E Mopars.

[Kern Dog]

Here we go....Another FBBO member is bucking to be added to more IGNORE lists.
(Not you, R413, Kiwi, Beep Beep RR, Dennis H, Ghostrider 67, Coronet 68MX, F4R/T, XS22J8R or Bighouse.)

 

[Photon440]

Yes. That was the point of "Horse and buggies are still here"

But the bottom line? Internal combustion engine has been obsolete for decades (At least for personal conveyance.) We will still need for heavy equipment. Very likely in hybrid builds. Trains have been hybrid diesel/electric for decades. They couldn't do the work if all diesel. Or all electric.

The next generation of battery and charging technologies will end any debate. Hell, electric damn near won over 100 years ago.

There will still be classic car ownership, and appreciation. But newer technologies will prevail. They would have anyways without environmental concerns.

Everyone screams about gas prices. And only points to supply. How about the other side of the economic equation? Demand. Let's start reducing demand for oil. Which by the way also helps with national security concerns. America's enemies are all funded by oil sales.

Again, the future is bright. If we so choose. The only question. Does the US lead? Or follow.

Trains (locomotives) are not hybrid, they are diesel electric. The difference is that they rely completely on the diesel to supply power to the motors, none of it comes from a battery pack. Excluding the new pure battery powered locomotives that CN, CP and BNSF have on order right now that have no diesel in them, of course. There are other pure electric trains as well, like the ones in Holland and other countries that use overhead wires.

As for the internal combustion engine being obsolete for decades, the current engines in cars that you can buy today are at their highest level of refinement, efficiency, reliability and cleanliness in the history of using engines. If allowed, there's no technical reason to believe that engineers could not continue to successfully improve on them.

As for petroleum providing funding for American enemies, that is definitely true for many but not all. China has to import more oil than they sell. Cuba imports oil. Somalia makes barely enough for their own use, North Korea has no oil industry to speak of.

 

[maxwedgechar]

My best friend is a life long trucker. We were looking on-line at the Tesla truck. I figured if I had one I would need to have headphones with 350 Cummins noises playing in my ears!

 

[Richard Cranium]

You are thinking in the 21st century with a 20th century mind. Green is going to win. We are long past any debate. Wind is now in 2nd for US electricity production. And this is with 1st generation mills. The next generation are bladeless. Solar. There is more solar energy hitting earth every second to easily pass all fossil fuels combine. To ignore is just stupid.

9.2% comes from from wind and 3% for solar.

A quick google search gets these answers...

about 7.85 billion individual solar panels, each providing about 350W per hour, are necessary to power the whole USA

The average wind turbine installed in the USA in 2018 was 2.6 megawatts (MW) in capacity. If we were just going to install that scale of wind turbine, that means we would need about 1.26 million of them.

Also, keep in mind that each wind turbine needs about an acre and a half of land. Add to that, all the roads that will be needed to place them and service them. Trees will need to be cut down and more transmission lines will need to be installed, which means more raw material will need to be mined to manufacture the added transmission lines. Shall we talk about the environmental impact of the 22 billion+ fiberglass blades (3 blades per wind turbine) that need to be replaced every 15 years?

In 10-15 years we will be seeing solid state batteries that can charge a car for over 1000 mi. And with hybrid technologies? (Likely hydrogen fuel cell) thousands of miles.

No doubt that battery technology will improve, but at this point, you're speculating. Again, what is the environmental impact of mining the minerals needed to create batteries for 79 million vehicles per year, and what country is going to provider these minerals? Right now, it looks like China. In your opinion, is this a good idea?

 

[Brandy]

That is a concern that can easily be corrected. I believe when electric cars has the extra battery length they will be replicating a "Vurrrrm." And we will be arguing that the replicated sound is not the same. And of course that would be correct. Digital can only hope to match analog sound. And does lose sound quality in digital format.

The vid I posted says that they are working on a "sound" generator to replicate an exciting gas powered Vroom! for these cars. One that will be analogist with the operation of the car.

 

[Brandy]

Trains (locomotives) are not hybrid, they are diesel electric. The difference is that they rely completely on the diesel to supply power to the motors, none of it comes from a battery pack. Excluding the new pure battery powered locomotives that CN, CP and BNSF have on order right now that have no diesel in them, of course. There are other pure electric trains as well, like the ones in Holland and other countries that use overhead wires.

As for the internal combustion engine being obsolete for decades, the current engines in cars that you can buy today are at their highest level of refinement, efficiency, reliability and cleanliness in the history of using engines. If allowed, there's no technical reason to believe that engineers could not continue to successfully improve on them.

As for petroleum providing funding for American enemies, that is definitely true for many but not all. China has to import more oil than they sell. Cuba imports oil. Somalia makes barely enough for their own use, North Korea has no oil industry to speak of.

The CEO of Dodge says that the current crop of motors have been refined to the limit or nearly so that can be done with the present architecture. The way forward, He says, is EV Tech. Now, how much of that statement can be attributed to political pressure, economies of supply and demand and industry pressure? Who knows. These decisions are never simple.

 

[yella71]

There's at least one here that has drunk the Koolaid...but they are right that technology keeps rolling forward even if it brings us backward. the greenies dont want anyone to see the dirty part of green. I personally have been dealing with this BS for years in the auto industry. cars are defiantly cleaner than they used to be. just go stand behind a new car thats running and then stand behind your favorite muscle car with a carb.

 

[BeepBeepRR]

This is a great article about Lithium batteries. The person from Dragonfly batteries thought they were making the batteries look good. But from the article I caught a few DERP moments. I stand by my previous statement on how is it more of an impact on the planet for one hole to be drilled to extract oil? As opposed to mining Lithium. Mines are far more destructive than a hole for drilling. Maybe they have E-Terex trucks to haul the minerals and E-Dozers to dig it up. The article below doesn't make getting lithium good. It reads quite the opposite from their intended view.

https://dragonflyenergy.com/where-does-lithium-come-from/

"Lithium batteries are often closely associated with “green” technology. However, the mining processes have some environmental concerns around them and are similar to coal mining, oil drilling, and fracking."

"You need up to a half-million gallons of water to extract one ton of lithium."

"A naturally occurring chemical element, lithium (Li) is a soft, lightweight metal. In fact, it’s the lightest metal and has such a low density that it floats on water. However, it’s an alkali metal, which means that it’s highly reactive. So, if you do drop it in water, it will usually burst into a red flame. It’s also soft enough that you can cut it with a knife."

"A team of researchers has recently developed an electrochemical cell to harvest lithium from seawater. This is an exciting development because the ocean contains about 5,000 times more of this precious element than land. Unfortunately, seawater contains extremely low concentrations of the element that have been difficult to utilize until now."

 

[coronet68mx]

For all of us that love the sound and performance of a v8 is hard to see this car replaced by a battery but for your grand children's and future generations the electric cars are going to be as natural to them as a v8 to us, we can not stop progress, the future is in their hands not ouus anymore, just think that the future engineersr are already born.

 

[yella71]

For all of us that love the sound and performance of a v8 is hard to see this car replaced by a battery but for your grand children's and future generations the electric cars are going to be as natural to them as a v8 to us, we can not stop progress, the future is in their hands not ouus anymore, just think that the future engineersr are already born.

MY future is in MY hands.....no one Elses

 

[coronet68mx]

MY future is in MY hands.....no one Elses

What I mean is the future of the society and technology, not the future of a person on particular I thought itwas obvious

 

[barbee6043]

Is not our country pretty much at max capacity producing electrical power? Where will we be when there are millions of EC plugged in every night charging????

 

[Photon440]

The CEO of Dodge says that the current crop of motors have been refined to the limit or nearly so that can be done with the present architecture. The way forward, He says, is EV Tech. Now, how much of that statement can be attributed to political pressure, economies of supply and demand and industry pressure? Who knows. These decisions are never simple.

That was my point. He's probably right for "the current crop of motors". Every engine series runs its course and gets replaced by something that offers advantages over the old. Which is why they put so much advanced technology into the new turbocharged inline six engine that's just coming out now.

 

[MarPar]

I went for a haircut last night.....saw a Tesla pulling out of a parking space.....the only sound I heard was the indicator relay clicking on and off......inside the car.

Scary thoughts....you could get run over by one of those, and not hear a thing.

 

[beanhead]

WHY do they all have to look so GHEY....

 

[Kern Dog]

For all of us that love the sound and performance of a v8 is hard to see this car replaced by a battery but for your grand children's and future generations the electric cars are going to be as natural to them as a v8 to us, we can not stop progress, the future is in their hands not ouus anymore, just think that the future engineersr are already born.

Fake news.
It is yet another way to control the masses.
You apparently didn’t get the memo about pricing and market availability for electricity versus gasoline.

 

[Cojohnso1]

Trains (locomotives) are not hybrid, they are diesel electric. The difference is that they rely completely on the diesel to supply power to the motors, none of it comes from a battery pack. Excluding the new pure battery powered locomotives that CN, CP and BNSF have on order right now that have no diesel in them, of course. There are other pure electric trains as well, like the ones in Holland and other countries that use overhead wires.

As for the internal combustion engine being obsolete for decades, the current engines in cars that you can buy today are at their highest level of refinement, efficiency, reliability and cleanliness in the history of using engines. If allowed, there's no technical reason to believe that engineers could not continue to successfully improve on them.

As for petroleum providing funding for American enemies, that is definitely true for many but not all. China has to import more oil than they sell. Cuba imports oil. Somalia makes barely enough for their own use, North Korea has no oil industry to speak of.

I guess in the strictest sence trains are not hybrid because they don't have a much of a battery system to provide supplemental power. Yet. What better platform to utilize solar technologies than trains? At least I would think? They sure have the area to support.

As far as significant efficiency improvements to internal combustion? I believe we are nearing the end of any significant gains in a piston delivered energy capture efficiency. Most gains are now to the vehicle design. Engines are basically the same. Only with superior machining tolerances.

The point of my posts is not to be so damn scared of the future. My next car purchase will very likely be all electric. I'm very curious. (Assuming I don't run across a classic car deal just too good to decline? I believe most of us here are in that boat.)

 

[coronet68mx]

Fake news.
It is yet another way to control the masses.
You apparently didn’t get the memo about pricing and market availability for electricity versus gasoline.

No I didn't get it Greg.

 

[Kern Dog]

From what I understand, PeMex is the country owned gasoline supplier. Here in the states, it is private owned where prices can vary by a large amount.

 

[Photon440]

I guess in the strictest sence trains are not hybrid because they don't have a much of a battery system to provide supplemental power. Yet. What better platform to utilize solar technologies than trains? At least I would think? They sure have the area to support.

As far as significant efficiency improvements to internal combustion? I believe we are nearing the end of any significant gains in a piston delivered energy capture efficiency. Most gains are now to the vehicle design. Engines are basically the same. Only with superior machining tolerances.

The point of my posts is not to be so damn scared of the future. My next car purchase will very likely be all electric. I'm very curious. (Assuming I don't run across a classic car deal just too good to decline? I believe most of us here are in that boat.)

The only battery system on a conventional locomotive is for the starter motor, just like a car. For solar, are you thinking of covering a train with solar panels? That would be unlikely...where would you put them? Solar energy has, at noon on a clear day, 1361 watts per square meter and that's it. No solar panel is 100% efficient, but even if it was, you'd need about 1900 square meters (over 20,000 square feet) of solar panels to get enough power to match the usual 3500 hp. of a locomotive during daylight. Unfortunately, panels are actually only %20 efficient if you're lucky. You can't put the panels on the freight cars, most types are open top for bulk commodity such as coal, wood chips and sulfur, or are flat cars for intermodal traffic.

Why is it that you believe "nearing the end of any significant gains in a piston delivered energy" when advances are still being made? They're still coming up with new ideas - direct gasoline injection is fairly recent and provided many benefits. Technology for friction reduction is still progressing, while electronic controls and emission systems keep giving cleaner engines. With car engines varying from 20 - 35% efficiency I see lots of room for advancement as smaller engines manage to make the power of older, larger powerplants while using less fuel. If engines are "basically the same", they wouldn't keep developing newer designs.