The advantages to electric cars arise from the ability to get most of your driving miles without using any gas at all.
No. The advantages to electric cars arise from the fact that they are driven by electric motors. Electric motors are wonderful. I love the bejeezus out of them.
The Volt wouldn't be at all consequential if . ..
It could only go 40 miles before stopping. That was the question that brought me in here, remember? Why can the Tesla go 200 miles on a charge when the might of GM can only get 40?
The answer is because the Tesla is an electric that runs entirely on batteries and the Volt is not. The Volt, no matter what GM chooses to call it for marketing reasons, is a hybrid with a 40 mile battery pack. If you ripped out the combustion motor and its ancillaries and replaced it with more batteries the Volt would get 200 miles on a charge as well.
Tesla did not "outdesign" GM. GM chose, rightly or wrongly isn't part of the issue, to make a rather different sort of car.
But if your drive is never more than 40 miles total, yes, it operates as a battery powered electric that has the disadvantage of having to drag along a worthless combustion engine for the ride. 40 mile electrics are already "common." Hell, they were common in the 1970s.
20 years ago GM drove an electric car 2000 miles across Australia without gas or mains power. They have a clue.
But they also have marketing. As you say, "note source" when they make claims. Look at the thing and see what it is; not at the press release and what the press release says it is.
They lie.
It's got an electric motor with batteries and a gasoline engine with generator. It's a hybrid. With a range of "until the gasoline runs out."
There's this thing they've come up with to handle the switching logic that's been a Godsend. They call it a "microprocessor." It's amazing the number of springs, gears, pullies and mechcanical relays that little thing can replace.
Couldn't make my series-parallel hybrids without 'em.
No. I am speaking of fundamental and critical differences.
. ..from my perspective those other cars ARE hybrids. ..
I am speaking from the perspective of a designer of electric and hybrid cars; who has some knowledge of the history of the things back into the 19th century.
They are not true hybrids. They are multi-drive source. There is a huge difference, but I might need to sit you down with a pile of drawings/models to make it clear.
The Volt is an electric car... that just happens to carry around it's own backup generator.
You are not quite there, but you have just come damned close to the actual definition of the Combustion/Electric hybrid car.
The Combustion/Hybrid is one that burns fuel to operate a heat engine, but uses the heat engine to turn a generator, not the wheels. The heat engine of a true hyrid is not connected to the drive train at all. The electric motor alone is. Since even when operating as an electric it relies on the burning of fuel as its primary energy source there is no need for the combustion motor to provide drive.
This has, dare I say it, "paradigm shifting" implications. I've covered most of them in years past. I've been extremely ill the past few days; at deaths door and shit, I wasn't even supposed to be here today and I just don't have the energy right now to tread over old ground on a serious technical subject.
So I'm afraid I'm just going to state it as fact and abandon.
. ..to power an electric car, you will convert the chemical energy in fossil fuel into electric energy in a power plant, send it over thousands of miles of power lines, doing several voltage conversions along the way, convert it back into chemical energy in your cars battery, back into electric energy as it goes to the engine, and then finally into mechanical energy moving the car.
This car does something interesting. It converts chemical energy in fossil fuel and sends it a few feet to the electric motor.
. ..you do have to admit it should be easier to filter all the pollution at power plants than in millions of cars.
"Should," perhaps. Will, no. The handful of power plants have millions of lawyers; politicians; economic interests protecting them from regulatory intrusion.
The millions of cars have squat all.
Don't believe me? The last time your car failed an inspection point, did you spend your money to bring the car into compliance, or did you hire a lawyer to fight it?
So how can Tesla, a startup company with little manufacturing and car experience relative to GM, build an electric car that can make it 200 miles on a charge, while GM can only build one that makes it 40?
By not putting in a gasoline powered generator; freeing up that space and weight for more batteries.
The article says that GM will not call this car a hybrid, but anyone who has ever read any of my previous posts on this issue will know that this car is nearly exactly what I've been harping about in my criticisms of cars like the Prius. This car is what a hybrid really is; before the marketing people started playing around with the term. Not a multi-drive car, but an electric drive car powered from a gasoline/deisel generator.
Thus the difference between this car and the Tesla is that the Tesla is an electric car and the Chevy is a hybrid.
Don't look at it as a car that will only go 40 miles before you have to plug it in again or add gasoline. That's really the wrong end of the telescope. Look at it as a car that will still go 40 miles after the gasoline is gone. The battery pack is cache, not main memory.
A horse is of rather low intelligence, but it is at least real intelligence. It knows its own way home and has a certain desire to get there (that's where the oats are) so long as there isn't where it already is (see cats and doors/other side of). It can do this without plunging into a tree and bursting into flames or nothin'.
Your job is to not fall off. At mosey pace this actually isn't all that hard and the horse may never even realize you've gone to sleep.
If you're only used to sleeping at home in bed it might surprise you how much muscular control your brain can exert automatically while you sleep, but think about it, you learned not to pee your bed, didn't you?
Ummmmmm, didn't you?
There are many caveats, of course. For instance I really mean the horse's home, so there's the Rent-A-Nag problem, and home may not be where you were intending to end up, and the horse is going to take its own sweet time getting there, but it's the principle that's the important thing.
. ..no wonder it's on short your list of life-savers.
And it wasn't first on the list by accident. Familiarity breeds contempt, but the stuff is the wonder drug. We should have shrines to the "lowly" White Willow/Meadowsweet, but, well, familiarity breeds contempt.
. ..a massive reduction in infant mortality rates.
And mortality rates of the mothers. It wasn't at all uncommon for a man to go through two or three wives. Childbirth was extremely risky. That's why infant mortality and deaths due to child birth are the still the two primary indicators of healty care quality.
On the more generic picture, while fewer people get eaten by bears these days, more of them fall asleep at the wheel. Familiarty breeds contempt, but contempt does not imply that the activity is actually safe. With a bit of practice you can fall asleep at the reins and you will end up . ..home.
And the biggest saver of lives in modern times isn't avoidence of certain risk factors. If you crunch the numbers from the raw data you find that the theoretical maximum possible effect of this is really, quite, quite small. So small as to be at the borderline of precision of measurment.
What keeps larger numbers of us who manage to make it to 21 alive to see 75 is really a very small number of things:
Knowledge of germs Antipyretics
Aspirin; sanitation; antibiotics and vaccines. The simple, basic stuff is responsible for 99.99% of increased adult lifespans.
Most of our more advanced medical practices, chemotherepy, heart surgery, etc., often solve accute problems, but on closer examination have little to no effect on longer term morbidity rates.
And unless you are hypertensive; neither does avoiding salt.
And remember; everyone born more than 125 years ago is already dead. You are going to join them. Get used to the idea. It might help you live.
No. You are not good enough of a driver to do these either. If you are, why aren't you a professional race-car driver?
'Cause if you were, you wouldn't be.
And many pro race-car drivers will tell you not to do these things either
Q.E.D.; I don't even turn my head to look at someone I might be talking to while I'm driving. It's annoying enough to have to comprimise my situational awareness to talk.
See Keith Code's "The Soft Science of Roadracing Motorcycles."
Everyone who operates a motor vechicle should read this book. It deals with attention, how it is innately limited; and how having it in the wrong place at the wrong time can kill you.
A few of you might read the book and say; "What is this shit? It's just common sense," but my work as an instructor has forced me to realize that such common sense is not only duecedly uncommon, but duecedly hard to transmit at times.
The notion that hard-working immigrants can be kept out "to preserve [my] way of life" is little more than saying "I have more than you by an accident of birth and am willing to use force to ensure that I don't have to share."
More often than not it's not even that sophisticated.
When they say "preserve my way of life" what they mean is "you dress funny."
Slashdot Mirror
The advantages to electric cars arise from the ability to get most of your driving miles without using any gas at all.
.
No. The advantages to electric cars arise from the fact that they are driven by electric motors. Electric motors are wonderful. I love the bejeezus out of them.
The Volt wouldn't be at all consequential if . .
It could only go 40 miles before stopping. That was the question that brought me in here, remember? Why can the Tesla go 200 miles on a charge when the might of GM can only get 40?
The answer is because the Tesla is an electric that runs entirely on batteries and the Volt is not. The Volt, no matter what GM chooses to call it for marketing reasons, is a hybrid with a 40 mile battery pack. If you ripped out the combustion motor and its ancillaries and replaced it with more batteries the Volt would get 200 miles on a charge as well.
Tesla did not "outdesign" GM. GM chose, rightly or wrongly isn't part of the issue, to make a rather different sort of car.
But if your drive is never more than 40 miles total, yes, it operates as a battery powered electric that has the disadvantage of having to drag along a worthless combustion engine for the ride. 40 mile electrics are already "common." Hell, they were common in the 1970s.
20 years ago GM drove an electric car 2000 miles across Australia without gas or mains power. They have a clue.
But they also have marketing. As you say, "note source" when they make claims. Look at the thing and see what it is; not at the press release and what the press release says it is.
They lie.
It's got an electric motor with batteries and a gasoline engine with generator. It's a hybrid. With a range of "until the gasoline runs out."
KFG
Well, I'm sorry fer 'em all and shit, but my hands needed cleaning.
KFG
. . .advances in technology.
There's this thing they've come up with to handle the switching logic that's been a Godsend. They call it a "microprocessor." It's amazing the number of springs, gears, pullies and mechcanical relays that little thing can replace.
Couldn't make my series-parallel hybrids without 'em.
KFG
Perhaps the thinking should change to using products that are reasonably secure (regardless of vendor) and using some common sense?
Ah, well, if you put it that way the first step I would recommend is to . . . choose non-Microsoft products.
KFG
I think you're picking nits. . .
.from my perspective those other cars ARE hybrids. . .
No. I am speaking of fundamental and critical differences.
. .
I am speaking from the perspective of a designer of electric and hybrid cars; who has some knowledge of the history of the things back into the 19th century.
They are not true hybrids. They are multi-drive source. There is a huge difference, but I might need to sit you down with a pile of drawings/models to make it clear.
The Volt is an electric car... that just happens to carry around it's own backup generator.
You are not quite there, but you have just come damned close to the actual definition of the Combustion/Electric hybrid car.
The Combustion/Hybrid is one that burns fuel to operate a heat engine, but uses the heat engine to turn a generator, not the wheels. The heat engine of a true hyrid is not connected to the drive train at all. The electric motor alone is. Since even when operating as an electric it relies on the burning of fuel as its primary energy source there is no need for the combustion motor to provide drive.
This has, dare I say it, "paradigm shifting" implications. I've covered most of them in years past. I've been extremely ill the past few days; at deaths door and shit, I wasn't even supposed to be here today and I just don't have the energy right now to tread over old ground on a serious technical subject.
So I'm afraid I'm just going to state it as fact and abandon.
KFG
. . .to power an electric car, you will convert the chemical energy in fossil fuel into electric energy in a power plant, send it over thousands of miles of power lines, doing several voltage conversions along the way, convert it back into chemical energy in your cars battery, back into electric energy as it goes to the engine, and then finally into mechanical energy moving the car.
This car does something interesting. It converts chemical energy in fossil fuel and sends it a few feet to the electric motor.
KFG
. . .you do have to admit it should be easier to filter all the pollution at power plants than in millions of cars.
"Should," perhaps. Will, no. The handful of power plants have millions of lawyers; politicians; economic interests protecting them from regulatory intrusion.
The millions of cars have squat all.
Don't believe me? The last time your car failed an inspection point, did you spend your money to bring the car into compliance, or did you hire a lawyer to fight it?
KFG
So how can Tesla, a startup company with little manufacturing and car experience relative to GM, build an electric car that can make it 200 miles on a charge, while GM can only build one that makes it 40?
By not putting in a gasoline powered generator; freeing up that space and weight for more batteries.
The article says that GM will not call this car a hybrid, but anyone who has ever read any of my previous posts on this issue will know that this car is nearly exactly what I've been harping about in my criticisms of cars like the Prius. This car is what a hybrid really is; before the marketing people started playing around with the term. Not a multi-drive car, but an electric drive car powered from a gasoline/deisel generator.
Thus the difference between this car and the Tesla is that the Tesla is an electric car and the Chevy is a hybrid.
Don't look at it as a car that will only go 40 miles before you have to plug it in again or add gasoline. That's really the wrong end of the telescope. Look at it as a car that will still go 40 miles after the gasoline is gone. The battery pack is cache, not main memory.
KFG
A horse is of rather low intelligence, but it is at least real intelligence. It knows its own way home and has a certain desire to get there (that's where the oats are) so long as there isn't where it already is (see cats and doors/other side of). It can do this without plunging into a tree and bursting into flames or nothin'.
Your job is to not fall off. At mosey pace this actually isn't all that hard and the horse may never even realize you've gone to sleep.
If you're only used to sleeping at home in bed it might surprise you how much muscular control your brain can exert automatically while you sleep, but think about it, you learned not to pee your bed, didn't you?
Ummmmmm, didn't you?
There are many caveats, of course. For instance I really mean the horse's home, so there's the Rent-A-Nag problem, and home may not be where you were intending to end up, and the horse is going to take its own sweet time getting there, but it's the principle that's the important thing.
KFG
. . .no wonder it's on short your list of life-savers.
And it wasn't first on the list by accident. Familiarity breeds contempt, but the stuff is the wonder drug. We should have shrines to the "lowly" White Willow/Meadowsweet, but, well, familiarity breeds contempt.
KFG
The weird thing is that they must have a whole staff of highly qualified computer geeks who do their effects who could tell them this was bullshit.
It isn't weird at all if you understand that Jerry does this stuff because it's bullshit; and why.
KFG
. . .a massive reduction in infant mortality rates.
.home.
And mortality rates of the mothers. It wasn't at all uncommon for a man to go through two or three wives. Childbirth was extremely risky. That's why infant mortality and deaths due to child birth are the still the two primary indicators of healty care quality.
On the more generic picture, while fewer people get eaten by bears these days, more of them fall asleep at the wheel. Familiarty breeds contempt, but contempt does not imply that the activity is actually safe. With a bit of practice you can fall asleep at the reins and you will end up . .
And the biggest saver of lives in modern times isn't avoidence of certain risk factors. If you crunch the numbers from the raw data you find that the theoretical maximum possible effect of this is really, quite, quite small. So small as to be at the borderline of precision of measurment.
What keeps larger numbers of us who manage to make it to 21 alive to see 75 is really a very small number of things:
Knowledge of germs
Antipyretics
Aspirin; sanitation; antibiotics and vaccines. The simple, basic stuff is responsible for 99.99% of increased adult lifespans.
Most of our more advanced medical practices, chemotherepy, heart surgery, etc., often solve accute problems, but on closer examination have little to no effect on longer term morbidity rates.
And unless you are hypertensive; neither does avoiding salt.
And remember; everyone born more than 125 years ago is already dead. You are going to join them. Get used to the idea. It might help you live.
KFG
At least, that's my understanding of it.
Which part of "no" don't you understand?
KFG
People don't seem to realize that freedom of speech is restricted to political views and religion. . .
Which part of "no" don't you understand?
KFG
I'm a vegetarian and all, so I can't say I exactly approve, but pull yourself together man, they're just planning a pig roast.
Oh, wait, are you a . . . ?
Nevermind.
KFG
This paper is absolutely ridiculous, and its author is scaremongering
He's obviously been watching to much local weather forecasting lately:
"Scattered showers in the afternoon; Save the women and children!"
The Society of Hysteria really is getting to be a bit much.
KFG
It can't have holes!
Opera is not responsible for the state of its users.
KFG
No. You are not good enough of a driver to do these either. If you are, why aren't you a professional race-car driver?
'Cause if you were, you wouldn't be.
And many pro race-car drivers will tell you not to do these things either
Q.E.D.; I don't even turn my head to look at someone I might be talking to while I'm driving. It's annoying enough to have to comprimise my situational awareness to talk.
See Keith Code's "The Soft Science of Roadracing Motorcycles."
Everyone who operates a motor vechicle should read this book. It deals with attention, how it is innately limited; and how having it in the wrong place at the wrong time can kill you.
A few of you might read the book and say; "What is this shit? It's just common sense," but my work as an instructor has forced me to realize that such common sense is not only duecedly uncommon, but duecedly hard to transmit at times.
KFG
You don't need to be deceptive to make your point that the label to not put people in the washer is silly.
'Cause every four year old with enough brain to survive in the wild knows you go for rides in the dryer, not the washer.
KFG
You stickin' up fer the homies.
I probably shouldn'ta brought up the bear suit though. What a dwarf does in the privacy of his own home is his own business I say.
KFG
The notion that hard-working immigrants can be kept out "to preserve [my] way of life" is little more than saying "I have more than you by an accident of birth and am willing to use force to ensure that I don't have to share."
More often than not it's not even that sophisticated.
When they say "preserve my way of life" what they mean is "you dress funny."
KFG
You haven't actually bothered to follow the money, have you?
KFG
Nikola Tesla, Charles Steinmetz, and many others. . .
were insufficient to get us on the tech cities list, 'cause none of those guys played banjo while dressed in a bear suit or sumpum
We shoulda taught one of 'em to play banjo.
KFG.
... sounds like Grandpa Simpson
Don't worry, your turn to sound like that is coming, in about five years. Laugh while ye may.
KFG
Why don't they (the RIAA) just lossy-encode and decode all songs before releasing them on CD?
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just use a tin can on a string for a microphone?
KFG