GM to cancel the volt.....

[mrvette]

It may make sense for a small run-about for day-to-day commuting. .

Well of course. Most miles driven each day are people going to work, not touring the country. It's not for me but its perfect for many many people.

How do you think we take a technology to "prime time". You spend a bunch of money designing and redesigning and testing.

I see a lot of people who hate the President thinking they need to hate every damn thing he's for. Try to see through that, be open minded and evaluate technology leaving politics out. I'd love to run E85 but there's so much negative stupid old wives tales about it that nobody wants to put it in their cars. Hell people in Florida think 10% ethanol blends are going to "hurt" their cars and boats and are all bent out of shape. The rest of the country has been using it for 30 years.

How can we make any progress when we have so many people constantly throwing up road blocks? I'm starting to understand why Europeans think we're knuckle draggers.

E85 will NOT run in my vette, much less get decent fuel economy, and besides why spend OIL to raise corn to spend more COAL to distill into ethanol?? and jack up the corn prices for the 'poor' foreigners we insist on sending 'aid' to, which really is OUR tax money so they don't know the difference, but WE do.....

ever since ethanol was introduced here, we have my wife's '99 Escort which is daily driven, and we have noticed how the MPG can jump up and down depending on which gas and % of that damn ethanol......

I stick by my observations, for every % of ethanol, you can honestly expect the similar % drop in MPG, IF NOT DOUBLE THAT!!!!!

there is simply no other way in hell this car jumps back and forth in MPG, from 32 or 31 and down to as lousy as 24 and wife don't jump on it, she is age 60 and drives like it....same essential routs, to her book keeping clients and back, not even rush hour....so go figger WTF we have observed with each tank over some time now....there is only ONE variable, and that's Ethanol, and everyone of us olde retarred guys on the street agrees, they notice the same thing, and one of us drives his Honda Civic for commercial computer parts delivery, friggin car has over 400k on it, no shit....

:nuts::clobbered:

30 years of ethanol?? from WHERE???

:club:

 

[denpo]

In the recent news, a US company announced they devised a way to create solar panels so cheaply it would make electricity as cheap as gas. Nevada and Arizona could become tomorrow's Texas.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/19...romises-solar-power-for-0-50watt-another-one/

I personally don't like the ethanol idea, basically it's powering car with food. Unless we come up with second generation biomass fuel (ethanol from agricultural waste), I'll keep finding ethanol gas "unethical".
I keep thinking hydrogen is the way to go, you could refill in minutes, the weight to ratio is even better than gasoline, and you could produce it yourself given you're living is a sunny area.

As a side note, I don't know if this thread powered by gasoline or electricity, but it looks like it don't wanna run out:rofl:

 

[turtlevette]

hot air:

I might as well talk to the wall. I've never seen you change your mind once or ever admit you're Rong.

It'd just be a wast of my time.

Go hydroboost.

 

[clutchdust]

I personally don't like the ethanol idea, basically it's powering car with food. Unless we come up with second generation biomass fuel (ethanol from agricultural waste), I'll keep finding ethanol gas "unethical".
I keep thinking hydrogen is the way to go, you could refill in minutes, the weight to ratio is even better than gasoline, and you could produce it yourself given you're living is a sunny area.

The irony here is that I'm a far right wing radical conservative and I have no problem with ethonol---just so long as it's not made from food. There's the whole switchgrass thing they're talking about and I think Brazil makes tons of it off the waste product of sugar cane processing. Works for me. But like you said, putting food in your fuel tank is idiotic.
The only thing about hydrogen though is the unintended consequences. That, and using water in places, like here, where water is simply not plentiful enough to use as fuel. If we can figure out some of those issues, I would be OK with it. But just like gas, coal, nuclear, etc, we don't know what the significance of wide spread use 50 years from now will be.
Remember 20 years ago? There was a big to-do about not using paper grocery bags because we're killing all the trees. We should use plastic to save the forest. Now, look at where we are, can't use plastic because it doesn't biodegrade, blah, blah, blah.
Hydrogen is this panacea now but who knows what people will be saying once we've become dependent on it as a fuel source.

 

[turtlevette]

[. Works for me. But like you said, putting food in your fuel tank is idiotic.
.

Not if it reduces or eliminates our dependence on buying from bin laden's cousins. It'd be nice to tell the saudis to piss off.

It might be food, but its food that would not otherwise be grown. So its not starving anyone.

 

[big2bird]

hot air:

I might as well talk to the wall. I've never seen you change your mind once or ever admit you're Rong.

It'd just be a wast of my time.

Go hydroboost.

Sorry Gene. That's funny as hell right there.

 

[big2bird]

The only thing about hydrogen though is the unintended consequences. That, and using water in places, like here, where water is simply not plentiful enough to use as fuel. If we can figure out some of those issues, I would be OK with it.
Hydrogen is this panacea now but who knows what people will be saying once we've become dependent on it as a fuel source.

So here's a scenario:

Use solar array power to enable electrolysis. This separates the hydrogen and oxygen in water.
The combustion reverts these two back to water.
No water is wasted, merely converted back to vapor.
In a sense, the hydrogen/oxygen tanks ARE your battery.

 

[denpo]

The only thing about hydrogen though is the unintended consequences. That, and using water in places, like here, where water is simply not plentiful enough to use as fuel. If we can figure out some of those issues, I would be OK with it.
Hydrogen is this panacea now but who knows what people will be saying once we've become dependent on it as a fuel source.

So here's a scenario:

Use solar array power to enable electrolysis. This separates the hydrogen and oxygen in water.
The combustion reverts these two back to water.
No water is wasted, merely converted back to vapor.
In a sense, the hydrogen/oxygen tanks ARE your battery.

You need an olympic swimming pool worth of water turned to hydrogen to power the world for one day, hydrogen is pretty much the best weight to power ratio you can get, no wonder it's used to propel rocket into space.

 

[TimAT]

After watching the process of when the Volt was built, (after GM got a fat chunk of cash from the .gov), then seeing OTHER companies that also got a fat chunk from them go bankrupt, I strongly suspect that they (the companies) were pretty much told to go the direction they did or have a choice of not getting the cash or getting stomped by so many phony regs they would have not been able to survice anyway.

I'm thinking the Volt was rushed into production to make the green thing look more favorable, even though it wasn't ready to hit the road.

 

[clutchdust]

[. Works for me. But like you said, putting food in your fuel tank is idiotic.
.

Not if it reduces or eliminates our dependence on buying from bin laden's cousins. It'd be nice to tell the saudis to piss off.

It might be food, but its food that would not otherwise be grown. So its not starving anyone.

Of course, we could always drill for more oil here. I mean that is an option instead of paying the skinnies for it.

You do realize that that idiot in DC has shut down drilling in the gulf. Unless of course you're any other country in the world, in which case you can drill in international waters off our coast.

 

[mrvette]

hot air:

I might as well talk to the wall. I've never seen you change your mind once or ever admit you're Rong.

It'd just be a wast of my time.

Go hydroboost.

All I can do in life is react to what's happening around me, report on my experiences as honest as possible.....:nuts::club:

 

[mrvette]

hot air:

I might as well talk to the wall. I've never seen you change your mind once or ever admit you're Rong.

It'd just be a wast of my time.

Go hydroboost.

Sorry Gene. That's funny as hell right there.

That's ok Bird, I smiled too, really.....:3rd:

I too thought I was rong once, but I was mistaken.....

 

[mrvette]

[. Works for me. But like you said, putting food in your fuel tank is idiotic.
.

Not if it reduces or eliminates our dependence on buying from bin laden's cousins. It'd be nice to tell the saudis to piss off.

It might be food, but its food that would not otherwise be grown. So its not starving anyone.

Of course, we could always drill for more oil here. I mean that is an option instead of paying the skinnies for it.

You do realize that that idiot in DC has shut down drilling in the gulf. Unless of course you're any other country in the world, in which case you can drill in international waters off our coast.

There is a fellow in Louisiana on other political sections of vette forums, think his handle is ET and he has spent decades on oil field rigs from the Gulf through inland and worked in other related fields too, and he verifies that most of our drilling rigs are being put out to others to use, and our jobs are being hurt, as tens of thousands are unemployed now as a result....

remember that the N. Dakota/Canada pipeline oil makes a profit for the oil companies at 60 bux/bbl that translates to about $1.50 per gallon, so add another buck for TAXES and distribution and we have gas at about 2.50/gallon, not 4 bux for importing islamic oil....

The Fed.gov is the most incompetent bunch of idiots in the world, or the most corrupt, methinks the latter.....:club:

 

[mrvette]

From another vette forum.....

Originally Posted by Omega Man View Post
I would burn myself alive with a box of Bic lighters before I drive one. There are other cars that are better and WAY WAY WAY cheaper.

GM can suck my Butt Sack.


Also, there are billions of Chinese and many other folks not giving one phuck about the environment. The amount of good the "warm and fuzzy" folks accomplish is similar to money up a pigs ass.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


That is about the way I feel about it too.....:hissyfit:

 

[big2bird]

Originally Posted by Omega Man View Post
I would burn myself alive with a box of Bic lighters before I drive one. There are other cars that are better and WAY WAY WAY cheaper.

GM can suck my Butt Sack.


Also, there are billions of Chinese and many other folks not giving one phuck about the environment. The amount of good the "warm and fuzzy" folks accomplish is similar to money up a pigs ass.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


That is about the way I feel about it too.....:hissyfit:

Omega man should be "caveman."
The sun has supplied all the earths energy for millinea. Fossil fuel is that stored energy. Growing corn for ethanol captures/stores this energy. Finding the most efficient way to convert this energy directly/indirectly to electricty will fullfill all energy needs.. Oil can then be used primarily as a lubricant.

 

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Omega Man View Post
I would burn myself alive with a box of Bic lighters before I drive one. There are other cars that are better and WAY WAY WAY cheaper.

GM can suck my Butt Sack.


Also, there are billions of Chinese and many other folks not giving one phuck about the environment. The amount of good the "warm and fuzzy" folks accomplish is similar to money up a pigs ass.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


That is about the way I feel about it too.....:hissyfit:

Omega man should be "caveman."
The sun has supplied all the earths energy for millinea. Fossil fuel is that stored energy. Growing corn for ethanol captures/stores this energy. Finding the most efficient way to convert this energy directly/indirectly to electricty will fullfill all energy needs.. Oil can then be used primarily as a lubricant.

in a perfect world, maybe in 100 years, but WE the PEOPLE need to quit financing anything but HARD science/engineering/finance/business/econ types for higher education.....ART is not worth teaching on a public basis, for instance....wanna study ART/etc?? find a school on your OWN.....

and that's just colleges....

in the meantime we need cut back on grade school education, eliminate the FED DOEd.....DO Energy too for that matter....and of course the EPA...that's obvious...

:smash:

 

[SmokinBBC]

The Volt's battery contains about as much energy as 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline. 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline weighs about 10 pounds. The Volts battery weighs 410 pounds. Replacing a 10 pound energy source with an equivalent that weighs 410 pounds does not make sense from an engineering standpoint. In fact, it doesn't seem intelligent.

I bet the power train weighs less than a traditional internal combustion engine. Add electric motor. Delete engine and tranny, and the 400 lbs is a wash.
No doubt a lighter/more efficient battery is the key though. And it just needs to store energy convertable to electricity. It need not be a traditional battery per se.
Add charging the battery from your home solar array, and the energy used directly from power plants is greatly reduced.

Diesel-electric locomotives have ruled the rails since WWII. They are now quite efficient, polluting less and less, and can transport 1 ton 100 miles on a gallon of fuel.
If the GE engineers partnered with GM, no telling what they could come up with for trucks, let alone cars.
Like steam power, electric motors have 100% torque at 1 rpm.
Creating a whole new industry, along with a whole new service industry would create 1,000's of new jobs.:thumbs:
OR, we could wait on our laurels and let another country take the lead. ush:

Hybrid Garbage Trucks have been around for a few years now. It looks like the heavy truck companies are putting 2 and 2 together to come up with more efficient products.

http://hybridgarbagetruck.com/

 

[mrvette]

The Volt's battery contains about as much energy as 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline. 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline weighs about 10 pounds. The Volts battery weighs 410 pounds. Replacing a 10 pound energy source with an equivalent that weighs 410 pounds does not make sense from an engineering standpoint. In fact, it doesn't seem intelligent.

I bet the power train weighs less than a traditional internal combustion engine. Add electric motor. Delete engine and tranny, and the 400 lbs is a wash.
No doubt a lighter/more efficient battery is the key though. And it just needs to store energy convertable to electricity. It need not be a traditional battery per se.
Add charging the battery from your home solar array, and the energy used directly from power plants is greatly reduced.

Diesel-electric locomotives have ruled the rails since WWII. They are now quite efficient, polluting less and less, and can transport 1 ton 100 miles on a gallon of fuel.
If the GE engineers partnered with GM, no telling what they could come up with for trucks, let alone cars.
Like steam power, electric motors have 100% torque at 1 rpm.
Creating a whole new industry, along with a whole new service industry would create 1,000's of new jobs.:thumbs:
OR, we could wait on our laurels and let another country take the lead. ush:

Hybrid Garbage Trucks have been around for a few years now. It looks like the heavy truck companies are putting 2 and 2 together to come up with more efficient products.

http://hybridgarbagetruck.com/

HEHE..DIG THIS shit, Back 2-3 years ago, I paid the trash company to come around twice a week, recycle on Tues and Garbage on Wed.....no sweat, I paid once every 3 months thirty bux...yes TEN bux/month a little more than a buck a trip up/down the street, paid that for years....THEN some stupid assed JUDGE ruled some dumb bitch was worth major BUX because she somehow managed to hit a garbage/recycle truck who was on the rong side of a residential street picking up the crap....SO, the company doing the work had to always stay within the 'LAW" and stick to one side of the street, necessitating TWO trips on each road to do the same work, picking up ~1/2 the crap per trip, but it takes almost twice the time and MPG.....of course....
SO the county in their infinite wisDUMB decided to take over the trach service, and so they add it to the property tax bill, all broken out as a separate item.....SO my trash bill went to....

over twice as much, not that it isn't cheep as hell anyway, BUT the point being WHEN the jerks decide to raise rates yet again, WE the tax payers will have NO choice, and much less raise hell with the assholes after the point.....I can see the day I burn my shit in the back yard .....

:smash::smash::thumbs:

 

[turtlevette]

[.....I can see the day I burn my shit in the back yard .....

:smash::smash::thumbs:

It's starting to get deep in here.

 

[big2bird]

.....ART is not worth teaching on a public basis, for instance....wanna study ART/etc?? find a school on your OWN.....

and that's just colleges....

in the meantime we need cut back on grade school education

:smash:

You have to be fucking kidding. There is more to life than just work........