Re: electric car dieing?

[Howard R Pletcher <n9ads@domain.elided>]

On Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:35:29 +0000 Eric Hegstrom
<ehegstrom@domain.elided> writes:
>Steve Stegmann wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 29 Apr 1999, Eric Hegstrom wrote:
>>
>> > Kind of a shame that battery development is not moving that fast,
but I
>>
>> The periodic table of the elements pretty much dictates that it won't
go
>> anywhere unless we discover the second layer to the periodic table. 
That
>> would be the layer in the fourth dimension
>
>I'm not a chemist, but I remember when 9600baud wa s the theoretical
limit of
>transferring information over a phone line bandwidth via modem. Then
wavlet
>compression technology came along and that one was broken. Whoops..
>
>>
>>
I can imagine a science teacher in the 1870s (probably Hofs) telling his
class about this new Otto cycle engine that ran on coal gas, but had no
practical application and certainly wouldn't replace the horse or the
steam engine.

I'm not predicting any particular technology will replace the gasoline
engine in my lifetime, but I think it's likely that 50 years from now
people will be driving some technology that looks impractical today (but
is probably known now), but some breakthrough will eventually make it
work efficiently.  

Regarding the turbine engine applications--economy killed the
experimental models in the 60s.  Chrysler was planning on production, but
the feedback from their 40 car field test was that there was one major
negative--7 mpg, which wasn't acceptable even when fuel was only $.25 a
gallon (eat your heart out, John L).  Similar results killed the
TurboStar and the other truck tests.  Union Pacific put a turbine in a RR
locomotive (I think burning something close to tar or some other cheap
refinery byproduct), but even there it burned way too much fuel,
partucularly at idle.

I think turbines are practical in aircraft because of 2 factors--their
lighter weight helps compensate for their higher fuel use much more than
light weight helps on the ground and the fact that aircraft operate at
relatively high throttle settings, which is when the turbine is at it's
best, except when they are on the ground or decending.  Perhaps the idea
of a hybrid with a small turbine driving a generator at a constant high
speed and using a battery as a reservoir is something that will someday
work.  But you can tell this will never be as simple as a Model T, or
even a V-345 and a T-19.

Howard Pletcher
Howteron Products Scout Parts

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