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Sure a car will rust and decay, fall apart, and be another junker. One might say it’s a waste of money.
When cars are not being driven solely for pleasure, they are the most miserable beasts, forcing one to follow extreme restrictions and control measures, doing nothing but forcing us to labor for meaningless waste.
Pictures via Tim Balogh on Flickr, via CreativeCommons license.
I’ve always wondered what the fascination with battery technology is, when the proven technology used by trolleys and streetcars for over 120 years is electricity via rail or wire. There are no limitations on range or power delivered electrified lines, and use avoid the inefficiency of power stored in a battery.
I could envision the car of a future being a gasoline engine with complete cylinder deactivation, where the complete engine is shut off by a solenoid disconnecting the rocker arms controlling the valves ala the Active Fuel Management widely used in General Motors pickup trucks today.
On major highways and other high traffic roads where “electric wires” are available, as sensed by a radio signal, the car would automatically pop up trolley poles through the roof like a power radio antenna. Electric consumption and billing information would be transmitted through a signal in the wire to the billing municipality, public authority, or power company.
An electric motor/generator in the transmission of the car would spin the drive train and engine, including pushing up and down engine pistons (using the exhaust in the cylinders and shut valves as a choosen) and flywheel. When braking or going downhill, the motor acting as a generator would put recovered power back into the electric line.
The nice thing about this system is there is no range or weight limitation, and uses existing technologies. You could power even semi-trucks or buses with this technology. Moreover, if you become disconnected temporarily from the electric line, the motion of engine’s pistons decompressing the exhaust left in the cylinders and the standard flywheel, would keep the car coasting until electricity came back or the solenoids reconnected the push-rods to the rocker arm and started feeding the engine gasoline once again (the later could happen basically instantly if there is such a power demand).
Because your still moving the pistons up and end down and compressing waste gases, the engine never gets cold, always has warm coolant to heat the inside of the car, and is always ready to burn gasoline at proper operating temperature whenever electricity is dropped.
I can not imagine a future where cars don’t have at least some kind of internal combustion engine that burns gasoline or diesel, at least part of the time. We have been refining Internal Combustion Engines for 110 years now, and the technology is so well engineered and reliable, that it seems likely that cars will use Internal Combustion Technology of some sort for at least another 110 years, if not longer. Internal Combustion Engines are only going to be come cleaner and less polluting as pollution control standards and technology improves, and they are only going to burn less gas or diesel in decades to come.
Most people do not realize how much time they actually spending in cars, driving around or visiting various places. Most people don’t care to calculate the math, so I did it for you. If these average speeds seem slow to you, remember that when driving you have to stop or slow for stop signs, stop lights, and traffic congestion.
| Time Driving | hours per 100 miles | hours per 200 miles | hours per 15,000 miles | hours per 150,000 miles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average City Miles Per Hour | 20 | 5 | 10 | 750 | 7500 |
| Average Highway Miles Per Hour | 45 | 2.22 | 4.44 | 333.33 | 3333.33 |
| Average Expressway Miles Per Hour | 70 | 1.43 | 2.86 | 214.29 | 2142.86 |
| 50% City + Highway Speed | 32.5 | 3.08 | 6.15 | 461.54 | 4615.38 |
They say the Average American drives something like 15,000 miles per year. If your average speed is 32.5 miles per hour, including delays at stoplights and traffic, that means your spending on average 19 days per year, non-stop driving.
| Time Driving | hours per 15,000 miles | days per 15,000 miles | weeks per 15,000 miles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average City Miles Per Hour | 20 | 750 | 31 | 4 |
| Average Highway Miles Per Hour | 45 | 333.33 | 14 | 2 |
| Average Expressway Miles Per Hour | 70 | 214.29 | 9 | 1 |
| 50% City + Highway Speed | 32.5 | 461.54 | 19 | 3 |
In the lifetime of the vehicle, assuming you get 150,000 miles out of it, you will have driven the equalivent of 192 days or 27 weeks straight.
| Time Driving | hours per 150,000 miles | days per 150,000 miles | weeks per 150,000 miles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average City Miles Per Hour | 20 | 7,500 | 313 | 45 |
| Average Highway Miles Per Hour | 45 | 3,333 | 139 | 20 |
| Average Expressway Miles Per Hour | 70 | 2,143 | 89 | 13 |
| 50% City + Highway Speed | 32.5 | 4,615 | 192 | 27 |
While I’ve only owned two different cars in my life, my parents 1994 Plymouth Sundance and my current 1998 Ford Ranger, I do not see myself buying a foreign made car or truck in the foreseeable future. Six years ago when I bought the Ranger I had considered foreign cars, but now I’ve learned why I will not buy an foriegn car.
Simply said, a car or truck is a big purchase. While quality of the vehicle is always important, so is the quality it represents to the community as a whole. Most American manufacturers are union-based, from the Assembly plant to the part manufacturers. Most American cars consist of parts and labor constructed in the United States, such as the typical Chevrolet Silverado or Ford F-150 pickup trucks, which average betwen 75-85% American-made.
When you buy an American-made and Union-made car (even a used one), you are buying a vehicle:
While many foreign-brand cars are made in the United States, most are made in the South, in plants that pay less and offer less benefits to their workers. Foreign car assembly plants and part suppliers are typically non-unionized. Without unions, nobody is advocating for good working conditions or protections for those who live in the communities where cars are made.
Nowadays, American-made cars are often as good if not better then Foreign-made cars. People do not realize that. Voting for foriegn cars by buying them new or used, means your taking jobs from your community, shipping them down to sweatshops down south or across the globe. These are your neighbors, the folks who hunt, fish, camp, farm, and help conserve the wild spaces. These are the same people who are involved in your community.
As far as I can see, there is only one clear choice — Buy American, Buy Union!
The other day I was stuck behind one of my neighbor’s 1958 Ford Fairlane, on a hot sunny day. A beautiful classic car, it really stunk of partially burnt hydrocarbons, as was the case of most cars from the pre-automobile pollution control era.
I was curious how much progress we’ve made an automobiles in 2010, versus the pre-control era of model years 1968 and earlier. In 40 years, we’ve taken some serious steps to reduce the tailpipe emissions of our automobile fleet.
The four major pollutants from automobiles are nitrous oxides (NOx) that create smog, carbon monoxide (CO) which is a deadly human posion that replaces oxygen in human blood and causes heart attacks, particulate matter (PM) or soot that coats human lungs and creates smog, and carbon dioxide (CO2) that is acidifying our oceans and inducing climate change.
Nitrogen Oxides – 3.00 gram/mi
Carbon Monoxide – 39.00 gram/mi
Particulate Matter – 12.80 gram/mi *
Lead – 0.06 gram/mi *
Carbon Dioxide – 840.00 gram/mi *
* Estimates based on the following, previously used to test emissions.
Total Hydrocarbons – 8.80 gram/mi
Miles Per Gallon – 12.5 miles/gallon
Lead Per Gallon – 0.80 gram/gallon
Nitrogen Oxides – 0.03 gram/mi
Carbon Monoxide – 2.10 gram/mi
Particulate Matter – 0.01 gram/mi
Lead – 0.00 gram/mi *
Carbon Dioxide – 329.00 gram/mi *
* Estimates based on the following, previously used to test emissions.
Miles Per Gallon – 27.5 miles per gallon
Lead – Gasoline is 100% lead free now due to catalytic converters being poisoned by leaded gasoline. Lead has been replaced by ethanol and synthetic anti-knock oxygent agents such as MTBE and ETBE.
Here is the improvement in pollution control in the past 40 years for automobiles in times.
Nitrous Oxides – You can drive a 2010 model year car 100 miles and create the same amount of nitrous oxides as a 1968 model year car puts out per mile.
Carbon Monoxide – You can drive a 2010 model year car 18.5 miles and create the same amount of carbon monoxide as a 1968 model year car puts out per mile.
Particulate Matter – You can drive a 2010 model year car 1287 miles and create the same amount of particulate matter as a 1968 model year car puts out per mile.
Carbon Dioxide – You can drive a 2010 model year car 2.1 miles and create the same amount of carbon dioxide as a 1968 model year car puts out per mile.
The fact is we’ve done a lot to clean up the automobile fleet. Today’s cars are nothing like the polluting cars of yesteryear, although on one key pollutant — carbon dioxide, we have a long ways to go. Carbon dioxide, while a very dilute pollutant, is produced in massive quantities by automobiles. Modern cars still produce over 320 grams per mile of carbon dioxide, and reducing that will require advanced technologies, many yet to be invented.
Yet, back in 1968, few would have believed that we would reduce nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, or particulate mater to such a great extent as we have today.