Was anyone here aware that...

RStiefel said:
200 mpg? Surely you're joking.
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I can't say what's been done with Gasoline. I do know that if diesel is sent through a continous plazma arc, it will break the carbon chains into smaller pieces, and make it burn much more like natural gas. IE, very clean. Here, input power isn't considered cause at least for now, this is being tried to find a way to make fuel burn cleaner, not more efficient. This is more for furnace technology for homes. I wasn't made aware of the power requuired to sustain the blue arc. I have seen photos of the system in operation. They were pretty cool.

The one other poster makes a good point about the power available in batteries for RC equipment. Cars, planes, boats, etc. A person would be amazed at the amount of power these small, lightweight batteries have. Those here who are still thinking in Lead-acid terms really need to get out a little more. Yes, the early EV1 lead acid batteries failed miserably (and they knew they would).

When you go drive deck screws with a cordless drill for a few hours, and consider the amount of work being done there by that little tiny battery which is being ABUSED it's entire life, it's pretty amazing. Recharge in an hour or less, and on your way. I never notice this recharge on my electric bill either. It's not like the meter's spinning wildly.

Another thing is, a good bit of what we do in a car where we expect "performance" in our every day drive, is where a gas motor is horribly inefficient. Where an electic motor realy shines. Think about it. We don't need 300hp to cruise along at 70mph. We WANT the 300 hp to GET to 70 mph. It's 'the acceleration that people want so they can save time. Cruising is easily done with way less power. BUT, we have a gas motor now that's at it's torque peak in order to save even a little bit of fuel. It's just not efficient in doing what it needs to do. Consider this, when you look at a train, do they look like they need more cruising speed? The thing they need is more low end power at 0-10mph. How do they get that power? Do they push the train with a diesel, or do they take the diesel up to full power and then let an electric motor do the real work? Now, why do you suppose they would waste time with that electric motor if the Diesel is so much better? Doesn't it seem odd that in the train application they use an electric motor? I wonder what would happen if we had gas-electric or diesel electric cars. (Sorta like the Prius...)
 
It's done everyday

on cruise ships and our military's nuclear powered vessels. Diesel electric engines on the cruise ships and electric motors on the military vessels.
 
The technology in diesel engines......

turning traction motors(diesel-electric) is now being seriously considered for tractor-trailers, another wasteful form of commodity distribution vs. trains. However, the engines in trucks have been getting more efficient, where 5MPG used to be a dream, some are reportedly approaching 10MPG, and the horsepower for these trucks is likely to be downsized to about 200HP for city use, & about 3-500HP for Interstate haulers. And, manufacturers are now outfitting heavy transports, even fire engines, w/disc brakes. So, I guess there's hope for some REAL progress, if the large trucking companies, would address tuning & training for maximum efficiency, instead of allowing the "Bean Counters" to make all the decisions.
 
IIRR, some of the largest non nuclear explosions were of the vaporized fuel type. I have only seen them a couple times on TV. Seems as though a conventional explosion vaporizes a quantity of fuel, gasoline, diesel or whatever, then ignites this cloud of vaporized fuel. Some were so large as to be registered as earthquakes 100's of miles away. Vaporized fuels seem to have a great deal more power than just a mist. Kind of like the dust in a grain elevator exploding.
 
C'MON, we're better than this!

Do we BELIEVE in capitalism or not? If stuff works we adopt it, simple! Market forces ensure that the new tech will rise to usurp the old.....IF it proves it's worth. The reason that trains are set up the way they are is because of how they're used........no mystery there and the tech is decades old. And the idea that trucks are "another wasteful form of commodity distribution vs. trains." is simply absurd........the reason that the trucking industry killed the train industry is simple economics. Some of us DO feel that capitalism works.


and, we're NOT all Luddites here... Some of us do understand and use new tech every day, around my house we use these "super batteries" every day. I've got lots of experience with RC batteries (dozens), construction batteries (hundreds) cellphone batteries (several dozens) I know the advantages of and drawbacks of Lithium Ion VS Nickel Metal Hydride, I've got remote and induction charging setups as well as direct hookup.........I can't agree that "a person would be amazed," but I agree, batteries have gotten incrementally better. Not great, but better. Using battery operated power equipment is still less efficient than using corded equipment, this is unavoidable. It's called entropy and you can't eliminate it. TANSTAAFL.

Sure, there are always claims......."Technology Research Laboratories" is currently shopping for investors (donors? ;) ) to finance their "new tech", batteries composed mainly of "carbon and plastic" (how's THAT for a mindbendingly broad "definition"??!!!!) which "will weigh only a fraction of current badd'ries" and will "power electric cars into the next millennium".........

I say, "more power to 'em!" When the tech is HERE, I'll be standing in line with everyone else and the inventor will be wildly wealthy....automatically.

But the idea that it's "more efficient" to run 'lectric is ludicrous! 'Lectric doesn't grow on trees nor is "efficiency" to be gauged by whether or not the meter spins wildly when running a little tool. I've got a shop. Normally it doesn't get used a whole lot but when my construction jobs are slow we'll spend time down there running electrical equipment and it most certainly does show up on the bill, like several hundred dollars/mo.


It's just SOOOOO simple, invent a better mousetrap and the American public WILL beat a path to your door. I know a dozen self-made multi-millionaires who've done exactly this and nobody "bought them off"...... Several of them fly around in Lear jets.....This is what capitalism is built on.

If anyone has FACTS, I can get endless monetary backing. Let's BOTH get rich on these ideas eh??? Any takers?


BTW, the reason that "the Bean Counters make all the decisions" is because they're the smart ones, they actually understand the big picture. Bean Counters will ALWAYS rule the world in a modern capitalistic society........as they should.

Love those bean counters

:cool:


al




And I lie awake nights trying to come up with my idea........
 
Bean counters Al???? :confused::confused:

So you're saying that all things in our economy are driven by supply and demand, and if there were to be a better mousetrap, people would buy it? If there was an alternative technology, industry would accept it?

I say... no.

Here's a good bean counter example. Please explain this one to me with supply and demand.

Oil prices go sky high. Gasoline goes to >$4/gallon nationwide. Excuses for this are rampant, everything from the war, to the Arabs, to not drilling in AK, not enough refineries in the US, hell they even blamed it on buying oil for the strategic oil reserve. Yes yes, any of these things caused this.

Now along comes you Al, and you say that simple laws of supply and demand do this, and that the bean counters will set the price for what the market will bear.

Wrong again.

Here goes. Gas goes from $4/gallon to <$2/gallon due to, according to what I read or hear on the news, "falloff in demand". The falloff as best I can tell is less than 2%, and only happened 2 months ago for a one month period. Now, let's say your a capitolist type and you sell beers. You sell 100 beers a day, and you go from pricing them at $2 each to now you get $4 each for them. Because of your "price gouging", demand falls off "steeply". Hell, now you're selling 98 beers a day. That's more falloff than (Reportedly) there was gasoline sales falloff due to the price of gas.

So, you in your infinite bean counter wisdom, want to sell more beer. So, you drop the price of your beer from $4 each to $2 each. And whalla, you now sell your 100 beers a day again. BTW, gas is under $2 right now.

Let me add this up.

4x 98 =392.
2x100=200.

Hmmm, now, For what would seem to be damn near the same amount of gasoline, they can get nearly twice the money, and it has been proven to be so.

So, please tell me how market philosophy explains the DRAMATIC drop in gas prices?

I have my own ideas of why this has happened, and it ain't got a damn thing to do with supply and demand for oil.

What is your explaination for gas prices doing what they've done. Please don't use anything except supply, demand and good business sence in explaining. This I have to hear.
 
wow, just wow.....

for one thing, there was no "DRAMATIC drop in gas prices".......

There was a dramatic SPIKE in fuel prices which lasted until the market began to reassert itself. BTW, gas should be at about 1.65/gallon freemarket.

Back to my original question..... "Do we BELIEVE in capitalism or not?" ....... it looks as though at least one of "we" don't ;)

There are more forces driving capitalism than supply and demand. Speculation is one of them. Speculation is what juddered the fuel market. Happens all the time. Hang around the timber/lumber market for a while.

Of course it's easier to blame some cabal of mysterious evil genii bent on world domination, a "New World Order"....... :D

MASONSmasonsMAsonss.......ILLUminuminuminatiiiiiiii.......

:p

al
 
4Mesh said:
GM in the 90's built an electric car that worked?

I was not.

This thing was much more affordable than the current vehicles we drive today.

Could be charged 85% in 1 hour. (From a 110 outlet)

Had batteries that outlived the vehicle.

Did 0-60 in 3.8 seconds!

Had virtually no parts which required maintenance.

Had a range of > 100 miles (some later versions over 200 miles) per charge.

Even powered by coal fired electric plants, made 60% less emissions than current equivalant cars.

Oh, and they could make electric versions of all sorts of vehicles, not just little tiny matchboxes.

Look on Netflix for "Who Killed The Electric Car". It's a great documentary. Not only GM, but Honda, Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, all the big names, not only removed these cars from service, but shredded them to make certain there was no trace they existed.

I drive 11 miles to work each day and I think I could drive one of these! Especially one that would 0-60 as fast or faster than most Vettes!

Oh, and the battery technology rights were bought by.... none other than, Chevron...
Click to expand...

I got to drive one of these in the Lansing Plant parking lot. It had ZIP!

The life span and cost to replace the batteries, also killed the project, $7000 or more...........at 1990 prices.

Nice looking car.............
 
AVanGorder said:
Back around 1984, a friend of mine had a Chevy Sprint (or something like that) that got 52 miles to the gallon while driving on the freeway. If I remember correctly, the car was made by Suzuki. It was small and didn't have much power, it was a three cylinder. What is the best mileage car today?
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I believe the spinoff of that car or maybe the Sprint was the spinoff of the Geo Metro. 3 Cyl and 50 MPG but I would sure not want to be hit broadside by a Suburban :D

The fact is, we get penalized by having more fuel efficient vehicles, ie, diesels. Europe is the other way, diesel is cheaper..much cheaper than gasoline...just another way for the greedy people to get richer.

You produce a more efficient vehicle so in rewards...crank up the price of the needed fuel so the consumer can still shell out more $$$, so where is the savings.

We make a big issue out of SUV owners that gobble up gas but if you go for a higher MPG diesel, net result is the same thinner wallet so who's to really blame here....without getting political :)
 
Energy is not "Free"

It still takes a certain amount of energy to move a certain size object a certain distance in a certain amount of time. (too many "certains" in there):D.

Regardless of the mode of power, the energy has to be produced somewhere. A car that burns fosil fuel gets the energy on site, out of it's own tank. The electric car gets the ennergy (that is stored in the batterries), from a remote power plant. That power plant is either burning Fosil Fuel, is Hydro-Electric, Wind Powered, or is Nuclear Powered.

The big advantage to the off site source is you can centralize the operation, and have very strict controles over the entire operation, from efficiency to emmission controles. There is something to be said for this.

Of course,the down side, at this time, is the cost of batteries, their limited capability for storing their energy, and the fact that Americans like big vehicles. Picture a 300 HP electric Motor, and the battery pack it would take to power it.

That, and if the entire Country went electric at once, the Power Grid would be totally overloaded. Heck, we have "brown-outs" in major areas now at peak load times. Amagine charging all of those cars every night!! I can't amagine how many new power plants will have to be built. What are they going to use to produce the energy???

We have a big Pilot Truck Stop just up the freeway. Regular Unleaded was $1.55 yesteday. When is the last time you saw that.

I really do not have a clue as to what is going on with the price of energy. I have a feeling that speculators have some play in this, I am not sure anybody really knows what is going on.

It is like the economy. If it were not for the news media, I would have no idea that things are as "bad" as they are. I guess it just has not hit our particular industry as of yet.

On eother thought. When gasoline went over $4 a gallon, it was "Bushes Fault". Why is it that now it is under $2, President Bush does not get the credit.

I guess for the same reason he will never get the credit for keeping us protected for the past years after 9-11:rolleyes:........jackie
 
Guy Pike,
I hate to bust your bubble on VW gas vapor heaters. They had an electric fuel pump, spark plug, combustion chamber. It burned the gas coming out of a carb type jet. Stewart Warner made the ones in the states and Eberspracher was the factory installed. I lived several years in Alaska and worked on VW and Porsche.
Al, in cold weather we had to put a pan of burning charcoal under the oil sumps inorder that it would warm it enough to do an oil change. You could pull the drain plug and the oil would not come out. Synthetic oil was the secret.
Butch
 
Butch you're right on this one.

I have 4 Stewart Warner systems. NOS
 
jackie schmidt said:
It still takes a certain amount of energy to move a certain size object a certain distance in a certain amount of time. (too many "certains" in there):D.

Regardless of the mode of power, the energy has to be produced somewhere. A car that burns fosil fuel gets the energy on site, out of it's own tank. The electric car gets the ennergy (that is stored in the batterries), from a remote power plant. That power plant is either burning Fosil Fuel, is Hydro-Electric, Wind Powered, or is Nuclear Powered.

The big advantage to the off site source is you can centralize the operation, and have very strict controles over the entire operation, from efficiency to emmission controles. There is something to be said for this.

Of course,the down side, at this time, is the cost of batteries, their limited capability for storing their energy, and the fact that Americans like big
vehicles. Picture a 300 HP electric Motor, and the battery pack it would take to power it.

That, and if the entire Country went electric at once, the Power Grid would be totally overloaded. Heck, we have "brown-outs" in major areas now at peak load times. Amagine charging all of those cars every night!! I can't amagine how many new power plants will have to be built. What are they going to use to produce the energy???

We have a big Pilot Truck Stop just up the freeway. Regular Unleaded was $1.55 yesteday. When is the last time you saw that.

I really do not have a clue as to what is going on with the price of energy. I have a feeling that speculators have some play in this, I am not sure anybody really knows what is going on.

It is like the economy. If it were not for the news media, I would have no idea that things are as "bad" as they are. I guess it just has not hit our particular industry as of yet.

On eother thought. When gasoline went over $4 a gallon, it was "Bushes Fault". Why is it that now it is under $2, President Bush does not get the credit.

I guess for the same reason he will never get the credit for keeping us protected for the past years after 9-11:rolleyes:........jackie
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Without being political, the answer is simple. Better then the majority of the mainstream media includung NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS & CNN are part of the Democratic party. In essence they are the propoganda machine delivering
everything the public needs to hear in order to hate the Republicans and sell the Dems. and their wonderful programs. Heck, why do you think you don't hear about Iraq anymore, it's going too well. God forbid the media should acknowledge it.
Happy Thanksgiving
vinny
 
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Burst bubble

Butch, no bubble burst! Educational info merely redefines the bubble and re-enforces it's tensile strength. Thanks for the real deal info. The VW however it happened, did burn up at the gas pump. Happy Turkey Day!
 
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BruceS said:
I got to drive one of these in the Lansing Plant parking lot. It had ZIP!

The life span and cost to replace the batteries, also killed the project, $7000 or more...........at 1990 prices.

Nice looking car.............
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Bruce,
Did you drive the Lead Acid early version, or the later one after they canned the Lead acid batteries? Even at 7K, if the vehicle has a zillion less parts than the ones we currently drive, and comes with any sort of warranty, It's not significanly more than replacing an engine today. How much of that cost is labor? Vs, getting an engine installed. I'm sure they quoted prices at prevailing wage doing the job. That seems to have been the way the marketing went for these. I find it amazing that I never saw an ad for one. Kinda like they didn't want to sell them.

It still takes a certain amount of energy to move a certain size object a certain distance in a certain amount of time. (too many "certains" in there).

Regardless of the mode of power, the energy has to be produced somewhere. A car that burns fosil fuel gets the energy on site, out of it's own tank. The electric car gets the ennergy (that is stored in the batterries), from a remote power plant. That power plant is either burning Fosil Fuel, is Hydro-Electric, Wind Powered, or is Nuclear Powered.
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Jackie,

One thing to think about when considering the diff between fossil fuel vehicles and electric is, 75% of the energy produced by a gallon of gas in a recip engine is HEAT, not motion. The vast majority of the power goes out the pipe or radiator. You could easily heat your house with the power lost from your car. And, in a year, mine uses more fuel than does my house (I bet quite a bit more than yours! hehe)

It's that lack of efficiency that would allow the electric vehicle to have it's advantage. Now, when you take fossil fuel and USE the heat it generates in order to make power, now you actually use more of the energy and it's more efficient.

The centralization of power production would be probably one of the biggest benefits of plug in electric vehicles. That would be interesting.

We know there's not going to be a huge rush to change out every vehicle in the world. Overworking the power grid simply is not an issue. Look on the road today and you see vehicles from the 50's and 60's driving around. I even see ones from the 20's and 30's on a very regular basis around here. Furthermore, I'd bet that most people who would buy and electric would also own a gas vehicle. I own 3 now. Realistically, only one would be replaceable with an electric and I understand this.

It is like the economy. If it were not for the news media, I would have no idea that things are as "bad" as they are. I guess it just has not hit our particular industry as of yet.

On other thought. When gasoline went over $4 a gallon, it was "Bushes Fault". Why is it that now it is under $2, President Bush does not get the credit.
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You said a HUGE MOUTHFULL right there. All I read or see in the news is how Retail is tanked, and all that crap. Yea, well, I don't know anyone who's doing any less xmas shopping or skimping on Thanksgiving dinner. I wonder what the national opinion would be if we were told the economy was booming? Joseph Goebbels wasn't any better at propoganda than our news media.

Al, there is no doubt one of us doesn't fully subscribe to your version of market philosophy. The reason is one of us tends to not believe everything they see on the news. I can't go into politics so I'll just avoid my next thought.

If you didn't think this was a dramatic drop in price, wth was it? Now don't give me free market anything... If I have widgets that I sell for $4, and the market shows that there is not one lick of falloff in sales, why in hell would I drop my price? Cause I'm a nice guy? No! Business is business. You work in construction I believe, right? Well, if you could charge $2000 / hour for your time, and customers would gladly pay it, HOW MUCH WOULD YOU CHARGE? Well, gee, I'm Al and I'm a nice guy so I'd only charge $1800/hour! Lol. See, that's free market philosophy.

I have to laugh. Your wonderful bean counters sorta didn't notice that the speculation was incorrect and that they were SWIMMING in money making a trillion a quarter and well, ya know, we just didn't have an up to date P&L so we kept on charging $4/gal for gas. :D:D

If you think for one second that the market drove that price up >100%, and then back down >50%, good lord....

Folks, electric efficiency comes from it's ratio of power input vs output. When you go to buy a light bulb, which one is the more efficient? The one that get's hot, or the one that does not? Yes, an electric motor will get warm. After hours of use at full rated capacity. No, it is not 100% efficient. But it makes a Damn site less heat from electricity than does a gas motor from gas. I'll confess that in winter, this might not feel like a "feature"!

Consider an incandescent bulb to be a gas car. And a flourescent to be electric car. Very similar beasts. One makes a hell of a lot of heat with its power supply, the other makes virtually none. One costs vastly less to run and also lasts longer, the other costs a lot to run and fails rather often due to its production of heat.

Go buy a case and power supply for your computer on NewEgg. Look at the ones that come with a power supply rated at 500 watts. Now look at an OCZ GameStream power supply that costs quite a lot more but says it's >83% efficient. In a high end system, that OCZ power supply will cut more dollars off your electric bill than will turning off your air conditioning in summer. Yes, it costs easily $80 more. It's made up for many times over. What does efficiency in a Power supply mean to us? To me it means I don't have to run the air conditioning in summer to cool the house cause the computer doubles as a space heater. It's all the same thing as the plugin electric car.
 
It really does not make any difference who bought the tech. as Dennis has stated the battery technology has evolved exponentially. Nobody ever heard of Lithium battery technology back then. No compay wanted to base much on a system that would be outdated almost immediatly. Only now might this now be practical with battery weight dropping and energy content rising.
Think of it in cell phone terms. Most of these small powerfull devices are made so as much by battery advance as anything. I fly some electric RC stuff. Back then it was based on heavy low power NiCad's, then better power but heavy Ni metal hydride's. We now have lithium hydyride-lithium polymer units that will power units 5-10 times longer at 1/8th the weight. You would be simply amazed at seeing a scale RC stunt plane with an 8 foot wing span powered by multiple coreless motors doing a routine including "hanging' from it's prop with it's rudder 3" off the ground going back and forth all the while spinning.
 
4Mesh said:
If you didn't think this was a dramatic drop in price, wth was it? Now don't give me free market anything... If I have widgets that I sell for $4, and the market shows that there is not one lick of falloff in sales, why in hell would I drop my price? Cause I'm a nice guy? No! Business is business.
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There's a HUGE difference in whether or not people will just keep buying iPod's at the prices they are as to having to drive to work everyday.

I definately agree with alot that you have said....but the fact of the matter is, you cannot purchase gas with no $$$.

I can bet on the fact when the price of gas rose to $2, people were getting frustrated, $3 and people were really frustrated. At $4/gal +, the economy was taking a major hit, especially the retailers..heck, what used to be a $300 fillup for tractor trailers is now $1000.

The whole talk back when the prices were steadily climbing was "you're gonna pay it whatever it is cuz ya gotta drive."

Let's take a 20 MPG vehicle at 15 gal per fillup, 2002 it was $15 and some change, then it was $65, big difference and you don't see the effects right away. What about parents that bought their homes 50 miles or more from work since in a non-greedy economy, houses rise 8% per year, inflation about 5% but right away, homes went up 200% and fuel went up 400%...how do you prepare for that after you have already purchased your home, got settled in and you factored driving costs into that?

Alot of families have Tahoe's or Expeditions or the likes, no big deal since a 23 gal fillup was about $25, now it's $100, 4 or more times a month and that's a vehicle payment folks and with daycare expenses who is going for that kind of monthly payment? Well, ya have to drive so it steadily comes out of the checking, then the savings, then when your bank statements start apperaring dismal, then you stop going to the stores.

There are other families that were spending much, much more than that on fuel, some have the $$, some don't. Now with the fact alot of families have dwindled their savings to purchase fuel, they are probably scared stiff and have seen the light and aren't going to be ready to head for the stores....what if or "when" will fuel go back up...gotta save for that.

We did this to ourselves, I switched from my SUV as a daily driver to my first car 90 Grand Am when the fuel was high so it' didn't hit us but for others monthly fuel was higher than the vehicle payment...damage has been done.

Prime example of "Free Market", take it to an extreme and this is what happens. Problem is, it was done with a major staple and was not even needed, no rhyme or reason to jump the prices like they did...they wouldn't have been selling for $1.05 back in 2002 if they were'nt making a profit.
 
4Mesh said:
Bruce,
Did you drive the Lead Acid early version, or the later one after they canned the Lead acid batteries? Even at 7K, if the vehicle has a zillion less parts than the ones we currently drive, and comes with any sort of warranty, It's not significanly more than replacing an engine today. How much of that cost is labor? Vs, getting an engine installed. I'm sure they quoted prices at prevailing wage doing the job. That seems to have been the way the marketing went for these. I find it amazing that I never saw an ad for one. Kinda like they didn't want to sell them.
Click to expand...

It was the later version.

I didn't get to drive it very far, but it sure had throttle response!
 
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