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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."
Maybe this precedent (if true) will prompt the other automakers to follow?
GM failed to appreciate the coming change.
Good for Mercedes to be acting ahead of the curve. That is how you build technology and establish markets and presence.
Nobody killed the electric car. They killed their own opportunity.
Gentlemen, redouble your efforts!
Anybody want my mod points?
Why? Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars, they care about cost and acceptable performance (can I make 70-80 on the freeway, or will I have a top speed of 40). If they can solve the problem of refueling infrastructure and sufficient mileage per refuel, there's no reason why not to go with a non-gas car.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
As this isn't an official announcement, I'm not holding my breath. Sure Mercedes have been at the forefront of vehicle technology for quite some time, but do you really see their entire truck line going non-petroleum in 7 years? Maybe the passenger cars, but not the trucks.
><));>
Well if a blog says it's "well sourced," that's good enough for me!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
are still left in the 70's building 5 litre v8 guzzlers with solid rear axles
though looking at GM and Fords financial statements they wont be building much of anything if they dont change, fast.
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!
In other news, the public will phase out Mercedes purchases by 2015.
In other news, economically feasible oil and gas supplies to be exhausted by 2015.
> Focusing on ... biofuels, the company is revving up research in
> alternative fuel sources and efficiency.
Haven't they heard? Biofuels are now officially evil.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars, they care about cost and acceptable performance (can I make 70-80 on the freeway, or will I have a top speed of 40). If they can solve the problem of refueling infrastructure and sufficient mileage per refuel, there's no reason why not to go with a non-gas car.
you want this
Until we convert to completely non-combustive and non-fissile energy production, all vehicles will continue to use a certain amount of nuclear, petroleum and/or carbon-based fuels as a source of power.
All that these so-called electric and fuel-cell vehicles do is shift the point source of the pollution and fuel consumption away from the vehicle and onto the electrical grid (and by extension to coal, nuclear, and natural gas generating stations), because charging vehicle batteries and capacitors (or splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, so the hydrogen can be used as a fuel) takes electricity.
Besides, the vehicles will still probably depend on petroleum-based products for lubricants.
As if we could afford an electric car now.
-516
Now we need these three big boys to jump on board with the same claim.....gas prices will be barely over a dollar within weeks.
Got Code?
Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars
That's not true, I'm proud that the food that I eat powers me across town not some hydrocarbons bought in some country I really don't give a damn about. In other words, I walk or take a bike. Revolutionary! And I do it in Idaho, a state with let's just say an unproven track record in sustainability. Mass transit, clean air and energy efficiency that's for the Californians to worry about!
Or what about the fact I don't buy cat food that utilizes fish products? If I'm going to help deplete the world's fisheries I at least want to taste the devastation. I figure my cat can survive on beef and poultry and be happy knowing he's eating the product of over grazing, over feeding, over fertilizing, under paying, subsidization, etc., etc..
No the problem is a lot of us do care about the costs of our actions and choices. But an announcement like this is just a red herring. It says they will also concentrate on bio fuels. So they really aren't changing anything. Since I have yet to hear of a viable bio fuel that doesn't run in an engine compatible with petroleum.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Since this isn't an official announcement coming from MB themselves, I'm going to guess that "phasing out gasoline" and "focusing on biofuels" still means that they will still be running on diesel for their internal combustion engines. Not knowing much about automobile engines, or diesel in particular, I'm going to guess that they'll focus on the lower-sulfur diesel fuel that Europe has mandated (I believe, again, too lazy to look this stuff up), but it doesn't mean "no petroleum products ever"
Not to mention, there's still going to be plenty of oil in that engine, not to mention plenty of petroleum products in the rest of the car.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
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.
Since when has there been a corn supply shortage? There is more corn in storage now than there ever has been before.
No matter how we choose to generate power in the future, we have very few options for switching to anything other than gasoline for transporting that power.
Gasoline has a fantastic energy density. A 14 gallon tank of the stuff contains 491.2 kilowatt-hours of energy ($68 in electricity at New York rates), and the gasoline itself only weighs 81 pounds. If you fill up the tank in five minutes, you're transferring power at 7.368 megawatts. Can you imagine what kind of electrical infrastructure you would need to transfer the same power over mere wires?
About the only alternative I can imagine that would be comparable would be to hot-swap whole huge batteries at gas stations.
No, I think we'll be using gasoline, or at least a similar liquid fuel, for quite a while.
As owners of new Mercedes can't find places to fill up their cars.
Look, I'm all for alternative power sources, (I've been driving a Honda Civic hybrid since 2004), but a unilateral decision like this is just silly. Mercedes just isn't a big enough player (even in Europe) to force the construction of the infrastructure needed to support common use of fuel cells, etc. by 2015.
And don't biofuels lead to worldwide food shortages? A better route for Mercedes would be to ease the transition with regular hybrids and plug-in hybrids, then take the leap into leaving gasoline and diesel.
Me? When I sell my Civic Hybrid in a few years (like, say, six or so), I'll probably get a Chevy Volt. 40 miles on batteries only = never having to use gas on my way or going home from work.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Mercedes invented the modern automobile, now they're leading in innovation again. Now if only American automakers would muster up the grit to do the same. Electric motors have been around since 1881 for Pete's sake. Howabout it folks?
Even if a car manufacturer is serious about going to alternative fuels, I don't see it happen within 7 years for the major brands. Because the alternatives are not at the point where they could do as well as gasoline motors in all aspects. A small company might choose to make only electric cars and sell enough to make a profit, but I doubt the market would absorb the numbers a large manufacturer makes.
Besides, it is Mercedes we're talking about. Historically they tend to be late to adopt technology trends. With direct injection diesels and cars that could use unleaded gasoline, they were among the last on the German market.
Which is not to say Mercedes are incompetent, my impression of their cars is that they offer solid quality and a friend of mine who is a car mechanic agrees. But they are rather conservative, which means they offer mature technology but are rarely the first to do something.
C - the footgun of programming languages
And that refueling infrastructure is exactly why the general public gives a damn about what fuels their cars. One manufacturer phasing out a fuel is only a step in the right direction; we then have to actually get that fuel everywhere. In 2002, there were literally more than half a billion cars out there. That article doesn't give specifics as to the number of gas-powered cars, but with 590 million total there are definitely a lot. The cost to support the current gas refueling infrastructure is only going to hold back building even more infrastructure for alternative fuels.
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
It's NOT true.
... Will I even be alive when that finally happens? I have hope."
Fraud Alert: This is just a technically ignorant person's blog post. He wrote an attention-grabbing headline, and the Slashdot editor apparently didn't read the entire story.
Even the writer, Jaymi Heimbuch, doesn't believe the heading. Quote: "While car models may be able to run on fuels other than gasoline or diesel, we have yet to find a method of both running and producing vehicles entirely free of fossil fuels. I'm waiting for a mainstream car line that creates renewable fuel, clean-running vehicles out of 100% recycled materials in plants run on 100% renewable, clean power
Electric cars are NOT "clean power". The electricity generation plant uses coal or oil or nuclear fuel, and those are as dirty as before.
The 'economic feasibility' of gas has NOTHING to do with supplies being exhausted, unless you're referring to the 'supply' of other nations being willing to accept US dollars.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/bms/2005/0422.html
Once we get to where we cannot trade dollars for gas, we also will find Mercedes unwilling to accept those same dollars.
Then where will we be?
Call me pessimistic, but it seems like an easy way to meet this goal, especially for a company that already sells a lot of diesel cars, is to offer every car as a biodiesel...It's basically the same as a regular diesel, and they don't have to worry about the missing infrastructure because, hey, it can run on diesel too...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Mercedes truck division is way bigger than its car division.
And plenty of Italian farmers drive a Lambo to work.
No sig today...
Sadly, the emphasis is on biofuels rather than electric. Basically this boils down to burning food. At best, arable land that could be used for food crops will get used for fuel crops instead (this is already happening).
Electric cars, on the other hand, can be powered by nuclear reactors. And dang it, where's my flywheel?
If the main focus of this is going to be diesel engines running on biofuels, there doesn't seem a lot of extra work to be done. Their light commercial diesels, especially the 2.1L fitted in the Sprinter van, is a phenomenal engine: quiet, powerful, economical and very tractable.
I don't have direct experience of their diesel-engined cars (except seeing them go past me on the motorway), but I would imagine the technology is pretty similar.
The switch from petro- to bio-diesel is a lot more straightforward than with gasoline, so I would expect this to be the area they focus on.
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
Can't any diesel engine run biodisel unmodified? That was my understanding.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure you have to swap out your fuel lines and injectors. The engine is the same, though. All told, it's supposedly a very easy conversion to biodiesel.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
flying pigs.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
AFAIK, most Benz diesels will run on straight vegetable oil (and probably warm grease) unmodified. It's not recommended, but it's been done.
It is going to be with an electric car. I'll admit, the electricity distribution system needs a drastic overhaul, but it is for all intents and purposes, in place. Can Mercedes do it? Absolutely. As previously mentioned, Tesla Motors is doing it right now, and that's with a sports car faster than almost all exotics off the line. Toning down performance and allowing the technology to mature will all attribute to a successful conversion.
I doubt the article is even true, BUT in typical corporate speak they *could* revert to all diesel engines which *could* be biodiesel...or not...depending on local availability. That's a pretty huge loophole.
Cheers,
There are a lot of great reasons to bike, but $$ isn't one of them.
It is in this city -- and, I imagine, many others -- but that's due to how expensive it is to park rather than gas.
Of course, it all depends on location, location, location.
Plenty of people are already running their Benz on the stuff the local chip-shop would have thrown away. How hard is it to ramp that up a bit?
No sig today...
Perhaps what the OP meant was that as producing corn becomes more profitable, farmers will switch to producing corn instead of other crops, thus creating a scarcity of *those* grains and raising the price of food in general. A big chunk of world already finds it hard to afford food and hence the conclusion of people starving if prices rose further.
There's a huge movement in CA right now of folks using old cooking oil to fuel diesel engines. The bio fuel guys run around to restaurants and pick up their old cooking oil and then process it - without ANY petroleum or other fossil fuels.
The problem is that those companies that collect the old oil for a fee (restaurants pay $$$) are lobbying the CA legislature to make it illegal except for a licensed company to pick up the oil - in effect putting the biofuel guys out of business - or forcing them to buy the old oil from the companies that pickup. These companies are telling the CA legislature that they should be the only ones to pick up old oil because the public's safety is in jeopardy. Of course with enough $$$ the politicians will be on board.
It's amazing how low folks will stoop to save their business.
Oh! The favorite car that the bio fuel guys use is a Mercedes Diesel - unmodified.
Also, the link to HCCI in the story is broken. Use the one here instead.
The discussion about HCCI is written by someone named named Benjamin Jones. He obviously does not have much technical understanding.
Toyota are already selling hybrids and were the first to do it on a significant scale. ;-)
Now those are not as spectacularly "green" as some people think, but they are a good start. This makes Toyota one of the few major brands that have taken the risk of releasing something really new as product (as opposed to waiting until someone else does it and then copying it
C - the footgun of programming languages
"lot of us do care"
With 300 million people in America and 6 billion in the world, "a lot" of people do a lot of things. But the Majority does not care.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
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.
Well, if I was Mercedes I'd solve it by going up to a major gas station and saying "Hey, we'll give you an exclusive license to sell our fuel batteries for x years if you give us y% of the profits and promise to roll this out to your stations on z timeline". But any company looking to make a serious attempt at non gasoline vehicles needs to solve the refueling problem to be taken seriously.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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
There are a lot of great reasons to bike, but $$ isn't one of them.
It is in this city -- and, I imagine, many others -- but that's due to how expensive it is to park rather than gas.
Good call - I've never had to work anywhere where I had to pay for my own parking. I only factored in price-per-mile (and left out all kinds of random overhead - If you can actually eliminate a car from your life, it makes a big difference). Sometimes I forget that not everyone shares my life-style - Shallow, I know.
Cheers.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Ranting. Ignored.
You forseeing a massive crop failure the rest of us don't see coming?
Okay, we'll use nice, virgin oil made from surplus soybeans/corn/whatever vegetable - although it won't have that "french fried" smell . . .
Hey, you got one right!
Uh, hence the term renewable energy resources. Renewable. Not like fossil fuels (which are NOT renewable). Like crops.
Now, if you wanna look at the problem, it's not entirely our energy infrastructure; in large part it's our energy gluttony which is doing us in.
As usual, people assume that the problem is the fuel. Its not. Its the lifestyle. People are right to say that nothing can replace gasoline for the lifestyle we currently live. That is why the lifestyle is going to change, because there is not going to be affordable gasoline enough to live like that, and there are going to be no substitutes.
Folks, the 20th century is over. It was great while it lasted, suburbs, drive ins, shopping malls, long distance commutes. But its over. What is going to replace it will not be different fuels, electric cars, whatever. What will replace it is commuting by mass transit, living closer to where you work, moving into high density cities, walking to shops. Biking to work in some places. It will be a lot like Europe in the fifties. The suburbs will vanish.
And you won't like it.
Hence the focus on finding renewable energy sources. Biofuels are renewable.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Anybody who says they can't do it has never been to Germany.
Germany is unbelievably green. The people will buy into anything which weans them off gasoline and the USA-led wars which go with it.
Algae-grown biodiesel is about as eco-friendly as you can get (put in garbage, get fuel out). The Germans will go for it 100%.
The rest of the world? They'll catch up eventually.
No sig today...
So, how do you think food reaches your local grocery store? By truck maybe?
I own two very fuel efficient vehicles. Not the MOST, but very.
A 2006 Cummins Turbo powered Diesel. 8K pound truck, I can get 26 mpg, depending on speed, in town. Pulling 15K pounds, I can get 16 mpg. Pulling 26K pounds, it gets > 10.
Also a 2007 Highlander Hybrid. It's pretty fuel efficient itself, averaging a total of 24.8 mpg honestly. Of course, it's heavy as hell (never had it on a scale, but have had it on my 40 foot trailer pulling it, and it pulls like a pair of Volkswagen beetles on the same trailer. Them batteries are HEAVY).
That being said, I believe I can point the future direction of autos. (oh yeah, also graduated from WyoTech with an AS in "auto mechanics", for lack of better terms.).
Hybrids with diesel generation. Same exact thing locomotives are doing, but instead of burning off the electric generated during braking, charge the batteries (the top of a locomotive is typically a large resistor. The drive motors / electric brakes supply drag by energizing them with a small amount of voltage, causing them to act just like an alternator). During exceleration, apply electric and indirect drive, using a continuously variable transmission (a la Highlander Hybrid).
This causes a couple things to happen. A. You get to use that energy that actually causes you to slow down to excelerate. ALMOST like getting something for nothing (you have to carry them batteries, and that's drag). B. An engine can be designed to be SUPER efficient when that engine only as to turn at a single or small range of RPMs. A diesel, with a small turbo charger could be designed to put mad amounts of torque to push that car (when needed) or to turn an alternator to power them wheels, coupled with stored battery power. Run that engine at it's most efficient point (Pin vs Pout), and you get the picture.
You can do a simple conversion to get it to biofuel status by just switching to (and this creates a host of other problems) biodiesel.
Diesel (and biodiesel) is NOT explosive. Score one for diesel, kill one for hydrogen / other hydrocarbon fuels.
Diesel has more power per liter / gallon than regular refined fuel has. This increases the volumetric efficiency of the engine, designed right.
The more diesel you shove into an engine, the more power it produces (to the point of completely flooding the cyls and preventing detonation of the fuel / air mixture). However, finding that "sweet spot" really makes them wake up. There is a reason big trucks and ships, etc. run on oil / diesel. Mo Powah = Mo Bettah!
Anywho, I'd be willing to bet that will be the direction auto industries end up taking us. The original diesel engine ran on peanut oil, for crise-sakes! How much more bio can you get than that?
--Toll_Free
...a green push it certainly within their capability, I believe.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz#Innovations
Innovations
The "Safety cage" or "Safety cell" construction with front and rear crumple zones was first developed by Mercedes-Benz in 1951.[25]
Anti-lock brakes (ABS), traction control and airbags in the European market, were Mercedes-Benz innovations. These technologies were introduced in 1978, 1986 and 1980 respectively.
In September 2003, Mercedes-Benz introduced the world's first 7-speed automatic transmission called '7G-Tronic'.
Mercedes-Benz was the first to introduce pre-tensioners to seat belts on the 1981 S-Class. In the event of a crash, a pre-tensioner will tighten the belt instantaneously, preventing the passenger from jerking forward in a crash.
Stability control, brake assist (Press Release) , and many other types of safety equipment were all developed, tested, and implemented into passenger cars--first--by Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz has not made a large fuss about its innovations and has even licensed them for use by competitors--in the name of improving automobile and passenger safety.
Mercedes M156 engine
Mercedes M156 engine
The most powerful naturally aspirated eight cylinder engine in the world is the Mercedes-AMG, 6208 cc M156 V8 engine. The V8 engine is badged '63 AMG' and replaced the '55 AMG' M113 engine in most models. The M156 engine produces up to 525 bhp (391 kW), and although some models using this engine do have this output (such as the S63 and CL63 AMGs) specific output varies slightly across other models in the range.[26]
The (W211) E320 CDI which has a (VTG) turbocharged, 3.0L V6 common rail diesel engine, set three world endurance records. It covered 100,000 miles (1.6×105 km) in a record time with an average speed of 224.823 km/h (140 mph). Three identical cars did the endurance run (one set above record) and the other two cars set world records for time taken to cover 100,000 km and 50,000 miles (80,000 km) respectively. After all three cars had completed the run their combined distance was 300,000 miles (4.8×105 km) (all records were FIA approved).
Mercedes-Benz's pioneered a system called Pre-Safe which uses radar to detect an imminent crash and prepares the car's safety systems to respond optimally. It also calculates the optimal breaking force required to avoid an accident in emergency situations and makes it immediately available for when the driver depresses the brake pedal. Occupants are also prepared by tightening the seatbelt, closing the sunroof and windows, and moving the seats into the optimal position.
Mercedes Benz is developing a fatigue-detection system that warns the driver when they are displaying signs of micro-sleep (when the eyes stay closed for slightly longer than a natural blinking action). The system will use a variety of data including the individual driving style, the duration of the journey, the time of day and the current traffic situation. Fatigue mostly sets in gradually.[27]
The fastest (production) automatic road car in the world is the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren at 334 km/h (208 mph). The car was co-developed by DaimlerChrysler and McLaren Cars. The fastest street-legal saloon car in the world is the Mercedes-Benz Brabus (tuned) W211 'E V12' - based on the E-Class saloon.
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.
For the record, assuming that you consume a fairly healthy, well-balanced, and at least minimally palatable diet, it still consumes more resources to walk/bike than it does to drive
For the record, I am a working class man, IE poor. But when I can I buy stuff grown locally with as little shipping as possible. When you live in a state with as much focus on agriculture as I do, combined with an influx of out-of-state organic chasing, yoga doing, got some money in my pocket rubes. Well then we see a happy meeting of market forces actually providing positive community assets. IE locally owned co-ops, more organic farming and a staunch local opposition to GM seed and feed...
:) only cars I've ever owned are those that I flipped to turn a profit or worked on in my garage for fun. So whether calories per mile or miles per gallon is more efficient, I think I've my life style choices have been positive and beneficial over all, especially when status quo has been to do the exact opposite...
Now I'm not saying I'm anything more than an arm chair activist. But considering I'm 25, could of been driving every day since I was 16... 9 years, 30 miles a day... 30x365x9... 98550 miles driven. But that isn't the case
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Which is a perfectly good way to ruin a new diesel engine.
WVO/SVO is great in theory, but once you add modern high pressure common rail or unit injector fuel systems WVO causes nothing but havoc. There are numerous reports of failures on WVO/SVO. Injectors sticking open and burning holes in pistons, etc.
Keep your WVO/SVO for your 80's Benz. The future will be GTL and designer BioD.
Maybe the interests in bio-fuels because they want a clean method to power currently existing models? Mercedes owners are often car collector types. They may be perfect happy to buy a new model, but they won't wan to give up their old model necessarily.
when corporations begin the transesterification of the corpulent.
You don't swap injectors, you have to run a cleaner filter, and change out the filter more often.
Also, a preheating system of the fuel is in order, since depending on the level of Bio diesel (most are not 100 percent "bio"), the colder the fuel, the harder it is to get it to combust.
Biodiesel in todays engines, run from day one, is fine. You run into problems when the biodiesel starts eating up your gas tank and other things (the additives in bio are MUCH more corrosive than regular diesel, something the "greenies" don't tell you (among MANY other bad things biodiesel can cause / do)). This is the reason for the much more than normal fuel filter changes.
Google biodiesel conversion .... Cummins Turbo Diesels are the same technology as the big rigs use. Ford (International Harvester) and Chevrolet (Isuzu) diesel engines, while using the same direct injection technogoly, don't produce the same amounts of torque as an inline 6 does (Cummins, Detroit, etc). However, all systems are pretty much the same when it comes to a bio conversion, so it won't matter which one you look at. The V8s produce more HP, the I6s produce more torque. Torque gets shit done. HP spins tires and makes the geeks smile :)
--Toll_Free
Wrong on several levels.
First, the math:
491 kilowatt-hours = 0.491 megawatt-hours.
0.491 MWh over 5 minutes = 5.892 MWs of energy.
Second, you are ignoring efficiency:
5.8 MWs of energy is far more than it takes to move a car. Gasoline engines are remarkably ineffecient at converting all that energy into actual power.
Third, and most importantly:
"If it were possible for human beings to digest gasoline, a gallon would contain about 31,000 food calories -- the energy in a gallon of gasoline is equivalent to the energy in about 110 McDonalds hamburgers!"
Soure: http://science.howstuffworks.com/gasoline1.htm
(Okay, so maybe not most importantly, but it's the coolest.)
Hey, then you fix the fuel problem and the overpopulation problem. It's win-win!!
People are like slinkies; useless but fun to watch when you push them down the stairs
"Besides, it is Mercedes we're talking about. Historically they tend to be late to adopt technology trends."
You must recheck your auto knowledge. Mercedes is the forefront of automobile excellence. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-AMG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile)
If you want to see how common cars will be in 5/10 years, see the Mercedes class S.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_S-Class:
"the S-Class has debuted many of the company's latest innovations, including advanced safety systems, drivetrain technologies, and interior features. Notably, the S-Class introduced the first airbag supplemental restraint systems, seatbelt pretensioners, and electronic stability control"
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
That's why work is being done on developing second-generation biofuels.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
If this article said phasing out gasoline but keeping diesel powered cars I could believe it. Biofuels can't do it and the only way electricity makes sense is if it is nuclear. Everybody needs to take a tour of a large refinery and look at the huge storage tanks of crude oil that get processed in just a few days and then ponder the number of refineries there are in this world to realize how difficult it will be to replace gasoline and diesel. I bet we are still using gasoline in 2050 if not much later.
Read more carefully. All they're going to do is stop making gasoline cars, and hope everyone will run their diesels on biofuel. Mercedes already has diesel options in most if not all of their vehicles. All they have to do is stop making gasoline engines.
Fuel cells still use fuel. That fuel will likely be gasoline.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
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
Get back to us when it is more than blog spam because this makes no sense at all.
Mercedes big money in fossil fuel burning engines that probably will just be coming on the market in that time frame.
Look into DiesOtto for one.
I don't know. The problem is that almost every story about the subject is, like this one, full of enthusiasm but also full of mistakes. I haven't done a fundamental analysis.
There is considerable energy loss when transmitting electricity, especially since it is usually transmitted over long distances.
but I still can't afford one.
Basically this boils down to burning food
No, it boils down (ha ha) to burning the crap left over from food production. BioD comes from waste oil, and its production creates glycogen as a byproduct (which is a useful thing in and of itself). Ethanol is maybe what you're thinking of, because it's made in the US from corn and in other countries from sugar cane.
And if you buy an electric car right now, chances are very, very good (at least in North America) that it will probably be running on coal. But the point of electric cars is that they decouple the energy source from its consumption, making them the ultimate in 'flex fuel' vehicles.
Now if only the batteries didn't take hours and hours to charge up and weren't made of nasty hazardous materials...
Look up the numbers. Total oil from oil crop production versus gasoline+diesel consumption.
And what about their faster models? Will they ditch at the same time? I'm going to miss the sound of the supercharged v8.
Why? Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars, they care about cost...
Um, this is Mercedes we are talking about. If you want cost-conscious, you buy a Hyundai Accent that gets 40 MPG and costs $9,999.
Bearded Dragon
You don't sound like a person who knows a thing or two about farming. Jumping into "we can make it from corn" bandwagon is no better than relying only on oil for all engergy needs because crops are not renewable. See my other posts under the partent.
Sooner or later you will run out of land and resources. You will have to make choices between growing crops for food or growing crops for fuel. This is happening in Brazil already! Farmers choose to cut down rain forest and in order to grow crops for Ethanol production. Do you not see how stupid this is? You damage rain forest and stop food production in order to make fuel. This makes little sense especially to people who do not have luxury of having a grilled chicken every day. While millions of people starve, we turn food crops into fuel...
Yes, biofuels are a great idea as long as we can diversify them correctly. =
Good point. But, you also have to consider that, instead of building new power plants every time we get a newer and better way to generate electricity (which will happen anyways), you have to modify factories to build the new engine, modify all the fuel stations to accommodate the new fuel, and then wait for the cars to get out on the road. Note that California's own air resources board notes that it takes 16 years for 50% of the passenger cars produced in that year to be off the road. That jumps up to 18 years for light duty trucks. Unless we find a catalyst for carbon fixing in a cheap and usable form, I think that electric is probably the better way to go.
Cynical Idealist
People don't want to change their lifestyle and if somebody comes up with a plan where they don't have to, they'll jump on it.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
My father in law drives a Mercedes truck for Fedex. In Wisconsin.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I have read recently (no cite, sorry) that there is some thought that if all these cars are charging at night when demand is usually lower, then the additional generation load may not be too bad.
Also it was said in the same article that perhaps by having so many batteries tied into the grid it could actually stabilize peak generation requirements, or something like that.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
No. It's not a typo as a little time on Google News shows. The original source story was printing in the Sun. Online copy here. Of course The Sun is not exactly a reliable new source, but it should do for a xenophobic little shit like you.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Mass Transit? California? Hah. California performs an epic fail when it comes to public transit.
In the Bay Area no one single public transit system will get you around the whole bay. Getting from say Oakland to San Jose requires a number of rather inconvenient transfers. Actually trying to get around San Jose at all on public transit is a mess. BART was supposed to go to San Jose, but never did and trying to get funding to finish it has become a bureaucratic nightmare.
Down south, supposedly there's a subway system in LA but I've never met anyone that's actually used it. I think it exists purely so east coast writers can use it in their movie plots. Wikipedia lists its ridership as being 258,710 in a county with 9 million people. (NYC's subway system by comparison has 5mil daily riders). Southern California (and the whole state really) is very car centric, which is partly why the traffic around LA is so messed up.
As for trying to get between the major population centers in California (let's say, The Bay Area, LA, San Diego and Sacramento), your only options pretty much are Amtrak and Greyhound, both of which generally cost more then the cost in gas to just drive to whatever your destination is---assuming you have a car which most Californians do. If you start taking into account multiple passengers then the cost difference really becomes noticeable.
There is one potentially bright spot though. If high speed rail actually could somehow materialize into a reality it could offer a compelling alternative to driving or flying, in reasonable time. A major bond measure is on the November ballot to support funding for building the high speed train network in California. (Not to mention could actually solve the SJ to SF issue--- now if they'd only add a line along the Central Coast.)
I think you would be hard pressed to prove that point for any person with a decent diet.
1) Cars require more resources to build initially
2) Cars require more resources to run per mile (not just in terms of the fossil fuels themselves vs. human energy, but also in terms of the energy required to transport those fossil fuels around the world [hint, it's much greater than the energy used to bring you a peach or two] - 50% of the world's energy is burned just in transporting OTHER energy around the planet).
3) Cars cost more to maintain
4) Exercise is good for you and there are dozens of uncounted, beneficial health effects which will save you money later.
I'm sorry, but this is just pure FUD
Actually, I would much rather prefer a car that could go over 70-80. Not because I want to do it on a regular basis, but because I had a car that would do 80 on a good day, down hill and with the wind at my back. But it would do 85(!) and that was about it. It took me miles to get to that speed and wasn't very economic at that speed. Good old Mercury Lynx. Anyway, to my point. A car designed to go 80 will start to lose some of it's torque near the high end of the speed band and to start to lose that ability to avoid a crash, pass a car, or anything useful over 55mph if you might actually need it.
Around 150 mph seems to be a common cutoff in the last two cars I've owned (both Mazda) and they've had plenty of power to do what I needed and when I needed it at highway speeds and below. My RX8 was capped at 150 by the transmission gearing/red-line and my MX5 seems to be the same (though I haven't had a chance to get it to the track to see.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
What are they going to do? Build a nation of new fuel stations in their largest market to handle Mercedes-Benz only fuel?
Bio fuels are, to borrow an overused phrase, carbon-neutral. We aren't introducing anything into the environment that wasn't there. With fossil fuels, we're releasing stored carbon that would otherwise stay locked away, hence the environmental impact. Biofuels, if they gain critical mass, are at least relatively neutral, you just have to wait for plants to re-absorb the carbon your vehicle emits.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I was under the impression that there's not enough "waste oil" to meet the kind of demand that a majority-bio-diesel solution would call for. The result would be that much of the stuff getting pumped into tanks would have to come straight from rapeseed oil (for example), and not by way of the deep fryer at the local pub. With the possible exception of cellulosic biofuels, every current method of producing combustible fuel somehow links food production to the fuel tank of your vehicle.
The net result for biofuel, even biodiesel, is that we starve people in developing nations by the millions so we can drive our cars. Let the internal combustion engine die alongside oil reserves. We need something very different, and if food supply is involved anywhere in that chain, it had better be burned in the cells of horses not the tanks of the latest S Class. That's why the focus ought to be on things like electric or mechanical (flywheel) means to powering vehicles.
Except you can't continue to grow corn year after year. Crop rotation requires at least three crops to be effective; typically corn, soybeans, and wheat. While you can get away with breaking the cycle for a few years, ultimately the other crops are still going to find their way on to the land, even if they are less profitable.
The World Bank "leaked" report sums this up rather nicely.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080704/ts_afp/climateenvironmentbiofuelsworldbankusbritain
Except they've been in the Mercedes for the last 10-20 years. Everything that Benz has had since the 80's is now "standard."
PR For Dummies:
Step 1: Make grandiose statement about something that will happen 7 years from now.
Step 2: Enjoy the PR boost now.
Step 3: There is no Step 3. You don't even have to do what you said in Step 1. Nobody will remember the claim by then! And even if someone digs it up, it will be dismissed as an inconsequential footnote, something someone wistfully said 7 years ago.
'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
The problem with this is that there is really no replacement for oil out there. We can talk up all the alternative fuels we want but they are simply not as convenient as pumping oil out of the ground. Now I'm all for hurrying along the inevitable changeover, but there is no way in hell barring a major advancement we don't know about yet that they are going to stick to this. I give it 5 years before they move the date out past 2020. Of course, this is probably all bullshit anyway...
Depends. Biofules such as corn-based ethanol are carbon-positive. It's quite natural-gas intensive. Sugar cane ethanol gets a pass, as plant waste is used to fuel the heat process needed to make it. Just because it grows in the ground and we can turn around and burn it doesn't make it carbon-neutral.
Ack, the post got messed up... I should have previewed. Replace that second paragraph with:
Okay, so these are the outlets found all across the country. The RV ones are especially interesting, since RV parks can often be found in even the most remote places, and I'm sure your average RV park owner would love a new revenue stream, what with RV travel down due to high gas prices. Now, let's take an upcoming EV like the Aptera Typ-1e -- 2+1 seating, 120 miles@55mph, 70 miles@80mph, 90mph top speed, 0-60 in under 10 sec, 15.9 cubic feet of cargo space, etc for $27k. It has a 10kWh battery pack. Charger efficiency isn't known, but 93% or so is standard for slow charging (i.e., charging in more than half an hour or so). Li-ion batteries range from 96% (fast charging) to 99.9% (trickle charging) efficiency. Let's say 99%. Let's ignore the slowdown at the end, since that's more significant with .
For ~2 hours worth of moderate speed driving or ~1 hour of high-speed driving, and assuming an appropriate onboard charger, you get the following charge times:
NEMA 5-15R (15A): 6.2h
NEMA 5-15R (20A): 4.6h
NEMA TT-30R: 3.1h
NEMA 10-30R or 14-30R: 1.5h
NEMA 10-50R or 14-50R: 0.92h
Now, these are with standard outlets that you can already find across the country. Thanks to modern batteries and chargers, fast charging is not only possible, but already available in places, such as Oahu. They use 60kW PosiCharge fast chargers by Aerovironment. Aerovironment already makes them as big as 250kW.
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
not some hydrocarbons bought in some country I really don't give a damn about
While not strictly hydrocarbons, I'd hazard that a lot of your food is made of hydrogen and carbon in a country you really don't give a damn about. That's certainly true of a lot of the food we eat this side of the pond anyway...
I'll hazard a guess and say that they are going to support biodiesel across their product line. Diesels have been able to put out more power than petrols for several years now, and with common rail technology they just as smooth and quiet now. It's not a big step to support biodiesel on top of existing diesel technology.
What I want to see is councils offering free parking if you pay for using the inbuilt charging socket on the parking meter...
Oh, that and electric conversion kits for my classic cars
Why don't you cruise over to A123System's website and check out the spec sheet on their cells, and see how fast they can soak a charge up. You could charge a car in under 4 hours (which isn't a big deal if you charge at home every night, or at work during the day).
Mass Transit? California? Hah. California performs an epic fail when it comes to public transit.
As a Californian, I have to angrily retort: "Uhh... well.. yeah, that's pretty much it."
In the Bay Area no one single public transit system will get you around the whole bay. Getting from say Oakland to San Jose requires a number of rather inconvenient transfers. Actually trying to get around San Jose at all on public transit is a mess. BART was supposed to go to San Jose, but never did and trying to get funding to finish it has become a bureaucratic nightmare.
Getting from my house in Berkeley to the car rental at the Oakland International Airport (where I had to drop it back off) was a nasty exercise in transfers, from a cab to BART, BART to the airport, board a slow bus that eventually takes you to the car rental.. my God, what a pain. And every time someone suggests something reasonable, like, say, extending BART to San Jose, it gets tied up by regional transportation buslines who don't like the "big guys" coming in and taking their business (not kidding.. Santa Clara VTA lobbied nicely against the SJ extension).
Want to get from Berkeley to Windsor, Ca where my mom lives? The last time I tried it it involved taking a BART train to San Francisco, then Golden Gate Transit up to Santa Rosa, then a bus from Santa Rosa to Windsor. Total travel time? 3.5 hours. Travel time if I drive? 55 minutes, or 1.5 hours if 101N traffic is particularly ghastly.
The last time I tried to use Amtrak (long ago), a round-trip ticket between Berkeley and Davis (near Sacramento) involved a train and a bus (despite there being an Amtrak train station in Davis and Berkeley) and cost around $50. The last time I had a 6 hour delay on Amtrak was the last time I rode on Amtrak.
Down south, supposedly there's a subway system in LA but I've never met anyone that's actually used it. I think it exists purely so east coast writers can use it in their movie plots.
And for 24, which is usually set in LA.
When I took a trip to London and traveled around on the Tube... man, how refreshing that was.
Nobody really gives a damn what fuels their cars
Demonstrably false. Many of us also care WHO fuels our cars.
If the cost of private transportation continues to rise...
I could very easily see all routine transport done without private vehicles, and people renting cars, or using a car share, when they need to take the odd trip somewhere to which public transit is infeasible. That is how a lot of NYC people operate...
Of course the rich would likely keep private vehicles...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I don't think that should be moderated as Flamebait. I think it's insightful, at the very least funny. If the market is not ready for that by 2015, then he is correct: most people would not consider buying Mercedes, which would result in serious financial trouble for the company.
Like ethanol, bio-diesel, which I purchase when reasonably priced, suffers from a lack of available production. There simply is not nor will there be in the foreseeable future any way to grow even organic material to both feed the world and power our country. Google it, I was all gung hoo to replace big oil with big soy but it just isn't viable.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
"So we have green cars but half of the world will starve to death."
It's OUR corn.
Other-nation failure to make decisions that would make them self-sufficient in food is not my concern or problem.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Ya there is a station in Arcata, Ca. that sells/sold B99. I've used it in my dually and it runs great, just loose a few mpg due to the lower btu's.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I don't like swapping my propane tank because I have a fairly new one. I really don't think I'd like to swap my nice new $5000 battery pack for whatever the last guy left at the station.
Keep two packs...
One nice one, that you don't want to swap out, and get a used one, as cheap as you can. Put the cheap on in when you are going to go on a long trip that would require swapping..
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Say by by to your injectors when they gum up. Stick with bio.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
As an interesting note, an engine designed with ethanol in mind will actually produce more power than a gasoline vehicle of similar displacement. This is because, while ethanol has a lower energy density per volume of fuel, it has a much higher octane rating and a higher synchromatic reatio (you can burn more fuel for a particular volume of air.) So, you can design an engine to run at a much higher compression for better efficiency (more power from the same amount of fuel,) or you can design a turbo engine to run with more boost (useful in a flex fuel design.)
A great example of this is the Koenigsegg CCXR
There are other issues with Ethanol, however. Some countries with a primarily agricultural economy are converting much of their production to produce bio-fuel. This is exasperating some of the world starvation issues.
My greatest fear is the rolling blackouts when everyone plugs in their car. Can you imagine the surge at 5:30-6:00pm when dad/mom quietly rolls in from work and plugs in. I mean really it would take downâ£^&*R% 02u^%~2243$#... carrier dead
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
That's a pretty bad argument if you ask me.
For someone who replaces their car with a bicycle there is no way you can argue that they aren't saving money. For most people there is a monthly car payment of ~$150 + car insurance of ~$50 then a monthly gas bill of ~$75 + an average monthly maintenance (oil change, brake pads, tires, etc..) of $20 a month.
For $1000 dollars (probably less than the average down payment) you'd get very nice road bike. No car payments, no insurance, no gas...and possibly $5-10 dollars a month in flat tires.
Even if you ignore the fact that most Americans ALREADY eat too much food, which makes them FAT, and that if they rode their bicycle they'd actually lose fat and save a whole bunch of money in potential medical bills; most people ENJOY eating anyway. The bicycle riding *might* cost an extra $50 dollars in food...but it is still a significant savings.
They should start putting solar panels on the roof of electric and hybrid cars instead of relying entirely on grid power. That way while your car is parked at work (assuming you're not under covered parking or garaged - which is simple enough to manage) your car is charging its batteries. Also while you're driving the car, the batteries are being charged. Of course, it's nowhere near the amount of electricity you're using while driving but it can extend the range if nothing else. I'd like to see a plug-in hybrid with solar panels on the roof and hood. I mean why stop at the fact that it's hybrid? Why not make it even better?
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.
Exactly. It's not the unavailability of all of the fuel that is the issue, but how much it will cost, and more importantly how quickly that cost will increase. This rate of increase will determine whether we will be able to actually continue with this easy motoring way of life, or not. The higher the rate of increase, the less probability that we will be able to maintain the current way of doing things.
The cheapness of the fuel *is* the issue. Right now, diesel and gasoline still give the biggest bang for the buck.
See these (now quite well known) sites for more info: Kunstler and The Oil Drum
1) Cars require more resources to build initially
2) Cars require more resources to run per mile (not just in terms of the fossil fuels themselves vs. human energy, but also in terms of the energy required to transport those fossil fuels around the world [hint, it's much greater than the energy used to bring you a peach or two] - 50% of the world's energy is burned just in transporting OTHER energy around the planet).
3) Cars cost more to maintain
4) Exercise is good for you and there are dozens of uncounted, beneficial health effects which will save you money later.
I agree entirely with (1), (3), and (4). If you believe (2), you're bad at math, eating crap, or are paying for parking (as somebody else pointed out). That was the only point I was trying to make. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
For someone who replaces their car with a bicycle there is no way you can argue that they aren't saving money.
Agreed. Replacing a car is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, most people ride their bikes and leave their car in garage rather than replacing it.
Even if you ignore the fact that most Americans ALREADY eat too much food, which makes them FAT, and that if they rode their bicycle they'd actually lose fat and save a whole bunch of money in potential medical bills; most people ENJOY eating anyway. The bicycle riding *might* cost an extra $50 dollars in food...but it is still a significant savings.
Yup. Like I said, there are a lot of great reasons to bike - I do it myself. But $$/mile isn't one of them.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You still haven't explained how this statement is incorrect, but you keep saying it is. Anyone eating sufficiently low on the trophic chain (ie, mostly fruits, vegetables, and grains with some meat and dairy) is going to have less impact and have relatively cheap meals (and thus have low cost biking transportation). After physical conditioning (so you are more efficient when biking), it's pretty safe to say that it costs less money to operate a bike than it does to operate a car
We can use my own commute as an example. I commute anywhere between 4 and 15 miles each day (round trip), depending on the day and what I need to do. My car gets decent mileage on the highway, but not so hot on the street, but parking is free. I end up using about a gallon of gas if I commute to work by car ($4.70 from the station across the street). I only spend 5 dollars TOTAL on food for myself each day, and I eat decently well. So, when I bike to work, unless I use up almost every scrap of energy that I have, it is certainly cheaper for me to bike. Even if gas prices were cut in half, it's still a reasonable assumption to say it is cheaper to bike, and we're still not taking into account all of the significant longer term costs that you agreed with.
This situation will vary between people depending on distance, fuel efficiency, etc, but the idea that it's cheaper to operate a car than bike is disproved by about a century of economic data, even of just people who own cars.
Must be different brands for different markets then - they're M-B in at least some of Europe. Try Googling for "actros":
http://www.mercedes-benz.de/content/germany/mpc/mpc_germany_website/de/home_mpc/trucks/home/products/new_trucks/actros.html
Historically M-B didn't own the "Daimler" name in all markets - in the UK Daimler was an independent company unrelated to Daimler-Benz, then part of Jaguar, which got bought by Ford, and then sold back before Tata bought Jaguar:
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/08/22/daimler-deals-with-ford-to-get-its-name-back/
Obligatory Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_Motor_Company
Agreed, the cars will not go away. However, the USA imports 2/3 of the oil used to power its fleet of automobiles. Shortly after the US economy collapses (2009? 2008? 2012 at the latest), the oil exporters will no longer trade oil for (then worthless) dollars. At this time, the cars will still be there, but they won't be moving. This will mark the end of the American love affair with the automobile.
Enjoy your car while you can, and take a road trip soon. Pretty soon, there will be no more road trips in the USA.
Overwhelming evidence suggests the above statements are true. Overwhelming evidence also suggests that most people will deny it right up until it happens, and possibly for some time afterwards.
Suggested reading:
The Five Stages of Collapse
Jay Hanson's Die Off Resources
Scientific references about peak oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx92mitp9Os
Of course if you would get your head out of your ass and look around every once in a while, you'd realize that humans are very good at problem solving. A 90 mile range car, plugged in at night when many businesses are closed, would cover the needs of much of the population. Taxi drivers can use technology already in use in one of the poorest countries in the world, and with some sensible urban planning most of us can walk around instead of wasting energy driving. Remember, the same caloric content of a gallon of gas could get you a few thousand miles if you use your legs.
The reason it's not being done is because gasoline cars make a lot of money, because they're extremely inefficient and expensive to maintain. And because the corporate non-hippies bitch and moan about mass transportation subsidies, despite the fact that it's more expensive to maintain roads and fight wars in the middle east, we end up with an extremely inefficient infrastructure that does not improve the quality of life.
I come from Houston Texas. It's a city with almost no public transportation whatsoever. Sure we have METRO which is brutally limited and of course I live in the suburbs (thanks to my nice, expensive, and very convenient car) so I get nothing from that. If I worked downtown I could take a bus in using the park and ride system but I don't. There's literally no way to get me from where I live to where I work and back again without a ridiculous amount of time and trouble being involved.
I didn't plan it like that. I'm like everybody else here in Houston. I didn't plan a damned thing. It just worked out that way because it could. I'm am utterly dependent on my car. On top of that I drive a 2006 Pontiac GTO. It gets crap mileage but it's a fun ride and fast. I love my car and I'm never giving up my car. It's just not an option on the table. I'm as indoctrinated into the American cult of the big V8 as you can get.
About three years ago I went on a vacation with my wife to London. We spent 9 days there and didn't use a car or take a cab. We walked and used the underground. It was pure heaven. I'd kill for a system like that in my town. I'd love to leave the goat at home and take a subway like that to work every day. I wouldn't lose the car but I'd drive it a hell of a lot less if I had the option.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
They'll introduce flying cars! It's unconfirmed but believe by many bloggers!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"Nobody killed the electric car. They killed their own opportunity."
GM killed their electric car because they lost two billion dollars on the project. That's two billion. The EV1 had shit for range, took forever to recharge, and was dangerous to maintain.
From your own source:
There was no conspiracy. The EV1 was a lousy, unprofitable product.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
no no no! It's all local co-op, no pesky hydrocarbons involved there. Don't you know, energy usage, transportation and civilization are bad, bad, bad and we should all take this young lad as our example!
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
In other news, the public will phase out Mercedes purchases by 2015.
Just like they are phasing out gas guzzler GMs in favor of fuel efficient Toyotas? The proof is already here with GM's troubles and Toyota's market domination: build efficient cars or go under. Its natural selection at its finest. I feel no pity for GM as they continue to dig their own grave by not recognizing that oil is a finite resource.
Just callin' it like I see it.
I think he was referring to the "...50% of the world's energy is burned just in transporting OTHER energy around the planet..." statement.
"Its natural selection at its finest"
It's called selective tax breaks, and not only is it the exact opposite of natural selection, it is also unconstitutional and immoral.
sure, a flintstonemobile looks good on paper...
Serenity now, insanity later.
Live and learn.
I didn't know there was any waste fats being thrown out by American restaurants.
No sig today...
That's what overnight trickle-charging, swappable or intermediate batteries that can be solar/wind/other-charged at home during the day, or quick-charge outlets at 'gas' stations will be for. Of course it's entirely possible that we'll enter the new age ass-backwards and your fears will come to pass, but at least there are solutions available.
Oddly enough, that fact is actually the best documented part of what I said. See https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/images/LLNL_Energy_Chart300.jpg for more. Over 50% of energy is simply lost (heat, transportation, and high voltage requirements all play in) during the generation and transportation of energy.
However, it does look like I mistated this. Turns out that over 50% of energy is lost in generation, transmission, and distribution (and not just in transmission and distribution alone). I think the point still stands though
The battery pack in the Tesla roadster is about 1200 pounds! And that gets you about 60 miles. So, if (big if) all the automobile manufacturers could agree on a standard battery form factor and method of replacing the battery pack this simply is not workable. This is akin to changing horse teams on a stagecoach. Now think about 150 million stagecoaches running around the United States alone. Sorry, but this is just nutty.
There are some fine examples of successful park and rides in Chicago.
Look no further than the inbound I-90 during rush hour: While creeping along at five miles per hour near Cumberland, you can take the Cumberland exit, drive two minutes, pull into the garage, and board a train within five.
There's nothing quite like relaxing on the train while it speeds past the idle vehicles on its median track.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
The nation's fleet of over 100 coal plants is responsible for 57 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S., more than any other single electricity fuel source. Coal power plants are responsible for 93 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 80 percent of the nitrogen oxide emissions generated by the electric utility industry.
When you plug into the wall, you burn coal. The notion that electric cars are better for the environment is absurd and naive. You don't see the soot coming out the tailpipe, but it's still adding to your local smog level and global warming in general.
The only way to lose the need to burn coal is to REDUCE power consumption so less polluting methods can handle the load. Burning gas is better than tapping the grid harder than it already is, and if everyone bought plug-in cars, electricity would quickly become more expensive than gas!
The global warming crisis is a multi-headed beast. Everyone's trying to chop off the gasoline head while the others continue causing irreparable damage uncontested. THERE IS NO SHORTCUT, YOU MUST REDUCE CONSUMPTION.
Start thinking along the lines of either finding work closer to home or finding a home closer to work, e-commuting, anything to shave miles off your routine. Truly earth-friendly personal transportation is a long way away. Decades.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Indeed, as it is, biodiesel has killed the old process for obtaining glycerin - industry gets all it wants(and more) from biodiesel production. Still, as it becomes cheaper so shouldn't premium soaps, and I'm sure we can come up with some more uses for it.
It's one thing to make BD out of waste oils today - quite another if you're looking at powering 10-100% of the diesel vehicles on the road with it.
I don't read AC A human right
You don't need insurance with a bike, no payments (or rather, 1 whole bike can be purchased for a single car payment), no registration, very low maintenance.
As for gas... well, if you are like me, you eat too much - biking isn't likely to require very much more "fuel" - it will just make me healthier.
All that said, in my last job I walked to work and now I work from home :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Hate to break it to you but yes you can.
I live on a farm and I am surrounded by farms. Some people will push the soil and add a lot of different fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to be able to produce as much corn as they can. Ever more now because companies producing ethanol are going around and offering more for the corn than selling it for food.
Biking uses approximately 500 cal/hr at 12 mph, which gives 42 cal/mi.
1 serving of spaghetti provides approximately 200 cal and costs 12 cents.
Assuming your car averages 25 mpg and $4 per gallon:
Biking: 3 cents per mile
Driving: 16 cents per mile
Well I am hoping that the Polywell reactor will work out. If it does then making gas from air and water will be pretty cheap.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It seems no electric car is truly available now. Everybody is talking about concept cars, limited production runs, cars that are only available in limited geographic areas and vehicles available to fleets only, and they are promised for 2010. For the Tesla, which is ahead of most, even if you have the 100 K$ burning a hole in your pocket, you better hope you are already on the waiting list, and located in California, or your chances are slim-to-none of getting one. I'm hoping Mercedes will make the electric version of the smart car available in the US. Eventually. Sigh.
- Looking for an Electric Car Before the Gas Price Surge
Computers obey me.
Folks, the 20th century is over. It was great while it lasted, suburbs, drive ins, shopping malls, long distance commutes. But its over. What is going to replace it will not be different fuels, electric cars, whatever. What will replace it is commuting by mass transit, living closer to where you work, moving into high density cities, walking to shops. Biking to work in some places. It will be a lot like Europe in the fifties. The suburbs will vanish.
And you won't like it.
You sir, are absolutely dead wrong. There is too much inertia in the American culture and the infrastructure that has been built up for there to be any massive exodus from suburbia to the city. Mass transit and massive urban rehabilitation projects are expensive and get more expensive with every passing year. Even for transit projects that have net positive revenue, there's so much capital and time involved that it will be decades before any significant difference is made, and by then further-out suburbs replace the older connected ones. Your vision might take place in a very limited sense in isolated areas, but for American cities as a whole, forget it. A lot of people like the quiet of suburbs; the noisy, dirty lifestyle of the city center is not for everyone.
People tend to take the easy way out and will survive this crisis just like fuel prices in the 70's and every other major economic event with the least change (or the least expense) possible. If I had to bet, the future is probably going to involve manufacturing normal gasoline (not biodiesel, ethanol, etc..) from some sort of biomass, or more likely continuing the trend towards battery technology in cars. Or continuing to drive the same oil consuming cars we do now, only with a switchover to cleaner grid electricity (nuclear, solar, wind, carbon-sequestered coal, etc..)
See Gasoline from biomass
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
in your flying car.
2) Cars require more resources to run per mile (not just in terms of the fossil fuels themselves vs. human energy, but also in terms of the energy required to transport those fossil fuels around the world [hint, it's much greater than the energy used to bring you a peach or two] - 50% of the world's energy is burned just in transporting OTHER energy around the planet).
I agree entirely with (1), (3), and (4). If you believe (2), you're bad at math, eating crap, or are paying for parking (as somebody else pointed out). That was the only point I was trying to make. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
I skate 5 miles each way to work. That's roughly equivalent to eight miles each way on a bicycle. I eat lunch with my car-commuting co-workers regularly so I have a pretty good idea how much they eat. They eat about the same as I do. Some a little less (No mayo, no cheese), some a bit more (make that a footlong). I'm not sure how energy is balanced. Maybe the work out at the gym. Maybe they just get fat and need more energy to move around. Whatever the reason, they aren't able to translate that drive into a smaller food bill. I'm over 6' so it's not a size issue.
If they can solve the problem of refueling infrastructure and sufficient mileage per refuel, there's no reason why not to go with a non-gas car.
It isn't just an issue of refueling infrastructure and top speed that's the issue. It's refueling time. I can fill my car's gas tank from near empty to full in under 5 minutes. A typical electric car takes about 8 hours to charge. So even if the range of an electric car is extended to match that of a gas powered car, and even if there is a sufficient refueling infrastructure, it still isn't practical to drive an electric car on a long distance trip. Fuel cells are more promising as they run on a liquid fuel.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
The site is Flash, so I can't give you a direct link but check out the Triac.
80 mpg max, 100 mile range. Five hours to go from flat battery to full charge. And they're $20k - slightly cheaper than an A package Prius.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
80 mph, not mpg. Damn typos.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
While I agree that mass transit in California generally sucks,the examples you're giving cover rather large distances. Berkeley to Windsor? About 100 kilometers, and not exactly a high demand destination.
I think the problem is significantly rooted in the desire to live, work, and play so far apart. And it gets taken so far that people who are unfamiliar with the geography think that the distances are small because they hear the locations bandied about.
Patents aren't hidden, trade secrets are hidden. Patents are public but require licensing for a finite amount of time.
Electric cars are very inefficient because of the amount of power lost during generation, transmission, and charging. The fact that most of the world's electricity comes from Coal production which puts out thousands of tons of uranium and thorium in to the atmosphere makes electric cars environmentally wreckless. That might change if we convert to a nuclear economy from a coal economy, but that's not here today.
You realize that diesel engine were originaly made to run on vegetable oil, right ? when it was presented at the universal fair (1910?) diesel did not have any petroleum product in mind, he had the german farmer in mind as producer of the fuel source. It is only later when petroleum was found to be more convenient that we switched to use diesel from petroleum refinement. I can imagine a biofuel engine running on vegetable oils instead of ethanol.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I stayed in Germany for a while and had the exact experience you had in suburban paris. They really do have so much going for them over there.
I guess the reason we have such sprawl is at least partially attributable to the cold war and the idea that you needed to spread people out away from population centers.
Imagine standing next to a crowded street at rush hour, with all electric vehicles stopped at a red light. Total silence.
It won't happen, it's just a thought.
It would be quite eerie.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
Meanwhile, beyond the borders of False Dichotomy Land, some of us will work out solutions that are even better. Have fun in Defeatistville, though. I hear the shuffleboard is great.
They could make batteries easily removable, and swap batteries. Obviously locked, to stop theft. You leave the old batteries behind, and the station charges them up. Its definitely doable, although fuel cell is closer to how we do things now.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I don't think there is a big desire to live and work far apart. I think the real problem is that American local politicians have played waaay too much SimCity and have divided all cities into segments, so that there are no homes available near work and no work available near homes. Not even shopping facilities are placed conveniently, but in small islands that are only accessable by car.
I commuted via bike when I worked in a genetics research lab at the N.I.H. in Washington, D.C., so it didn't matter too much if I was a little sweaty with all the scientist geeks.
Now I am a surgeon, and my appearance really matters quite a bit (do you really want a guy operating on you, if it looks like he doesn't care to iron his shirt? - Maybe he won't care if the bits aren't quite aligned properly.) Corporate business world is much, much more "stiff" in terms of what is allowed. One of my friends who worked for a major accounting firm was not allowed to be seen eating at fast food joints. Why? - because the clients might think he couldn't afford better food because he wasn't very good. - Stupid - yes, but that's how it is.
10-20 blocks I could manage in a suit, but 15 miles - not a chance - I'd look like crap, and would have to shower. Stats also show that bike riding in non-daylight hours is too dangerous, and therefore I won't do it.
Geek/science/engineering/lower ranking jobs can do this. If people are in non-technical fields or if they become more successful, then appearances tend to matter more, and certain behaviors can't be tolerated. In an ideal world, where everyone is recognized solely on intellectual merit this would work, but it's not an ideal world.
..........FULL STOP.
http://www.yogicflyingclubs.org/clubs.html http://tmyogicflying.org/aboutc.htm http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=62257 There are various stages of Yogic Flying. The initial stage is "hopping." The second stage is "floating," and the final stage is "flying." So far, no one practicing the Yogic Flying TM-Sidhi has been observed achieving a stage beyond hopping. Achieving the floating and flying stages is dependent upon the extent to which the practitioner is able to sustain his awareness at the level of the unified field, the level of transcendental consciousness. It is by maintaining one's awareness at this very fine level that one is able to influence the laws of nature to gain support of those laws whereby anything is possible. That is why the unified field is called the field of all possibilities; from that most fundamental and powerful level anything is possible. The author believes that eventually the final stage of levitation (flying) will be a common phenomenon. http://www.amazingabilities.com/amaze9a.html Just get in padmasana and float to work. Could not get cheaper could not get any greener and you would miss the rush hour. Would there be "human traffic" jams then??? Profound question isnts it :-P
Technically speaking people can actually fly.
This is already happening all around the world with corn. In Mexico, farmers are burning their agave fields to plant corn.. which sucks, because Patron costs enough already. But I guess we have Gore to thank for that.
I like seeing the tags suddenoutbreakofcommonsense and goodluckwiththat used in the same story
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I'm actually fine with electric motor cars powered by hydrocarbons aka "synthetic oil". I think it makes a lot more sense than hydrogen.
It's pretty hard for a battery to beat 34-38 Megajoules per litre - roughly the amount of energy in one hundred 7.4 volt 13000mAH laptop batteries. How much space and weight will storage of 34 megajoules of hydrogen take?
I don't see a practical US-sized (not even SUV) 4 passenger car getting much more than 80mpg anytime soon - once you add airconditioning, safety, storage, people, the weight all adds up (yes you can and should have regenerative braking, but I bet it's far from 100%). So we'll probably still need the energy equivalent of 10 litres of petrol in the car, and so far the best way to store that amount of energy still appears to be as an oil.
So might be a good idea to use nuclear power plants/algae/whatever to generate hydrocarbon fuel and then use that fuel to power electric cars (via fuel cells on car ).
You may still want a small battery/capacitor in the car for "burst" acceleration and for regenerative braking.
There will be conversion and transmission inefficiencies, but it may actually be better than the transmission losses for conventional electricity transmission + losses from charging and using batteries (remember also the batteries are heavier and take up more space).
Mercedes has actually come up with a more efficient petrol/gasoline internal combustion engine - DiesOtto. So I'm not convinced that they'll really phase out petrol/gasoline by 2015.
I want my Porsche to be quiet - Why? so I can go faster and not attract attention from cars that are painted black and white.
Ricers put fart pipes on their cars, so they "sound" fast. Stupid. The performance gains are minimal (Improved high end HP, at the expense of losing low end torque, and burned valves).
Sure, it's nice to hear a Porsche CGT or GT3 with straight pipes, but only because I know that that sound is ASSOCIATED with going fast. Just having the sound is stupid, and serves no point.
..........FULL STOP.
Average miles traveled per passenger car in 2006 = 12,427
12,427 / 365 = 34
I've no idea what the distribution curve looks like but there's a big market for bicycles it seems.
i wish i could stop
Why is $$ not a good reason?
With fuel prices here, round trip to work by car costs £5 a day (approx US$10). Round trip to work by bicycle costs one additional banana (about £0.20) as far as I can tell. My commute is a reasonably hilly 25 mile round trip.
Paradoxically, I do a lot more 'comfort eating' in the evening if I've driven to work than if I've biked, something I don't really understand, so in reality, the one extra banana during the day for a bike day, is easily replaced by 'comfort eating' in the evening if I've driven - although if I had more discipline I could probably not just 'comfort eat', because I certainly don't need the extra energy on those day.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Don't buy a new car! Instead buy a used car with good millage.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Considering that it is more efficient, not much more than gasoline, but you'll need a huge fuel cell to power a car.
Anyway, plug-in hybrids make too much sense (being them gasoline-battery or hydrogen-battery). I simply can't understand why they aren't comming faster).
Rethinking email
Friend's have one, a boring black one, not the snazzy Slashdot Cruiser.
In other news, the public will phase out Mercedes purchases by 2015.
Flamebait? Come on! This is the most insightful thing posted in this thread. If Mercedes wants to phase out gas-powered cars, good on them. However, since I haven't seen a valid alternative to gas yet, it is highly unlikely that any real alternative will be ready in 7 years. I'm a gear-head and racing fan and I could care less if the things run on gas, water, or magic. I'm just saying that setting goals should be set realistically enough to be met.
Judging the convenience of public transit based on Seattle is like judging the convenience of cars based on an ox-cart.
If you want to look at the effects of a reasonably-available public transit system, most of North America won't give you any guide. Even Manhattan's system was slow, inconvenient, and clunky compared to some of the continental European cities I've been in. If you want to look at functional public transit, I would recommend Prague and the Ruhr Area of Germany as places that've done a pretty good job. With rail/subway every 5 minutes for longer trips and a dense tram network every 2 minutes for shorter trips, I never once had the slightest desire to drive during my week in Prague. For travel inside the city, a car would have been pointless.
Fast, clean, pleasant, and efficient public transit systems not only can exist, they already exist. That's no guarantee they'll be preferable to cars, of course, but they're enormously better than Seattle's system.
The trucks are Daimler not Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz is the car line of Daimler.
Not exactly true either. Mercedes-Benz is the corporate name used for the US market. In Germany, anything Mercedes is referred to with the corporate name-- Daimler-Benz (I worked there in 1990, woo hoo!)
I certainly do have an idea what FUD means, and while it may be missing the F part, saying that it costs more to bike than drive is creating uncertainty and doubt. It's more than just BS, it's FUD (or at least the UD part).
Yeah - a bigger one than you'd need.
Those 491.2kWh from 14 gallons of gasoline can take you about 14x25=350 miles. At 0.15kWh/mile, an equivalent electric car would travel those 350 miles using 0.15x350=52.5kWh, or 10.7% as much energy.
52.5kWh / 250kW from the commercially-available charger mentioned here = 12.6 minutes to charge from empty. How many of you run your gas tanks dry and then fill them to the brim on anything other than a rare, long-distance haul? Nobody I know.
Most people I know will get about 3gal each time they go to a gas station, or a little under 20% of their tank's capacity. 20% of 52.5kWh = ~10kWh / 250kWh = 2.5 minutes, which is well under your desired time.
Don't forget Audi and Volkswagen. Volkswagen has had diesels in America since the 1970's and most if not all since have been able to run on biofuel.
Different equation. Different results. Also, how 'bout biofuels from waste (we've got plenty of that . . .)?
Also because light fuel oil was basically leftovers from the Gasoline production process
I also live on a farm, and have my own grain farming operation. Without a three crop rotation, disease is inevitable.
Even with today's prices, corn isn't all that profitable anyway. Cost of production will be close to $5.00/bu. next year. I can only sell that crop today for $5.35. $0.35 profit is peanuts. I'd be much better off growing wheat or soybeans.
under 4 hours
Still counts as "hours and hours."
The net result is that while an electric car might even now be a practical second vehicle, I can't drive it from the Bay Area to San Diego without it taking 50% more time to make the trip (4 hour charge for an 8 hour drive). And that presumes there's a charging station somewhere between Fresno and Bakersfield, which I doubt. Without one, the trip takes 100% longer (two charging stops).
That means that the tens of thousands of households that have only one car won't be buying electric ones anytime soon.
I always thought that Tesla was going to sell folks a little trailer that had a gas tank, engine and generator for long trips. 99% of the time, you leave the trailer in the garage. When you need to go on a long trip, hook it up and you have a hybrid. Current hybrids are dumb in that 99% of the time you have to expend extra energy to transport the mass of the hydrocarbon system that you could do without (since your trip is within the battery-only range of the vehicle).
.
So what's your next idea?
Once one company does it and succeeds, then patents everything related to the process, others will be unable to follow without paying huge sums which will be passed along to the consumer
There, fixed it for you...
I bike almost exclusively. It works great for me, and I recognize that this has no bearing on how well it works for someone else. I eat for about $8 per day. Before I used my bike I also ate for $8 a day. And I paid for gas, one full tank per week which is approximately $10/day with today's gas prices. So by not driving I save $10/ day. So there is my math, based on 5 years of empirical data. Please share your math because I am interested to see how riding a bike is more expensive than driving.
I've seen articles about using nano-particles to make both fuel cells AND make anodes and cathodes for electrolysis REALLY CHEAP.
I read something like 98% efficiency? I might be off on that, but that's crazy-efficient.
Here's what I'm waiting for: A car with it's own closed system for turning electricity into hydrogen via electrolysis, then converting it back into electricity with a fuel cell. Essentially, it's using hydrogen as a "battery". I think we're a lot closer to that than we are supercapacitors.
I'm still a big fan of hybrids, and even a design like that should be hybridized. Gasoline isn't going away, and you don't always have the time and access to an electrical outlet. This puts most of the work on the grid, which we can feed with renewables or at least scrubbed coal. The gasoline for the "hybrid" engine could be from organic/synthetic sources.
Over time, the infrastructure could change to hydrogen, so that you could "fill up" your tank, if you don't have time to wait for the the car to "charge" itself back up.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Well, yes. I suppose I should have clarified it with "self-sustaining biofuels", as in they store and create more energy than we have to put into them, which means we're capturing net energy from the sun through the plants, which is kinda the point of biofuels I thought. At least the long-term point... politicians are suckers for subsidies ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
At $4/gallon and 30 MPG, $10 will take you ~75 miles. If you're biking 75 miles a day and only eating $8 worth of food, you're either a super-human biker or not eating a balanced diet.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I see you got as good of a thrashing by the moderators as I did.
You're absolutely right, but I think your concept of simple math, economics, and natural consequences may well be lost on this 'ooh shiney!' crowd.
There are a lot of folks with points around here that can't seem to separate 'awesome tech' from 'good idea'.
While I see your numbers, they bear no resemblance to the car that I drive, so your mileage number is quite high. Also, my behavior changes when I drive. I am much more likely to "swing by" the Home Depot to get a new hose or something. Note that I used empirical data (bookkeeping and gasoline records) to do the comparison, so it is not a controlled scientific experiment. But you still are not providing any analysis that shows biking is more expensive than driving. And if you do that to include food, then you must also include maintenance costs as well as the secondary benefits to biking (ie, no gym membership, commuting = exercising) etc. I'm interested still to see your math, but suspect you to be a troll.
Like I've pointed out below, I took this data from my books. But I think you are oversimplifying the metabolic process. The body adapts to a bike quite readily, and it is not unusual to see pot bellied bikers, guys who do 150 miles a week commuting. I've noticed that lately I need to cross train to actually lose weight. I eat a pretty good diet and am not inclined to mess with it, as reducing calories in the long run is not a good weight maintenance strategy if the diet is pretty healthy to start with.
While I see your numbers, they bear no resemblance to the car that I drive, so your mileage number is quite high.
If you want to drive a gas-guzzler, that's your right, but don't buy an SUV and then pretend to help the planet by biking instead of driving it. 30 MPG isn't that big a stretch - Even very inexpensive cars can manage that. My car cost me ~$15k new back in Jan-2001 and gets me to and from work at about 34 MPG.
Also, my behavior changes when I drive. I am much more likely to "swing by" the Home Depot to get a new hose or something.
If you don't have the self control to resist driving all over the place randomly every time you start up your car, maybe driving isn't for you. Good call - stick to your bike.
And if you do that to include food, then you must also include maintenance costs...
Definitely. As I've pointed out in previous posts, if you can eliminate a car from your budget by using a bike - It's a no brainer. But, most people just keep the car in their garage rather than driving it. The main maintenance costs involved with a car are from ownership/insurance/etc, not from per-mile usage.
...as well as the secondary benefits to biking (ie, no gym membership, commuting = exercising) etc.
Agreed. I bike avidly. In fact - I drive to work and then bike recreationally. So, for me, the bike is pure expense. I do it for enjoyment and exercise. But, I stand by my statement that biking purely as a per-mile transport costs more than driving a car that would otherwise be sitting in your garage.
I'm interested still to see your math, but suspect you to be a troll.
Fine. I figure ~$10/day for food. I ate on a lot less than that back in college, but my diet now is much better for me (fruit/veggies/lean meat/etc). And I prefer to buy local goods which typically costs more, but makes me feel better because they're not mass produced and then transported all over the place. For an average person biking at 15 mph, biking burns ~34 calories/mile. People, on average, eat about 2,000 calories per day. So, biking for an average guy like me costs ~$0.17/mile.
Now, assuming that your car gets 30 MPG and gas costs $4.00/gallon, driving costs ~$0.13/gallon - Noticeably cheaper. Like I said, if you don't eat well, if you can eliminate a car from your life, or if you take into account the many other benefits of biking, it's a great thing to do. I bike all the time. But, assuming that you're keeping your car and eat reasonably (i.e. you don't just pound down spaghetti and ramen noodles 3 time a day), it doesn't save on a per-mile basis. Not trying to troll, just trying to point out what I consider an interesting statistic. Of course, if you can bike 75 miles a day like you claimed in your previous post while spending only $8/day on nutrition, my hat goes off to you - You're truly a much better human specimen than me.
Not trying to be an ass, but I blew off several other posts that were twisting my words around, so I kind of unloaded here. And, I hate being called a troll - Sorry if I came off brutish.
Now more than ever, YMMV.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Here, at $4.00/gallon and 30 MPG, $10 will take you about 75 miles. An average banana will give you about 105 calories. For most people, biking burns about 34 calories/mile. So, one extra banana will take you about 3 miles (far short of the 75 miles driving). Of course if you're eating comfort food or taking in more calories than you need even when you're not burning them, biking makes great sense - Although, however practical, I'm not sure it's fair to factor in those excess calories into a theoretical price-per-mile analysis. But if you can bike that far on one extra banana, you must either be an exceptionally efficient biker or be losing a lot of weight.
Maybe things are different in your area - US$10 to drive 25 miles round trip seems obscene by my standards. I commute a very hilly ~20 miles round trip for about US$2.35. But, as always, YMMV.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Runners and cyclists are often in denial about the risks.
It has become necessary here to broadcast health and safety advisories for both.
Heat stress. Hypothermia.
That sort of thing. Sometimes they listen. Far too often they don't.
Ok, I'll try not to flame you, but you've left a lot of fodder. Firstly, I bought a gas guzzler in 96 and I plan on keeping it for another 10 years. Which is much more environmentally responsible than buying a new high mileage car, especially given that I put a grand total of 5000 miles on it over the last 5 years. So calm down on the gross assumptions about other peoples situations.
Secondly your cost analysis is still wrong for me, and still does not include the total cost per mile of the car, but simply is the fuel cost. There is also wear and tear on the tires, the oil changes, etc. Even with a 30mpg car it is dubious that you can show it as cheaper for the car. Most of those same costs for the bike are already sunk costs (health and maintenance of the bikes engine is a cost of life weather you drive or bike) but I do spend about $40 per year on tires and tubes. And I did not claim to bike 75 miles a day. I claimed that my costs while driving and biking worked out to be a cheaper lifestyle when biking and I took that from my records over 5 years. You claimed that I ride 75 miles a day, and now you are restating it as my claim. That is trolling. And I understand how someone twisting your words around can piss you off. Because that is what you are doing.
The main maintenance costs involved with a car are from ownership/insurance/etc, not from per-mile usage.
That is perhaps true for you, but not at all true for me.
Note that also unstated is that I can grow a lot of the food (fruits and veggies) that I eat for nearly free, while I cannot do the same for the gas I use. Stop oversimplifying a problem to get to a statistic that you find to be interesting while in actuality is it false.
Without reading the parent post to yours, you shouldn't dismiss bicycling so quickly just because the fuel used largely comes/is transported by fossil fuels; the sticking point is how much energy is used.
When you are riding a bicycle, one needs only enough energy (regardless of source or fuel--be it food, electric assist, etc.) to transport the rider and 20-30 pounds of bicycle, plus maybe 10-30 pounds of cargo.
When driving a car, enough energy is required to haul many hundreds of pounds of machine in addition to the rider. This is not counting the space it occupies and the roads which must be built to accommodate all the cars, plus that the roads must have significant substructures to carry the weight of the cars/trucks/buses.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Fuel is a lot more expensive here - your fuel is obscenely cheap at only $4/usg. My last fill up (tonight) was 124p/litre for unleaded, or 471p for 1 US gallon, or roughly $10 per US gallon.
I do live on a small island though (30 mi long and about 12 mi wide at the widest point), and the fuel has to take a 60 mile trip over the sea to get here in the first place, and fuel taxes are extremely high here.
Your numbers neglect the basic fact that your body is a lot more efficient if you're fit vs being unfit. So while I may burn more energy going to and from work, I burn less when I'm sitting in front of the computer. My resting heart rate is only 45 bpm when I'm in shape from riding to work. I also don't need a gym membership (saving money there) to keep a basic healthy level of physical activity. So the incremental cost of cycling really is only one banana per day more than not doing any exercise at all.
The howstuffworks analysis doesn't say what kind of bike either - the difference between riding what most people have as a bike (a mountain bike of some sort) and my proper road bike is dramatic - I can probably go twice as fast on the same energy expenditure on my hard 120 psi tyres versus their squishy, knobbly 30 psi tyres.
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