Wind-powered vehicle reaches 126mph

[Mental]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/04/08/lan ... index.html

Now tell me again why we can't get off our ass to make more renewable-energy vehicles?

[Chris]

because I had sex with a hamburger

[Blotus]

because I had sex with a hamburger

Time for new material, Hans.



It's pretty simple: oil companies won't allow it. The electric car says hi.

[Imakeholesinu]

A car that can be run off of my farts would be a good idea. Does that count as wind power?

[Zeus]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/04/08/lan ... index.html

Now tell me again why we can't get off our ass to make more renewable-energy vehicles?

Electric cars have been around since the beginning of the last century and we still don't have a production one. Explain that one.....

Actually, it's a pretty simple explanation: you remove the internal combustion engine and replace it with a hydrogen cell or electric engine and you remove the vast majority of the moving parts not to mention most of the grease and oil. This means there's less wear and tear which, in turn, means there's far less maintenance required on your vehicle. And trust me on this one, the most important revenue stream for the car companies is the maintenance of your vehicle. You remove 80% of the requirement and they're fucked.

It actually has nothing to do with the oil companies, that's the red herring.

[Mental]

And trust me on this one, the most important revenue stream for the car companies is the maintenance of your vehicle. You remove 80% of the requirement and they're fucked.

They're fucked anyway, Zeus, at least the American ones are. GM and Chrysler in particular are corpses that the CEOs keep putting bailout lipstick on. They'll never, ever make it to the end of the year as it is. What better time to scrap a lot of it and repurpose the factories to something better?

[Zeus]

And trust me on this one, the most important revenue stream for the car companies is the maintenance of your vehicle. You remove 80% of the requirement and they're fucked.

They're fucked anyway, Zeus, at least the American ones are. GM and Chrysler in particular are corpses that the CEOs keep putting bailout lipstick on. They'll never, ever make it to the end of the year as it is. What better time to scrap a lot of it and repurpose the factories to something better?

Maybe they will completely revamp their business model but I severely doubt it. And unless you can find maintenance in these new vehicles that even remotely equals that of older cars (minus stuff like suspension, tires, and brakes), they'll still stunt the development of these types of cars like they have for 30+ years

[Tessian]

you guys know this is nothing more than a proof of concept car, right? Does ANYONE want to drive a SAILBOAT made out of fiber glass on the highway?

It's cool technology but it's not something that can really see mass production. I'm not arguing that we obviously need cars running on renewable energies... but wind power? Comeon now, there's a big difference between breaking speed records and being viable on the road

[Mental]

you guys know this is nothing more than a proof of concept car, right? Does ANYONE want to drive a SAILBOAT made out of fiber glass on the highway?

It's cool technology but it's not something that can really see mass production. I'm not arguing that we obviously need cars running on renewable energies... but wind power? Comeon now, there's a big difference between breaking speed records and being viable on the road

Have you ever lived in a rural area with high winds? No, it's not going to be the primary fuel source, but it could easily provide supplemental power in that kind of area, or for other vehicles (tractors/manufacturing plant transport/etc) in high-wind zones. And before you laugh at the idea that wind could move a tractor, bear in mind there's actually a place in Death Valley where, when it rains, the winds there are actually strong enough WITHOUT technological help to blow 300-pound rocks right across the desert.

Of course it's a concept - that's why you build concepts, so that you have ideas and research for what to put on production models. Also, you'll note that I didn't say "wind power" specifically - the point was, if someone can do this with wind, which is one of the weaker energy sources in terms of being able to power something like a car, think of the possibilities in solar power for cars in the Southwest, and similar.

I personally don't understand why there isn't more "rain power". You can rig a turbine up to a machine designed to catch rainfall so easily that it seems like a no-brainer to me.

[Mental]

Maybe they will completely revamp their business model but I severely doubt it. And unless you can find maintenance in these new vehicles that even remotely equals that of older cars (minus stuff like suspension, tires, and brakes), they'll still stunt the development of these types of cars like they have for 30+ years

No, they won't, at least GM and Chrysler won't. They either WILL NOT EXIST past the end of this year, or they will have passed into the effective hands of the taxpayers and will be getting run by Obama appointees, who are itching to retrain a lot of the unemployed into green jobs anyway. That is how bad the auto industry financial crisis is. The banking crisis is getting pretty close to over, but the U.S. auto industry is still screwed. And the Obama administration is not going to want to watch near the entire Northern Midwest dissolve into Depression-era poverty when it collapses (that's how big a part the auto industry is of the overall economy in Michigan and some surrounding states). I bet we'll actually start seeing progress on the greencar by next year.

[Mental]

because I had sex with a hamburger

Good good. It ate you, so now you can eat it. Get praying mantis on that bitch. Stop threaddiddling! Unless your hamburger can power something other than your mitochondria and your flatulence.

[SineSwiper]

Actually, it's a pretty simple explanation: you remove the internal combustion engine and replace it with a hydrogen cell or electric engine and you remove the vast majority of the moving parts not to mention most of the grease and oil. This means there's less wear and tear which, in turn, means there's far less maintenance required on your vehicle. And trust me on this one, the most important revenue stream for the car companies is the maintenance of your vehicle. You remove 80% of the requirement and they're fucked.

It actually has nothing to do with the oil companies, that's the red herring.

In 2001, that was a plausible explanation, and well, something that already played out. (Just look in the Nevada desert and see all of the crushed electric cars.)

However, decisions like that cannot be long-term. The US companies are running on borrowed time (literally) because of their choices in the matter, and now, not only is it profitable to invest in electric car technologies, it's a matter of survival to the US car companies.

Chevy is practically breaking their neck running towards re-introducing the Volt. Other companies will follow suit into digging up those cars in the Nevada desert and reselling them.

[Zeus]

Sine, electric cars have been a viable alternative since the beginning of the industry. And you're trying to tell me that they're "running towards" reintroducing them? No, man, they've spent the better part of half a century putting down these alternative-fuel vehicles, delaying the inevitable as long as possible. The sole reason they're "running towards" it is because they have to. They need to beat Toyota and Honda to the punch for electric-then-gas cars (that's the kicker; they're not even full electric cars; they only go so far then they kick into the gas engine) since they were pwned on the hybrids.

It's a survival thing now but doesn't discount the fact that the technology has been there since before the advent of the lithium-ion battery which has completely changed the business model of the electric car. GM should be so far ahead of the curve right now it's not funny but their short-sightedness has put them behind their competitors.

[Mental]

I do not think they will win. I'd write Detroit asking it to beg Obama for a technology-sharing agreement with Japanese car companies, but I don't know that I feel like anyone would listen or care. GM and Chrysler are on life-support as it is and they're years behind making real 21st-century vehicles.

The populace doesn't have clean hands either. I spent most of 2001-2004 going "why are people buying monster trucks and SUVs and Hummers that get 12mpg? can these people see or understand where the world is headed? does every large four-wheeled vehicles come with a set of temporal blinders?"

It would be tempting to just blame Bush for signing executive orders repealing individual states' emission standards - and I'm rather pissed at him still for that for messing with California like that, between him and the Mormons, I find myself in a militant "get the fuck out of my state" mode for the first time in my life. We are not a terribly angry state in general but some people are taking the exercise of executive and religious power WAY too far. But that's another story, and really where I was going was that you CAN'T blame Bush, because half the damn country went happily along with this "buy huge cars, America is wonderful, I don't understand the future" fantasy that swept up the country for about the last eight years. I really still wish someone would explain that one to me.

I mean, I feel like the media these days is over-hysterical for no reason, and I'm finding myself starting to return to this peaceful place I was in in the mid-1990s where I really felt like the world was humming along well and that there wasn't something new every other minute to be worried about. But there are times when I look back at that period and go "How did this happen? How on Earth could people justify buying those huge-ass cars when it's getting obvious to everyone that the oil is starting to run out?

I miss 1996. 1997-1998 was just about the time I almost felt like I started to "feel" a shift in the air, or the national mood or something that signalled that people were about to get greedy and ugly. The music changed, the attitudes changed...it really kind of felt like all of a sudden, for whatever reason, that's when America decided that people were going to be out for themselves. Maybe I'm making it up, but that was about when "bling bling" came into culture and fashion as a term, and it seemed like for the last ten years that's the only thing that was on everyone's minds (or almost everyone, while a few people just watched on in horror).

[SineSwiper]

Sine, electric cars have been a viable alternative since the beginning of the industry. And you're trying to tell me that they're "running towards" reintroducing them? No, man, they've spent the better part of half a century putting down these alternative-fuel vehicles, delaying the inevitable as long as possible. The sole reason they're "running towards" it is because they have to. They need to beat Toyota and Honda to the punch for electric-then-gas cars (that's the kicker; they're not even full electric cars; they only go so far then they kick into the gas engine) since they were pwned on the hybrids.

It's a survival thing now but doesn't discount the fact that the technology has been there since before the advent of the lithium-ion battery which has completely changed the business model of the electric car. GM should be so far ahead of the curve right now it's not funny but their short-sightedness has put them behind their competitors.

A few things:

1. I only said "running towards" to make the metaphor sound better, but obviously it didn't work right. I was not trying to water down the sentence.

2. For the most part, pure electric cars ARE a limited market, especially ones made from NiHM batteries. The hybrid is kicking ass because you don't have to sacrifice anything. You just drive as you normally do, and you get better MPG. Hybrids will continue to dominate the alternative car market because there are billions of gas stations.

Hydrogen is NOT the wave of the future, because they don't have billions of gas stations. (Another chicken/egg problem here.) Until we don't have billions of gas stations, or we can make 500 mile round trips on an electric car, hybrids will STILL dominate.

3. As I eluted to, pure electric cars running on NiHM batteries are a fucking joke. Li-ion batteries didn't change the business model. It INVENTED it! There was no business model for electric cars on NiHM batteries, or more precisely, it was so small that it might as well not be there.

Sure, most current hybrids run on NiHM batteries, but hybrids didn't exist until ten years ago, and they are quickly jumping on the Li-Ion bandwagon, safety issues be damned.

4. Where is your 19th century electric car technology that could have been used today? If electric could have existed all along, then where is the technology that should have been used? (God, don't even mention Sterling, because I seem to hear that all the time from my dad every time we talk about alternative energy.)

I do not think they will win. I'd write Detroit asking it to beg Obama for a technology-sharing agreement with Japanese car companies, but I don't know that I feel like anyone would listen or care. GM and Chrysler are on life-support as it is and they're years behind making real 21st-century vehicles.

Again, they already have the technology. They don't need to get it from the Japanese. They just need to start digging their old cars from Nevada. GM had the EV1. Ford had a Ranger EV. Chevy is turning their S-10 EV into the Volt hybrid. Chrysler is promising a plug-in hybrid by 2010.

[Zeus]

Where did I say that every car on the market has to be electric? And I never mentioned hydrogen-cell as an alternative (it's not viable; that's a red herring the auto industry is using to try to prolong the inevitable). All I've ever said is that electric has proven it can be used to a certain extent and that we need to explore all opportunities to see what works and what doesn't. And considering that we can produce electricity in many, many different ways (many windfarms going up here in Ontario now) and 13 years ago we had a production vehicle for $30k that could go 60 miles on a single charge before the advent of far superior battery techology, that seems to be by far the quickest-to-market alternative we have.

Sure there are dangers with li-ion batteries but there's also dangers with the internal combustion engine. Its very name (combustion) indicates danger.

If I get some time I'll try and look up info on the electric cars back in the early 1900s.

Even if we have 10% of the population with mostly-electric cars, ain't that a HUGE step forward? And I'm talking within the next 10 years. 30 years from now that could easily be 50%. Limited, yes, but not so limited that there can't be a large market even now. That's before we even start talking about advancement made as that segment matures. Now think of how far along we'd be now if GM didn't kill the EV1 and Honda and Toyota had gone forward with their models.

[Mental]

They have the technology, Sine, but no facilities for mass-producing it, and no investment in American infrastructure that could support the EV1 or Volt. And having one working model and a few prototypes is not the equivalent of having a sector ready to roll out to market, the way the Japanese do. I stand by my statement. Electric and renewable vehicles are not a developed technology in America. They are becoming so in Japan. America also faces massive hurdles compared to Japan as far as pure electric vehicles are concerned, because it is a hell of a lot easier to retrofit a relatively small island nation with charging stations all over the place than it is to do a third of a major continent.

I do believe hybrids are the way to go, here.

[SineSwiper]

The Volt will be coming Nov 2010. They are already building it. They have prototypes and it will be available for 2011 model line. Also, you don't need "charging" stations. It's a hybrid. Build the cars first, then worry about the charging stations. Hell, we don't have a (major) company available that are building plugins quite yet, so building the charging stations will be premature. (I think Toyota's plugin Prius isn't due until Q3 this year.)

Besides, what the hell is a charging station going to do? We don't have the technology to fast charge an electric/hybrid car. The Tesla Roadster goings really fast for about 50-100 miles, but it takes around 12 hours to charge.

[Zeus]

They new ones just plug into any standard outlet. There's no charging stations required, particularly since they have a gas engine backup.

[Mental]

Ahhhh. Thanks for putting me up on game. I thought the Volt was like the EV1, electric-only.

[Zeus]

Yeah, the Volt charges in 8 hours from very empty to full. So an overnight plug-in is perfectly fine.

Hmm, the Volt seems to be a bit different. Looks like the gas engine is only to recharge the battery in conjunction with the kinetic energy generated by the movement of the vehicle's wheels as opposed to actually running the vehicle. The gas engine is not tied to the drivetrain at all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_Volt

I'm really curious if this is the best way to go . Basically you're running a gas engine to generate electricity to drive your vehicle rather than using the force of the explosion to move the pistons to drive your vehicle (there are no pistons and no traditional engine at all from the sounds of it).

[SineSwiper]

The Pruis is wired the same way. The gas engine merely powers the Hybrid Synergy Drive, which is a fancy name for an electric drive shaft. The Synergy engine gets energy from both the battery and gas engine.

And yes, it is the best way to go. Any excess energy from the gas engine goes into the battery. The gas engine turns on and off constantly. Brake regeneration goes from the Synergy into the battery. It will also use both battery and gas, if the battery can supply some of the power. This way, you're only using some of the gas engine for its power.

All of this is shown on the information display as you drive. You know exactly when what part is being used and which direction the energy is going.

[Mental]

Damn, Sine, you're really up on this. Any chance you can use some sort of mind control on the rest of Kentucky and suddenly convince everyone their massive SUVs and gas-guzzling trucks are a bad idea?

[SineSwiper]

Damn, Sine, you're really up on this. Any chance you can use some sort of mind control on the rest of Kentucky and suddenly convince everyone their massive SUVs and gas-guzzling trucks are a bad idea?

Again, I own a Prius, and all of this information is right on the Energy Monitor display. Not everybody is going to buy into the Hybrid idea, but there are quite a few Prius and other hybrids on the road already. Eventually, even the Hybrid SUVs and trucks will gain a good market share. It's not enough to get just one type of car that works, but to replace the whole system of cars, trucks, and SUVs.

Our TARC bus system already uses a diesel-powered hybrid bus, since they are in the business of making stops all of the time, and the brake regeneration really helps out.

[Zeus]

There's no way they capture the full energy from the explosion and transfer that to electricity. There's gotta be a huge loss in the transfer from one power type (kinetic) to another (electrical). That's what I'm getting at, it just doesn't seem to be the most efficient method of using resources.

The difference is the Volt will not have the gas engine attached to the drivetrain at all. The gas engine will be used solely to generate electricity. The Prius at least has the gas engine to run the car if necessary. What if the Volt runs out of gas and the battery is drained. Do you have to sit there and run the gas engine to charge the battery for a while before you can move?