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July 19, 2008

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John McCain

will the cornerstone of every campaign for federal office still be the candidates' passionate belief that the USA is the greatest country the world has ever seen?

My friends, Stephen hates America. Why must you hate America, Stephen? Why?

low-tech cyclist

I see it's made by Tata Motors. Tata Motors?! My wife's tatas are the old-fashioned, nonmotorized kind, and I'm completely satisfied with them. Some things just can't be improved on by technology.

Joking aside, I think the idea of a car that runs on compressed air is pretty cool. (Literally, too.) And even if it doesn't turn out to be a winner, at least they're trying stuff over there. It would be nice if we'd do the same. Remember when we used to hear about good old American ingenuity?

Stephen

Why must you hate America, Stephen? Why?

It's in the rule book they give you when you register as a Democrat.

And the fact that McCain is just now learning how to internet on the computational machine makes your particular bit of sockpuppetry rather hilarious. Good show all around.

litbrit

As long as we're wishing for eco-cars, I want a BMW Hydrogen 7. When I win the lottery, I'll buy two!

Then I suppose I'll have to build my own hydrogen station, since we're kind of, er, light on them here in the boondocks rural Florida.

Terry

I just have to say that, 20 years ago, I owned a 1986 Honda CRX HF (high fuel) coupe. On the interstate, in fifth gear, at 1800 rmp, 55mph (yes, double nickle was in effect then), I got 58 mpg. I have to laugh at the "smart" cars the industry is plugging now.

Scott K

I think the question isn't so much whether people will buy a specific technology, it's more about whether enough people will buy it to make it worthwhile for a major manufacturer to decide to make the foray. There is a fossilized business model in the major auto markets coupled with a fossilized consumer model. I tell you guys, if you want alternative options, they ARE out there. It just so happens that most of them don't meet all of the criteria that the average consumer needs (or thinks they need). Which is what I mean by a fossilized consumer model... other countries seem to have an easier time with exploring alternatives because the consumers in these countries don't seem as "married" to a specific list of criteria that currently can only be met with internal combustion-based technology.

Me, I plan to take delivery for my brand new electric motorcycle by the end of the year, then my current ancient-technology auto will sit around and emit no carbon until I need it for the 20% of my annual driving needs that require either long drives or more storage capacity than a motorcycle can offer, even with touring cases (it's probably a bad idea to lug a set of golf clubs on a motorcycle).

jack lecou
I just have to say that, 20 years ago, I owned a 1986 Honda CRX HF (high fuel) coupe. On the interstate, in fifth gear, at 1800 rmp, 55mph (yes, double nickle was in effect then), I got 58 mpg. I have to laugh at the "smart" cars the industry is plugging now.

Ditto. My old '93 Civic got better mileage than a Prius supposedly does.

My understanding is that although engine technology has improved tremendously in the last 20 years, most of the improvements have been used to increase horsepower and weight, while fuel economy has stagnated.

Who knows where we could be if we'd just phased in a $5/gal gas tax back in 1973, instead of CAFE.

goatchowder
"Who knows where we could be if we'd just phased in a $5/gal gas tax back in 1973, instead of CAFE."

I'll tell you exactly where we'd be: we'd be in Europe.

Because that's what they did. They slapped a massive VAT on "petrol", and used that money to fund development of high-speed rail that nowadays will take you from London to Berlin in handful of hours. And light-rail trolleys and public transportation, everywhere.

Also, because of expensive "petrol", their development stuck close to the cities and transit lines, so they didn't build massive suburban sprawl as we did with cheap gas.

If you want to see what we could have done if we'd had the political will to institute a massive gas tax in 1973, go visit Berlin, or Paris, or London toay.

KathyF

"Because that's what they did. They slapped a massive VAT on "petrol", and used that money to fund development of high-speed rail that nowadays will take you from London to Berlin in handful of hours."

Sorry; you can't get from London to Berlin in a handful of hours. The UK portion of the trip is still slow, despite the newer faster Eurostar line out of St Pancras. And expensive--you could fly a family of four to Berlin and still have money left over for what one train ticket to Berlin will cost.

It really is disgraceful how much train travel costs here. And I just heard today that the National Rail folks have given themselves raises. It's self-supporting, unlike the other European countries' rail systems, which means pockets are being lined with the profits. So strike London off that list if you're wanting to showcase rail systems.

Crissa

Well, then we can say, 'Brits have it, they just did it wrong, but the French also have it, so they must've done something right'.

Whatever. They're touting cars getting worse gas mileage than the car I own now. A nothing-special Nissan Sentra. You know, that car that only comes in a four-door model and a choice of two engines.

If American car makers made electric cars, people would buy them. They just never did make them... They made Hummers instead.

litbrit

If American car makers made electric cars, people would buy them. They just never did make them... They made Hummers instead.

Not true, Crissa--GM made the EV-1 (aka the Electric Car of movie fame) back in the mid-90's, and while everyone fortunate to have one absolutely loved it, the oil companies, along with the politicians who love them, killed it. The groundbreaking, all-electric, low-maintenance, and zippy electric cars were all crushed, and that was that.

And GM went on to build the Hummer.

Beroe

I agree with the sentiment here. But to make the case that this car has a better carbon footprint than the very unfabulous ones marketed in the US, you need to give its energy usage in terms comparable to gasoline-powered cars. From the post I can't tell how good it is.

Scott K

Beroe,

I'm not sure if comparing energy usage yields much useful information about the carbon footprint, because the source of the energy has a large impact on the carbon footprint. You could make some assumptions about the mix of generation used today to produce electricity, but that misses the whole point of developing technologies such as this. To use an example, solar cells have a lower efficiency than gas turbines, but nobody is suggesting that gas turbines are more environmentally friendly than solar cells.

The Web site for the company that developed the MiniCAT http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/energy-storage.html>indicates that the efficiency of energy recovery is about 75%. Current battery technology (especially lithium ion batteries and related designs) achieves an efficiency of around 99%. The advantage of using compressed air rather than batteries lies in the difference in the waste-related issues that you have to deal with.

(Just in case you are curious about energy efficiency, though, the energy conversion efficiency is about 20% for most passenger cars, about 33% for steam turbines, in the 60% territory for gas turbines, and then for photovoltaic cells it depends on the method but most cells produced today use silicon-based technology which has typical efficiencies of between 11-15%. As I mentioned before, the "energy conversion efficiency" is just a measure of how much of the input energy is converted into useful output energy, with the remainder generally being eliminated in the form of heat or otherwise lost, not really a good benchmark for the carbon footprint of a particular technology since carbon is primarily a consequence of the byproducts from specific energy sources.)

Adrock

And GM went on to build the Hummer.

Well, a different "General" built the Hummer, but yeah, GM bought them in late 90s.

You have to wonder what the world might have looked like this day and age if Jed Clampet had never found that first underground pool of oil. I imagine technology wouldn't have progress at the pace it did in the 1900s. But would that necessarily have been a bad thing?

Private industry punted on the idea of efficiency in the 90s. Hell, even though the foreign automakers have nominally better efficiency than American cars, comparing to alternatives that don't use petrol, they are still way behind.

I hope cars like this make sense. But I worry it wouldn't stand the test of crash standards in the US. I don't know that I'd want to be merging on current US highways in one of those.

Scott K

You have to wonder what the world might have looked like this day and age if Jed Clampet had never found that first underground pool of oil. I imagine technology wouldn't have progress at the pace it did in the 1900s.

I don't know, technology may have made great progress anyways, just in a different direction. Electric cars were quite popular towards the end of the 1800s and very early 1900s, but got wiped off the board due to the discovery of cheap oil and the cheaper assembly-line production of Ford's early autos. There are multiple such instances in history of one particular technology being adopted over another technology, even though the latter may have been better, simply because of luck... another example is the widespread adoption of the steam engine instead of the Stirling engine (which has much better potential efficiency due to its ability to utilize waste heat rather than discharging it) due to the limitations of the materials available in the early-to-mid 1800s (for high efficiencies, the Stirling engine needs to operate at high temperature differentials and the Bessemer method of mass-producing cheap steel hadn't been developed yet).

ThresherK

Electric cars were quite popular towards the end of the 1800s and very early 1900s, but got wiped off the board due to the discovery of cheap oil and the cheaper assembly-line production of Ford's early autos.

Remember when America led the world? When what was good for America was good for General Motors, and vice-versa?

Not to nitpick your timeline, ScottK, but the final nail in the coffin was the first reliable, marketable self-starter. Invented by Charles Kettering in a GM lab, introduced on a Cadillac. All the potential of petrol propulsion w/o the threat of crank kickback and broken bones.

Kaleberg

I thought that Henry Ford got his start working on an electric car for Detroit Edison. He decided that the Otto cycle engine was a better bet for power and range than the existing electric technology. Remember that batteries, even lead acid batteries, were not all that good back then, and we've learned a lot about building electric motors as well. (The AC vs DC debate was still wide open back then).

Another thing to consider is that electricity was much more expensive back then than it is now. In the 1930s it was six cents a kilowatt, just what I am paying now. Even if you are paying four times that, electricity is a much cheaper option now than in the early 1900s. Even if your car only got ten miles to the gallon, you still could do pretty well.

Bill

Excellent article about the "Want". Good points made about the fossilization of R & D in North America as it pertains to R & D.

My site's all about using compressed air if anyone's interested. www.about-air-compressors.com

Cheers,

Bill

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