Missing the Hybrid Moment

[OK . . . Emoticons from now on when I make a joke. Nobody gets every joke.]

Soylent Green is people!!!!! ukeright:
It is also the name of a 1973 Charlton Heston sci-fi movie.

I've seen/smelled a bio-diesel car. Thank God it was filled with used Potato Chip cooking oil and not that nasty smelling rendering plant stuff!

 

Charlton isn't too far from being there from what I've heard :mrgreen:

 

The next innovation will be the plug-in hybrid. It will combine the features of the current hybrid technology with more advanced battery design to allow around a 100 mile commute with no gasoline used. Nightly you will be able to plug your vehicle into an outlet, which will recharge the battery for the next day's commute. There was a good article about this in last week's Economist magazine. I believe these type of vehicles will be another stepping stone before hydrogen fuel cells are commercially viable, which will then be powered by ethanol from corn.

 

I certainly agree about the plug in... BUT - people are not going to take the risk of running out of power in a traffic jam or the middle of nowhere. You must have a highly efficent, onboard generator.

I am convinced we will never see fuel cells or hydrogen powering our autos.

Se my, "The Future of Hybrids."

 

i dont think hydrogen fuel cars will be here before 15 years. i do think that hydrogen will be used to generate power though.

we have several circumstances where extra power could be generated by hydro, geothermal, etc but we dont take advantage of it because of the inefficiencies of storage. i see fuel cells improving enough to become viable for very large storage applications first before they are used in cars.

i know that sounds even more remote than hydrogen cars, but i believe the sticking point for hydrogen will be distribution and not innovation.

 

As "The Mother Earth News" was so fond of saying in it's early days, "There ain't no free lunch!"

It's possible to let others delude us into becoming convinced of the truth of anything, unless we are capable of keeping an open mind.

I consider myself as green as anyone I've met but there are a whole lot of things that greens have swallowed that a very careful look at both sides helps us to understand what "Mother" meant.

A good example is windfarms. I seriously doubt that a windmill will ever be built that will generate enough energy to replace the energy it took to build, transport, install and mantain one.

I personally am convinced that is just another scam laid on us by cooperate crooks.

This being said, I am convinced that the Prius is currently the top of the line in green transportation. But - There is a lot of room for improvement even there. :mrgreen:

 

when a company who refuses to settle on its laurels, there is always room for improvement no matter how acomplished the product.

so the question begs... is the Prius that well made, or have we become accustomed to mediocrity in automotive products?

i believe as im sure the engineers at Toyota also believe, that its the latter. so i am very excited since i know i will be one of the first to buy the next generation Prius when its introduced in 2007.

 

I may be a bit late to this, but GM's (and the other members of the "Big 3") attitude toward the Prius is pretty much along Gandhi's quote:

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"

Right now, the "Big 3" are somewhere between items 2 (laugh) and 3 (fight).

Somewhat reminiscent of the battle between Microsoft and Linux...they're between 3 (fight) and 4 (you win) with it getting closer to item 4 every day. :mrgreen:

 

actually they are already fighting for their lives so definitely in stage 4.

that is their way of fighting however. they ridicule competitors while trying to sway opinions to their products. much easier than building a better mousetrap for them i guess.