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2008-05-29 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by twobyfour 2008-05-29 02:51|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 It is a nice commercial but hybrids aren't so great. I saw a Penn And Teller BS episode on it and the thing really didn't get better gas mileage than a European diesel or one of the other high mileage economy cars on the market. Yeah it had a higher smug factor but that can be dangerous.

The problem is they have an engine, and an electrical engine. People have put extra batteries in and tweeked the software to make them run on more battery and significantly increased the gas mileage. What they need to do is dump the gas engine and support stuff and all that weight and just go electric all around. They need to find a way to (a) increase battery recharge speeds or (b) make the batteries swappable so you could show up at a filling station and drop one set for another and let the filling station deal with charging. Toshiba's working on the first option, nobody is working on the second and perhaps it's impractical.

Yeah this shifts problems to the power grid but I'm happy to have them there where nuclear power can take over. So hybrids are just a mirage, in my humble opinion but they are a step in teh right direction.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-05-29 11:51|| 2008-05-29 11:51|| Front Page Top

#2 rjs says " find a way to (a) increase battery recharge speeds or (b) make the batteries swappable so you could show up at a filling station and drop one set for another "

and a pony, don't forget the pony!!! ;^)

How many cars does a typical gas station fill up in a week? 200, 500, more? Now, how big would the "gas" station have to be to service that many 200 lb battery packs? Nice idea but is it really practical? This strikes me as similar to the "run your car on free fryolator oil!!" Wouldn't be free for long and how many McDs would it take to generate the millions of gallons a year needed?

Get nukes on the grid big time and then we'll see.

Posted by AlanC 2008-05-29 13:21|| 2008-05-29 13:21|| Front Page Top

#3 Or we could just take back the oil.

Posted by Excalibur 2008-05-29 13:29|| 2008-05-29 13:29|| Front Page Top

#4 A very good friend of mine, lovely woman, moderately liberal in most of her political beliefs, one time pointed out to me (in one of our recurring political discussions) that "it's just an accident of geography that the Saudis sit on all that oil, and aren't we supposed to clean up after accidents?"

Well. If you it that way ...

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2008-05-29 13:56|| 2008-05-29 13:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Wasn't an accident, per the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Ishmael's decendents were promised such a find.

Posted by Uninemble Prince of the Faith9743 2008-05-29 14:05|| 2008-05-29 14:05|| Front Page Top

#6 Moby Dick was in Arabia, #5 UP?

Who knew?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-05-29 14:13|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-05-29 14:13|| Front Page Top

#7 How about a different ending...

Drill the ANWR, CA and Florida Coasts NOW! Open up shale in Colorado and the Dakotas. Build nuclear power plants!

Posted by OldSpook 2008-05-29 14:21|| 2008-05-29 14:21|| Front Page Top

#8 How about do all three an open up the capitalistic competition...along w/someone figuring out how to gin up fuel from human fecal matter - there never seems to be a lack of that floating around.

Posted by Broadhead6 2008-05-29 15:33|| 2008-05-29 15:33|| Front Page Top

#9 Congress as a fuel source?
I love it.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-05-29 17:46|| 2008-05-29 17:46|| Front Page Top

#10 AlanC, I think you sort of miss the point. Even if we have nukes we need to be able to get the power into the car in a reasonable time. Overnight recharges just don't cut it completely because some folks have to drive long distances or may forget to plug in at night and get stuck.

Currently we have no way to plug our cars in at home and fill them up with gas so we have to go to the gas station. With electricity we can fill them up at home most of the time so the number of vehicles at a gas station changing batteries would be far lower than the number getting gas today.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-05-29 21:40|| 2008-05-29 21:40|| Front Page Top

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