a difference though, and the big improvement is fuel injection. Just the fact that the carb cars are now being scrapped will make a big difference in average mileage, and should begin to show up in total energy usage. I can't wait for warm weather so I can get one of my 1982 fuel injected cars ready for the street to replace the 5.0 L 1988 carb junk I just sold for scrap.
Then you must be driving fuel injection.
How else would a carb engine recover?
Or maybe even a couple of thousand pounds, still about the same as my big V8, the transmission, the exhaust, a full 22 gallon tank, the radiator, and maybe the differential.
Continuing education is helpful to understand things like using present capacity at time of day. :-)
The first vehicles I worked on as a mechanic were electric delivery trucks, and I may try to get a job as an EV mechanic. :-)
Change the thread name to electrolytes. :-)
Joe Fischer
Humans are supposedly 'wired' to co-exist best in groups of 7-12 and villages of
60-100.Graham
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