Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

You know what I meant.......damn hipsterphrases :p
 
No, I mean phrases originating in chemistry that are now beeing used by people in advertising peddling alternative cars to people like you :tease:

Fuck chemistry anyway, chemistry ruined beer :p
 
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No it doesn't , dead dinosaurs did......Chemistry just gets the leaves out of it* :p


*and possibly various other trivial things
 
Looking at US craigslists and there are so many cheap, old trucks. It's tempting to pick one up, bring it across the border and have it worth 2x as much with minimal work.
Of course there's alot that can go wrong like breaking down on the way home, failing provincial inspection or just not being able to sell it once it's here.
It's a little risky but there's a chance of turning a good profit.
 
That's pretty amazing, for sure. Does it have regenerative braking?

Dunno, my maths suggest it might be possible without but would be a close call. It has 41.5kWh capacity, maybe 30 of that are really usable. At 280kW of power that would be almost 6.5 minutes of max power. Considering that there are many corners and it won't draw 100% of the power all the time of acceleration a 7:47 should be possible. It'd be running on "fumes" on the way back to the pits though, a bit of regenerative braking would significantly increase the margin and maybe allow for a smaller, hence lighter battery - the one they use weighs 350kg, more than half of the rest of the car.

I don't think it'd catch on just yet: Do one stonking lap, pit, swap batteries, repeat. At maybe one hour to charge you'd need eight batteries :lol:
 
Newtonmeteeeeeeers!
 
As for everything else you said, yeah, maybee BEV would be ideal for some people, but it would require a complete rethink in the way we threat our cars and our idea of mobility, this is a HUGE step back most people don't seem to realise until it's to late.

I wouldn't say step back, just a massive rethink.
We've had fuel for about 100 years now, and as a technology it's nearly perfected.
Give electric cars another 100 years, or even 20 and see where we are then....


Sure you don't go on the motorway with an empty tank....so you fill up at a petrolstation before you do, takes 5 mins, your BEV would have to charge up for 8 hours, so whatever you wanted to do, you can forget about because your Isaveecosmug is out of spark again, that is my point.
If you need to 'plan' everything you do in your car, you don't have freedom at all, you are a slave to the rangemonster, for me personaly? that is downright scary.

You are a slave to the rangemonster now too, because your big V8 eats fuel too. The infrastructure is just there for you to use. Quick charge filling stations in every petrol station solves this. Again, this is a new technology, and all things aren't adapted to it.... the first cars had huge bottles of gasoline strapped to them because there were nearly no filling stations...

While I agree that when only using it as a secondary vehicle these problems would not be so present, they still exist....70 km (round) commute and in getting home you hit a heavy trafficjam (like we ALWAYS have)? You're fucked son.
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Incorrect. Standing still, an electric car uses nearly no charge at all, maybe a bit for the radio and the lights. Petrol/diesel cars still burn fuel even standing still. You can have a 70 km commute (like me) and stand still for 2 days, the electric car would still have a theorethical 30 kms to go, while an engine burns x l/ hour just idling.

Besides all that 30k for something you will only use for short trips is insanity in my book.....I'm cheap, deal with it :p

For me personaly? I have no daily commute, and the biggest companycar in Belgium, but the average daily driving in the Dodge (by wich I mean weekends) are well over 100k, hell I've been known to do a 1000 in 3 days, with no planning ahead....so no matter how good those motorised toasters get, they won't do in my case.
If this is the case, you can't use an electric car for now. And I get the "short notice thing" too, you do need a "real" car for emergencies. And yes, 30k is insane for such a car, but technology will improve, making the range better and dropping the price. If you could get one of these for 20k, with a range of 200- 300 kms instead of a Golf or Focus, then maybe people would consider it?


Actualy I was talking about BEV 'plug in at night' vehicles the whole time, I actualy believe things like nitrogencars should be explored further.....it doesn't 'need' to be petrol for me (hell I don't use petrol now either :p) but it does need to be something I can fill up whenever I need it to, on a proper omnipresent network in a reasonable time (under 15min) giving me everything 'a real car' can.

In time, this will be possible for electric cars, I'm quite sure.
 
I wouldn't say step back, just a massive rethink.
We've had fuel for about 100 years now, and as a technology it's nearly perfected.
Give electric cars another 100 years, or even 20 and see where we are then....

One could argue that we've had batteries for over two hundred years, it's possible we're at or nearing the point of diminishing returns for the tech and it's time to move on to something else for this application.
 
One could argue that we've had batteries for over two hundred years, it's possible we're at or nearing the point of diminishing returns for the tech and it's time to move on to something else for this application.

yes, we've had batteries for as long as that, but they're only being used in cars for a short while.
We could probably have had an electric car 20 or 30 years ago, but it would need 20 hrs of charging, have a topspeed of 20 kph and a range of 10 kms... only in the last couple of years has the capacity increased dramatically, and IMO will continue to do so...

Remember your cellphone from 5 years ago that needed a charge every other day? Same thing
 
yes, we've had batteries for as long as that, but they're only being used in cars for a short while.
We could probably have had an electric car 20 or 30 years ago, but it would need 20 hrs of charging, have a topspeed of 20 kph and a range of 10 kms... only in the last couple of years has the capacity increased dramatically, and IMO will continue to do so...

Remember your cellphone from 5 years ago that needed a charge every other day? Same thing

I try to stay out of this kind of stuff, but electric cars have been around for 100 years.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/vintage/4215940

They were locked in a 3 way duel with steam and gasoline for the fuel of choice. Gas won that time. I would have rather liked steam. We should revisit the steam car, start working off of the late Doble designs.
 
yes, we've had batteries for as long as that, but they're only being used in cars for a short while.
We could probably have had an electric car 20 or 30 years ago, but it would need 20 hrs of charging, have a topspeed of 20 kph and a range of 10 kms...

Welcome to 1992, almost 20 years indeed. I'm sure there are earlier examples between this and the earliest predating the ICE cars.

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2011/08/30/IMG_4921_800x600.JPG

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2011/08/30/IMG_4923_800x600.JPG

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2011/08/30/IMG_4943_800x600.JPG

Top speed 100km/h, 20kW, 5-speed manual (whyever...), regenerative braking, 70km realistic range (40km in winter). Charging took long though, and for its weight the capacity sucked - relatively cheap batteries though.
 
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