I don't think a battery swap will ever be viable. The people who would need a fast charge will largely have stuff in their trunk, and swapping batteries becomes impractical from a design standpoint. How would you get them out of the car?
Are you seriously saying you can only imagine batteries being placed in the trunk of the car and the only way to get them out being upwards?
Instead of buying one of these you could try looking out of the window. Red traffic lights are quite visible and you can slow down manually when you see one coming up.
I've heard similar things suggested elsewhere, but is engine braking really avoided in the US? When I was taught here in the UK, engine braking was a primary method of braking the vehicle from any speed (you apply the brake while either remaining in the current gear or down shifting and letting each gear engage with no accelerator applied) and is used basically by everyone.
99.9999% of Americans have automatic gearboxes*. They can't downshift whenever they feel like it.
This is bad for emission, however, because most engines at least till the late 90s probably till today give plenty of fuel to start the car. Also if you do a lot of stop and go you might even trigger a catalytic converter too slow to warm up code.
Try thinking positive for a change...it works wonders.
The Prius has a more powerful starter motor that was designed for more frequent use.
You mean.... cars that have this feature are designed to do it?
The technology on the Prius that this article mentions seems interesting (automatically putting the engine in a sort of standby mode where you just have to push the gas pedal to start it again)
An lot of cars in Europe already have this (normal cars with no batteries in them, not just Prius). When you're stopped with your foot on the brake the engine switches off. When you lift off the brake to go for the accelerator it starts up again.
Waste of money? Is living out a meaningless existence without exploring our universe enough for you? What's the point of our civilization then? Are we seriously to sit here on earth and never even try to push the boundaries of what we're capable of?
a) How does the ISS help with that problem? b) What's a realistic time frame for exploring the universe?
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
There's sooooooooo much work to be done before we can think about going out into space. The ISS is a joke is this is its purpose......and it's funny how the stated purpose of the ISS keeps changing, it's almost as if it's got no real reason to exist!
Me? I say the ISS has done everything useful that it's going to do. Time to turn it into a museum for rich kids (who'll advance science much more by trying to get there than the ISS ever will).
a) With the current state of the world that's hundreds of years away at best. It would cost "billions and billions". b) Gravity on Mars is nothing like gravity on the ISS.
Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in 0 G environments is useful science.
The day when we'll need to put humans in 0 G for any length of time is hundreds of years away...doctors in that year will laugh at these primitive experiments.
Right now the ISS is a giant Albatross around the neck of NASA.
Slashdot Mirror
Those scams only work when you don't really have any way to get a refund.
If it's the charging station on the corner then you know where to send the battery police.
I don't think a battery swap will ever be viable. The people who would need a fast charge will largely have stuff in their trunk, and swapping batteries becomes impractical from a design standpoint. How would you get them out of the car?
Are you seriously saying you can only imagine batteries being placed in the trunk of the car and the only way to get them out being upwards?
I see why you post AC.
Does the AdBlock really work yet or does it just hide the images once they've downloaded?
Am I going to have to read the article to find out who won?
Actually, it doesn't matter: Only one of them runs adblock and noscript...'nuff said.
Why do you need to brake hard?
Hard braking is a sign of wasted energy.
It has OpenGL 2.0...that's shaders.
They'll never permit that to happen. No, it'll get settled with a victory in some lower level court that won't matter. You can't appeal if you win.
Yep. They're just holding out for a bigger bribe.
Instead of buying one of these you could try looking out of the window. Red traffic lights are quite visible and you can slow down manually when you see one coming up.
"Brake". The word you want is "brake".
RTFA.
I've heard similar things suggested elsewhere, but is engine braking really avoided in the US? When I was taught here in the UK, engine braking was a primary method of braking the vehicle from any speed (you apply the brake while either remaining in the current gear or down shifting and letting each gear engage with no accelerator applied) and is used basically by everyone.
99.9999% of Americans have automatic gearboxes*. They can't downshift whenever they feel like it.
This is bad for emission, however, because most engines at least till the late 90s probably till today give plenty of fuel to start the car. Also if you do a lot of stop and go you might even trigger a catalytic converter too slow to warm up code.
Try thinking positive for a change...it works wonders.
The Prius has a more powerful starter motor that was designed for more frequent use.
You mean .... cars that have this feature are designed to do it?
Wow!!! How is that possible???
The technology on the Prius that this article mentions seems interesting (automatically putting the engine in a sort of standby mode where you just have to push the gas pedal to start it again)
An lot of cars in Europe already have this (normal cars with no batteries in them, not just Prius). When you're stopped with your foot on the brake the engine switches off. When you lift off the brake to go for the accelerator it starts up again.
Aaargh, did I really type "break"? ptui.
The most fuel efficient strategy is to break hard just once, as soon as possible, and then let the car roll at a speed
Did you read the parent at all?
You break gently using the engine (using zero fuel for all that time) *then* when you reach desired rolling speed you put it in neutral.
(Assuming you have a neutral...most gas guzzlers don't...)
(This authority isn't written, it's someone who worked for Acorn at the time. I believe him...
It's a fairly well documented fact...people weren't as poor as Acorn had expected.
A lot of graphics modes needed 20k of the 32k RAM - Model A owners only had text mode games (ie. Acorn text adventures...)
Stop adding checkbox marketing features and maybe we'll stand a fighting chance.
...against users who choose "123456" for their admin password?
Maybe you didn't RTFA before posting.
Waste of money? Is living out a meaningless existence without exploring our universe enough for you? What's the point of our civilization then? Are we seriously to sit here on earth and never even try to push the boundaries of what we're capable of?
a) How does the ISS help with that problem?
b) What's a realistic time frame for exploring the universe?
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
There's sooooooooo much work to be done before we can think about going out into space. The ISS is a joke is this is its purpose... ...and it's funny how the stated purpose of the ISS keeps changing, it's almost as if it's got no real reason to exist!
Me? I say the ISS has done everything useful that it's going to do. Time to turn it into a museum for rich kids (who'll advance science much more by trying to get there than the ISS ever will).
... terraforming Mars.
a) With the current state of the world that's hundreds of years away at best. It would cost "billions and billions".
b) Gravity on Mars is nothing like gravity on the ISS.
There's no reason to think we'll be sending humans other stars anytime in the near future.
Before we can even think about it we need a whole new propulsion system. We could be working on that with the money we save by abandoning the ISS.
Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in 0 G environments is useful science.
The day when we'll need to put humans in 0 G for any length of time is hundreds of years away...doctors in that year will laugh at these primitive experiments.
Right now the ISS is a giant Albatross around the neck of NASA.
.... $10 on a brand new video card that will run circles around whatever they have now.
Or just use the integrated graphics on your motherboard.
The 'fix' is still broken because I still won't know if my colleagues are in bed or not.
I've got one!