Electric cars

[Revhendo]

All this hybrid "synergy" stuff ain't new, either.

The Woods Gas-Electric car......................

Click the link for full size:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3181/2579442558_1b4cca0a2d_o.jpg

The Owen - Entz hybrid..............................

This thing was truely unique. The drive motor and generator armature were on the same shaft, hooked to the drive shaft. There was NO direct mechanical connection to the engine. The generator fields were fastened to the flywheel, and turned around the outside of the generator armature

Click the link for full size

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3026/2579442310_ab7d5148b8_o.jpg

OK, now that is cool.

 

[Ron 73]

X-2

 

[Budnicks]

All this hybrid "synergy" stuff ain't new, either.

The Woods Gas-Electric car......................

The Owen - Entz hybrid..............................

This thing was truely unique. The drive motor and generator armature were on the same shaft, hooked to the drive shaft. There was NO direct mechanical connection to the engine. The generator fields were fastened to the flywheel, and turned around the outside of the generator armature

Click the link for full size

That is a cool old concept... Thanks for the links... Electric cars, as you can see, It's "Nothing new", it just doesn't fit allot/most of the driving publics lifestyle needs or budgetary needs/wants/likes & until they can appeal to a larger segment & have the proper infrastructure to have electrical feed/fuel supply with all the necessary needs, along with much needed afford-ability & efficiently, they will never be accepted or purchased in mass numbers by the public... That's the biggest problem I see.. With all our new fangled horseless carriages we all drive...

 

[jessipup]

It's all part of a socialist plot I tell ya.
Next thing you know they will be trying to make electric Locomotives and Ocean freighters. Just tell them to keep thier commie fingers off my golf cart.

 

[Meep-Meep]

My signature line pretty much says it. If power generated from solar, wind, etc.. was so great you couldn't stop the power companies from using it and selling it to us. If electric cars were so great you would have a line of people out the door of the dealership ready to sign on the dotted line.

Batteries are a convenience item and not a source of energy, and losses are associated with converting from chemical energy (as in hydrocarbons) to mechanical driven electrical generators then back to chemical energy as in batteries. Losses are in every form of power generation.

Internal combustion engines are required to operate in a very broad power range and doing so makes it difficult to control emissions and fuel use. An argument can be made that charging batteries is done from a power source that is operating at a constant speed, where it's easy to control the A/F mixture thus controlling emissions.

Electric motor power curves are much different than internal combustion engines and are not a terrible choice when frequent acceleration is required. Why does the Pre-*** get the commute lane? Love the Pre-*** line by the way!!

Diesel fuel costs more per gallon than regular gas wiping out any real per mile savings. This is probably not true for diesels getting 50 MPG, but in the case of my recent new Dodge truck purchase it made no sense for me to get the diesel. Plus the diesel option is not free, so over and above the added fuel cost I'd have to pay something like $8K more for the truck.

Big locomotives are often diesel-electric. No batteries and a stationary diesel power plant running at a semi constant speed powering an electric motor. Seems to me it's a good blend of technology.

A lot of folks are all fired up about using gas. Oh, it's dirty, not green, etc.. But just in my life time I have seen pickup trucks and cars go from 10 MPG or less to nearly 20 or better and have BETTER performance. And I'm not aware of any outright subsidies to get to this level of efficiency. There are fuel mileage and emission standards imposed, and maybe some perk or tax break if the goal is met, but I'm pretty sure this is the work of free enterprise who wants to continue to sell cars and truck to people. Looking at history, it seems that having regulations imposed on someone manufacturing stuff is not the worst thing that can happen as long as the demands from both sides are reasonable and not corrupt in nature. Good luck on that last one.

 

[Budnicks]

Very well said Meeps, especially I like the last part, as long as the demands from both sides are reasonable & not corrupt in nature... BINGO we have a winner, & yes, Good luck on that last one..

 

[440roadrunner]

Pretty well said. Only thing you left out in your "anti" diesel argument is repair costs. Some of these indeed go for impressive miles with no maintenance, but WHEN they do need repair...............look out!!

 

[RustyRatRod]

Americans are too busy buying Yukons and Expeditions and anything all wheel drive to give a damn about a small diesel car that gets 50 MPG. Besides all that, by the time any of those small diesels are brought to where they will pass EPA regulations, that 50 MPG becomes 30 MPG like most every other cookie cutter car available now.

I know first hand from running the office at a transmission shop. We see fried AWD stuff come in everyday. It's like people see this stuff and they gotta have it. These things are so picky that if the tires on the front and rear wear too much differently, it can and WILL burn up the viscous coupling inside the transfer case. How stupid is that?

The US automakers only give a damn about one thing. Profit. They used to care a little about quality. .....and the American buyer eats up all the marketing gimmicks the automakers spoon feed them and keep buying these pieces of crap. I know a guy right now with a late model low mileage Durango sittin in his back yard cause he cain't afford the 4500 bucks it's gonna take to build the transmission AND transfer case in his AWD Durango because his stupid *** put two different size tires on it.

People buy JUNK that the US automakers use genius marketing tactics to make the buyer believe he or she cannot do without a certain vehicle. I've maintained for years that if somebody came back out with an upgraded version of the Model T they would sell like hotcakes. People don't need 300 HP pocket rockets to drive back and to to work everyday in the city limits. I used to think people who looked at America as the country of excess were idiots for not appreciating the American way. Now I wonder if maybe they ain't right about a little of it.

 

[Meep-Meep]

Every business must look at profits in order to survive, and as I implied above, true happiness must lie somewhere in between the two extremes. The equation is complicated as there are a lot of different personalities that drive the market. For me, if I'm going to spend good money on something new I buy trucks and SUV's because I want it do do pretty much everything. Perhaps even find me a date on a Sat night if I had the NAV system. Of course around the Oakland area it would be called ho-star or ho-link. But I do agree, advertizing is a dangerous weapon, perhaps the most dangerous known to man kind. And if it was up to the car companies we WOULD be driving model T's.

 

[jessipup]

Elsctric cars? Nope I would not buy one It does not fit my needs. That being said, there is still a place and a person for them.
If I had an eight mile drive to work and usually covered a couple of hundred miles a week? I'd at least look at one.
But I cover more like a thousand miles a week, travel off road, cary big loads sometimes and hundreds of pounds of tools and spares everywhere.. Now you will find those who will poo-poo dam near any thing.
You will find that the loudest screamers are politically motivated and thier position has nothing to do with common sense.
We did not win WWII on horseback shooting single shots, we did not go the moon in a biplane, and even though someone possably could do a motor job with a cresent wrench. a Ronco magic socket and a 4 n 1 screw driver. Not me I will use every tool in the box and probably go buy some new ones and learn to use them too.
Electric may now be and may allways be a very small market segment.
Just check with any top fueler he would pay thousands for a spark plug made of freakin Pasta if it would give him a hundredth on every pass and tens of thousands if it would give him a tenth.
So in conclusion electric is a tool, a small part of a much bigger picture. It is no savior. It is no demon.
I'll tell ya I am as green as green can be and
It Is All About The Green That is Comming Out Of My Hip Pocket

 

[Budnicks]

Yep & nobody want to drive a toaster...LOL... Lighten up the mood around here, it's not a Green Party, Environmental Activist meeting, we are on a Mopar/B-Body/Muscle Car forum after all....

 

[306Doba]

The only Green Machine i'd ever drive:

(not my car)


Don't have anything against electric cars (hell, at one point there were more electric cars on the road than gas) But I like to hear what my engine is doing. How long is it going to take everyone to figure out what all the little noises are when something breaks, is worn or isn't workign right? Will they even make a noise or just die suddenly? I would imagine if you took your car in for service it will take a lot longer to diagnose a problem simply because we have'nt been dealing with broken ones for 50+ years.

 

[alsant]

Electric cars do have there place,but not in my world!we should all drive Nitro Pro Stock so the only thing you can do while driving is driving!

 

[306Doba]

Electric cars do have there place,but not in my world!we should all drive Nitro Pro Stock so the only thing you can do while driving is driving!

You may only get 3mpg, but will only take a matter of seconds to travel that far. Never be late for work again!

 

[Photon440]

You may only get 3mpg, but will only take a matter of seconds to travel that far. Never be late for work again!

Only 3mpg? A nitro fueler burns about 20 gallons per mile!

 

[shag766]

a little off topic

Only 3mpg? A nitro fueler burns about 20 gallons per mile!

you B.C. guys, what ever happened to the nitrogen thing going on out there. wasn't there a bunch of buses running it in vancouver? just wondering out loud.:eusa_think:

 

[RustyRatRod]

Well....as stated the technology doesn't exist yet. That said, I think we should "DRILL BABY, DRILL" since that's what we have technology for NOW. But that's just me....and what the hell do I know?

 

[Benji]

All this reminds me of the rumors running around back in the 1960's and 1970's about a 390 V8 in a Ford station wagon that had a "special carburator" that got 50MPG! Somehow it got installed (by mistake of course) on a production car and it slipped out the door before anyone knew it was missing. When the owner took the car in for servicing and mentioned his gasoline milage the mechanic remembered a bullitin he got from Ford offering a handsome reward for the return of that carb. The "special carburator" was removed and replaced with the standard one and his MPG dropped to 8MPG. Of course it was those evil oil companies that "bought up" the patent so they could continue to rape us at the fuel pump every time we fill up. When I heard this story I asked a Champion TSR about it. He said it was baloney. The modern internal combustion engine runs best at a 14.7 to 1 air/fuel ratio. Tests show that it will run at a 20 to 1 air/fuel ratio but it will not accelerate, it simply dies due to fuel starvation.

Benji

 

[440roadrunner]

Yes those "secret carbs" have been around for years. I once told a customer, who was ranting about "how the oil companies have killed all the people who invented them"

"Ya know, if GM or Ferd or anybody else every got ahold of a magic 100 mpg carb, they could sell cars like there's no tomorrow."

 

[Photon440]

you B.C. guys, what ever happened to the nitrogen thing going on out there. wasn't there a bunch of buses running it in vancouver? just wondering out loud.:eusa_think:

I think you meant hydrogen. There was a fleet of hydrogen busses a couple of years ago, coinciding with the 2010 Olympics. I don't know if they're still in operation.

-=Photon440=-