IRS should cancel tax credits on gas guzzler "hybrids"

The real Metro problem is that it, unlike your Honda, was designed to be
cheap not fuel efficient.

That's like asking why there isn't a high mileage Miata. The Mini isn't
designed to be economical. It's designed to be a two seat, fun to drive,
convertible roadster. For me, they didn't succeed. Others seem to like it.

To each... but I'd be willing to purchase a Smart Car if I could.

True and I haven't seen any figures like this for SC. OTH, your Civic
obviously uses more fuel as the load increases.

 

But the energy to recharge the batteries still comes from gasoline. It
takes gasoline to get to the top of the hill so that you can
regeneratively charge the batteries on the way down. Yes, recapturing
this energy that would otherwise be lost to heat via the brakes is a
good thing, but it isn't a perpertual motion machine.


Matt

 

The energy spent to get the car to the top of the hill is spent to get the
car to the top of the hill, not to charge the batteries. Now that the feat
has been accomplished, if you want to get to the bottom of the hill, you
have to dissipate some energy. You might dissipate it as heat, or you
might put it into a battery.

Next time you go up a hill, some of the energy that you need can come
from the batteries, and some from gasoline.

It's not perpetual motion, but it's not all lost either.

 

This is true, but it's still better than nothing at all, which is the
other option.

There's enough energy generated in one braking event that the battery
would be fully charged very quickly, you'd be back to regular friction
brakes almost instantly.

Heating the passenger space is never a problem. The regular heater
uses waste heat from the engine.

Regenerative braking is actually a darn good idea, even if it doesn't
appeal to my inner Luddite.

nate

 

What the government should be eliminating is the tax credit for
the production of ethanol. Recent studies have proved that it
requires 24% to 54% more energy to produce ethanol than the
energy produced by ethanol. If adding alcohol to gasoline is
going to reduce pollution then the oil companies should be
allowed to make if from the methanol that they now must burn off
as a byproduct of oil production. Mental can be produced less
expensively and will not need an tax credit to do so.


mike hunt

 

Been done. Several years ago in France. Works quite well, too.

 

The Government won't allow it to be tested - they have this Suzuki
Samurai fake image in their heads despite it being tested extensively
in Europe and passing much tougher standards. They just say that
it's "too small" and know that it can't possibly be "safe". Idiots.

 

ZAP is run by a bonch of self-serving morons who only
pretend to care about the environment. I know, I met
them years ago when I lived in Santa Rosa. They were
runnning around some of the dodgiest electric vehicle
deisngs that I'd ever seen all the while touting themselves
as "experts" because they refitted Escorts(mid 90's
at the time) and the like with a bunch of batteries
and some DIY electronics. $20K for 40 mile range? No thanks.

That's a 3-4K markup over the cost, typical of the company.
Why Smart itself doesn't take over and bury them I don't know.

 

Many energy storage methods have been tried over the years. In the
70s, engineers thought that new ceramic materials might make
flywheels capable of sufficient energy density. They were wrong.

 

I wonder what the $$/mile numbers work out to be on costs of compressed
air at the pressures and quantities needed.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

This is seeing use. It's cheaper to compress air with an electric
motor. There's no pollution, no fuel storage problems, no
chemicals(batteries) - it's just two huge air tanks and
a really huge version of the air engines you see in those
flying toy airplanes.

That they can go that far - it's impressive. Beats all
other technologies for urban use as well, since the
tanks could be refilled at a "station" in minutes instead
of hours like batteries.

 

$1 USD per 62 miles. 200 mile range. 70mph top speed. It's
basically a stretched Smart Car.

 

But, it isn't cheap, actually. It is just the costs are spread elsewhere.

Let's face it, the entire reason Bush invaded Iraq was oil. If the cost
of that war was entirely paid for by a federal tax on each barrel of
oil, you would see sudden readjustment in people thinking of oil being
"cheap" And while we are at it, might as well pay for all the
bribery I-mean-foreign-aid that we give Israel, Saudia Arabia, and
all the rest of the mid East countries to keep a lid on things over there.

One of these days, and I hope I'm alive to see it, the Mid East will run
out of oil. When that happens the rest of the developed worlds governments,
including China, are going to turn their back on that area of the globe.
We will just build a giant fence around it, and let the occupants go
free to murder each other over 'their homelands' Maybe once they
have had a few generations of total warfare against each other and
flattened most of their population centers, they might get sick of it -
or if they cannot learn, then they will just end up killing each other off
until nobody is left. Either way, problem solved.

Until then the rest of the world is stuck dumping money into that
snake pit.

I guess we ought at least to thank our lucky stars that so many of
the people over there are mentally fucked in the head with all this
religion crapola - if the societies in the Mid East ever came to their
senses and banded together, the rest of us in the world would
be their slaves.

Ted

 

Um, plenty of motorcycles out there allowed to be on the roads - the
government couldn't possibly consider a Samurai safer than a Kawasaki.

I think the real problem is that ZAP got their 10 year exclusive
distributorship
before fuel prices went through the roof and everybody suddenly fell out of
love
with the SUV. At the time Smart probably figured they would be lucky
to sell a thousand vehicles a year in the US. If Smart hadn't signed that
deal and was looking to come into the US market today, their expectations
would be far different and they would never have agreed to that deal.


Ted

 

The marginal cost to a consumer is cheap. That's why alternative
sources won't fly.

I don't disagree that the hidden costs are substantial, but they
are hidden and don't influence consumers' choices.

There are religious fundamentalists everywhere. They know what God
wants done and they let no one get in the way of carrying out
"his" will.

 

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

Aww - give me a break, Ted!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

That's a little too conspiratorial for me.
The manufacturer has to submit cars for testing, which is too expensive if
Daimler thinks it won't sell in the US.
I doubt that the testing agency would ever refuse to test a car from a
major manufacturer.

 

I remember them un-fondly from a few years ago, when I was thinking of
getting an electric motorcycle. But, they are in the news again today.

< http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050724/NEWS/507240324/1068/NEWS06 >
"_The tiniest cars money can't buy_"

 

I never expected to ever hear from someone, even in a NG, who
was that naive' Do you have any idea how much oil is used round
the world every day, or all of the products that rely solely on
oil for its existence?

All of the so called renewable alternative energy sources
combined can not replace even half of the oil currently consumed
in the world. Even if all of the electricity in the world was
generated by nuclear power, and not a single vehicle used
gasoline, we would still need millions of barrels of crude oil
every day, until we develop cost effective ways to use coal as
our carbon source.


mike hunt