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This post is related to both the automotive industry and the Nation of Earth -- however I'm posting it here, as I feel it will take on the form of a personal rant...
eNeRGy
Among the tabs I have open in my browser are a couple of items from Autoweek. Both are about vehicles planned to be released sometime next year -- and in my opinion, both of those vehicles miss the mark...
The Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid, scheduled to be ready for the 2009 model year, is little more than yet another hybrid entering the market -- and by that I mean yet another hybrid that isn't a PLUG-IN hybrid. The simple facts are that no method of wheeled vehicle propulsion is more efficient than electric motors, and most drivers hardly ever need a range beyond what a battery-powered electric vehicle can provide.
When they do, they need a range extender. It would be nice to be able to rent a generator on a trailer -- and when a significant percentage of drivers own electric vehicles, that kind of rental service will be widely available. Meanwhile, if you go to a car dealership, the closest you're likely to find to an electric vehicle will be a parallel hybrid.
Parallel hybrids, instead of relying mainly on electric propulsion, use electric motors to augment propulsion. They are a step in the right direction, but in an unnecessary circle, walking backward. While many, the Silverado included, offer an electric-only mode, they all rely completely upon their internal combustion engines.
Some of these hybrids are being converted. With extra batteries, modified controllers, and charging ports, they become plug-in hybrids and then don't necessarily need their engines. Unless their motors are upgraded, though, they suffer from poor performance. The electric motors fitted to hybrids, after all, were meant to work in concert with internal combustion engines.
Parallel hybrid vehicles are only a little better than internal combustion vehicles. SERIES hybrids, on the other hand... A series hybrid is basically an electric vehicle with an onboard generator...
The Honda FCX Clarity will be available for lease in southern California next summer. As a series hybrid, it is closer to what we ought to be seeing in showrooms everywhere. It has a fuel cell to generate electricity, which is a good idea -- but what is NOT a good idea is that it uses HYDROGEN.
The use of hydrogen as a fuel is, excuse me, just plain stupid. Use all the safeguards you want, I don't care, because safety isn't the issue. Go ahead and build all the hydrogen fuel stations you like -- once again I don't care. Fuel availability isn't the issue either.
The problem is that somewhere, somehow, the hydrogen has to be generated or extracted -- and it takes more energy to generate or extract than you'll ever get back out of it.
I'm downright confounded at the industry's refusal to offer pure electric vehicles.
The good news about the FCX Clarity is that it would be relatively simple to replace its tank and fuel cell with more batteries. As conversions go, it would be an easy one. The bad news is that these cars will be leased, not owned -- so if anyone is going to convert them (even by replacing their hydrogen cells with ones that use a different fuel), it is going to have to be Honda.
Here's hoping they use the FCX platform for a pure electric, somewhere down the line...
RANGE
The ONE disadvantage of electric vehicles is slow recharge. When you reach the end of your range, it takes hours instead of minutes to restore. Even when range is increased to over 200 miles (as Tesla Motors has done with their Roadster), recharge time becomes an issue. As stated above, it would be nice if drivers could rent trailer-mounted generators (perhaps fuelled by propane, using exchange tanks designed for outdoor grills) for longer trips -- but there are other solutions.
If electric vehicles were designed so that their battery packs could be easily removed and replaced, and enough battery-swap stations were established, range would no longer be an issue. We'd want these packs to be standardized -- one size would have to fit all -- but some (larger) vehicles could use more than one pack. For that matter, most could use two smaller packs, and smaller vehicles could operate on one.
You're absolutely correct if you think that would be a huge undertaking. It would take years of planning and require cooperation among dozens of corporations. Here's the thing: If the electric car hadn't been driven to near extinction during the last round, and this plan had been implemented, by now we'd have those standardized battery packs ready to go in swap stations all over the world...
...but that would be a world where the most sensible actions are the ones that are taken -- a world without 9/11 and the Iraq war, without Katrina and other engineered disasters, without an unelected puppet in the Oval Office -- not the world we find ourselves in today.
What those who run everything from behind the scenes don't seem to realize, or care about, is that many of the things that have been held back would be extremely good for the economy. The only reason we aren't moving more quickly toward a changeover to electric vehicles charged by solar panels, windmills, and micro-hydro is that THEY want to continue to control energy and keep making money hand over fist.
They try to tell us that WE are the cause of global warming (when we would all know, if the information were broadcast, that every planet in our solar system is experiencing global warming) and that global warming causes more extreme weather (when they've secretly developed weather engineering so precise as to be able to generate a massive hurricane and deliver it to a specific target -- and could instead be using the technology to combat damaging storms, bring rain to drought-afflicted areas, et cetera).
They foster violence in an incredible range of manifestations to frighten us into giving up our civil liberties, and try to tell us that the unlawful invasion of a foreign country is in our best interests -- when we know, or should know, that freedom is in no way being defended. Can't everyone see how much money is being made through all this killing?
In case you've forgotten, or don't know me very well yet, I happen to be an Army veteran. I was quite young and didn't know better, had just dropped out of college and didn't know what to do next. Almost all of our armed forces personnel join at a very young age, technically adults but not wise enough yet to see things for what they are. They do not get paid well, and have to jump through hoops to receive medical care (if you can call it that) from the Veterans' Administration. Military personnel are cannon fodder -- expendable Humans...
Now, see? I start by revealing why a couple of upcoming 'green' vehicles aren't what they should be, and end up ranting about oligarchic cryptocracy. But, you know, it's all tied together. When there is power without accountability, everyone suffers.
Phil Smith
November 17, 2007
PS Look for a post on the Tellurian Motors blog in the next few days about my truck concept, the original version of which was to be powered by steam. I updated it to be an EV, but after writing the above I feel it should be a (plug-in) series hybrid -- with a propane-fired steam turbine generator...
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