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Mercedes To Phase Out Gasoline By 2015
arbitraryaardvark sends in a story a couple of weeks back in Yahoo's Ecogeek blog, reporting that Mercedes will phase out petroleum-powered cars by 2015 (mirror), and notes: "Story is unconfirmed but well sourced." "In less than 7 years, Mercedes-Benz plans to ditch petroleum-powered vehicles from its lineup. Focusing on electric, fuel cell, and biofuels, the company is revving up research in alternative fuel sources and efficiency."
In other news, the public will phase out Mercedes purchases by 2015.
Which public is that?
Mercedes is kind of a big deal in Countries that are not the USA.
Not to mention that it'll be a lot easier to build the necessary infrastructure in Europe, rather than in the USA, to support fuel cells & biodiesel.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
tremendous energy density, easy to transport, not even hazardous when spilled, near-identical performance to diesel /50 mpg in my VW
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
the USA only seems to import the luxury cars from Europe. In Spain and Italy, I have seen Mercedes-Benz garbage trucks, which shocked the hell out of my the first time when I was 15. Trips since then, barely noticed.
But the thing about a lot of Mercedes and BMWs and stuff -- especially the older ones: turbo diesel engines. Can't any diesel engine run biodisel unmodified? That was my understanding.
You sir, are the exception rather than the rule. A lot of people in my area claim to care, but as soon as it hits their wallet, they go right back to their old ways. Me? I'm too poor to do too much driving, so I walk and take the bus. But that's only because I value other things above my time. Others see time as their only asset - probably because they're overworked and overstressed - but I'd rather relax, hop on a bus, and read.
Cynical Idealist
Mercedes truck division is way bigger than its car division.
And plenty of Italian farmers drive a Lambo to work.
No sig today...
We can have them going out of business, now can we? Congress will just have the US tax payers keep them floating like we do the airlines.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
To summarize:
My point is not to get rid of cars, I understand that. My point is to give people better alternatives for urban transportation.
Cynical Idealist
If electric cars can be made to charge from ordinary outlets, isn't the infrastructure already there?
Absolutely not. At least in the US, electrical power distribution networks are already are at capacity, and are not even *close* to what they'd need to be:
* Total electrical power consumed in the US - about 12 Exajoules (for more is generated, but most power is lost in generation and distribution).
* Total petroleum power used for transportation in the US - about 28 Exajoules.
The way these numbers are measured, electric cars are significantly more efficient, but still we'd need to distribute *triple* the electrical power distributed in order to stop using gas for transport. That's significantly harder than replacing the tanks and pumps at every gas station.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You only have to swap out fuel lines on pretty old diesels. The injectors should be no problem.
The only real problem with bio diesel is that it tends to "clean" old diesel engines. You get a bunch of old crude floating around and hopefully clogging your filters.
Any modern diesel can run bio right now. Now straight vegetable oil takes some mods.
So to meet the goals all MB has to do is drop there gasoline power plants.
Of course what people tend to forget is that you can make gasoline from a lot of non petroleum sources including water and air. The only thing that prevents it is cost.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You know, GM really stepped on it's dick when it decided to crush the EV1. Here they had the chance to become the biggest auto manufacture on the planet, design a fully electric car, nearly maintenance free. Nickel metal hydride batteries that would outlast the life of the car, a motor good for a 1,000,000+ miles, regenerative breaking, would go 130+ miles between charges (NiMH), 300+ with L-ion.
If I had the chance I would buy a fully electric car, my commute is 60 miles round trip. However, not using gas would get me labeled as a thief by the state and federal governments since I wouldn't be paying the gas tax that never seems to go towards it's intended purpose (and never goes down when said road project is finished).
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
That's right, all of the "buy American" dolts destroyed the American auto industry. That is, the American-based carmakers, I'm not talking about foreign companies that build cars in the US like Honda and Toyota and BMW and Mercedes and.. well, probably just about everyone. For what it's worth, my BMW was built in South Carolina, and the quality is identical to the previous one built at the Motorsport factory in Germany, which is to say pretty damn good.
My car's in the (body) shop and I ended up with a Ford Taurus rental. 2 miles down the road and I concluded that every person involved in the Taurus should be immediately fired. The car sucked so much that I took it back the next day and ended up with a Mazda 6 instead (which I know from previous rentals to be a decent car).
The Taurus is a wholly incompetent car. I shudder to think that it was built in 2007. It droves like a 1984 Lincoln. Wallows all over the place, can't turn, can't brake, slow as hell, doesn't track straight, hard to see out of, big enough to require its own zip code, and ugly as sin, inside and out.
So, thanks for continuing to "buy American", thereby allowing our auto industry to maintain sales despite utterly worthless products.
Though I admit the Focus is a pretty decent car, that's actually what I had hoped to get in exchange for the Taurus.
Don't forget that when I'm on a long trip and my tank is running low, it's currently about a 5 minute process to refill it, then I'm on my way.
How long does it take to charge batteries?
This alone will severely hamper the adoption of purely electric vehicles until the charging technology improves.
Picture yourself on the way home from grandma's house after visiting the family for Christmas. It's 1:30 AM. It's snowing and the wind is whipping. Everyone's tired and your wife is bitching up a storm because your mom put her in a bad mood. Your batteries are running low and you're still 200 miles from home. And it's going to take 4 hours to charge them.
Fuck that. I'll pay $50/gallon for gas before I buy a car that puts me in that situation.
How is that sustainable? Last time I checked, petroleum went into every step necessary to make the food you're eating, which is totally fair to consider a "fuel source" for walking or biking. From extracting and transporting raw resources to make the machinery to harvest. Into the fertilizers necessary to mass produce. Into the machinery itself to harvest. To transport it to your local grocery story.
Beyond that, your walking shoes have the same issues, as does your bicycle.
I'm not saying trying to help in this way is BAD, but you have to pause to consider that EVERY bit of energy we use pretty much comes from petroleum or coal, with the exception of a small percentage from other sources.
Societies that aren't industrialized rely on food at their ONLY energy source. They have to be able to grow more energy than it took them to plant and harvest, or they would have starved to death. Discovery of fossil fuels is the ONLY thing that's broken us out of the Malthusian trap, and your ability to walk or bike instead of drive a car is completely dependent on fossil fuels -- especially petroleum.
Having said all that, hydrogen is the only viable fuel we have right now. Not fuel source, but fuel. Even if we are using solar power to run electric cars, we still need to make fuel for them to run on. Hydrogen is being proposed in fuel cells, but that's a VERY new technology. The idea of burning fuels is thousands of years old and works well enough. There's nothing inherently bad about hydrocarbons. If we could produce and oil or gasoline from purely organic sources, we'd be as well off doing that as any other idea I've heard of. When you really think about it, oil is a hydrogen fuel. An oil economy is a hydrogen economy.
The problem is the environment and political problems associated with using the stored reserves of oil in the ground. We are using oil as an energy source -- that's BAD. But using it as a fuel, just as a way to easily transport energy around; there's not inherently bad about it. We have the technology to synthetically make oil, and I think that's the best route to go. Making oil from renewable resources. There will likely be a period of time where we mix synthetic and natural oil to make gasoline (think E85), but eventually, as natural oil reserves dwindle, synthetic oil will replace it. As we being mass producing synthetic oil, we'll figure out ways to make it better and cheaper, too. It's really just a matter of time...
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
This is not necessarily true. Here in brazil more than 90% of the new cars sold in the last few years are flex fuel, in that they can run either on gasoline, sugar cane ethanol or a mixture of both in any proportion. Thing is that here ethanol is cheaper than gasoline, and most people will fill their thanks with it instead of gasoline for this obvious reason. People in general are more concerned with their money than "being green", and will fill their thanks with whatever is cheapers on the pumps, provided their cars can run on it.
Cosplayers.net - The Cosplayers Network
I've seen it proposed many times, here's the solution:
You pull into a gas station and they swap out your battery for a completely charged one.
You drive away and they recharge the battery.
Problem solved.
Of course, there are a few issues to be worked out, like standardization of batteries (or being dependent on a single chain for swaps), liability for defective/damaged batteries, etc.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Never going to happen. Nothing will ever beat the private car for convenience.
No? How about walking out of your house and to the nearest subway station (for me, 4 minutes), waiting for the next train (3-8 minutes, depending on the time of day) and being taken to your destination, or within a five-minute walk of it. There's no need to buy fuel, no need to have a car serviced, freedom to do what I want while I travel (read, use a phone, sleep, be drunk), much greater safety.
The car is only convenient if the place you live has been shaped around its use.
Its right there, whenever you want it.
So is a good transportation network. Your car isn't available if you've drunk alcohol, or if you're really tired.
Its fast, it can be used by almost anyone, regardless of physical health. No wait times to use it,
Traffic lights, junctions, traffic jams, filling with petrol, servicing, cleaning it.
no sharing it with the smelly unbathed guy, the psycho homeless person, or the screaming infant.
Hardly ever a problem round here.
No stops along the way.
Do you have traffic lights?
And it can be used for trips of any length, to any location, without being forced to walk a mile from a bus stop to the destination.
Unless the place you want to go to is on a road which forbids cars (quite common in Europe in the centre of towns and cities). And in any case, that just means there aren't enough bus routes.
And depending on where you're driving, it can be quite pleasant- driving in the mountains with the top down is *fun*. I've never had a fun bus ride.
Bus rides are usually commutes to work, done out of need rather than for pleasure. Driving in the mountains with the top down is different, that's for pleasure. I've never had a fun commute to work in a car (though I used to like my commute by train, the scenery was nice).
On top of that- cars, to a large portion of the population, are freedom. Freedom to go where you want, when you want. Freedom to live where you want. Freedom to just say "fuck it" one day and go on a road trip. Freedom from the clock- I don't have to leave the bar with my friends to make that last 10:30 pm bus, I can stay til closing time (assume I'm sober for this one). There is no substitute for this.
A decent transportation system is an excellent substitute. If the buses run all night you can stay as late as you like (and drink as much as you like).
The people will never give up their cars. Don't bother trying to make us- we won't. We'll use every last drop of gasoline first. Find a better way to power them instead, they will never go away.
The distance driven in Britain is falling, the distance travelled by rail is increasing. I read that the yearly distance driven by Americans didn't increase for the first time for years too.
On TOP of this, Tesla is looking into distributing solar panels for your roof with the car that would be able to generate about 50 miles a day in energy. So if you travel less than 50 miles a day you would be driving completely for free.
Also maintenance of an electric motor is significantly cheaper than that of a traditional gas engine in a car, due to significantly less moving parts and not constantly trying to harness mini-explosions for power.
You're kidding right? Have you done the numbers yourself, or are you also pulling figures from the same place I did? (Well, not the _same_ place, since I'll assume you pulled them from your ass, and I pulled from mine :) )
If you live in the inner city, look at:
$100/mo for insurance (+/-)
$100-200/mo for parking (more if you're in Manhattan).
Inner city is a bad example for fuel, but a good guestimate would be $25/mo for a very short commute. Average commute probably ranges from 10-30 miles each way, so 200-600 miles per month @ (very generously) 30 mi/gal == 6-20 gal or roughly $25-$80/mo. Actual figures are probably more like $50-$200.mo.
Car payment (lease) say $300/mo. Car payment (purchased) say $150/mo factoring in life of vehicle. Maintenance say $50/mo over life of car (again, on the low side).
So, realistically, you're looking at $600 per month.
Now look at mass transit. I was paying $320/mo for railpass and subway card. Add in $150/mo for car rental for weekend trips, and it's still better than owning a car. Never mind the fact that parking would have cost me $500 for both sides, plus tolls.
OK, so NY is an extreme. But you are severely underestimating the cost of owning and operating a car.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As an interesting note, an engine designed with ethanol in mind will actually produce more power than a gasoline vehicle of similar displacement. This is because, while ethanol has a lower energy density per volume of fuel, it has a much higher octane rating and a higher synchromatic reatio (you can burn more fuel for a particular volume of air.) So, you can design an engine to run at a much higher compression for better efficiency (more power from the same amount of fuel,) or you can design a turbo engine to run with more boost (useful in a flex fuel design.)
A great example of this is the Koenigsegg CCXR
There are other issues with Ethanol, however. Some countries with a primarily agricultural economy are converting much of their production to produce bio-fuel. This is exasperating some of the world starvation issues.
But the problem the airlines are in is a middle area where it is important enough to drastically impact our day to day lives, but not drastic enough to ensure self-correction.
Sounds to me that if that really proves to be the case then the market will have judged airlines to be of less value then alternative uses of the wealth. I don't see why the Gov needs to mess with that outcome. Infact we could cut huge federal expenditures in that area without an airline industry.
Maybe only international air travel will be offered. Get you ass to NYC or LA by train/auto and then you fly over the ocean. That would be plenty practical. Air travel by and large is wasteful! It takes lots of fuel to move a little load. A train makes much more sense, given the rising cost of energy. Air travel was only selected by the market in the first place because the cost of the extra fule was less then the cost of building/maintaining all the extra railroad infrustucture that would be needed to serve the customer with trains. Airlines and interstate trucking all but killed rail because fule was cheap and plenty. Now that fule is expensive it might make more sense to build out railroad and if the airlines go the way of the doddo that could happen more quickly. Their is nothing wrong with these transitions its how a market is supposed to work. I don't know why our public officials refuse to understand that.
The buggy whip industry died with Ford, the canal industry died by the rail, the rail industry nearly died by the Ford and air freighter/liners. Rail cold come back and kill both and why not. It does not need to be your great grand pappy's railroad either we can run modern high speed trains with great fuel efficency as well if we replace our 120 year old track.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You seem to have a skewed view of big cities. In the US, the only city that is like you describe is New York (and really only Manhattan at that). That does suck, I agree. But take another city, like Chicago, for example (I have family there so I know what it's like). I'd say a good 75% of the housing is free-standing, single-family homes, possibly more. They're a bit smaller than in the suburbs, of course, but you could do everything you describe. I hear about squirrel and raccoon problems all the time. :) And the population there is just under 3 million. My point is that there isn't that much to sacrifice in moving to a city, unless you're silly enough to live in NYC.
Nobody is going to make you live in the city, I promise. I mean, obviously not everyone wants to live in a city. (You sound a little insecure about the nature of living in cities, but whatever.) Don't live in a city.
The current solution to not wanting to live in a city is horribly broken in the US. The basic plan has been to build huge, sprawling housing developments that literally require people to use a car for every trip. In american suburbs cars are required because the nearest convenience store is two miles away. Because cheap energy is basically over this situation is untenable, sorry. Electric cars are a stop-gap, but we need to stop depending on private vehicles to get you to work, get a gallon of milk, get the kids to school, etc. This is just too expensive.
Luckily the solution to not living in cities but not depending on cars for everything is solved. Its called small towns. Back in the days of Normal Rockwell do you think every family had two cars?
Generally this means getting away from sprawling hierarchal street suburbs and moving towards denser small towns, focused on transit to urban centers.
This is what exists in western europe. For example: my cousin lives in a suburb of paris in her own house with a backyard. She walks half a mile to the train station to commute into work in the city and keeps one small car for (rarish) long trips. The town is small but dense, so she can walk to the grocery store, walk to the market, walk to the bank. Her kids walk to school. I promise, promise you that you will like this lifestyle. Its very consistent with the lifestyle you lead now. You do not have to live in an apartment, you do not have to live in a high density city. And once you have the option to take a train to work rather than drive you won't believe you ever spent all that time in traffic.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
And those cars are frequently a better solution to the MPG problem, when compared to new hybrid and electric cars. Buying a new car has a huge impact on the environment, as does discarding old cars.
In order:
1. Change your driving habits to achieve better mileage out of the car you already own. ($0)
2. Fix and maintain your existing car to get the best mileage out of it. ($0-500)
2. Buy a reasonable used car that is more efficient than your current car if your actual fuel savings will pay for the car in a reasonable amount of time. ($500+)
3. Buy a new car, following the same rules as the above. Unless your current vehicle is a semi that gets 7 MPG on diesel, this probably isn't a realistic cost-effective solution. ($10,000+)
Now, if you want to buy a car anyway, that's fine, but the fallacy of buying a different car to save tons of money on gas is ridiculous. Unless you're buying a $500 beater, chances are low that you'll really save any money.
I think most people are pretty short-sighted when it comes to finances and they think that paying less at each fill-up means they're saving money, even though they may have spent $4,000 on another car and are paying more in auto insurance.
Now, I'll admit that I don't really care about the environmental impact of buying new cars. If you want one, buy one. That just means more cheap used cars for me to play with.
What amuses me is that people who claim to care about the environment would trade in their old reliable Volvos (blatant stereotype ftw) for a new Prius. The environmental effect of that used car happened a good 5-25+ years ago most likely, and the ongoing effects of driving it (if maintained properly) are negligible compared to the production of a single Prius.
Buying used cars is environmentally-friendly and an excellent and effective form of recycling that requires no additional energy. YMPGMV.
Ron Paul 2012
I was once chatting with a guy while visiting Detroit, and I made the comment that the lifestyle there seemed a lot different than that in my hometown (San Francisco). For me this was sort of an off-the-cuff comment, mostly intuitive, so when he asked me what I meant I had to struggle for a minute to come up with a concrete example. Finally, I said, "Well... just for example, where I live, I don't own a car." There was about thirty seconds of silence before he replied, in a quiet voice, "I can't even imagine what that's like."
Breakfast served all day!