The Selectria Force:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Force
WOW, a Geo Metro (has anyone EVER wanted one of those), but slower, and with only a 37 mile range. "Honey - get the keys, we're trading in the Caddie!"
Yeah, I'm sorry the good lord made the Reagan administration sell weapons to Iran (Iran-Contra scandel), fund+train the Mujhadeen including Osama Bin-Laden and fund+train Sadaam Hussein's military.
Sadaam invaded Kuwait because he had been promised oil wealth to invade Iran by the Reagan administration. But hey, we shouldn't judge..he was a cold war president.
FDR made a mistake by allying himself with Stalin?Nice comparison there
That article is re ed.
"The EV1 was a marvel of engineering, absolutely the best electric vehicle anyone had ever seen."
"The early car's lead-acid bats, and even the later nickel-metal hydride batteries, couldn't supply the range or durability required by the mass market.
NMH batteries can supply the range and durability needed (similiar batts are in the toyota prius).
In fact when they switched to those batts it became very functional.
GM owned the patent on those then, then they sold it to Chevron. Chevron hasn't let anyone manufacture them and has violated contracts to produce them ( they have been sued many times). I wonder why.
Children cried when they were crushed and their owners pleaded with GM to let them keep them.
Crappy car indeed
You can put that inexpensive drive train in any car with lithium ion batts and you have a 30k+ car the runs for pennies.
get back to me when gas is $5/gallon, which it will hit.
The electric Rav4 was great, or at least owners of it swear by it. The biggest issue to commercialize it was the lack of availability of the batteries because of the patent issue pointed above.
Then again, that's ancient tech by today's standards. The difference here is that Toyota kept developing the concept and a lot of that tech ended up making it into the Prius, a very successful hybrid car, while GM went basically down the tube.
The good news is that some of those patents should expire soon.
US foreign policy was to win the cold war; Reagan did what he had to to do that. It meant fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan (watch Rambo III - even Rocky thought that was OK). Iran Contra was what it was; again; fighting Communism in S. America, etc....etc....
I stand by my analogy with Stalin, btw: in that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The cold war was at least as pervasive in US foreign policy even than the "war on terror" has been. As the president who presided over victory in that struggle, citing Reagan's foreign policy as "failed" or even "poor", reeks of biased hatred/revisionism.
BTW; regarding Electric cars; you are right, there is promise there; esp. if the Tesla does what it's maker says it will.
However, the "solution" to $5 gas already exists in droves; just look at Europe. 5 -7 passenger vehicles that get over 40mpg. Small, light, diesel; many are funny looking, but you can't argue with the performance (in terms of efficiency). Govt. regulations are the biggest reason those cars don't come over here/notwithstanding American appe es. Electric is more complex/more expensive and less tested; why we would leap frog successful, proven tech confounds me.
"why we would leap frog successful, proven tech confounds me."
The car mfrs and oilcos make these decisions and strategies, not the consumers, who are just passive suckers.
"Old Europe" has nothing to teach God's Greatest Country In The History Of The Universe.
I've designed some diesel engine components you see in Europe more than a decade ago before I commissioned in the military and grad school. There have been attempts to bring those vehicles over many times, but they all fail.
European diesel tends to have a much higher cetane rating than in the states and hence more work produced (it also costs more to produce). Sad to say, those efficiency figures don't hold up as well when you import them here. US diesel is pretty much devils brew crude with minimal cetane levels. In 2007, they took out the excess sulfur for emissions, but energy quality wasn't improved. When you consider US emission regulations that came with that sulfur reduction, further reduce efficiency. Combine that with the increased cost to manufacture diesel engine and the market won't show much interest.
Diesel needs need stronger blocks, lines (much stronger especially for high pressure injections).
A direct injection gas/petrol sedan can easily achieve 35-40mpg highway nowadays and much lower upfront cost and less fuel cost per gallon than diesel.
If you want to justify someone paying a 3k premium or more for a diesel engine, with +.50/gallon fuel and marginal fuel efficiency increases, be my guest. It's not so much simple regulation. The auto companies are influential enough to push for that if it was profitable.
compare VW Jetta TDI vs Hyundai Sonata is straight forward reason why it's not gonna happen.
Back to the topic of this thread.
The apprehension republicans show with people or things who are unfamiliar to them drives their agenda than any type of rational thought.
It could be old fashioned technology or some person advocating to burn sexuals at the stake and they flock in droves.
Sure, but not as much of a joke as the democrats.
False equivlence
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