Posted 2 April Scrap schemes are rubbish. Perfectly good vehicles are destroyed to keep the economy moving. I want my 1977 Ford Escort back!😉 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 2 April On 4/1/2023, 10:03:54, slammer said: At the beginning of the Automobile age, just a hundred years ago Fossil fuel cars were on the starting line along with electric cars and indeed steam cars. However it seems that the internal combustion auto had the better lobbyists and we got what we have now. It has taken us a century and a bit to burn our way though a planets-worth of fossil fuel and I do wonder how the world would look if electric had taken the place of the ICE back in the day. I wonder also if steam cars would be a viable option? Howard Hughes had one built that could be started up as fast as a ICE car and showed the same performance of the cars of the day. However the limitations of the technology of that period meant that the whole of the bodywork was one big condenser and in the event of a crash, any occupant would have been boiled alive. So he had it scrapped. Could we build something like that today without the danger? I often wondered why no one made a PHEV which used the heat energy of the engine to make electricity, which in turn is used to drive the electric motor or charge the battery. Seems we never figured out how to make electricity efficently from thermal energy. Regarding a combination petrol/steam engine I am suprised no mad scientist invented one. You get almost the same heat energy as kinetic (motion) energy from the combusion, yet this is largely thrown away. The catalytic converter for example operates at 400-650C. Besides the exhaust air, you have the circulating water which is under pressure, the heat from which is dissapated (thrown away) via the radiator. So you do kind of wonder why no one built a steam based engine, or a combination. Actually I found exactly this created by Saab called the 'Ranotor' back in the 1970s: https://archive.ph/20130418142858/http://www.teknikensvarld.se/2008/01/31/3755/anghybridmotorn-kan-snart-vara-har/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car Also interesting: 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 2 April 6 hours ago, MikeMelga said: They sound like the guy that owned a horse in late 19th century, and couldn't understand what would happen to the 1 million transport horses available at the time Horse population Factoid: In the US 25 million in 1920 - the highest ever. In 1900 there were 21.5 Today there are 7.25 million or 30% of the highest pop. Not insignificant...but they eat hay. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 2 April 2 hours ago, catjones said: Horse population Factoid: In the US 25 million in 1920 - the highest ever. In 1900 there were 21.5 Today there are 7.25 million or 30% of the highest pop. Not insignificant...but they eat hay. I was referring to the ones used for transport in big cities. I highly, highly recommend this reading, most entertaining. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/03/lost-history-electric-car-future-transport Quote In the 1890s, the biggest cities of the western world faced a mounting problem. Horse-drawn vehicles had been in use for thousands of years, and it was hard to imagine life without them. But as the number of such vehicles increased during the 19th century, the drawbacks of using horses in densely populated cities were becoming ever more apparent. In particular, the accumulation of horse manure on the streets, and the associated stench, were impossible to miss. By the 1890s, about 300,000 horses were working on the streets of London, and more than 150,000 in New York City. Each of these horses produced an average of 10kg of manure a day, plus about a litre of urine. Collecting and removing thousands of tonnes of waste from stables and streets proved increasingly difficult. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 2 April 7 hours ago, Fietsrad said: Scrap schemes are rubbish. Perfectly good vehicles are destroyed to keep the economy moving. I want my 1977 Ford Escort back!😉 They aren't perfectly good vehicles now and they certainly won't be in 2035. They are and still will be polluting the environment! 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 2 April @MikeMelga From the article you posted: That year, Henry Ford confirmed rumours that he was developing a low-cost electric car in conjunction with Thomas Edison. “The problem so far has been to build a storage battery of light weight which would operate for long distances without recharging,” It would take the Lithium-ion battery in the 1980's before the technology appeared that Ford-Edison needed….and even then it was for consumer electronics. Here we are 40 years later. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 3 April 2 hours ago, keith2011 said: They aren't perfectly good vehicles now and they certainly won't be in 2035. They are and still will be polluting the environment! Once a car is built the best you can do is use it the longest possible time. If the technology is too polluting you can ban the from city centers. Discarding working vehicles is actually worse for the environment. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 April https://www.teslarati.com/vw-kills-ice-golf/ Quote Volkswagen (VW) has revealed that it will not develop a new generation of gas-powered Golf hatchbacks. To those that still think it's a good idea to buy ICE in 2030... yeah, maybe, with a 8-10 year old motor! 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 April On 4/3/2023, 1:53:37, catjones said: @MikeMelga From the article you posted: That year, Henry Ford confirmed rumours that he was developing a low-cost electric car in conjunction with Thomas Edison. “The problem so far has been to build a storage battery of light weight which would operate for long distances without recharging,” It would take the Lithium-ion battery in the 1980's before the technology appeared that Ford-Edison needed….and even then it was for consumer electronics. Here we are 40 years later. Absolutely, EVs would never have worked out 100 years ago, as soon as long commutes became normal, when more roads were built. I've thought about that myself, and even if battery tech had been constantly pushed, even if Lithium-ion was available 100 years ago, the technology back then would not allow ICE replacement before 1970 or so. For example complex power electronics are required for efficient electric vehicles, and this was only available around 1970-1980. EVs are coming at the right time. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 April 16 minutes ago, MikeMelga said: Absolutely, EVs would never have worked out 100 years ago, as soon as long commutes became normal, when more roads were built. I've thought about that myself, and even if battery tech had been constantly pushed, even if Lithium-ion was available 100 years ago, the technology back then would not allow ICE replacement before 1970 or so. For example complex power electronics are required for efficient electric vehicles, and this was only available around 1970-1980. EVs are coming at the right time. The Sci-Fi series For All Mankind on Apple TV+ is about the Russians beating the US in the race for the moon, so space exploration never stopped and the next race was for Mars. A whole station was build on the moon and because of the need of better battery systems the technology evolved faster and by the early 80s there were functional electric cars. It is of course all fiction, but it makes an interesting point. P.S., I wanted to put everything under a spoiler tag, but that tag is broken. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 April That's a good point, the Apollo program did kick-off electronics and computer development, probably pushing it forward 15-20 years. Could have done the same for other fields, if Nixon wasn't such an asshole, cancelled apollo and created that terrible follow up pork barrel project (Shuttle). 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 April 9 hours ago, MikeMelga said: even if battery tech had been constantly pushed, even if Lithium-ion was available 100 years ago, If it was just a car with a battery, that would not have been enough. I'm guessing Tesla has used super computers for design and development for components (motors and the batteries) and structure as well as modeling their entire production line and plant construction. New materials would also have to been developed for almost every part. Not even mentioning the in-car computers. Like almost every new product, it's a convergence of multiple technologies that make it possible. This, with a lithium battery, does not an EV make... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 5 April On 4.4.2023, 10:43:59, MikeMelga said: Absolutely, EVs would never have worked out 100 years ago, as soon as long commutes became normal, when more roads were built. I've thought about that myself, and even if battery tech had been constantly pushed, even if Lithium-ion was available 100 years ago, the technology back then would not allow ICE replacement before 1970 or so. For example complex power electronics are required for efficient electric vehicles, and this was only available around 1970-1980. EVs are coming at the right time. Maybe, However I could imagine that the long commutes from the suburbs to the workplace came with the ICE car. They seem to go hand in hand in a chicken and egg thingy. Our whole society for the past 100 years seems to have been built around the motorcar, but would our society still look the same if electric had been the prime mover of choice? 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 14 April New Zealand has a problem with €vehicles, apparently because they drive on the left down there, according to an entertaining report I just read in the Guardian. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 14 April 1 hour ago, Fietsrad said: New Zealand has a problem with €vehicles, apparently because they drive on the left down there, according to an entertaining report I just read in the Guardian. Works fine in UK and other left driving countries. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 15 April Thanks for the link 15 hours ago, Fietsrad said: New Zealand has a problem with €vehicles, apparently because they drive on the left down there, according to an entertaining report I just read in the Guardian. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 15 April No, it won't be a problem. Japan is one of the world's largest markets and either they change their production to EVs or external companies will export more to Japan. In any case, there will be plenty of left hand driver EVs 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 15 April A student of mine was traveling and lost her charging card. She tried several options. eventually she downloaded an app at a station (i can't remember which one), registered, entered credit card, etc. then tried to charge. it didn't work. She called the hotline and they told her it would take 2 weeks to process her registration. she screamed her head off and he let her charge for free, :) 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 15 April Signing up with more than charge provider is essential. There are many which are free so it's (theoretically) no big deal. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the EU has also mandated that chargers will eventually all allow debit/credit card payments. 1 hour ago, tor said: A student of mine was traveling and lost her charging card. She tried several options. eventually she downloaded an app at a station (i can't remember which one), registered, entered credit card, etc. then tried to charge. it didn't work. She called the hotline and they told her it would take 2 weeks to process her registration. she screamed her head off and he let her charge for free, :) I'm curious if this technique would work at a gas station if you forgot your EC Karte lol. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 15 April Sorry if this question has already been discussed but will the sale of ICE motorcycles also be banned from 2035? 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
