I did look into solar leasing. The company that advertises heavily on the local talk radio and in print in my area doesn't service my area but instead services other states that surround me - argh! This sounded tempting when i tried to run numbers but frankly since no incentives are offered in my state I'm not surprised they're not installing here.
I also truly appreciate the information about the inverters and your post should be modded up. Right now my only information is word of mouth and HomePower magazine which I've gotten for awhile now and read form the newstand too. where can i go to get more information and to perhaps source someone to do work for me?
The technology intrigues me, I want to learn more, and I'd like to be using it to become just a bit more independent. Right now the dollars don't work in my favor but honestly I'd be willing to do this even if the dollars weren't 100% in my favor just to try and push the technology some. Finding someone who won't rip me off and do a good job is a serious concern and doing it myself isn't going to happen. The pitch of roof is fairly daunting and I'm willing to pay for someone else's skills in this...
Yeah, the price was coming in pretty high I thought. I was also unimpressed with a 280watt panel - I think they were Samsung. These were going to be microinverted though which is something I desire as I may get a little shading during the morning hours. I would be wanting to do this on a raised seam roof so I think racking would be cheap - I actually had to tell the guy that he didn't need to penetrate the roof!
Sadly though because there are NO state incentives in my area I cannot find any damned installers doing work here! If I could wipe out my sub $200 electric bill and pay less than $30K I'd be tempted. A friend has A 10kwh system in Texas and pays no electric bill now - I can watch his system over the web. He paid like $18K I think after incentives I'd do that, tomorrow, if it were available....
Well, which Turbo T/A are you talking about? They did the 6banger damned well I thought! Back when the original V8 one came out we were still using carbs, intercoolers were but a dream, and metallurgy wasn't good enough (nor oil probably) to make the car right. things have changed in the turbo world to say the least - dual ball bearing air cooled turbos looked damned nice and people are even doing compound turbos on street driven gas cars - holy crap!
I do like the 300D and I'd own one. You're right though, they get abused to death!
Honestly in my area, until the bottom fell out, people really didn't seem to stay long. I also was truly worried that rather than adding to the value of the home a new homeowner might try to bring the price down over maintenance concerns - I know I'd be a little hesitant without fully checking a system out and I LIKE this stuff. The cost was just too high for the production offered. Make me the same offer at say $15K for 3K or maybe a little more for 4K and I think I'd have jumped on it. That's not cheap but it's doable and not the cost of a decent vehicle new vehicle darn it.
Wow, that's sky high for a passenger car - is it a lean burn direct injection MPG monster? I don't know much about 2 strokes I'll admit but supposedly they have terrific power production - 2 less strokes perhaps?
I miss tuning cars - and by that I mean programming the EFI not slapping wheels on them. So many knobs to turn now, I really need to get some projects going and on the road to play with. Fun stuff combining mechanical and computer knowledge - freaking expensive too if you screw up!
While I agree that the dumping is a problem high cost is an issue all around. It makes sense to invest in this technology IMO but with power prices where they are it's a low incentive to get people to move. The payoff on the system I looked at was something well over 10 years - who stays in a home that long? I do and have but we're now talking 1- MORE years! Push costs down on this technology and I can see people investing in it but until that happens even the panels being dumped aren't enough to push prices down far enough for most people. It would also help if there was more competition in the market for installers but that's a chicken\egg problem I'm afraid. I think the quote I was getting for panels was probably damned high but I had a hell of a time even finding a local vendor that would come out and give me a price - argh!
I looked into this myself. With the 30% credit and for a 3KW system the vendor was offering it was right around $30K using 280watt panels. My bills are actually pretty low, well below $200 on the worst month and power here is fairly cheap. The guy was figuring efficiency levels fairly low and I'd have probably done better but the payoff for this system was quite long. I decided to skip the system, the wattage potential was too low and the payoff far too long. I have a South facing home but apparently need more roof. The vendor also seemed to be pricing high and with no State incentives I just couldn't see myself doing it, I wish I could.
Bosch exiting the market isn't good IMO. They have been doing this a very long time and for them to find the business untenable really signals that the market may not be healthy. I do understand their frustration at the dumping that has occurred but if you price panels those are the ones that are actually affordable. They really need to drive prices downward or the price of electricity needs to rise a great deal before it's worth it - at least when there are so few incentives. Overall I would agree that we need to get more people into solar, yes even with Govt. incentives. Once the install hurdle is passed the damned things produce power for a good long time during peak usage hours. It simply makes sense as a nation to do this IMO but until prices to the consumer come down I don't see any mass movement in that direction:-9
You're talking about the Audi right? Is the Tiptronic in that any different than the 6spd VW DSG I've got now? A friend has a new A3 TDI but I've yet to drive it, I'd be surprised if it were significantly different honestly. If they could put in a taller top gear at least and better shift programming I might be okay with it. I need something that isn't turning a ton of RPM at 70MPH and spread things out below that. 1st in this car pulls well enough for sure and it shifts into 2nd nearly instantly off the line - they could probably raise 1st just a bit to help with 6th...
The diesel electric automotive is a series hybrid, power is generated by the diesel attached to a generator and then pushed to the electric motor - this is my understanding and it may be incorrect but I'm pretty sure. In fact I *think* many locomotives have big heatsinks on them to dissipate excess power - I'm not really sure of this however so if you're really interested in how the choo choos do it you will want to research further. Ships also do this, sometimes with interesting consequences as some of the passenger cruise liners have recently discovered when they've had electrical issues.
The EV hybrids running around here are like the Prius - electric energy from batteries and then a gas motor that kicks in at higher speeds and loads - this is much different than locomotives. However the Chevy Volt uses it's electric motor as a series hybrid, it's gas motor never drives the wheels I'm pretty sure.
Does that help? I'm not 100% sure I understood your question...
I'm still trying to jive her apparently ignorance with her being an "evangelist". How does that work exactly? She is supposed to win over programmers to her cause using what exactly? It sure doesn't sound like it's her intimate knowledge of computers that's for sure....
You've also used numbers that are pretty far off the mark - diesel is 10 cents a gallon more than regular in my neck of the woods. Do please show me anything I've said that claims performance from a diesel while you're at it, that's laughable at best. Diesel is what I drove for MPG, I've never stated otherwise. If you think the Scion motor is going to last 150K go for it, I'll be surprised. I know the TDI isn't perfect and I'll have at least one component that's known weak to replace but I would put it's reliability up against the Scion's any day.
End of the day I'm happy with my purchase and it's MPG stacks up pretty damned well. Argue all you want, the diesel owners in the crowd will be happy to roll their eyes at you. I get performance that's decent and mileage that beats many cars on the road in a car that's pretty damned comfortable - something you'd be hard pressed to say in your smaller car. It's not all just dollars and cents but if that's how you purchase a car - with a spreadsheet - then I'm pretty surprised you're in a Scion but I guess not completely surprised;-)
I'm offended that she thought dongles are PCMCIA these days. I've not seen one of those slots on a new piece of hardware in forever! What did she do, Google and hit an old link while she was trying to figure out WTF a dongle might be?!
Oh and you probably ought to reread the original post, the one that mentions a desire for a SERIES DIESEL EV TRUCK. Series, just like the locomotives, EV for battery storage of excess power. A series diesel would be the best of both worlds hybrid.
So what was that about reading before deciding you have something to add exactly? Seriously?
I said nothing of Hybrid diesel and was simply pointing out the series diesel is what locomotives use. The point I was countering was that diesel is useless for towning - point of fact it is not and is used by countless locomotives every single day....
They're starting to do all sorts of things with lean burn engines and they're trying to do autoignite with direct gasoline injection too - likely the Mitsu guys if I had to guess. They have a bunch of direct injection cars right now including the EVO which irritated a bunch of enthusiasts, well that and the damned autotragic in it.
The point stands - not many are over 11:1 these days and those that are have a ton of tech behind them to do it. The majority of passenger cars are far lower. I bet that motorbike was two cycle too:-) If not it was a pretty hot sportbike and I'd love to know what the cam timing looked like to keep the knock down!
If she didn't want attention she wouldn't have screamed it to Twitter like an idiot. These guys were people in the audience and sponsor or not they were eavesdropped on by someone who was looking to be offended. In fact she KNEW they were from the sponsor company and that was part of what she said drove her to act out about it. She was looking for a splash and she got it, thankfully she got splashed too.
Try these numbers - I drove by my local station on the way to work: Regular unleaded was $3.79 a gallon. Diesel was $3.89:-) So much for 40 cents more a gallon lol. The funny thing is I don't even generally look at the prices for regular, it appears that you don't look hard at the prices of diesel either...
I was responding to a point made about automatics and towing if you had bothered to read -> Also, If you have a truck or car and pull a trailer or carry heavy loads, that's an ideal situation for an automatic transmission because you don't burn out the clutch.
That has little to nothing to do with a normal passenger vehicle load and much to do with moving weight aka towing and an 18 wheeler does much of that. Buses have been converted to automatics because most of the drivers are like you - lazy. If they had to find drivers who could not only drive something that big but also handle a stick they would have a far harder time finding them. THAT is the reason for the automatics. Oh do please enlighten me as to how a transmission being one or the other changes engine wear lol.
Nanny government has rigged it so we only have gas guzzlers? Really? Have you seen their plans to tighten up emissions and MPG requirements?! It's published information and frankly I don;t see how the hell the OEMs are going to be able to make a car that meets both the safety requirements which add weight and meet the MPG requirements. The only reason why those gas guzzlers are out there is because they sell enough high MPG cars to offset the guzzlers and the Govt. uses an average of FLEET MPG for their calculations. Go look at the used car lots, that's where you see all of the guzzlers!
Yes, taxes are higher for diesel but that's because of large trucks and their desire to punish them for the heavier damage they do to the roads. What we need is higher taxes on gasoline to curtail usage but heavens no we can't have THAT now can we?
They were close enough to off the shelf gas engines that some dealers "converted" them to gasoline in order to appease the owners of them. They weren't proper diesel engines and the bottom line is that they fell apart quickly, spewed gobs of smoke, and left a bad taste in consumer's mouths that echoes even today. Kripes there must be 4 people in this thread at least that recall how bad they were and we're talking about something that occurred ages ago in car years! THAT is how bad they were!
I'll admit I'm not sure when exactly the diesel injects fuel, I know that the injection timing effects power and MPG though and is one of the few things that can be tuned on a diesel. It's true that the fuel is a lubricant for sure, I think that this is one of the reasons why no one wants to warranty a diesel being run on bio-diesel as the lubricating qualities likely change. OEMs are starting to try direct injection of gasoline and I've heard about them using compression to ignite the mixture too - supposedly this is a decent gain in energy. I guess with the push for higher and higher MPG from fatter and fatter but uber safe cars we'll be seeing this technology soon enough...
The A3 is based upon the Jetta chassis. The A3 has 4wheel disk brakes and I'm pretty sure it's not got the solid axle of the current cost cut Jetta. The A3 can be gotten with HID headlights, sport suspension, and a sporty interior that has far better seats too. I own a MKV Jetta that came with the better suspension they recently removed and it has disk brakes all around. If I were buying another it would be the A3 or perhaps a Passat with a TDI in it - only if it could be gotten with a stick and not the DSG.
I'm sorry you have issues with confrontation. I find that if someone is annoying enough for me to shush them in a theater that any threats made by them are usually met by the growls of a dozen or more patrons around me. They also have these things called ushers, they can be asked to intercede on your behalf if you cannot stand up to others. I'm told they have these at conferences too, why they even have them at ballgames for when the dork in front of you gets too drunk and begins cursing the players in front of your child. These are the appropriate people to contact, not take pictures of the offending person and whine to the world about how they are just going to RUIN little Suzie's potential career. Spare me, she wanted attention, she got it, now she's discovered it cuts both ways - I hope she has a tough time finding another job as a result and gets to think deeply about her actions.
Yes, she was out of line. If I'm offended am I justified in throwing a tantrum? NO. Do I demand that no one ever offend me? Is it a requirement? NO IT IS NOT! Do you really want to live in a world where you're not allowed to say anything that might offend another? Even while speaking to someone else in a public setting? I don't, not ever. Offending others isn't the end of the world and neither is "being bothered" by something. Grow up and please do not pass this crap onto your children.
So NO, it should NOT have been a Federal case, It was a conversation that did NOT include her, that she actually misinterpreted, and that she had no reason to intercede in. She made a fool out of herself and out of her company for being a damned drama queen and I for one am quite happy to NOT work with people such as herself. The women I work with are reasonable and on the occasion that someone has offended them they have said something to the offender and the behavior has ceased without anyone having their paycheck dinged. If one of them say something I don't like I tell them too and it's not a problem. This is how adults handle themselves, this woman acted like a child.
Yes and no. The electric motor is chosen because it makes full torque at 1RPM and up. It's fully capable of pulling heavy loads and it does. It's also extremely economical because the diesel engine can be run steady state at the RPM where it makes it's most efficient use of fuel. This is also done in the ship industry and in other places where large loads must be moved. To say that the electric motor is "fairly useless for towing" is an ignorant statement. Electric motors are capable of high output for long periods of time just fine. It does end up as a sort of transmission but that's not why it was chosen, plenty of locomotives ran on fuel prior to the switch to diesel electric, the switch wasn't done to save parts it was done to for efficient use of fuel.
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I did look into solar leasing. The company that advertises heavily on the local talk radio and in print in my area doesn't service my area but instead services other states that surround me - argh! This sounded tempting when i tried to run numbers but frankly since no incentives are offered in my state I'm not surprised they're not installing here.
I also truly appreciate the information about the inverters and your post should be modded up. Right now my only information is word of mouth and HomePower magazine which I've gotten for awhile now and read form the newstand too. where can i go to get more information and to perhaps source someone to do work for me?
The technology intrigues me, I want to learn more, and I'd like to be using it to become just a bit more independent. Right now the dollars don't work in my favor but honestly I'd be willing to do this even if the dollars weren't 100% in my favor just to try and push the technology some. Finding someone who won't rip me off and do a good job is a serious concern and doing it myself isn't going to happen. The pitch of roof is fairly daunting and I'm willing to pay for someone else's skills in this...
Yeah, the price was coming in pretty high I thought. I was also unimpressed with a 280watt panel - I think they were Samsung. These were going to be microinverted though which is something I desire as I may get a little shading during the morning hours. I would be wanting to do this on a raised seam roof so I think racking would be cheap - I actually had to tell the guy that he didn't need to penetrate the roof!
Sadly though because there are NO state incentives in my area I cannot find any damned installers doing work here! If I could wipe out my sub $200 electric bill and pay less than $30K I'd be tempted. A friend has A 10kwh system in Texas and pays no electric bill now - I can watch his system over the web. He paid like $18K I think after incentives I'd do that, tomorrow, if it were available....
Well, which Turbo T/A are you talking about? They did the 6banger damned well I thought! Back when the original V8 one came out we were still using carbs, intercoolers were but a dream, and metallurgy wasn't good enough (nor oil probably) to make the car right. things have changed in the turbo world to say the least - dual ball bearing air cooled turbos looked damned nice and people are even doing compound turbos on street driven gas cars - holy crap!
I do like the 300D and I'd own one. You're right though, they get abused to death!
Honestly in my area, until the bottom fell out, people really didn't seem to stay long. I also was truly worried that rather than adding to the value of the home a new homeowner might try to bring the price down over maintenance concerns - I know I'd be a little hesitant without fully checking a system out and I LIKE this stuff. The cost was just too high for the production offered. Make me the same offer at say $15K for 3K or maybe a little more for 4K and I think I'd have jumped on it. That's not cheap but it's doable and not the cost of a decent vehicle new vehicle darn it.
Wow, that's sky high for a passenger car - is it a lean burn direct injection MPG monster? I don't know much about 2 strokes I'll admit but supposedly they have terrific power production - 2 less strokes perhaps?
I miss tuning cars - and by that I mean programming the EFI not slapping wheels on them. So many knobs to turn now, I really need to get some projects going and on the road to play with. Fun stuff combining mechanical and computer knowledge - freaking expensive too if you screw up!
While I agree that the dumping is a problem high cost is an issue all around. It makes sense to invest in this technology IMO but with power prices where they are it's a low incentive to get people to move. The payoff on the system I looked at was something well over 10 years - who stays in a home that long? I do and have but we're now talking 1- MORE years! Push costs down on this technology and I can see people investing in it but until that happens even the panels being dumped aren't enough to push prices down far enough for most people. It would also help if there was more competition in the market for installers but that's a chicken\egg problem I'm afraid. I think the quote I was getting for panels was probably damned high but I had a hell of a time even finding a local vendor that would come out and give me a price - argh!
I looked into this myself. With the 30% credit and for a 3KW system the vendor was offering it was right around $30K using 280watt panels. My bills are actually pretty low, well below $200 on the worst month and power here is fairly cheap. The guy was figuring efficiency levels fairly low and I'd have probably done better but the payoff for this system was quite long. I decided to skip the system, the wattage potential was too low and the payoff far too long. I have a South facing home but apparently need more roof. The vendor also seemed to be pricing high and with no State incentives I just couldn't see myself doing it, I wish I could.
Bosch exiting the market isn't good IMO. They have been doing this a very long time and for them to find the business untenable really signals that the market may not be healthy. I do understand their frustration at the dumping that has occurred but if you price panels those are the ones that are actually affordable. They really need to drive prices downward or the price of electricity needs to rise a great deal before it's worth it - at least when there are so few incentives. Overall I would agree that we need to get more people into solar, yes even with Govt. incentives. Once the install hurdle is passed the damned things produce power for a good long time during peak usage hours. It simply makes sense as a nation to do this IMO but until prices to the consumer come down I don't see any mass movement in that direction :-9
You're talking about the Audi right? Is the Tiptronic in that any different than the 6spd VW DSG I've got now? A friend has a new A3 TDI but I've yet to drive it, I'd be surprised if it were significantly different honestly. If they could put in a taller top gear at least and better shift programming I might be okay with it. I need something that isn't turning a ton of RPM at 70MPH and spread things out below that. 1st in this car pulls well enough for sure and it shifts into 2nd nearly instantly off the line - they could probably raise 1st just a bit to help with 6th...
The diesel electric automotive is a series hybrid, power is generated by the diesel attached to a generator and then pushed to the electric motor - this is my understanding and it may be incorrect but I'm pretty sure. In fact I *think* many locomotives have big heatsinks on them to dissipate excess power - I'm not really sure of this however so if you're really interested in how the choo choos do it you will want to research further. Ships also do this, sometimes with interesting consequences as some of the passenger cruise liners have recently discovered when they've had electrical issues.
The EV hybrids running around here are like the Prius - electric energy from batteries and then a gas motor that kicks in at higher speeds and loads - this is much different than locomotives. However the Chevy Volt uses it's electric motor as a series hybrid, it's gas motor never drives the wheels I'm pretty sure.
Does that help? I'm not 100% sure I understood your question...
I'm still trying to jive her apparently ignorance with her being an "evangelist". How does that work exactly? She is supposed to win over programmers to her cause using what exactly? It sure doesn't sound like it's her intimate knowledge of computers that's for sure....
You've also used numbers that are pretty far off the mark - diesel is 10 cents a gallon more than regular in my neck of the woods. Do please show me anything I've said that claims performance from a diesel while you're at it, that's laughable at best. Diesel is what I drove for MPG, I've never stated otherwise. If you think the Scion motor is going to last 150K go for it, I'll be surprised. I know the TDI isn't perfect and I'll have at least one component that's known weak to replace but I would put it's reliability up against the Scion's any day.
End of the day I'm happy with my purchase and it's MPG stacks up pretty damned well. Argue all you want, the diesel owners in the crowd will be happy to roll their eyes at you. I get performance that's decent and mileage that beats many cars on the road in a car that's pretty damned comfortable - something you'd be hard pressed to say in your smaller car. It's not all just dollars and cents but if that's how you purchase a car - with a spreadsheet - then I'm pretty surprised you're in a Scion but I guess not completely surprised ;-)
I'm offended that she thought dongles are PCMCIA these days. I've not seen one of those slots on a new piece of hardware in forever! What did she do, Google and hit an old link while she was trying to figure out WTF a dongle might be?!
Oh and you probably ought to reread the original post, the one that mentions a desire for a SERIES DIESEL EV TRUCK. Series, just like the locomotives, EV for battery storage of excess power. A series diesel would be the best of both worlds hybrid.
So what was that about reading before deciding you have something to add exactly? Seriously?
I said nothing of Hybrid diesel and was simply pointing out the series diesel is what locomotives use. The point I was countering was that diesel is useless for towning - point of fact it is not and is used by countless locomotives every single day....
They're starting to do all sorts of things with lean burn engines and they're trying to do autoignite with direct gasoline injection too - likely the Mitsu guys if I had to guess. They have a bunch of direct injection cars right now including the EVO which irritated a bunch of enthusiasts, well that and the damned autotragic in it.
The point stands - not many are over 11:1 these days and those that are have a ton of tech behind them to do it. The majority of passenger cars are far lower. I bet that motorbike was two cycle too :-) If not it was a pretty hot sportbike and I'd love to know what the cam timing looked like to keep the knock down!
If she didn't want attention she wouldn't have screamed it to Twitter like an idiot. These guys were people in the audience and sponsor or not they were eavesdropped on by someone who was looking to be offended. In fact she KNEW they were from the sponsor company and that was part of what she said drove her to act out about it. She was looking for a splash and she got it, thankfully she got splashed too.
Try these numbers - I drove by my local station on the way to work: Regular unleaded was $3.79 a gallon. Diesel was $3.89 :-) So much for 40 cents more a gallon lol. The funny thing is I don't even generally look at the prices for regular, it appears that you don't look hard at the prices of diesel either...
I was responding to a point made about automatics and towing if you had bothered to read -> Also, If you have a truck or car and pull a trailer or carry heavy loads, that's an ideal situation for an automatic transmission because you don't burn out the clutch.
That has little to nothing to do with a normal passenger vehicle load and much to do with moving weight aka towing and an 18 wheeler does much of that. Buses have been converted to automatics because most of the drivers are like you - lazy. If they had to find drivers who could not only drive something that big but also handle a stick they would have a far harder time finding them. THAT is the reason for the automatics. Oh do please enlighten me as to how a transmission being one or the other changes engine wear lol.
The transmission has zero to do with the differential. Once you hit the driveshaft it's all just stuff turning...
Nanny government has rigged it so we only have gas guzzlers? Really? Have you seen their plans to tighten up emissions and MPG requirements?! It's published information and frankly I don;t see how the hell the OEMs are going to be able to make a car that meets both the safety requirements which add weight and meet the MPG requirements. The only reason why those gas guzzlers are out there is because they sell enough high MPG cars to offset the guzzlers and the Govt. uses an average of FLEET MPG for their calculations. Go look at the used car lots, that's where you see all of the guzzlers!
Yes, taxes are higher for diesel but that's because of large trucks and their desire to punish them for the heavier damage they do to the roads. What we need is higher taxes on gasoline to curtail usage but heavens no we can't have THAT now can we?
They were close enough to off the shelf gas engines that some dealers "converted" them to gasoline in order to appease the owners of them. They weren't proper diesel engines and the bottom line is that they fell apart quickly, spewed gobs of smoke, and left a bad taste in consumer's mouths that echoes even today. Kripes there must be 4 people in this thread at least that recall how bad they were and we're talking about something that occurred ages ago in car years! THAT is how bad they were!
I'll admit I'm not sure when exactly the diesel injects fuel, I know that the injection timing effects power and MPG though and is one of the few things that can be tuned on a diesel. It's true that the fuel is a lubricant for sure, I think that this is one of the reasons why no one wants to warranty a diesel being run on bio-diesel as the lubricating qualities likely change. OEMs are starting to try direct injection of gasoline and I've heard about them using compression to ignite the mixture too - supposedly this is a decent gain in energy. I guess with the push for higher and higher MPG from fatter and fatter but uber safe cars we'll be seeing this technology soon enough...
The A3 is based upon the Jetta chassis. The A3 has 4wheel disk brakes and I'm pretty sure it's not got the solid axle of the current cost cut Jetta. The A3 can be gotten with HID headlights, sport suspension, and a sporty interior that has far better seats too. I own a MKV Jetta that came with the better suspension they recently removed and it has disk brakes all around. If I were buying another it would be the A3 or perhaps a Passat with a TDI in it - only if it could be gotten with a stick and not the DSG.
As I said, if she was uncomfortable asking them to stop having a private conversation that didn't include her that she found offensive she was welcome to seek a supervisor of some sort. She didn't, she instead took PICTURES, tweeted them, and screamed to the world that these guys were "bad people think of the children". Have you not read the crap she wrote? A Google cache exists http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/
I'm sorry you have issues with confrontation. I find that if someone is annoying enough for me to shush them in a theater that any threats made by them are usually met by the growls of a dozen or more patrons around me. They also have these things called ushers, they can be asked to intercede on your behalf if you cannot stand up to others. I'm told they have these at conferences too, why they even have them at ballgames for when the dork in front of you gets too drunk and begins cursing the players in front of your child. These are the appropriate people to contact, not take pictures of the offending person and whine to the world about how they are just going to RUIN little Suzie's potential career. Spare me, she wanted attention, she got it, now she's discovered it cuts both ways - I hope she has a tough time finding another job as a result and gets to think deeply about her actions.
Yes, she was out of line. If I'm offended am I justified in throwing a tantrum? NO. Do I demand that no one ever offend me? Is it a requirement? NO IT IS NOT! Do you really want to live in a world where you're not allowed to say anything that might offend another? Even while speaking to someone else in a public setting? I don't, not ever. Offending others isn't the end of the world and neither is "being bothered" by something. Grow up and please do not pass this crap onto your children.
So NO, it should NOT have been a Federal case, It was a conversation that did NOT include her, that she actually misinterpreted, and that she had no reason to intercede in. She made a fool out of herself and out of her company for being a damned drama queen and I for one am quite happy to NOT work with people such as herself. The women I work with are reasonable and on the occasion that someone has offended them they have said something to the offender and the behavior has ceased without anyone having their paycheck dinged. If one of them say something I don't like I tell them too and it's not a problem. This is how adults handle themselves, this woman acted like a child.
Yes and no. The electric motor is chosen because it makes full torque at 1RPM and up. It's fully capable of pulling heavy loads and it does. It's also extremely economical because the diesel engine can be run steady state at the RPM where it makes it's most efficient use of fuel. This is also done in the ship industry and in other places where large loads must be moved. To say that the electric motor is "fairly useless for towing" is an ignorant statement. Electric motors are capable of high output for long periods of time just fine. It does end up as a sort of transmission but that's not why it was chosen, plenty of locomotives ran on fuel prior to the switch to diesel electric, the switch wasn't done to save parts it was done to for efficient use of fuel.