Mr. D from 63: you add nothing to the discussion but useless volume, which is unwanted. All one needs is to live in Southern California to see solar's true effect: I live in a vast sea of homeowners with solar power, and yes, there ARE complaints: a few... a precious few... have had to endure an agonizingly long period before their panels were finally installed, and power provided. A few others have had other, shorter waits. Of all the thousands I run into with working solar panels, I see nothing but smug grins and satisfaction. I have yet to hear of anyone complaining that they wish they had not installed their panels. And then there are the few that have had solar for more than just a few years, who thank their lucky stars their solar panels saved them the problems of blackouts, downed power lines, food spoiled from such outages, and for being the hero of their neighborhood for being able to provide a little refrigeration to a few others to keep their food from spoiling as well. Then there is the issue of national security, which in this case depends on a lack of dependence on the grid... where would we be if EVERY ONE relied on the grid, and terrorists knock out power stations or manage to short out grid lines with Mylar balloons, or other simple implements? How many cars will be useless because they rely on gas stations that rely on electricity for their fuel pumps? What of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes or other disasters that knock out the grid for days or weeks at a time? The article does not even consider such factors. Where would we be, instead, if there is very little reliance on the grid, but rather home solar and battery backup, and lots of EVs capable of being driven on home - harvested electrons, as well as provide "V2G" capabilities-- I.e., being able to supply energy to the grid when brownouts or blackouts threaten? Solar is, by far, a saner option overall.
In order for someone to refer to Tesla as a "boutique car factory" is not only clueless, but to be pitied for never having the singular exhilaration of having his/her internal organs slammed against their spine for ten seconds or so, without the interruption of shifting gears or having the experience diluted by the din of engine noise. There are... I don't know... probably a hundred thousand or more of us that have had such experience either from a Tesla or other EV. Should you take a drive in a model S (P85D would be best of course, but even the "mildest" S is extraordinary), you will understand that those who have had the EV experience look forward even to such simple facts and figures as delivery dates-- not unlike a Clippers fan listening on the radio for the final score of the latest game. Odds are extremely high that no matter how irritated you might feel by the relentless encroachment of EVs today, you'll soon realize it is that looming tsunami you spy in the distance, and it will be enveloping you quickly enough: ride with it.
wisnoskij: regarding EVs and hybrids, it helps to use the term "engine" only when referring to fueled powerplants, and "motor" when referring to electrical drive, including hybrids that have both ICEs and motors... otherwise, it leads to confusion and misunderstanding.
Yes, most batteries do degrade noticeably over time, but where your laptops, cell phones and other small hardware is concerned, there are several free apps for reducing that rate of degradation. Battery Widget, which is what I use and is quite satisfactory, lets you know when you have reached upper or lower limits (or both) of battery charge levels that you set-- I have mine set at 80% (upper limit) and 25% and 30% lower limits). By keeping my phone's charge levels in its "sweet spot", it will last noticeably longer and possibly prevent having to buy a replacement battery before you decide to upgrade.
Re: Tesla battery packs: as stated by someone earlier, Tesla cells do not degrade as quickly as the cells in your small, personal devices due to more precise temp controls and battery management systems (BMSes). When they do need to be replaced, they do not need to be junked or recycled-- they can be reused to store energy generated by solar panels or wind generators, for use at night or on cloudy or windless days. Such energy storage use extends the cells' viability for several years.
Also, even before the cells are ready to be replaced, there is a very real possibility that cells will be available that will be significantly improved in one or more ways-- greater energy density, longer cycle life, less expensive, etc. "Nanopore" batteries, for instance, or ones based on graphene or aluminum, could replace what we use today and make EVs far more practical, inexpensive and long-lived.
You are one of the few commenters that are making any sense. The several trolls criticizing their electric pump methodology sound like the thousands of critics of Tesla Motors... even years after achieving glowing success, dingbats such as Eric [ig] Noble have been making fools of themselves, proclaiming Tesla and EVs a dead end, failure, noncompetitive, etc.
This Kiwi company reminds me of Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX in many ways, including the very aggressive use of 3D printing in the SpaceX rockets and other subsystems, and the reusable components SpaceX is utilizing to dramatically reduce the per - launch cost of space travel-- both companies are dramatically slashing launch costs, but I do prefer SpaceX's approach, for the simple reason that we should not be considering launch vehicles costing millions of dollars as "throw-away"... expandable... so long as we CAN reuse something, we SHOULD.
Also, several of the commenters critical of this company give us all these silly equations and numbers to explain why their electric fuel systems would be heavier than conventional launch hardware-- this company has already designed, built, and tested their systems proving they work, and at a greatly reduced weight-- these critics need to move in with that nutjob Eric Noble... they are all totally out of touch with reality!
I'm a huge fan of Telsa, SpaceX, and Musk, but I commend these Kiwis for their creativity and determination... and knowing how Elon Musk thinks, I suspect he wishes them the best of luck as well.
"lily-livered liberals"... ugggh, here come the trolls... now, which liberals are you referring to? The liberals that have been tirelessly fighting the Koch Brothers, and the rest of the one-per-centers that wanna buy all the politicians and spread lies that the Supreme Court has protected them from being accountable for? Don't get me started...
You're scary to the max, dude. You want to, assume anybody who's ever been arrested for terrorism has been entrapped and coached into doing so, and that anybody who has ever arrested anyone for such crimes is an evil, despicable "infidel". Yup, you scare me, fella, and I, hope somebody... an FB I agent, Homeland Security, your local and state cops... now have YOU under scrutiny.
That deadbeat in North Carolina, who was running from a cop to keep from being arrested for nonpayment of child support after just buying a Mercedes did not deserve to die. Not the kind of jackass I'd want for a neighbor, but still did not deserve to be shot in the back.
The cop that shot him had no reason whatsoever to shoot him and is now looking at a possible death penalty for having violated that scumbag ' s civil rights.
Our laws are not perfect, nor are those who are paid to protect us and keep the peace. But nothing is perfect, and the fact that scads of police departments all over the country-- including where that shooting took place-- are making all their officers wear body cams. What's more, if for any reason a cop's camera is not turned on during even routine traffic stops, they face disciplinary action, even dismissal. Not perfect, but the strings get tighter, the bad guys-- whether jihadists or crooked, demented cops-- need to know they CAN, be caught-- and those of us that just want civil calm without the fear of Boston Marathon bombers begin to worry when we hear the kinds of paranoid insanity you spew. Now, cool down before you find yourself one day out there trying to build improvised explosive devices to "avenge Big Brother".
Frustrated trying to understand the Slashdot system! Anyway, I'm also in So Cal... Los Angeles, and a member of the EVA of SoCal. We meet in Diamond Bar monthly. I have a highly modified Corbin Sparrow, as well as a very highly modified Chevy S-10 pickup that Sony Pictures converted to EV some years back, and after buying it from them I doubled the size of the battery pack, moved all cells they had installed IN the bed to UNDER the bed, giving me back the entire cargo space in the bed as well as reducing the center of gravity. It has many more major mods specifically to increase its value for educational/ display purposes. Very powerful, great range now. Also, have a YouTube vid: "BMW EV Conversion Burns, Rubber!!!"
Would enjoy touching bases with you sometime.
"Electric Bill" Dale
Sure, rebuilds are possibility, but what's more likely when bat packs age is to repurpose them-- use them in homes to store energy from solar panels to provide juice at night. This essentially takes the house off the grid except when it's making excess energy to sell back to the utility company. Utilities don't like us being so independent, especially in Florida where grassroots are fighting to keep them from passing legislation banning solar panels, but I doubt they can make a case they can back up, especially since California is a lot bigger, has far more solar homes, and has developed no problems as a result.
Re: prototype requirement for patents: very early on, the Patent Office did require prototypes before issuing patents, but they found it was so cumbersome and complicated that the requirement was dropped before long... I tried to find the exact date, but I think it was in the early 19th century.
If you give it some thought, you'll see the problem: dozens-- or even hundreds-- of models arriving each week at USPTO... how to handle fragile items, andxwho, is responsible when something is broken... patents with chemical components... glass parts... stuff that is perishable, such as patents relying on plants or substances that spoil quickly... where do you store all the models, can who wants to be responsible for properly repacking such one-of-a-kind items-- what happens if they are stolen from the postal service-- the probs are virtually endless.
Yes, patents without models or prototypes is not a perfect way to deal with issues of perpetual motion machines and unobtainium formulae, but it is, after all, an imperfect world.
Non-profit... for-profit... lotsa profit, online, on campus... it's all just the tail wagging the dog if the education leaves you spending most of the rest of your working life paying for it, which is what it's become. Yes, the educational system is in for a big bubble-busting disruptive technology that will put the vast majority of those overpaid uni execs on unemployment. The name of the bubble buster is Khan Academy, and once it gets up to speed-- and it's getting there fast-- this country as well as many others will begin to see a level playing field in education and employment opportunities.
Thank you, thank you, a thousand times over, Salmon Khan
https://www.khanacademy.org/
LOL!!! If you really don't get it, call your mom, tell her you need to move back into her basement. You'll never make it in this world... or, maybe you just can't handle the truth... single individuals, or small groups of them, really can have profound, lasting effects on the world in just a short period of time, with stunningly little effort. And if you can't bear acknowledging other people's successes, you'll never, ever allow yourself a measure of accomplishment, either.
You remind me of the dingbat blogger that insisted that Elon Musk never had any original ideas, never actually started any companies, and is basically just a plagiarist and copy cat. In actual fact, we can be quite sure whoever this twerp was, he is the one with no originality. If he can't see the guy behind PayPal, Spacex, Tesla, Solar City, and a dozen lesser entities as having some major cojones, the two of you need to get together and leave the rest of us alone.
Wow! More than 200 posts on this thread in just a few hours... that is an indication just how much EVs are taking hold, and, I'm thankful for it. I cannot see any way there, will ever be a backslide to ICE (internal combustion engine) cars... I have a Prius, as well as two fully electric vehicles... but the combination of EVs and self - driving technology is bound to create some very profound changes on our streets. Driving will become much less expensive, so more people will want to drive rather than telecommute, or sit home playing video games or doing whatever else they enjoy doing. Anyone who can afford an EV equipped with self - driving technology but suddenly finds themselves homeless may have an option that has never before existed: ride around in your self - driving car, as you sleep... the homeless, rather than clogging downtown areas and parks may clog our streets instead. Pols will, of necessity, create road taxes based on mileage that can be exacted real-time as we drive, similar to how cars with transponders are charged (fees, not electricity!) on California toll roads today... that will eventually be necessary anyway as a means to compensate for a loss of gas tax, but also as a means of relieving roadway congestion. At some point EVs will hit a critical mass and will quickly become ubiquitous as the general public realizes the profound advantages of abandoning gasoline use, but the unforeseen challenges... retiring of gasoline stations, increased charging infrastructure, roadway congestion abatement and road tax reforms will generate a sea of unintended consequences.
Two of my first cars were an BMW Midget, and an MGB. Both had exhaust notes I liked when I first bought them, but it was not long before I realized it was much like having a broken stereo, and all I could listen to-- and was forced to hear even if I didn't want it-- was my very favorite Beatles tune. And, if I wanted to listen to Bob Dylan or The Carpenters, I had to turn up the volume just so I, could hear it over the sound of my otherwise Lennon favorite. It would eventually become unbearable.
An engine exhaust-- ANY engine exhaust, even from the most expensive Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Alfa Romeo-- is nothing more than a dirt - simple tune with no surprises, no chord changes or complexities as you have in music, yet we can somehow be lulled into believing there is something desirable about it even though it does little more than make you turn up your volume just so you can hear your radio over the noise, and it slowly contributes not only to your own hearing loss, but those around you that have no choice. I PARTICULARLY hate loud motorcycle exhausts, and even MORE particularly Harleysville that have short, straight pipes that you can hear blocks away. Whenever I hear them, I fantasize of the Axel Foley trick of cramming a banana deep inside the, pipe so that the rider, when he returns to his bike, does not figure out the problem until after his machine has gotten a time-consuming, expensive tow to the repair shop.
As for your solution for blind pedestrians, you sound like the dolt whose only tool is a hammer, and so all problems begin to look like nails. The last thing I want is more noise when it's not necessary, forcing EVERY ONE to endure more cacophony even when there are no disabled people around.
A much more reasonable solution would be to mandate fifty cents worth of electronics to be added to all new cars, including your beloved ICE- powered dinosaurs, which interact intelligently not only with every deaf pedestrian, but every other child, pet or other creature that is fitted with an inexpensive, mass - produced transponder that will warn ONLY of approaching traffic, and not of vehicles moving away and therefore not a hazard. They could warn of direction, speed, and proximity, even when there is other noise that can be distracting.
One of the curiosities of human hearing is that when someone has constantly got their sound system amped to the max so that their ears feel full and ring for hours after removing their ear buds, or after their hearing has already been grossly, damaged by work or other noise, they will get defensive and insist their hearing is just fine, even though you can hear their rap lyrics from their ear buds from across the room. Personally, I treasure my hearing and want to protect it.
So, more noise? No thank you. I'd rather listen to the subtleties of the tunes I choose to play on my sound system, without fighting to hear it over your he-man exhaust.
Kendall: you are allowing your FC biases to skew reasonable judgment. Back in the 60's, backers of FCVs declared confidently that we'd all be buying fuel cell cars within ten years... they have kept saying it for the last 50+ years... and FCs are still "just a few years away." Keep beating your dead horse as long as you think it's gonna wi you the Preakness, but meanwhile you'll continue to see EVs surge forward, and FCS stagnate as they always have. You're wearing blinders that allow you only to see the FC "progress" that you think will eventually vindicate your viewpoint, but meanwhile that sad, blind loyalty of yours keeps you from objectively looking to see if their are any reasonable solutions to the deadly flaws in the FC game plan, as I outlined in my previous comment-- what do you think will ever allow FCs to overcome The-Chicken-and-Egg problem, The Hindenberg Effect (which is inevitable) and the dozens of other huge problems FCS face? It is all those huge stumbling blocks that all the other car makers realize that Toyota is ignoring... just because they can handle some of the minor technical problems that have always been there, until they look at the broader picture and see that they' re fighting a losing battle, they will continue to flounder as Tesla swallows them up with impeccable products that have them with huge backlogs of orders to fill, which is why the $5B Gigafactory is being built. Again, yes, Toyota, is "big"... but look instead at the trends of both companies and it's obvious Tesla and all the other companies that are putting their money into EVs are the ones who will emerge the winners in this brawl.
You and I cannot both be right on this issue... I'm confident that with every passing month, the gulf between Toyota and Tesla (and other EV makers) will continue to grow in the favor of EVs. If you cannot read the handwriting on the wall, I'm sorry... this will be the last comment I'm going to leave on this thread.--- Electric Bill
You're woefully short-sighted, my friend! You assume batteries are improving in mere increments, or perhaps are even out of tricks to try to better their game-- but not so. As I said earlier, several of the upcoming chemistries, such as (several competing versions of) nanotitanate, and nanopore ceramics, and silicon nanowire can be recharged either fully in a matter of 5 minutes or so, or to 80% in a similarly short time, at which point they must be charged more slowly if you want to top them off, but a full pack is rarely needed regardless. Even today's Leaf can be recharged quickly enough to make them quite attractive to buyers, given the enormous savings in travel expenses, lack of need for tune-ups and service, and lack of the dreaded Smog Test.
There are a number of primary battery chemistries, once tweaked to their maximum potential, whose energy density can be increased by an order of magnitude by coating the electrodes with silicon nanotubes (or other materials that increase electrode surface area). That means that for a car such as the Model S that can already top 400 miles range per charge with less aggressive driving, it could easily make it nonstop from Los Angeles to Atlanta... and, rather than increasing an EV's range to ridiculous extremes, the battery pack could instead be reduced in size, making EVs lighter, less expensive, more nimble and with even greater vehicle cargo capacity than they already have. (There's a REASON the Model S got the best rating in the history of Consumer Reports, as well as Motor Trend's Car of the Year Award! You would have to be delusional to ignore that, and continue to believe without basis that fuel cells will ever overcome EV momentum! Critics love the totally flat floors, and, huge trunks in both front and back. FCVs will not likely ever have such roomy cargo space.)
And, since batteries are still far from running out of new tricks, they need not remain the vehicle of choice for the rich. Within the next few months or a year, more models and other variations of the Model S, Model 3 and others that will be available which will put Teslas within the reach of the average American. Musk laid out that plan publicly even before the first Roadster was sold... very serviceable EVs in the range of $30,000 or so in the third generation.
You appear stubbornly obsessed with this idea that EVs are heavy-- that is already not true, at least that today's EVs are typically only slightly heavier than today's ICE cars, and EV car makers already are working out the production lines to deliver battery packs that will be lighter, more energetic, more robust and cheaper than what is available today.
The Tesla Gigafactory will be poking a hole in the whole battery cost thing... Musk's not going to tell everyone of breakthroughs he's putting online-- but look at his past history, and you can tell he's got some surprises to reveal soon. He is a showman, and loves to spring incredible publicity blockbusters at gala events... and if you think I'm lying, notice that at no time in the last couple of years has he betrayed any stress of "Where do I go from here? Do I have any options left? Is the other shoe about to drop?" Anything but. He's been behaving like a giddy daddy the week before Christmas, just waiting to see how the kiddies respond to the toys beneath the tree.
As for your misplaced, gushing enthusiasm for FCVs, there are enormous hurdles for FCs to be overcome, which appear to a lot of specialists in such chemistry, to be ominous, thorny, and expensive to resolve.
Fuel cells might make some good sense for stationary installations such as homes as cogenerators of heat and electricity, but natural gas is still a finite resource, and may become even more finite if fracking proves to be causing an increase in ground water contamination, as well as the swarms of troubling earthquakes that have been occurring in the last few years. Solar power is not perfect, but in balance, is far more sensible than continuing to use up finite resources when clean, quiet renewables are avai
God, I should have turned off Spell Check... it creates more mistakes than it corrects... "BILLIONS" for "BILLING", "its" for "it's", etc... I should have proofread before submitting.
Sorry, Kendall, you're not using any common sense. There are BILLING being spent every year in a frenzy to be The Next Big Thing in battery chemistry, and that's even in you don't include Tesla and it's Mega factory in Reno. You should check facts before showing your lack of, awareness of what is state-of-the-art: look up nanopore batteries, carbon n a not be vatteries, silicon nano wire batteries, lithium air batteries, ultracapacitors... you'll see chemistries that can accept charges faster than you can put that expensive fuel in your gas guzzler, and provide ten ten times as much range per charge. I have multiple electric vehicles, they're quiet enough I can actually HEAR the stereo even when it's not blasting as so many cars are... near - zero maintenance... no smog tests, tune-ups, oil changes... no transmission service... and I can get my electrons from a variety of sources, including my own solar panels, not just from OPEC bloodsuckers that want to use our money to finance terrorism and suppress their own countrymen (and women).
If you don't bother to look, you won't see there is constant improvement and maturation in the EV universe, and there is no sign that anyone is running out of clever ideas to keep making each day's EVs even better than the EVs before. Like Elon Musk says... "Don't they ever get tired of being wrong?"
You're off by several years: you should have looked it up before posting. When I started driving a car was expected to last less than 100,000 miles, but the lifespan has been stretching out ever since... it's 11.4 years now, even though many cars are chugging along for decades more. Light trucks are slightly less: 11.3 years average. Electric vehicles are likely to change that: even without a breakthrough in today's battery chemistry, EVs are so much simpler they are much easier to keep running.
We try to think outside the box-- biological systems surviving at enormous depths, extreme temperatures, feeding on arsenic and old lace-- but what if life is even more extreme than our wildest imaginings: life forms whose atoms are stripped of electrons, nothing more than ionic creatures, surviving within suns, or deep within gaseous bodies such as Saturn, Jupiter... or even within black holes? We could never know what is in such places, it would seem.
As already stated, we spend trifles on space. We spend even less on these undersea adventures that all but Tea Party psychos feel enriched by, if for no other reason than because we find new and unique life forms that give us keys to untangling cancers, aging, and diseases of every kind.
What we DON'T need is a back-breaking military budget when there are alternatives, such as flooding the Internet with countermeasures against the very successful lures al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIL and other malevolent jackasses use to suck in vulnerable nitwits that become suicide bombers, rapists and child killers.
No one has yet begun to tell them: "what if they're wrong, and Allah does not gift you with dozens of virgins and pleasures for eternity? What if what they say does not agree with the Koran by any means? Are you willing to burn in eternal hell for the terrible, evil things they want you to do?" There are countless such things we can be telling them, assaulting their faulty logic, hammering home the illegitimacy of their doings.
"Who are the real good guys, and bad guys? Who went to Malaysia after the tsunamis, and brought food and medicine to the millions of Muslims that were starving and bleeding? How much effort has the Taliban made to build hospitals and schools, rather than destroy them?"
If we start driving electric vehicles rather than spending $450B a year on oil we buy from despotic OPEC countries, that's hundreds of billions of dollars we have to spend on hospitals, schools, roads, bridges... and SPACE.
We can also encourage the super-wealthy among us to play higher, more challenging games as Musk, Gates, and others have done, such as using their resources to produce inexpensive medications and verify herbal remedies, if Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others are only interested in profit?
-- Electric Bill
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. D from 63: you add nothing to the discussion but useless volume, which is unwanted. All one needs is to live in Southern California to see solar's true effect: I live in a vast sea of homeowners with solar power, and yes, there ARE complaints: a few... a precious few... have had to endure an agonizingly long period before their panels were finally installed, and power provided. A few others have had other, shorter waits. Of all the thousands I run into with working solar panels, I see nothing but smug grins and satisfaction. I have yet to hear of anyone complaining that they wish they had not installed their panels. And then there are the few that have had solar for more than just a few years, who thank their lucky stars their solar panels saved them the problems of blackouts, downed power lines, food spoiled from such outages, and for being the hero of their neighborhood for being able to provide a little refrigeration to a few others to keep their food from spoiling as well. Then there is the issue of national security, which in this case depends on a lack of dependence on the grid... where would we be if EVERY ONE relied on the grid, and terrorists knock out power stations or manage to short out grid lines with Mylar balloons, or other simple implements? How many cars will be useless because they rely on gas stations that rely on electricity for their fuel pumps? What of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes or other disasters that knock out the grid for days or weeks at a time? The article does not even consider such factors. Where would we be, instead, if there is very little reliance on the grid, but rather home solar and battery backup, and lots of EVs capable of being driven on home - harvested electrons, as well as provide "V2G" capabilities-- I.e., being able to supply energy to the grid when brownouts or blackouts threaten? Solar is, by far, a saner option overall.
In order for someone to refer to Tesla as a "boutique car factory" is not only clueless, but to be pitied for never having the singular exhilaration of having his/her internal organs slammed against their spine for ten seconds or so, without the interruption of shifting gears or having the experience diluted by the din of engine noise. There are... I don't know... probably a hundred thousand or more of us that have had such experience either from a Tesla or other EV. Should you take a drive in a model S (P85D would be best of course, but even the "mildest" S is extraordinary), you will understand that those who have had the EV experience look forward even to such simple facts and figures as delivery dates-- not unlike a Clippers fan listening on the radio for the final score of the latest game. Odds are extremely high that no matter how irritated you might feel by the relentless encroachment of EVs today, you'll soon realize it is that looming tsunami you spy in the distance, and it will be enveloping you quickly enough: ride with it.
wisnoskij: regarding EVs and hybrids, it helps to use the term "engine" only when referring to fueled powerplants, and "motor" when referring to electrical drive, including hybrids that have both ICEs and motors... otherwise, it leads to confusion and misunderstanding.
Yes, most batteries do degrade noticeably over time, but where your laptops, cell phones and other small hardware is concerned, there are several free apps for reducing that rate of degradation. Battery Widget, which is what I use and is quite satisfactory, lets you know when you have reached upper or lower limits (or both) of battery charge levels that you set-- I have mine set at 80% (upper limit) and 25% and 30% lower limits). By keeping my phone's charge levels in its "sweet spot", it will last noticeably longer and possibly prevent having to buy a replacement battery before you decide to upgrade. Re: Tesla battery packs: as stated by someone earlier, Tesla cells do not degrade as quickly as the cells in your small, personal devices due to more precise temp controls and battery management systems (BMSes). When they do need to be replaced, they do not need to be junked or recycled-- they can be reused to store energy generated by solar panels or wind generators, for use at night or on cloudy or windless days. Such energy storage use extends the cells' viability for several years. Also, even before the cells are ready to be replaced, there is a very real possibility that cells will be available that will be significantly improved in one or more ways-- greater energy density, longer cycle life, less expensive, etc. "Nanopore" batteries, for instance, or ones based on graphene or aluminum, could replace what we use today and make EVs far more practical, inexpensive and long-lived.
Chrisq: Don't you mean, get enough solar for electricity?!
You are one of the few commenters that are making any sense. The several trolls criticizing their electric pump methodology sound like the thousands of critics of Tesla Motors... even years after achieving glowing success, dingbats such as Eric [ig] Noble have been making fools of themselves, proclaiming Tesla and EVs a dead end, failure, noncompetitive, etc. This Kiwi company reminds me of Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX in many ways, including the very aggressive use of 3D printing in the SpaceX rockets and other subsystems, and the reusable components SpaceX is utilizing to dramatically reduce the per - launch cost of space travel-- both companies are dramatically slashing launch costs, but I do prefer SpaceX's approach, for the simple reason that we should not be considering launch vehicles costing millions of dollars as "throw-away"... expandable... so long as we CAN reuse something, we SHOULD. Also, several of the commenters critical of this company give us all these silly equations and numbers to explain why their electric fuel systems would be heavier than conventional launch hardware-- this company has already designed, built, and tested their systems proving they work, and at a greatly reduced weight-- these critics need to move in with that nutjob Eric Noble... they are all totally out of touch with reality! I'm a huge fan of Telsa, SpaceX, and Musk, but I commend these Kiwis for their creativity and determination... and knowing how Elon Musk thinks, I suspect he wishes them the best of luck as well.
Hah! All this scientific muck-a-muck just to find out where dogs come from?! Everyone knows where dogs come from-- PUPPY MILLS!
"lily-livered liberals"... ugggh, here come the trolls... now, which liberals are you referring to? The liberals that have been tirelessly fighting the Koch Brothers, and the rest of the one-per-centers that wanna buy all the politicians and spread lies that the Supreme Court has protected them from being accountable for? Don't get me started...
What is "TFA?" I see nothing under acronyms that makes any sense of it!
You're scary to the max, dude. You want to, assume anybody who's ever been arrested for terrorism has been entrapped and coached into doing so, and that anybody who has ever arrested anyone for such crimes is an evil, despicable "infidel". Yup, you scare me, fella, and I, hope somebody... an FB I agent, Homeland Security, your local and state cops... now have YOU under scrutiny. That deadbeat in North Carolina, who was running from a cop to keep from being arrested for nonpayment of child support after just buying a Mercedes did not deserve to die. Not the kind of jackass I'd want for a neighbor, but still did not deserve to be shot in the back. The cop that shot him had no reason whatsoever to shoot him and is now looking at a possible death penalty for having violated that scumbag ' s civil rights. Our laws are not perfect, nor are those who are paid to protect us and keep the peace. But nothing is perfect, and the fact that scads of police departments all over the country-- including where that shooting took place-- are making all their officers wear body cams. What's more, if for any reason a cop's camera is not turned on during even routine traffic stops, they face disciplinary action, even dismissal. Not perfect, but the strings get tighter, the bad guys-- whether jihadists or crooked, demented cops-- need to know they CAN, be caught-- and those of us that just want civil calm without the fear of Boston Marathon bombers begin to worry when we hear the kinds of paranoid insanity you spew. Now, cool down before you find yourself one day out there trying to build improvised explosive devices to "avenge Big Brother".
Frustrated trying to understand the Slashdot system! Anyway, I'm also in So Cal... Los Angeles, and a member of the EVA of SoCal. We meet in Diamond Bar monthly. I have a highly modified Corbin Sparrow, as well as a very highly modified Chevy S-10 pickup that Sony Pictures converted to EV some years back, and after buying it from them I doubled the size of the battery pack, moved all cells they had installed IN the bed to UNDER the bed, giving me back the entire cargo space in the bed as well as reducing the center of gravity. It has many more major mods specifically to increase its value for educational/ display purposes. Very powerful, great range now. Also, have a YouTube vid: "BMW EV Conversion Burns, Rubber!!!" Would enjoy touching bases with you sometime. "Electric Bill" Dale
Sure, rebuilds are possibility, but what's more likely when bat packs age is to repurpose them-- use them in homes to store energy from solar panels to provide juice at night. This essentially takes the house off the grid except when it's making excess energy to sell back to the utility company. Utilities don't like us being so independent, especially in Florida where grassroots are fighting to keep them from passing legislation banning solar panels, but I doubt they can make a case they can back up, especially since California is a lot bigger, has far more solar homes, and has developed no problems as a result.
Re: prototype requirement for patents: very early on, the Patent Office did require prototypes before issuing patents, but they found it was so cumbersome and complicated that the requirement was dropped before long... I tried to find the exact date, but I think it was in the early 19th century. If you give it some thought, you'll see the problem: dozens-- or even hundreds-- of models arriving each week at USPTO... how to handle fragile items, andxwho, is responsible when something is broken... patents with chemical components... glass parts... stuff that is perishable, such as patents relying on plants or substances that spoil quickly... where do you store all the models, can who wants to be responsible for properly repacking such one-of-a-kind items-- what happens if they are stolen from the postal service-- the probs are virtually endless. Yes, patents without models or prototypes is not a perfect way to deal with issues of perpetual motion machines and unobtainium formulae, but it is, after all, an imperfect world.
Non-profit... for-profit... lotsa profit, online, on campus... it's all just the tail wagging the dog if the education leaves you spending most of the rest of your working life paying for it, which is what it's become. Yes, the educational system is in for a big bubble-busting disruptive technology that will put the vast majority of those overpaid uni execs on unemployment. The name of the bubble buster is Khan Academy, and once it gets up to speed-- and it's getting there fast-- this country as well as many others will begin to see a level playing field in education and employment opportunities. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times over, Salmon Khan https://www.khanacademy.org/
LOL!!! If you really don't get it, call your mom, tell her you need to move back into her basement. You'll never make it in this world... or, maybe you just can't handle the truth... single individuals, or small groups of them, really can have profound, lasting effects on the world in just a short period of time, with stunningly little effort. And if you can't bear acknowledging other people's successes, you'll never, ever allow yourself a measure of accomplishment, either. You remind me of the dingbat blogger that insisted that Elon Musk never had any original ideas, never actually started any companies, and is basically just a plagiarist and copy cat. In actual fact, we can be quite sure whoever this twerp was, he is the one with no originality. If he can't see the guy behind PayPal, Spacex, Tesla, Solar City, and a dozen lesser entities as having some major cojones, the two of you need to get together and leave the rest of us alone.
Wow! More than 200 posts on this thread in just a few hours... that is an indication just how much EVs are taking hold, and, I'm thankful for it. I cannot see any way there, will ever be a backslide to ICE (internal combustion engine) cars... I have a Prius, as well as two fully electric vehicles... but the combination of EVs and self - driving technology is bound to create some very profound changes on our streets. Driving will become much less expensive, so more people will want to drive rather than telecommute, or sit home playing video games or doing whatever else they enjoy doing. Anyone who can afford an EV equipped with self - driving technology but suddenly finds themselves homeless may have an option that has never before existed: ride around in your self - driving car, as you sleep... the homeless, rather than clogging downtown areas and parks may clog our streets instead. Pols will, of necessity, create road taxes based on mileage that can be exacted real-time as we drive, similar to how cars with transponders are charged (fees, not electricity!) on California toll roads today... that will eventually be necessary anyway as a means to compensate for a loss of gas tax, but also as a means of relieving roadway congestion. At some point EVs will hit a critical mass and will quickly become ubiquitous as the general public realizes the profound advantages of abandoning gasoline use, but the unforeseen challenges... retiring of gasoline stations, increased charging infrastructure, roadway congestion abatement and road tax reforms will generate a sea of unintended consequences.
Oops... damned Spell Check "corrected" MG (Midget) to read BMW.
Two of my first cars were an BMW Midget, and an MGB. Both had exhaust notes I liked when I first bought them, but it was not long before I realized it was much like having a broken stereo, and all I could listen to-- and was forced to hear even if I didn't want it-- was my very favorite Beatles tune. And, if I wanted to listen to Bob Dylan or The Carpenters, I had to turn up the volume just so I, could hear it over the sound of my otherwise Lennon favorite. It would eventually become unbearable. An engine exhaust-- ANY engine exhaust, even from the most expensive Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Alfa Romeo-- is nothing more than a dirt - simple tune with no surprises, no chord changes or complexities as you have in music, yet we can somehow be lulled into believing there is something desirable about it even though it does little more than make you turn up your volume just so you can hear your radio over the noise, and it slowly contributes not only to your own hearing loss, but those around you that have no choice. I PARTICULARLY hate loud motorcycle exhausts, and even MORE particularly Harleysville that have short, straight pipes that you can hear blocks away. Whenever I hear them, I fantasize of the Axel Foley trick of cramming a banana deep inside the, pipe so that the rider, when he returns to his bike, does not figure out the problem until after his machine has gotten a time-consuming, expensive tow to the repair shop. As for your solution for blind pedestrians, you sound like the dolt whose only tool is a hammer, and so all problems begin to look like nails. The last thing I want is more noise when it's not necessary, forcing EVERY ONE to endure more cacophony even when there are no disabled people around. A much more reasonable solution would be to mandate fifty cents worth of electronics to be added to all new cars, including your beloved ICE- powered dinosaurs, which interact intelligently not only with every deaf pedestrian, but every other child, pet or other creature that is fitted with an inexpensive, mass - produced transponder that will warn ONLY of approaching traffic, and not of vehicles moving away and therefore not a hazard. They could warn of direction, speed, and proximity, even when there is other noise that can be distracting. One of the curiosities of human hearing is that when someone has constantly got their sound system amped to the max so that their ears feel full and ring for hours after removing their ear buds, or after their hearing has already been grossly, damaged by work or other noise, they will get defensive and insist their hearing is just fine, even though you can hear their rap lyrics from their ear buds from across the room. Personally, I treasure my hearing and want to protect it. So, more noise? No thank you. I'd rather listen to the subtleties of the tunes I choose to play on my sound system, without fighting to hear it over your he-man exhaust.
Kendall: you are allowing your FC biases to skew reasonable judgment. Back in the 60's, backers of FCVs declared confidently that we'd all be buying fuel cell cars within ten years... they have kept saying it for the last 50+ years... and FCs are still "just a few years away." Keep beating your dead horse as long as you think it's gonna wi you the Preakness, but meanwhile you'll continue to see EVs surge forward, and FCS stagnate as they always have. You're wearing blinders that allow you only to see the FC "progress" that you think will eventually vindicate your viewpoint, but meanwhile that sad, blind loyalty of yours keeps you from objectively looking to see if their are any reasonable solutions to the deadly flaws in the FC game plan, as I outlined in my previous comment-- what do you think will ever allow FCs to overcome The-Chicken-and-Egg problem, The Hindenberg Effect (which is inevitable) and the dozens of other huge problems FCS face? It is all those huge stumbling blocks that all the other car makers realize that Toyota is ignoring... just because they can handle some of the minor technical problems that have always been there, until they look at the broader picture and see that they' re fighting a losing battle, they will continue to flounder as Tesla swallows them up with impeccable products that have them with huge backlogs of orders to fill, which is why the $5B Gigafactory is being built. Again, yes, Toyota, is "big"... but look instead at the trends of both companies and it's obvious Tesla and all the other companies that are putting their money into EVs are the ones who will emerge the winners in this brawl. You and I cannot both be right on this issue... I'm confident that with every passing month, the gulf between Toyota and Tesla (and other EV makers) will continue to grow in the favor of EVs. If you cannot read the handwriting on the wall, I'm sorry... this will be the last comment I'm going to leave on this thread.--- Electric Bill
You're woefully short-sighted, my friend! You assume batteries are improving in mere increments, or perhaps are even out of tricks to try to better their game-- but not so. As I said earlier, several of the upcoming chemistries, such as (several competing versions of) nanotitanate, and nanopore ceramics, and silicon nanowire can be recharged either fully in a matter of 5 minutes or so, or to 80% in a similarly short time, at which point they must be charged more slowly if you want to top them off, but a full pack is rarely needed regardless. Even today's Leaf can be recharged quickly enough to make them quite attractive to buyers, given the enormous savings in travel expenses, lack of need for tune-ups and service, and lack of the dreaded Smog Test. There are a number of primary battery chemistries, once tweaked to their maximum potential, whose energy density can be increased by an order of magnitude by coating the electrodes with silicon nanotubes (or other materials that increase electrode surface area). That means that for a car such as the Model S that can already top 400 miles range per charge with less aggressive driving, it could easily make it nonstop from Los Angeles to Atlanta... and, rather than increasing an EV's range to ridiculous extremes, the battery pack could instead be reduced in size, making EVs lighter, less expensive, more nimble and with even greater vehicle cargo capacity than they already have. (There's a REASON the Model S got the best rating in the history of Consumer Reports, as well as Motor Trend's Car of the Year Award! You would have to be delusional to ignore that, and continue to believe without basis that fuel cells will ever overcome EV momentum! Critics love the totally flat floors, and, huge trunks in both front and back. FCVs will not likely ever have such roomy cargo space.) And, since batteries are still far from running out of new tricks, they need not remain the vehicle of choice for the rich. Within the next few months or a year, more models and other variations of the Model S, Model 3 and others that will be available which will put Teslas within the reach of the average American. Musk laid out that plan publicly even before the first Roadster was sold... very serviceable EVs in the range of $30,000 or so in the third generation. You appear stubbornly obsessed with this idea that EVs are heavy-- that is already not true, at least that today's EVs are typically only slightly heavier than today's ICE cars, and EV car makers already are working out the production lines to deliver battery packs that will be lighter, more energetic, more robust and cheaper than what is available today. The Tesla Gigafactory will be poking a hole in the whole battery cost thing... Musk's not going to tell everyone of breakthroughs he's putting online-- but look at his past history, and you can tell he's got some surprises to reveal soon. He is a showman, and loves to spring incredible publicity blockbusters at gala events... and if you think I'm lying, notice that at no time in the last couple of years has he betrayed any stress of "Where do I go from here? Do I have any options left? Is the other shoe about to drop?" Anything but. He's been behaving like a giddy daddy the week before Christmas, just waiting to see how the kiddies respond to the toys beneath the tree. As for your misplaced, gushing enthusiasm for FCVs, there are enormous hurdles for FCs to be overcome, which appear to a lot of specialists in such chemistry, to be ominous, thorny, and expensive to resolve. Fuel cells might make some good sense for stationary installations such as homes as cogenerators of heat and electricity, but natural gas is still a finite resource, and may become even more finite if fracking proves to be causing an increase in ground water contamination, as well as the swarms of troubling earthquakes that have been occurring in the last few years. Solar power is not perfect, but in balance, is far more sensible than continuing to use up finite resources when clean, quiet renewables are avai
God, I should have turned off Spell Check... it creates more mistakes than it corrects. .. "BILLIONS" for "BILLING", "its" for "it's", etc... I should have proofread before submitting.
Sorry, Kendall, you're not using any common sense. There are BILLING being spent every year in a frenzy to be The Next Big Thing in battery chemistry, and that's even in you don't include Tesla and it's Mega factory in Reno. You should check facts before showing your lack of, awareness of what is state-of-the-art: look up nanopore batteries, carbon n a not be vatteries, silicon nano wire batteries, lithium air batteries, ultracapacitors... you'll see chemistries that can accept charges faster than you can put that expensive fuel in your gas guzzler, and provide ten ten times as much range per charge. I have multiple electric vehicles, they're quiet enough I can actually HEAR the stereo even when it's not blasting as so many cars are... near - zero maintenance... no smog tests, tune-ups, oil changes... no transmission service... and I can get my electrons from a variety of sources, including my own solar panels, not just from OPEC bloodsuckers that want to use our money to finance terrorism and suppress their own countrymen (and women). If you don't bother to look, you won't see there is constant improvement and maturation in the EV universe, and there is no sign that anyone is running out of clever ideas to keep making each day's EVs even better than the EVs before. Like Elon Musk says... "Don't they ever get tired of being wrong?"
You're off by several years: you should have looked it up before posting. When I started driving a car was expected to last less than 100,000 miles, but the lifespan has been stretching out ever since... it's 11.4 years now, even though many cars are chugging along for decades more. Light trucks are slightly less: 11.3 years average. Electric vehicles are likely to change that: even without a breakthrough in today's battery chemistry, EVs are so much simpler they are much easier to keep running.
We try to think outside the box-- biological systems surviving at enormous depths, extreme temperatures, feeding on arsenic and old lace-- but what if life is even more extreme than our wildest imaginings: life forms whose atoms are stripped of electrons, nothing more than ionic creatures, surviving within suns, or deep within gaseous bodies such as Saturn, Jupiter... or even within black holes? We could never know what is in such places, it would seem.
As already stated, we spend trifles on space. We spend even less on these undersea adventures that all but Tea Party psychos feel enriched by, if for no other reason than because we find new and unique life forms that give us keys to untangling cancers, aging, and diseases of every kind. What we DON'T need is a back-breaking military budget when there are alternatives, such as flooding the Internet with countermeasures against the very successful lures al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIL and other malevolent jackasses use to suck in vulnerable nitwits that become suicide bombers, rapists and child killers. No one has yet begun to tell them: "what if they're wrong, and Allah does not gift you with dozens of virgins and pleasures for eternity? What if what they say does not agree with the Koran by any means? Are you willing to burn in eternal hell for the terrible, evil things they want you to do?" There are countless such things we can be telling them, assaulting their faulty logic, hammering home the illegitimacy of their doings. "Who are the real good guys, and bad guys? Who went to Malaysia after the tsunamis, and brought food and medicine to the millions of Muslims that were starving and bleeding? How much effort has the Taliban made to build hospitals and schools, rather than destroy them?" If we start driving electric vehicles rather than spending $450B a year on oil we buy from despotic OPEC countries, that's hundreds of billions of dollars we have to spend on hospitals, schools, roads, bridges... and SPACE. We can also encourage the super-wealthy among us to play higher, more challenging games as Musk, Gates, and others have done, such as using their resources to produce inexpensive medications and verify herbal remedies, if Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others are only interested in profit? -- Electric Bill