Alternative Transportation

I remember looking at them in the showroom. Loved the styling of them.
 
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LOL, I’ve been telling friends, neighbors and whoever I meet on the road that going 100% electric vehicles will not work here in the US.

Here is something I did about three years ago:
For the fun of it, I went to a Tesla dealer and asked how much current does the home charger draw when charging? He went to the service department and found out it uses 59 amps. I’m not even sure if this is the super charger.

I then said, let’s figure something out. Let’s multiply the voltage which is 240 by 59. It equals 14,160 watts. Then I mentioned, let’s say there are 500,000 Tesla vehicles in a metropolitan area. I then said, let’s multiply the number of electric vehicles (500,000) by 14,160. The total watts comes to 7,080,000,000 WATTS!!! I then ask him, where is all the power going to come from when everyone plugs in after coming home from work? I mentioned, the government wants no nuclear power plants, no coal power plants, no natural gas plants, no oil fired plants. Where is the power going to come from? Windmills? Solar? How can this possibly work? I mentioned that the power grid is already stressed out and it can’t handle any more. He mentioned that they can build more power plants. I mentioned, do you know what it takes to get one approved to build and then build it? It takes years. And, I did not even get into the power grid.

Unfortunately, most people don’t understand what it will take to make this country go 100% electric.
 
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yup! Definitely biting off more than we can chew. This is why im looking for better ways to be more fuel efficient. Plus if i can cut my fuel cost that saves my company money and i can put more food in the fridge. Or if my wife has her way, more toys for my daughter.
 
Absolutely! "You can't get something for nothing". There's two full generations of people who never think twice about the big power they consume with all the electric devices in our lives. If work is going to be done, a fire has to burn somewhere. Detaching the burn from the vehicle (electric) allows the ignorant to pat themselves on the back for being such great environmentalists. It's in their imagination only- there is nothing green about the exhaust stack at a millon HP fossil-fueled power plant.
We're in a tough place- the calorie output of fuel oil and gasoline can not be matched with anything currently known, to produce vehicle locomotion. I get really exasperated when I hear talk of electric semi's. . What a freaking joke, someone doesn't have a clue of the power required to haul freight. Might get thru West Virginia on one charge- if the whole trailer is full of batteries.
 
The only thing that makes any sense is Hybrids. I was dead set against them. But, they seem to have proven themselves in automobile’s. In trucks, I think they should work if they can build them stout enough to handle a good load.

But, lots of people are not able to afford one. And I don’t want to think about servicing it when it breaks down.
 
Yes its a huge Scam these Electric Cars have never made any sense to me they had made quite a few back way back over a 100 years ago in the around the 1890's to early 1900's if I remember right there were 150 companies back then building those and some Steam Powered Cars then soon all of them were all gone! I did like seeing those old Stanley Steamers though and was also a big fan of the Old Steam Engine Locomotives. Just a few days ago an Electric Vehicle Company filled for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and I herd that Fords Electric Vehicle Division is also in trouble. When I was working at Home Depot in the Electrical section I helped several people with setting up their Home Charging system these are the true believers. These Electric Cars and Trucks at best could only be used around town or for short trips. Sothern California had set up some charging stations years ago for the Rich and Famous that were using GM's first electric Cars and then GM Called them all back in and destroyed most all of them except for maybe one or so, I know one of them that's in the Peterson Auto Museum there. That exercise was already a real fiasco that the people should of learned from but looks like you can still fool lots of people. And if you look around many of these more remote area Charging Stations have a Diesel Engine Generator powering them, LOL "There is No Free Lunch".
 
The only thing that makes any sense is Hybrids. I was dead set against them. But, they seem to have proven themselves in automobile’s. In trucks, I think they should work if they can build them stout enough to handle a good load.

But, lots of people are not able to afford one. And I don’t want to think about servicing it when it breaks down.
I remember a few years back chevy was talking about making hybrid work trucks and van that would get the equivalent of “100 mpg” but then i never heard about it again. They advertised you can use the truck as a generator to run even 240v welders and run power tools in remote location. For a minute i thought i was actually gonna buy a chevy, but It never came out. I think in reality they didnt get better mpg or something.
 
I remember a few years back chevy was talking about making hybrid work trucks and van that would get the equivalent of “100 mpg” but then i never heard about it again. They advertised you can use the truck as a generator to run even 240v welders and run power tools in remote location. For a minute i thought i was actually gonna buy a chevy, but It never came out. I think in reality they didnt get better mpg or something.
"Can't get something for nothing", or as bubba said, "no free lunch" still applies. If the battery is charged by the engine it's a break even deal at best. If I recall correctly, Toyota was working on a system that converted braking energy to electric. Some city busses somewhere too attempted to convert inertia reduction (braking) into turning a heavy flywheel which then put the energy back into the wheels on restart. Braking action was too unpredictable and it never got off the ground as far as I know. If reducing inertia could be converted to something other than heat it would be a net gain, but not easy to effect in the real world of daily driving.
 
My turn, the only real saving of energy is to travel LESS, and when you do you should travel slowly and used a vehicle that has a high ratio of payload to tare mass. Vehicles have got so heavy over the years, it IS ridiculous to have a 2500kg vehicle to shift around a 100kg bloke. Manufactures have made great strides in energy efficiency of their engines, but they largely used this to sell us much higher performance levels. A few years ago a car that could do 160km/h was considered fast, now anything will do it. In Australia the falcon went from about 1250kg to its last version being 1600kg, the power went from 65kw to 192kw, fuel economy stayed about the same. All electric is being pushed by governments, the world MUST decarbonise, however a huge effort is required to do this. Nuclear might be an obvious solution, the main issue IMO is, at least for us, in Australia, is that we dont have the industrial base to do this, and it is VERY unpopular, even if we could get it started TODAY it would take 15 years before a single watt come out the other side. No IMO the solution is renewables, fully electric, battery "smoothing" and this needs to be done NOW. As to transport, the first solution is to stop transporting goods around the world, make it close to the consumption points. SLOW down, get as many passenger vehicles as possible OFF the roads with mass PUBLIC transport. We have a fairly good system of trains and trams here in Victoria, Melbourne for instance would be parralised without it, when 1,000,000 people try to get to work at one time, cars wont do it. The hybrid idea is good one, but again, too much power available.
 
Well, so far I saved just under $200.00 with the motorcycle. I figured savings would be roughly $400.00 per month. The truck has only been used 4 times since the purchase.
That is a huge savings and I will be able to put the savings to use. Right now I’m purchasing riding gear to prevent road rash if I lay the bike down for whatever reason. Some will go towards preparing the 240 to replace the 300. Looks like the repower will happen in late fall or early winter.
 
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My friend at work had a newer Hybrid I don't know for how long but he wasn't to happy with it when they wanted $5000.00 to replace the Battery Pack. I just don't think they were ready for prime time and they have been using the people for their testing.
 
What's the largest component of clean burning natural gas? Methane. What produces tons of methane? Cows. Cows are renewable. So, cars running on cow farts makes sense. Now I've got to get Biden on board. Bovine Motors will be as big as Tesla in a decade.
 
What's the largest component of clean burning natural gas? Methane. What produces tons of methane? Cows. Cows are renewable. So, cars running on cow farts makes sense. Now I've got to get Biden on board. Bovine Motors will be as big as Tesla in a decade.
Its their burps that contain methane. CSIRO in Australia has been working on feedstock made from seaweed to reduce it. I worked on CNG LNG converted Diesel engines for busses and trucks. We got up to 40% thermal efficiency from some of them, almost as good as the diesels. They had the torque you wanted, ran smooth and quiet. Methane can come from renewable sources like rubbish dumps, piggery waste etc. Its a good fuel, burning it actually reduces it greenhouse numbers. Hydrogen is being touted as the saviour of the plant, it is surrounded by difficulties and unless your electricity is virtually free, its not cheap. I run LPG which is another alternative, not as good as Methane, but much easier to handle the storage. Down here in Australia we had 10 years of anti climate change from our conservative idiots, now we have MUCH work to do to get to the federaal and most states greenhouse targets of carbon neutral by 2030. You guys had your idiot GOP doing the same, so you have a lot of change to work through.
 
With LPG, compression can be increased.

I believe LPG has an octane rating of 104 to 112 (R+M)/2.
I been thinking about this year’s back and do have a mixer and vaporizer someplace.

The biggest cost would be a DOT approved tank. I abandoned the project years ago because of cost and the price of gasoline was still fairly reasonable. But we never know.

The good thing with my truck is I’m no longer required to do safety inspection in my state. So, converting is not an issue. But fueling up could be tough in some areas.

Another thing is LPG is a dry gas. It has no lubrication properties and the head will need hardened seats or inserts and valves that can withstand dry fuels.

There is also engine oils specifically for LPG & CNG engines.

Still thinking about a conversion, but right now it’s not cost effective.
 
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With LPG, compression can be increased.

I believe LPG has an octane rating of 104 to 112 (R+M)/2.
I been thinking about this year’s back and do have a mixer and vaporizer someplace.

The biggest cost would be a DOT approved tank. I abandoned the project years ago because of cost and the price of gasoline was still fairly reasonable. But we never know.

The good thing with my truck is I’m no longer required to do safety inspection in my state. So, converting is not an issue. But fueling up could be tough in some areas.

Another thing is LPG is a dry gas. It has no lubrication properties and the head will need hardened seats or inserts and valves that can withstand dry fuels.

There is also engine oils specifically for LPG & CNG engines.

Still thinking about a conversion, but right now it’s not cost effective.
Going to give propane/LPG a try on the 67f100 short box. Have all the equipment I have gathered up over the past few years.
Inconvenient, possibly but definitely cleaner burning. Will have EFI head on the small round dish piston mid 70's short block.
Hoping it will be cheaper to run. Will be summer truck.
2010 4 cylinder 2 door short box Ranger is my daily driver.
 
Engine Fan, this is going to be something that I’m interested in. Thanks for posting.
 
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