Electric Lemon Aid

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Elon Musk is brave. You’ve got to give him that.lemon 1

After all, the PayPal billionaire and co-founder of Tesla Motors was ballsy enough to provide one of his six figure electric lemons (produced courtesy of $465 million in taxpayer-extorted “loans” to the company) to a writer for the New York Times. Who proceeded to write about it.

Just not in the way that Elon Musk probably hoped he would.

The NY Times writer – John Broder – decided to fact-check the Tesla’s claimed 265 mile range by driving the thing from Washington, D.C. to Norwich, CT. He barely made it – and that’s with extended pit stops along the way at Tesla-provided electric IVs.

Broder wrote (see here for the full rant) about having to turn off power-sapping accessories such as the heater (in the middle of winter) and cut his speed to 56 MPH (on the NJ Turnpike, where traffic routinely runs 70-plus) in order to avoid running the batteries dry before the car could gimp itself to the next “supercharger” recharging station. When he got there, he “tanked up” the batteries to an indicated 186 mile range, drove another 80 miles and parked the car overnight. The car’s range-meter (the electric car equivalent of a gas gauge) indicated 90 miles remaining, Broder wrote. Sufficient to make it to Norwhich – or so he thought.lemon 2

Next morning – after sitting in the cold all night – that 90 mile range had plummeted to just 26 miles. The car conked out before it got close to Norwhich – and had to be flatbedded away.

When Broder’s article appeared, sparks flew over at Tesla’s HQ. Elon Musk went so far as to accuse Broder of lying about the car’s performance. In a Tweet, he wrote: “NY Times article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn’t actually charge to the max and took a long detour.”

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy fired back, stating that Broder’s piece was “completely factual.”

As a car journalist who has test-driven several electric cars, I’m siding with Broder and the NY Times. Let me first deconstruct Musk’s Tweet:

He claimed that Broder “didn’t actually charge to the max” and that’s like “starting off a drive with a tank that’s not full.” Well, except when you start off with say half a tank in a gas-burning car (the equivalent of an indicated 186 mile range in an electric car) it doesn’t plummet to an eighth of a tank before you actually begin your drive.tesla 1

One of the biggest functional/engineering obstacles to electric car viability is that batteries lose power in the cold – while gasoline doesn’t. If you leave your car parked in the garage with half a tank, it’ll still have a half-tank tomorrow morning. And range isn’t affected greatly by weather.

An electric car’s range is.

The colder it is, the shorter your range will be. Not just because batteries are less efficient in the cold, but also because in the cold, you’ll be using electricity for other things besides moving the car. Things like the heater – which in an electric car is powered by electricity – and if it’s dark out, you’ll be burning headlights longer – which also means burning juice. Which you have a finite amount of.

There is only so much juice – and once it’s gone, you are stuck. As happened to Broder.

Hybrid gas-electric cars like the Toyota Prius and the Chevy Volt  end-run this problem by carrying around portable generators. These are called internal combustion engines. Just like in regular cars, only the gas engines in hybrids are smaller – and the electric batteries bigger. But the principle is the same. The gas engine makes electricity (via the alternator, in a non-hybrid car) which replenishes the battery and keeps it topped off. If you take the internal combustion engine out of the equation, you’ve got no back-up. When the juice ebbs, you’re stuck.lemon 4

Really stuck.

Because unlike a standard car (or a hybrid car) you can’t just hoof it or hitch a ride to the next gas station, get a couple gallons in a can and be on your way. If you run dry in an electric car, you’ve got to find a charging station – and unlike gas stations, these are not found just down the road.

Tesla – the company – set up what it calls “supercharger” charging stations along Broder’s drive route. But even these mean “fill-ups” that take much longer than the five minutes it takes to fill up a gas car’s tank. It took Broder an hour to put 186 miles of range back in the Tesla’s batteries. And remember – that indicated 186 miles turned out to be 106 miles (according to the car’s computer).  He would have needed to recharge for another hour to make it to Norwhich. That’s two hours of down time – vs. five minutes to fill up a standard car’s tank.

And that’s using Tesla’s special charging rigs – which use four times the voltage (480 volts) of a standard 110v household outlet. I recently test drove the plug-in version of the Toyota Prius hybrid. Using 110V current, it took 3-4 hours to bring the batteries back up to full charge. But at least with the Prius, there’s a gas engine on board to keep you going when the battery begins to wilt. That means you can keep on driving without hour-long pit stops every 100 miles or so. You might be burning gas – but you won’t be wasting time. You can always buy more gas. But time lost is gone forever. And most of us need to get where we’re going.lemon last

Not halfway there.

And the plug-in Prius only costs $32,000 – vs. $59,900 for the least expensive version of the Tesla. This one – the “inexpensive” one – also only goes about 100 miles on a full charge. If you want a theoretical 208 mile range, you’ve got to pony up another $10,000. For another $10,000 on top of that, you can get a Tesla that’s theoretically capable of 265 miles on a single charge.

Broder found out about the actual range.

So did an Autoweek magazine test driver – who, like Broder, was left stranded by his electric Edsel.

When potential buyers find out, I suspect it’s going to be lights out for Tesla.

It’s just too bad that it’s not Musk’s money that got flushed down the toilet.

It’s yours – and mine.

Throw it in the Woods?

219 COMMENTS

    • Hi Spook,

      I’m pretty sure the Tesla was conceived from the get-go as a “top-of-the-line” car, with the idea being that (like iPhones) affluent people would buy them first, demonstrate to the world how cool they are – and then, as the price came down, more and more average people would buy. The problem, of course, is that a car is not an iPhone – and it’s one thing to spend $400 on a gadget and quite another to spend $60,000 on a car!

  1. Elon Musk tries to impress Betty from Bloomberg Financial with Tesla Model S Slacker internet radio software.

    “I can play any song from any band from any time just using voice commands.”

    http://www.youtu.be/QBxLnstuXj4

    SpaceX capsule docks at ISS 200 miles outside Earth’s Atmosphere
    http://www.youtu.be/f_poqEt7D00

    New American Ingenuity:
    1 Join UK to destabilize a peaceful South African nation with a psyops campaign about “apartheid”
    2 Pose as land of opportunity to fleeing producers of resultant black idiocracy. A dystopia where its 90% black/colored population all play victims needing racial hiring preference and guaranteed jobs regardless of their skills or productivity.

  2. Regarding P.M. Lawrences comment… ” but you could still do it with stored energy or by quartering around the points of the wind, i.e. tacking down wind.”

    You ‘Jibe’ going down wind and ‘Tack’ into the wind. When you change direction from one point of wind to its opposite _360′ 180’_ It is called ‘Coming about’. Sailing across the wind _90′, or perpendicular to the wind_ is usually the fastest point of sail.

    Turbo or rotary sails offer much better efficiency and actually perform better into the wind or with it, as the windage generated by the structure and rig crossing the wind, is reduced.

    • A working knowledge of individual and group sailing imparts libertarian expertise on a full spectrum level.

      Sailing = propulsion and control of a vehicle’s movement using large fabric foils. Uses rigging, rudder, and centerboard.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing

      The earliest sailors were probably the first group of libertarians in history.

      http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-145024055/boat-remains-and-maritime-trade-in-the-persian-gulf

      – – – –

      The worst thing about this Elon Musk deal? They took a hero contributing towards individual liberty and twisted him into a villain working against individual liberty.

      • Your Free! On the sea, or at least were until the
        US decided it had the right to stop any vessel anywhere, whether a flag vessel or not.
        These cowboys jump on your boat with their combat boots and M-16’s and go through your vessel and check your crew/guests status whether they have any reason for the stop or not.

        When I see a a Navy/Guard vessel, the women go below, as I don’t want these goons to stop us just to ogle the grrl’s. Their ego’s think their macho demeanor and pseudo superior mental conditioning impresses the grrl’s. Those clowns should hear how the gals dissect them after a boarding.

          • COL! Well some of my thoughts during a boarding are unprintable. You just have to control your emotions during a boarding.
            Engage your cerebral cortex, endure while not kowtowing to these obviously superior human beings…For a man who speaks his mind … pure torture.

            After they go over the horizon, raise a toast of brandy in fealty to the fascist state while projecting your stiff arm towards the mother land in a Nazi salute.

            Its a learning moment for a lot of crew and guests, as they see their countries government in a different perspective, and that were all perps in eyes of the state.

            Years ago a boarding almost never occurred, and if it did it was very cordial with a smile with no firearms being brandished. Now, six goons jump on your boat, all armed and tense. Fun stuff. Plus you get to clean all the black scuff marks off the deck and cabin tops.

            Other countries do this, but it is still, usually, very polite, even classy. Armed crew remain on the intercept vessel and it is usually only an officer who boards.

          • Dear Eric,

            Where is Ragnar Danneskjöld when we need him?

            “What I actually am, Mr. Rearden, is a policeman. It is a policeman’s duty to protect men from criminals – criminals being those who seize wealth by force. … But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law…then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.”
            — Ragnar Danneskjöld

  3. “What I don’t understand is why so many people are so hurt because the RP campaign turned left when they said it should have turned right, says they didn’t try hard enough, and other such nonsense. ”

    Other such nonsense, huh? I saw from about the middle of the campaign that it wasn’t a case of Paul’s campaign not trying hard enough, but that they were actively withdrawing him from view and sending him out as far from the campaign’s opportunities as possible.

    Plenty of astute observers spoke out and were ignored. Remember Hugh Turley? He saw it and said what he saw last March:

    http://www.dcdave.com/article5/120317.htm

    You act like I said he was a crook or an asshole. I didn’t. I said that he’s no hero to be worshipped, just as no man is to be worshipped. I also said that I wasted my time and money supporting his campaign. He wasn’t serious about anything but making speeches. His campaign took millions of dollars from many of us who needed the money we gave. I worked for the money I contributed and it would have been better spent on my family. That campaign wasted our money while seeing to it that our efforts came to nothing.

    I’m not hurt, I’m disgusted with myself for being fooled. Fuck the GOP. Last time I checked Ron and his neocon son are GOP members.

    Maybe that’s what you’re trying to say when you write that you don’t understand why anyone would feel hurt.

    • It wasn’t anything other than anyone should have seen it would be. 2008 showed how it was going to go for 2012.

      Again you link to something on CPAC. You do realize how poorly treated RP is by CPAC correct? How CPAC expects RP supporters to go along with the neocon program? Do read LRC? When RP won CPAC polls it was claimed his supporters ‘hijacked’ the vote. If you were treated like he was you’d eventually stop going too.

      It seems you wanted a professionally run campaign from RP. I don’t see how that was even a realistic expectation. He’s not going to compromise his views, he’s not going to pander, and simply put not do any of the things required to actually win an election in this country. The vast majority of the people want to be pandered to. They want to feel good about their ‘team’. They want their ‘team’ to win. RP wasn’t playing to any sort of team dynamic.

      Your dissatisfied, I say it met expectations. It was clear from day one that RP was just the guy that stepped forward to have his name on the ballot for all of us liberty minded people but he wasn’t about to play the game as it is meant to be played and wouldn’t actually win because of that.

      You want a Paul that is playing the game to actually advance and win? You want Rand. Don’t like that he sounding like a neocon? Well that’s what it takes to win in this country, that’s what a winner does. This isn’t a movie, people are either winners or pure to their ideals but not both.

      • Dear Brent,

        “You want a Paul that is playing the game to actually advance and win? You want Rand. Don’t like that he sounding like a neocon? Well that’s what it takes to win in this country, that’s what a winner does. This isn’t a movie, people are either winners or pure to their ideals but not both.”

        Agree.

        It’s an either/or proposition. Given the values of the mainstream Demopublican One Party System, it cannot be any other way.

        Speaking of movies, even liberals such as Robert Redford are unhappy with it. See his star vehicle “The Candidate.”

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Candidate_%281972_film%29

        As I wrote in 2005,

        Democracy, Breeding Ground for Fascism

        “Nothing matters more than winning. Not even what you believe in.”
        — Tagline for “The Candidate” (1972, directed by Michael Ritchie, written by Jeremy Larner, former speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy)

        Remember “The Candidate,” the biting political satire starring Robert Redford? The Internet Movie DataBase summarizes the plot: “Californian lawyer Bill McKay fights for the little man. His charisma and integrity get him noticed by the Democratic Party machine and he is persuaded to run for the Senate against an apparently unassailable incumbent. It’s agreed he can handle it his own way, on his own terms. But once he’s in the race and his prospects begin to improve, the deal starts to change.”

        Why does the deal start to change?

        The deal starts to change because democracy is inherently corrupting. Democracy incorporates certain perverse incentives. Democracy’s holiest sacrament is popular elections. Popular elections compel candidates for political office to resort to populist demagoguery, i.e., “impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace.” Popular elections compel candidates to sacrifice reason to passion, substance to image, and principle to expediency.

        As the tagline for “The Candidate” reminds us, under democracy’s system of popular elections, “Nothing matters more than winning. Not even what you believe in.”

  4. Elon – What is the business model for Mars

    Elon – I’ll put a man on Mars in 10 years

    Elon – Accepts Mars Pioneer Award

    Behavior Hierarchy where 1 is best and 8 is worst

    1 those who build/do for themselves
    2 those who prevent others from forcing others
    3 those who build/do with some forced labor of others
    4 those who build/do with only forced labor of others
    5 those who talk about building/doing for themselves
    6 those who talk about preventing others from forcing others
    7 those who talk about building/doing with some forced labor of others
    8 those who talk about building/doing with only forced labor of others
    9-16 Worse than these actions is to prevent them. Stopping #1 is worse behavior than stopping #8

  5. More kilowatts/wood for/on the Fire.

    A brave CNN reporter repeated last weeks ill-fated trip by NY Times’ John Broder, and easily drove from Washington D.C. to Boston on electricity, in the winter, stopping only at Supercharger stations.

    A CNN reporter has one-up’d the NY Times’ John Broder by successfully driving a Tesla Model S from Washington D.C. to Boston, in the middle of the winter, where Broder failed to make the same trip last week. According to a report published on Friday, Peter Valdes-Dapena of CNN Money not only made the trip but did so easily with plenty of energy to spare. Broder’s trip famously ended with the Model S on a flatbed tow truck.

    Valdes-Dapena took the trip in one day on Thursday, rather than Broder’s plan to split it over two days with an overnight stop in a hotel. For the CNN reporter the “most scarey” part of the trip was the 200 miles between Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn. While the Tesla Model S has either a 240 mile or 260+ mile driving range (by default the car is configured for a 90% recharge, giving 240 miles of range) that isn’t much cushion given that the distance between those stations is 200 miles.

    The 85 kilowatt-hour Tesla Model S has an EPA certified range of 265 miles. The Tesla Supercharger stations can give the car a complete recharge in about an hour. Tesla plans to, over the next few years, build out a network of these charging stations criss-crossing the country. Along the East Coast corridor, they’ll shortly build more stations making the Washington-Boston trip even easier.

    For a write-up of Broder’s ill fated trip see Tesla Motors fires back at NY Times John Broder over failed Model S test drive

    Valdes-Dapena reports having followed Tesla’s energy saving instructions carefully, to keep the cruise control between 60-65 miles/hr and the climate control at 72 degrees F. That let him sit in the middle lane of traffic and keep up with traffic very nicely. In Northern New Jersey he had a choice of two routes through New York City, one would be to drive through the City and potentially run into heavy traffic, the other was to swing north on a 30 miles longer route that was likely to avoid traffic. He chose the longer route, and ran into heavy traffic anyway.

    However on getting into Connecticut he had plenty of range to spare, and decided to play with the car, mashing the accelerator pedal to feel acceleration from 65 to 80 miles/hr. It made him giddy. We understand.

    The second part of the trip from Milford to Boston was so unremarkable that he didn’t even mention it. According to Google Maps there are three routes from Milford to Boston, the shortest is 140 miles and has lots of public charging stations along the way. The other two are 160ish miles and have fewer public charging stations along the way.

    This result from the CNN reporter casts even more doubt on the NY Times report by John Broder. Why did the CNN reporter seemingly have an incredibly easy time of the trip, when Broder had a hard time? We should note that earlier this week when Elon Musk was tweeting, one of the tweets called for other reporters to replicate Broder’s trip. Maybe the CNN reporter was simply better instructed than Broder was?

    In Broder’s responses he has yet to explain two things: Why did he fail to fully charge the Model S in Milford Conn.? He left that charging station with a 73% charge costing him about 70 miles of range. Second, why did he take the longer route to Boston? Traveling through Norwich is, according to Google Maps, a 163 mile distance from Milford to Boston, while another route only requires 140 miles.

    That the CNN reporter took the trip in one day meant his Model S did not spend overnight in 10-20 degrees F weather. According to Broder that sapped 60 miles or so of range and was the second issue that endangered his trip. However it’s likely most of that range will have been recovered when the battery pack warmed up, had Broder simply started driving.

    Another difference is the ambient temperature on Thursday was a bit warmer than last week during Broder’s trip. As we saw with Broders trip, the cold weather did affect the car’s performance. However, Tesla Motors claims they have customers in all kinds of cold climates and that the cold weather effects should not be that significant.

    Whether this creates enough doubt to undermine the NY Times report remains to be seen.

    Source: CNN.COM

    We need energy stratified transportation options… Tre

    • Hi Deuce,

      I’ll take the CNN report at face value – and offer a few comments:

      “keep the cruise control between 60-65 miles/hr … That let him sit in the middle lane of traffic…”

      Dunno about you, but I think it’s pretty ridiculous to be compelled – in order to achieve a serviceable range – to drive significantly below the flow of traffic (70-plus, easily, on I-95) in a “400 hp” alleged “supercar.”

      Would the CNN driver have made it had he cruised at a reasonable (for I-95) 70-75? If I paid six figures (or even $60k) for a car, I’d expect to be able to use the thing to operate at a faster clip than $3,000 beaters….

      “mashing the accelerator pedal to feel acceleration from 65 to 80 miles/hr. It made him giddy.”

      Seriously? I guess if you’ve never driven anything with more guts than a $3,000 beater….

      “Why did he fail to fully charge the Model S in Milford Conn.? He left that charging station with a 73% charge costing him about 70 miles of range.”

      In a conventional car, 73 percent equals three-quarters of a tank. That amount of fuel would give the typical new car a range of around 300 miles at highway speeds. Five minutes to fill up the tank again.

      “Tesla Motors claims they have customers in all kinds of cold climates and that the cold weather effects should not be that significant.”

      I call bullshit on that. Unless Tesla has developed new battery technology – which it hasn’t – the same rules apply to it that apply to other battery-powered vehicles. I have no doubt – zero, none – that if you brought a Tesla to my neck tonight (expected temps 17 degrees F) that it’d be running low PDQ. I’ve personally experienced the effect of cold on: GM’s EV-1, Ford Ecostar, Prius plug-in. It’s fairly dramatic. What allows Tesla to get around the performance reducing effect of bitter cold? Magic?

      This boondoggle-mobile weighs 5,000 pounds – at least 1,000 pounds more than my mid-1970s V-8 muscle car! That alone crippled the car’s economic performance. Imagine what it might be capable of it weren’t laden with every piece of technology (luxury/convenience) they could throw into it? If it weighed 3,200 pounds?

      And: The battery alone costs $40,000. Buy a battery… or a brand-new (and nicely loaded) BMW 3 Series. A car – a luxury car – that can cruise all day at 80-plus and go 400 miles on a tank. Refill in 5 minutes for about $60. Works just as well in 0 degrees as it does in 100 degrees.

      You tell me.

  6. Ron Paul’s Gold Peace & Prosperity
    http://mises.org/books/goldpeace.pdf

    Ron Paul’s Political Positions
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul

    Ayn Rand on the moon landing – a quote often cited by Ron Paul

    “Think of what was required to achieve that mission: think of the unpitying effort; the merciless discipline; the courage; the responsibility of relying on one’s judgment; the days, nights and years of unswerving dedication to a goal; the tension of the unbroken maintenance of a full, clear mental focus; and the honesty. It took the highest, sustained acts of virtue to create in reality what had only been dreamt of for millennia.”

    The best thing about Ron Paul? He understood his place. Rocket builders and tangible new inventions are superior to novelists, screenwriters, & politicians. He understood the best thing for liberty was to minimize and possibly eliminate the pull of looters, moochers, Ayn Rands, & Ron Pauls, as soon as the populace was sufficiently educated. Ron Paul would have preferred to win his philosophical battle and return to his life as a value creating obstetrician.

    The worst thing about Ron Paul? He was a Peter Keating type and not a Howard Roark. He left his medical practice and followed the recipe and protocol of getting into politics. His achievement in this regard was mostly of the archetype of celebrity – he was a man who played a stoic nobleman role crafted by his large staff of supporters and admirers.

    Ron didn’t live by his own principles, but rather continued to surrender his judgement and allowed other people to dominate his life upon entering politics. Ron Paul, though highly articulate and brilliant, ended up being just another consumerist whose sole action was one of choosing from the selection of items that were already on the shelf before him.

    Ron Paul emulated the mystic, his was a status-seeker’s nature. Ron Paul was selfless. He sacrificed the things that he wanted in order to please others. He surrendered his own loves and values in an attempt to win social approval. He relinquished autonomy and permitted others to dominate his life. He never defended his right to life and thriving. He never demanded that obstetricians have a duty to be selfish, to be men true to their selves — that the self is fundamentally a man’s values along with the thinking he does to form them, that he had no obligation to be an obstetrician who performed in accordance with the “public good.”

    Peter Keating – The Fountainhead

    “Keating is a conformist. He surrenders his judgment and allows other people to dominate his life. In this regard, he is the story’s foil, a contrast to its hero, Roark. Everything that Keating does is done under the influence of others. He becomes an architect (although he would prefer the career of a painter), because his mother chooses it. He marries Dominique (although he loves Catherine Halsey), because Dominique’s grace and beauty impress other people. In all the important decisions of his life, Keating gives up his own values because other people disapprove of them. Keating lacks the strength of character necessary to stand on his own judgment.

    An aggressive social climber, Keating desires prestige above all else. Because Keating attempts to rise to the position of partner in the country’s most prestigious firm — and because he uses any means necessary to attain this end, including flattery, deceit, and, in the case of Lucius Heyer, near-murder — he is conventionally thought of as selfish. But Ayn Rand presents a revolutionary analysis of such a status-seeker’s nature. Peter Keating, she says, is selfless. He sacrifices the things that he wants in order to please others. He surrenders his own loves and values in an attempt to win social approval. He relinquishes autonomy and permits others to dominate his life. Ayn Rand argues that in order to be selfish a man must be true to his self — and that the self is fundamentally a man’s values along with the thinking he does to form them.

    The meaning of the novel can be expressed in two words: judgment and values. A man must live by his own judgment and form his own values. He needs to understand that this is the sole means to the attainment of happiness. To yield on these fundamentals is to betray the self, it is to surrender the essence of what makes an individual uniquely and distinctively himself. Peter Keating surrenders his self in this way, and this is why, inevitably, he ends an empty shell of a man. If a man surrenders the things and/or persons he loves, then he will not achieve happiness. But Ayn Rand points out something deeper: If he abdicates his judgment, then he surrenders the very part of him with which he can experience happiness — his self. This is the meaning of Keating’s life. He is selfless in a literal sense — he is without self.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Peter_Keating

  7. Ron Paul= received stolen loot & voluntary donations while producing words and talk about ending the Fed.
    Paypal= actually temporarily ended the fed’s monopoly.

    Paypal Chronology
    1998 Oct-Nov: It all started with digital wallets

    Max Levchin and Peter Thiel launch a security focused company which allows users to store encrypted information on PDA devices, enabling the digital wallet. Their theory is that this is safer than real cash in a wallet because it can never be stolen.

    1998 December: PayPal, or known as Confinity, is founded. At this point, Confinity’s main objective is to enable money transfers solely on PDAs.

    1999 October: Email payments with PayPal enabled
    A Confinity engineer developed an online demo that allows people to email payments, making PayPal into what it is today.

    2000 January: eBay users start posting PayPal’s logo on their auctions. PayPal quickly changes its business to enable eBay payments and grows to 100,000 accounts.

    2000 March: Confinity merges with its competitor x.com, taking on their company name.

    2000 March: PayPal hits 1 million users, 10 times the number in just two months.

    2001 June: PayPal officially takes on its name.

    2001 May: The war on fraud
    PayPal teams up with the FBI and local authorities around the globe to help dissolve organised crime rings conducting online fraud in Chicago, Houston, Russia, and Nigeria.

    2002 February: Going public
    PayPal issues its Initial Public Offering.

    2002 October: PayPal is acquired by eBay for US$1.5 Billion. Thus, the merger of the world’s largest auction site and online payments system.

    2002 October: PayPal becomes available in Euros and Pound Sterling.

    Recap
    1 Governments & FBI outlawed Paypal’s business model which could bypass the FED
    2 Paypal forced to merge with Ebay to survive
    3 Paypal forced to participate in fraud stings with the FBI

    SpaceX Rockets, Tesla Elec Car, Mars Missions, Hyperloop,
    all these growing boondoggles serve to distract from the obvious fact that the US Govt has nationalized all financial services and payment systems in the Western world.

    Everywhere they ratchet down the largest permissible size of cash transactions. And increase reporting requirements. We’re all going to be living off Obamacare-EBT-HUD-Cash4Clunkers-~ Grid Dollar~ cards in a year or two.

    At the same time, parts yards are “bad for the environment.” Shade tree mechanics are zoned out of existence. Autos are becoming just another empty consumer good.
    Without a way to independently store value in money. Without a way to independently create valuable large dollar consumer goods like new or restored cars,

    Once all cars are just large dollar consumer goods they aren’t going to amount to much more than a fuhhhtball type of distraction. Go Chevy! Go Ravens! Go Ron Paul! I buy books and vote libertarian and become freeeeeeee! Free is things that I need. Things that make me go!

    • Tor, you have a true gift for understatement.

      You know, I know Peter’s cousin Nick? Ron makes for an excellent bag man; all bark, no bite.

      • Peter Thiel’s Discusses his Now Thoroughly Droned, Waterboarded, & Neutralized Paypal in a 1999 speech.

        “We’re definitely onto something big. The need PayPal answers is monumental. Everyone in the world needs money – to get paid, to trade, to live. Paper money is an ancient technology and an inconvenient means of payment. You can run out of it. It wears out. It can get lost or stolen. In the twenty-first century, people need a form of money that’s more convenient and secure, something that can be accessed from anywhere with a PDA or an Internet connection. Of course, what we’re calling ‘convenient’ for American users will be revolutionary for the developing world. Many of these countries’ governments play fast and loose with their currencies,” the former derivatives trader [referring to Thiel] noted, before continuing, “They use inflation and sometimes wholesale currency devaluations, like we saw in Russia and several Southeast Asian countries last year [referring to the 1998 Russian financial crisis and 1997 Asian financial crisis], to take wealth away from their citizens. Most of the ordinary people there never have an opportunity to open an offshore account or to get their hands on more than a few bills of a stable currency like U.S. dollars. Eventually PayPal will be able to change this. In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before. It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or Pounds or Yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure.”

          • In Gold we trust…I like that. What was once America will never again exist unless gold is restored as the official money. As Greenspan understood before he sold out. Gold is the invulnerable bulwark against overbearing government, which is why the government of the USSA will not voluntarily allow it to again become the official medium of exchange.

            • Indeed – and perhaps for the most subtle reason of all: It takes the power of money out of the hands of government. If gold is legal tender, then anyone who has gold has money. Gold can be prospected; it is fungible. It isn’t “issued” exclusively by a central bank with a legal monopoly.

          • Dear Mike,

            One could write an entire satirical article on that missing “l” and its implications.

            How trust in a fictitious entity called “god” or its secular counterpart “government,” displaced trust in a genuine, tangible entity called “gold,” and led to eventual, inevitable disaster.

          • Dear Eric,

            “for the most subtle reason of all: It takes the power of money out of the hands of government.”

            Exactly.

            Hence the Star Chamber “trial” of Bernard von Hothaus for the non-crime of offering honest money as an alternative to the feds’ funny money.

    • “Ron Paul= received stolen loot & voluntary donations while producing words and talk about ending the Fed.”

      Thanks for giving me an opening for posting this link:
      http://www.dcdave.com/article5/120314.htm

      I remember DC Dave from my pre W FR days. He got banned for being right about W. I think he gets it right on Half-steppin’ Ron as well.

      • Hi Ed,

        RP is not perfect. I’m certainly not perfect. But I believe his record shows him to be an honest man who spent a lifetime advocating for liberty at great cost to himself. I’ve seen no evidence of malicious or duplicitous intent. I’ve seen the opposite. Without Ron Paul, the liberty movement would probably still be a fringe movement. Instead, it has grown and spread such that even the GOP has had to take some cognizance of its existence. Though treating RP and Libertarians despicably, they have not been able to dismiss Libertarian ideas out of hand, or ignore them. These ideas have percolated to a much wider audience and have begun to resonate. All one need do to confirm this is compare the situation circa 1990 with the situation now. While not yet mainstream, Libertarian ideas are being discussed at a level that would have been inconceivable in 1990. Much of this is due to the tireless advocacy of Ron Paul. Were he a younger man, I have no doubt he’d keep on trying. But the fact is he has given a tremendous amount of his life to the cause – and I will defend him until presented with fair reason not to defend him. DC Dave hasn’t provided it. I think DC Dave has been grossly unfair to a great man.

        • ” DC Dave hasn’t provided it. I think DC Dave has been grossly unfair to a great man.”

          Well, I think he was more than fair. Paul’s campaign did exactly as DC Dave described under exactly the circumstances Dave detailed in the article.

          The first segment of the article was a fictional explanation of the CPAC toss-off by the Paul campaign, but the second part, decribing his campaign’s total abdication of the Virginia primary season was actual, factual reporting of the way Paul simply stayed away from the one state where he could have shown the Romney campaign a beating that they would never have been able to shake off.

          I have no idea what Paul intended by his campaign for the nomination, but it certainly wasn’t to actually win the nomination.

          I gave money to his campaigns in ’08 and ’12. If he had said up front that he was going to deliberately run a losing campaign as a teaching experience, a`la the LP’s regular practice of losing deliberately, I would have saved the money.

          Paul is just a man, not a “great man”. This hero worship bullshit is pointless.

      • Dear Ed,

        Ron Paul is unique. He cannot be lumped in with his “peers” in the House of Representatives and the Senate. He has no peers. There has not been anyone remotely like him in the US Congress since Robert Taft.

        Paul was motivated solely by his idealism, and he did his utmost to work for liberty from within the system. One may argue that attempting to work for liberty from within the system is futile and counterproductive.

        But one cannot accuse Ron Paul of doing so for the sake of narrow self-aggrandizement. To do so does a grave disservice to him and to the cause of liberty.

        I agree with Eric, and Lew Rockwell. Ron Paul deserves our gratitude and respect.

        • “Ron Paul is unique.”

          Well shit, Bevin, so are you. That doesn’t make any point at all. To say he’s one of a kind in Congress doesn’t mean much either. Sure he was different from all the rest in that cesspool, but why didn’t he use that to his advantage?

          “But one cannot accuse Ron Paul of doing so for the sake of narrow self-aggrandizement.”

          Nobody accused him of that, Bevin. DC Dave pointed out that Paul let some duplicitous GOP ratfuckers spike his campaign. The ones who did it worked for him, and were paid out of money donated by people who assumed he was trying to win. He probably did it out of cluelessness, if we’re to give him the benefit of the doubt.

          “Ron Paul deserves our gratitude and respect.”

          Well, whatever. You and Lew and Eric pay him gratitude. I think he owes me my money back, since he wasted it paying his GOP operatives to throw the campaign.

          • Dear Ed,

            To make a long story short, allow me to resort to an analogy.

            When it comes to political transformation, societies are like the Bill Murray character in “Groundhog Day.” They only learn the hard way. Never the easy way.

            They operate under the deeply rooted delusion that their current belief system is “practical,” that it enables them to “survive,” and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a “tinfoil hat nutjob.”

            They will never relinquish their current belief system, they will never move on, until they experience, first hand, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that their current belief system is simply no longer feasible and must be completely jettisoned.

            Without realizing it, sincere minarchists such as Ron Paul, who is honestly trying to make his current belief system work, are unwittingly contributing to the Bill Murray, learn only the hard way, enlightenment process.

            By exhausting every alternative within the system, Ron Paul and other sincere minarchists are contributing to the long term total disillusionment not just with maxarchism/Big Government, but even with minarchism/small government.

            Unfortunately there are no shortcuts, because “all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

            The Reluctant Anarchist, by Joseph Sobran
            http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/sobran-j1.html

      • Take a dive? CPAC wants the crowd RP can bring but it doesn’t want to recognize the real message of that crowd.

        as to contender, It is just not 1968 any more. The systems in place just don’t let non-approved people get that close anymore. If someone did, the same thing would happen.

        • Take a dive? CPAC wants the crowd RP can bring but it doesn’t want to recognize the real message of that crowd.

          as to contender, It is just not 1968 any more. The systems in place just don’t let non-approved people get that close anymore. If someone did, the same thing would happen.

          The point is that Paul ran a campaign that never even tried to take it to Romney in any way that became available to him.

          The great teaching experience we gained is that you can’t kill a snake by living in its belly. We can no longer claim not to know that there’s no political solution available.

          Here’s what I learned from ’08 and ’12: Stay home. Don’t vote. Don’t listen. Don’t waste time, money or energy on electoral politics.

          I’m glad Paul is no longer in Congress, because now there’s not a single honest human being in either the House or the Senate. I can now safely say “Fuck ’em all”.

          Y’all can all stop acting like I farted in church, now.

          • What I don’t understand is why so many people are so hurt because the RP campaign turned left when they said it should have turned right, says they didn’t try hard enough, and other such nonsense.

            RP would not be the nominee. Plain and simple. Team R and the media showed that very clearly by their behavior. If it had been the least bit ‘fair’ RP would have been the nominee even with doing what some say they shouldn’t have done.

          • From my observation of the campaign, it appeared that the GOP and others did what they could to marginalize RP whenever possible.

            I remember Jon Stewart showing a compilation of media clips covering Iowa. IIRC, RP was second in polling, but his name was not mentioned in the series of clips covering the results in Iowa.

            At times it appeared as if there was a concerted effort to prevent RP from spreading his message to the public. In addition, it seems that there was an effort to keep RP from making any headway to winning the nomination.

            IIRC, there were some people that were upset at the RP campaign for following the rules and accumulating delegates. There was talk of changing the rules to make it more difficult for another person to do what RP’s campaign did in acquiring delegates.

            I am glad there was some like RP running. He did much to change the topics of discussion to more serious topics. Talk of the FED, national debt, our need to stop meddling in other countries are some topics that rarely saw serious dialogue nationally before RP. Hopefully the dialogue can continue in a positive manner and not be soon forgotten.

            I apologize a bit for my rambling, but I can not fault RP for the effort he made. Too bad he was not 20 years younger and still able to continue spreading the message. This work is now left for others to continue.

          • Dear Brent,

            I agree.

            Looking back especially, it was clear the fix was in from Day One.

            Some of us hoped that maybe TPTB might slip up and give Paul an opening.

            But that was really hoping for a miracle. Sort of like rooting for the underdog in a Hollywood “triumph of the human spirit” sports movie.

          • Dear Mith,

            ” He did much to change the topics of discussion to more serious topics. Talk of the FED, national debt, our need to stop meddling in other countries are some topics that rarely saw serious dialogue nationally before RP. ”

            That of course, was exactly why TPTB were determined to marginalize him.

            But their “success” will backfire.

            Again, it’s “The Battle of Algiers” model for revolutionary transformation. The more TPTB confirm that there is no solution within the system, the more people begin to realize solutions must be sought outside the system.

  8. A lot of name calling on the issue of EV’s, the Tesla ‘S’ and the debatable Broder article. I will trow this on the fire.

    “On Wednesday evening Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk posted a response to John Broder’s Tesla Model S review in last weekend’s NY Times. That review portrayed the Model S as unable to finish a simple road trip, while Musk’s response, with its detailed data, instead claims that Broder’s article was very inaccurate, or worse. While Musk praises the NY Times for its reputation for honest and fair reporting, his blog post describes Broder’s article as inaccurate or a fabrication and calls on the NY Times to investigate.

    Broder’s article was ostensibly meant to be to test the Tesla Model S on a fairly typical road trip, from Washington D.C. to Connecticut, and back. We went over the trip previously in NY Times’ writer Broder makes EV rookie mistakes on failed Model S road trip. The short version of the story is that he traveled from Washington D.C. north, stopping at the Supercharger stations in Delaware and Milford Conn. along the way. These Supercharger stations were installed in December and are the first part of the Supercharger network on the East Coast. Eventually the Supercharger network is meant to allow owners of the Tesla Model S, Model X and future Tesla electric cars, to drive coast-to-coast on electricity. It would be more than interesting to see careful testing of Tesla’s claims for that network.

    Broder made several mistakes along his trip such as not ensuring the car was fully charged at critical parts of the trip. He ended up in a not-terribly-remote part of Connecticut (Norwich) with insufficient range to make it back to Milford. He ended up stranded on the side of the highway, and was able to take a picture of the Tesla Model S on a flatbed tow truck.

    On Monday, Elon Musk took to Twitter and a CNBC interview to slam Broder’s article, promising a detailed blog post. Which was not published until Wednesday afternoon. That blog post tells a story similar to the conclusions we drew in the article linked earlier (“EV rookie mistakes”) but has detailed data to back up the reasoning.

    That blog post makes a list of claims that run counter to what Broder claimed. Each side in this argument has made claims, the question is which side is correct and are either of them purposely fabricating evidence?

    A key fact remains in all the details printed below. Broder only recharged to 73% at the Milford Supercharger station. If his intent was to travel to Boston, the route he chose was 163 miles, and a 90% recharge would have given the car a 242 miles range, and a 100% recharge would have given it a 260+ mile range. That would have ensured a comfortable arrival in Boston. In addition, Broder could have chosen a different route to Boston, that required fewer miles, and had more public J1772 charging stations to use as a backup charging solution. For some reason Broder failed to do any of that, and it isn’t explained why by either himself or Tesla.

    Musk claims:

    The Model S driven by Broder never completely ran out of energy. Broder claimed that his Model S locked up so badly the tow truck driver had to drag it onto the truck, and then had to spend 20 minutes at the Supercharger before the car would turn itself on sufficiently enough for the car to roll off the truck.

    The final leg of Broder’s trip was a 61 mile distance, but he unplugged the charging cord when the estimated range remaining was 32 miles. This is one of the rookie mistakes we mentioned earlier. What Musk claims is that his choice to unplug the charging cable was expressly against advice from the Tesla service department.

    Musk claims that on the final leg of Broder’s trip he drove right past several public charging stations. He had a dashboard warning him emphatically to stop and charge. He could easily have stopped at any of these charging stations to do some charging. One is at the Saybrook Inn in Saybrook, there is a car dealership also in Saybrook with a charging station, the East Haven Town Hall has one, and there is one in New London not too far off the route he took.

    Broder claims that early in his trip he set the cruise control to 54 miles/hr, and at times drove as slow as 45 miles/hr on the freeway. Musk claims that the vehicle data logs show the cruise control was never set to 54 miles/hr, that he never limped along at 45 miles/hr, and instead drove at speeds between 65 miles/hr and 81 miles/hr. While we can understand the temptation to enjoy the ultra high speed and acceleration of the Model S, it’s a matter of simple physics that higher speeds require more energy and if the goal is to complete a long road trip one must not lead foot it.

    Broder also claimed to have turned the climate control down, but vehicle data longs show he never did so, had it set to 72 degrees and even raised it once to 74 degrees.

    In Milford, Broder claimed to have spent 58 minutes recharging but, according to Musk, vehicle data logs show that charge session was only 47 minutes. It gave him a 185 mile driving range but if he’d have simply waited another 11 minutes the range would have been enough for the trip with no need for a tow truck.

    Basically there is a big gap between the claims by John Broder and Tesla Motors. On the 12th Broder wrote a follow-up posting claiming that his initial report was accurate, and that he had indeed done all the things he said. Musk’s post includes graphs from the vehicle log data annotated with details showing what he actually did.

    Musk’s blog post has two details which we can quibble over. First, he never explains why the Tesla service person sent Broder to Norwich to use a public charging station there. He could have driven south and used one of the two stations in Saybrook, instead. Second a map is shown listing all the charging stations along Broder’s route, however that map doesn’t reach as far as Norwich but stops in East Haven. If that map had gone as far as Norwich it would have shown there is less electric car recharging infrastructure in that vicinity. It also calls into question why Broder went to Norwich when there are other highway corridors leading to Boston with more charging stations.

    Broder’s followup post claims his goal was to test the Supercharger network, not to test driving the Model S on a long road trip. In that case why would he try to make it to Boston when the east coast network is not yet built out sufficiently? Any halfway experienced EV driver will know to do some research into alternate routes and charging stations before setting out on a long trip.

    The core question here is reputation and truthfulness. Both are casting doubt on each others credibility. For example, in addition to the errors Musk points out, he notes that in the past Broder has written articles claiming “the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate.” Musk apparently wants to paint Broder as being predisposed to not like the Tesla Model S, or any other electric car. While the NY Times has a high reputation they are not without tarnish, and some of their reporters have been known to create fabrications (cough cough, Judith Miller).”

    • “Musk claims that the vehicle data logs show the cruise control was never set to 54 miles/hr, that he never limped along at 45 miles/hr, and instead drove at speeds between 65 miles/hr and 81 miles/hr. While we can understand the temptation to enjoy the ultra high speed and acceleration of the Model S, it’s a matter of simple physics that higher speeds require more energy and if the goal is to complete a long road trip one must not lead foot it.”

      Italics added.

      Ha!

      This 400 hp six figure exotic is taxed when it is driven at the “ultra high speed” of 81 MPH…..

    • Like I said in an earlier post, you gots 2 amoral sociopaths and proven liars duking it out for “credibility” that neither ever had. This whole thing is pointless white noise of the statist sack-of-shit MSM.

  9. Another news organization (CNN, IIRC) has now driven the same route and made it with nearly 100 miles range left.

    BUT, they didn’t stop overnight & the air temperature was 20F warmer.

    The NYT article exposes the extremely poor cold-weather performance of the Model S’s battery pack.

    It is not always possible to ‘plug-in’, and in the NYT’s case that resulted in more than 2/3 loss of range literally overnight.

    Until the above issue is fixed the Model S CANNOT serve as a viable year-round, everyday vehicle in cold areas like the northeastern U.S.

  10. PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINES

    I’m fairly certain that frustrated genius Wile E. Coyote has tried them all. To his repeated dismay they all disappointed him.

    tgsam

  11. Wired carried news of Elon’s refutation. I actually HAVE a Model S, since last November. It is, without a doubt, the future carried back to the present. I have driven it almost every day since then and have had excellent experience with it. I recently drove it from the California foothills to San Francisco and parked in a public parking garage with charging. I made the return drive the same day and had NO problems whatsoever. Eric, have YOU spent a week with a Model S, much less months? You are criticizing that which you may not have personal experience with. This car IS NOT LIKE ANY OTHER ELECTRIC THAT HAS GONE BEFORE. Please go get some firsthand experience.

    • Hi Steve,

      I’d love to try the Tesla; so far I haven’t been able to arrange a test drive. I suspect in part it’s because I don’t live in an area suited to the car. California is temperate. I’m located in rural SW Virginia, up in the mountains – where it routinely gets very cold. Musk has more or less admitted that his car, like all electric cars so far, suffers reduced performance in cold conditions – both from battery energy loss as well as the additional drain resulting from the use of accessories such as the heater. This is why GM did not offer the Impact in cold weather areas (ditto other manufacturers who have offered EVs). And it’s why Nissan hasn’t sent me a Leaf. The car can’t make it here from DC (where the media fleets are headquartered) in one trip. The delivery driver would have to stop roughly every 70 miles to recharge. I’m 220 miles down the road.

      But that’s not what really troubles me about the car. The real flaw, as I see it, is the concept behind it. That being a luxury-high performance exotic electric car. It’s a contradiction in terms. Anyone in a position to purchase a Tesla is a person for whom the cost of gas – of personal transportation itself – is irrelevant. But an EV is fundamentally about getting from A to B less expensively (and hopefully, with greater ease) than by using an IC-powered car. The Tesla is both extremely expensive and ownership entails hassles such as having to organize your driving around diminished driving range and extended recharge times.

      The icing on the cake? Here’s a six figure car that touts its 400 horsepower drivetrain … the full potential of which you dare not use much, unless you want to risk depleting the batteries and possibly finding yourself conked out by the side of the road.

  12. In Broder’s follow up article, linked above, he says he was criticized for driving 75MPH which increases power drain.

    I don’t know about you but, if I pay over $100k for a car that’s advertised as having over 400HP and I can’t drive 75…ahh…I’ll stick with a diesel Rabbit.

  13. Power density is the critical factor when it comes to the success of electric cars.
    A 300 mile range with a 15 minute recharge time will be the only things that make electric cars a success.
    We are not there yet . . . and will likely not be there for some time to come.

  14. I simply do not trust anything written in or for the NY Times. I’d like to see someone objective like Eric take the same test drive and read his review. He obviously has great opinions about cars, the state, and liberty but at least we’d get an honest review and not whatever this shill Broder’s garbage that actually gives more fodder to the “only the state can do this” crowd once Broder’s claims are denounced. That isn’t to say that the Tesla logs couldn’t be false, but I’m saying that it’s unlikely and I’m more inclined to believe Musk over the NY Times any day, even if he is sucking at the public teat.

    • I expect them to lie as well, but they have an agenda they push. That agenda would normally be for electric cars. That agenda is for government stealing the people’s money and giving it to people like Musk creating what they think is a good idea.

      For the NYTimes to lie to say the car is bad doesn’t make sense to me. I would expect them to lie to say it can turn lead into gold, that it makes the sun shine on rainy day and all that sort of thing.

    • I’ll put in a query – but I doubt Musk would let me near a Tesla.

      However, I can tell you about my experiences with the plug-in Prius. It operates as an EV for 10-plus miles at 55-60 MPH. I know because I did exactly that with it. But (and as Broder discovered with the Tesla) if you drive it significantly faster, the EV range drops rapidly. Also – in the Prius – if you need to accelerate quickly – such as to merge or pass – the gas engine steps in as soon as you apply more light pressure on the accelerator pedal. In the Tesla, there’s no gas engine back-up and I expect that the demand of pulling a 5,000 lb. car rapidly – as when accelerating to merge or pass – will deplete the battery very noticeably and very rapidly. The company told Broder as much – cautioning him about driving faster than 55.

      I can’t say for sure because I have not driven the Tesla myself, but what Broder wrote struck me as likely true, based on my own experience with EVs and hybrids and also based on what I know about the performance of batteries.

      They work ok when the load is light or intermittent. But heavy, continuous loads? Not so much.

    • Interesting.
      Now why would the NYTimes lie?
      The only reason I can think of is my theory that once an alternative that didn’t work, looked like it could never work, suddenly starts to work, the control freaks need a reason to kill it. (like wind power)

      I still wouldn’t buy a car that requires a 58 minute refueling. And that has to be murder on the cells. I wouldn’t treat a forty thousand dollar battery that way. I don’t even treat my $1 NiMh AAs that way. (well since I learned how it hurts them)

    • Without addressing the veracity of the remainder of Tesla’s claims, let’s consider this statement:

      “According to Tesla, Broder was given explicit instructions for his drive: keep the speed at 55 mph and turn down the climate control.”

      So, here’s a six-figure exotic that can’t keep up with the routine flow of traffic on I-95 (running a lot faster than 55 MPH) and which requires the driver to shiver like an Eskimo all the while.

      Yeah, that’s the ticket!

    • This most interesting thing to me is that Wired requested the logs and were refused according to the end of the article…

      I just went back there again to see if there was an update, and “bingo”…there’s logs in graphic format from Tesla.

  15. My brother is a mechanic at a Toyota dealership. Yesterday at a training class he was given a Prius and told to disable the engine and see how far he could go on electric power only. He “cheated” and tricked the car into overcharging the batteries. He went 1.7 miles before the battery was drained to its limit. Out of 10 people he made it the furthest.

  16. Lot’s of comments here, I was wondering if anyone knew anything about cars with batteries with liquid electrolytes that could be changed out easier to make refueling less of a problem? I remember some manufacturers researching this approach, but never heard much about it. I guess that means it failed, I’d be interested in knowing why though.

    • Hi NC,

      I think someone got into this subject lower down in the thread… .

      Probably the main obstacle to a viable EV is weight. Put another way, the constraints imposed by government in the name of “safety” have given us absurdly over-heavy cars. Getting a heavy car to be functionally (and economically) viable as an EV is a daunting challenge.

      Did you know the Tesla S weighs almost 5,000 pounds? That is easily 1,000 pounds more than my mid-1970s Pontiac Trans-Am … a V-8 muscle car with a heavy-ass bolt-on steel front subframe!

      But if it were possible to legally build a 1,600 lb. electric car then many of the current problems would be greatly reduced.

      What we’ve got are conflicting demands: High efficiency – and “safety.” You could perhaps achieve both with composites as opposed to steel or alloy. But then you’ve got cost to wrangle with.

  17. CloverSo if I understand you correctly. Broder makes claims about the car, Tesla pulls the log for the car contradicting his claims, and you believe Broder?!?

    I have to stand in awe of the vapid stupidity of your remarks. Maybe someone should service your car based upon your impressions and just never hook your car (if you have one) to a diagnostic machine. You’re up there with all the economists who believe wealth can be created by printing money despite all the clear factual evidence to the contrary!!! As someone who has worked in IT for quite a number of years, only the daft and dumb would try to contradict the logs of the system in question. It’s one of the reason we make logs of all of the key elements of the system. So that we can actually diagnose and address the ACTUAL problems of the system. That you are unable to grasp this most basic of facts speaks volumes to the lack of your intellectual abilities. W Edwards Deming would be rolling over in his grave at the vapidity of your remarks. Please, please stick to lighter stories about entertainment. You’re obviously out of your domain!Clover

    • Jay,

      Have you driven any electric cars? Do you have any direct, personal experience with them?

      I have. With all of them to date – except for the Tesla. All the way back to the GM Impact in the ’90s.

      Broder’s experience jibes with mine.

      You work in IT. Do you have any practical mechanical engineering knowledge? I do.

      Do you know anything about the effect of temperature extremes on batteries? About the effect of accessory loads (heaters, AC, etc.) on battery performance?

      I’m not out to “get” Tesla. I just don’t see how the car makes any sense – from an economic or engineering point-of-view.

      You don’t bring any facts to the table – just petty insults.

    • I find his log comment looking rather false. Why?
      Because detours do not change range. A simple statement that the car went the advertised range would have been enough.

      Anyways… I pretty much understand how the advertised range came about. The marketing department looks at an engineering test and picks the range measured under ideal circumstances. They don’t hear engineers who say ‘but when it’s cold range is cut by XX%’

      • I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss Musk’s claims about the logs…I think that needs a little more fleshing out.

        I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding/inaccuracy someplace…one would to believe that most writers for the NYT’s would be cheerleading battery tech. as the Black Jesus has been pushing green energy and it’s politically compatible with their agenda.

        I also have to believe that a NYT writer would know that if he reported on such an event like this as he did that his career would be on the line accordingly.

        My $10 says that Musk’s engineer are lying or manipulating the truth to avoid his fury….and Musk doesn’t realize it yet.

        • Agreed –

          I’ll tell you this for a sure thing: If I wrote a review that was factually in error – let alone deliberately maligned the car – there would be hell to pay. Any car journalist will tell you the same thing. It’s one thing to offer an opinion – including a critical one. So long as it’s fact-based, you’re ok. But if you get the facts wrong – and it goes into print – they will call you on it.

          If Broder fudged the facts, he’s an idiot. That may prove to be the case. However, I doubt it. I wrote what I wrote (supporting Broder) because I have experience with other electric cars and thus what he stated struck me as reasonable and even likely given my own experiences. The Tesla is not “miracle technology.” It’s similar to other EVs I’ve tested – and if anything, has more built-in design liabilities (such as being preposterously overweight) and with excessive emphasis (for an EV) on acceleration/performance vs. economical operation.

        • In another autos forum I stated that the NYTimes is the most friendly mainstream media outlet there probably could be for an electric car. The odds of them lying with regard to poor performance of such a car is aproximately zero. If they were to lie it would be towards the positive.

  18. Just because most successful car companies historically started off by mass producing a cheap profitable high volume product does not mean that the Tesla strategy of starting off by selling a luxury product to rich people will not succeed. It could succeed, but the product will have to offer value to the buyers, which seems very questionable. Clover was not necessarily wrong about the strategy, just he was childishly presumptuous about whether the luxury Tesla will be profitable. Not to mention arrogant in his attitude toward those who didn’t agree with him.

    As bad as it is that government thugs and their fellow gang members like Mooch, or is it Musk, stole money to use for investing in Tesla, let’s recognize that the Tesla company could make some valuable advances in electric driven car technology. It’s possible and Eric should not be so sure that it’s hopeless to invest in battery powered car technology.

    So maybe it’s not a complete boondoggle. Let’s look at the bright side; unlike most government spending, the Tesla subsidies are not money spent on theft (IRS), sexual assault (TSA), torture (enhanced interrogations), kidnapping (extraordinary rendition), spying, murder (drones), dismemberment (war), or destruction(war).

    • Hi Andy,

      Well, it would be a first!

      I’ve got 20-plus years in the car business, so I hope by now I’ve learned a little about the way it works. With regard to high-end stuff, a great deal of what people buy into is the brand – the status associated with it. (For example, while the VW Phaeton was a fine car, it was still perceived as “just a VW” – and few people were willing to spend Audi-BMW-Benz money on “just a VW.”)

      Tesla’s got a similar problem. There’s no “equity” in the brand.

      If anything, it’s become something of a joke – and that’s the last thing a person with $60,000-plus to spend on a new car wants.

      Then there’s the other problem:

      Yes, the Tesla is attractive, quick and equipped with all the latest luxury/convenience equipment. But all that is available in name-brand luxury sedans for much less money – and without any worry about the car conking out after less than 200 miles (or even 100 miles). When you buy a high-end car, you want the thing to – you know – get you there. Imagine being the proud owner of a new Tesla that can’t make a trip (without lengthy stops to recharge) that any $3,000 beater 12-year-old Corolla can make without any fuss or muss… .

      Bottom line: If Tesla’s concept is sound he would not need to force people to subsidize it. He’d have investors freely lining up to fund the operation.

    • “let’s recognize that the Tesla company could make some valuable advances in electric driven car technology.”

      I am very sorry to jump in on the discussion between you two, but I wanted to point out that the core tech for the Tesla was actually developed primarily by one guy, I believe the “Wrightspeed” fella…who sold its rights to Musk/Tesla.(interestingly his prototype used an Atom frame…which makes complete sense)

      I’m not sure if that guy was the recepient of gov’t largese…but it’s important to note that Tesla hasn’t really contributed a ton technologically despite the gov’t pouring dollars into it.

      Fisker has been an even larger disaster and has added virtually nothing.

  19. I had a brief conversation via e-mail with Musk as he was getting Tesla off the ground.

    I wrote him to let him know I appreciated his R&D efforts and wished him success. At that time, which he didn’t know-I was developing designs for a battery powered motorcycle.

    What struck me at the time of my discussions is that he didn’t even know what a “Tool & Die” shop was(I own one)….let’s just say a fundamental building block in manufacturing in the auto industry.

    I had to explain what we did to him…lol

    Anyway, he’s seems like a good guy-he’s just like a lot of these internet millionaire/billionaires. They made their money quick and young and don’t have hardly any practical experience outside of the internent/software/coding.

    Musk’s “second” education in regard to entrepeneurship is ongoing and obviously not going well. There’s a reason you can’t get this type of education in any college any where.

    Anyway, back to my final points:

    1. I don’t think Musk thinks of taking gov’t subsidies beyond his attempt to “do good” as theft(even though it is)…he’s been focused on running companies and neglected developing deeper personal philosophies(naturally) so try not to be too hard on him. (he is still losing a ton of money)

    2. In regard to Eric’s comment on battery technology/weakness, etc. A couple of years ago I developed a significant “component” to deal with all the issues surrounding use the use of various Lithium battery technologies. Not much has changed at that time and I’m not trying to deploy/invest more money until the recent rash of bankruptcys, merger’s, etc. shake out.

    I believe there is a potential market for electric cars, but the model Musk attempted was similar to many other industries that were successful in that way, like the CD player. It started with “high end” users able to afford its adoption cost and dropped over time.

    However, my belief is that this model is incorrect for electric vehicles. Unlike CD players, there is alternative viable(better) technology already out there for the same “mission” so to speak.

    In my estimate, success for battery vehicles will only come by coming from a “bottom up” approach, frankly like the “Model T”, and which the expectations are managed accordingly.

    If someone could drop $10k on an electric car and knew it was only good for around town stuff-around 75 miles total range(which is 85% of our driving) I’ll bet there would plenty of takers.

    That being said, people should be deploying their own capital. Having spent so much time myself in both research & development on battery technology myself and talking to Musk I figured I might chime in.

    Best regards to all!

    • Thanks for your input, Nick – especially as regards the issue of high-end consumer electronics vs. cars.

      Efficiency of operation and total cost of ownership are the paramount considerations. Not style. Not acceleration. Just: Is it cheaper to buy/operate than a conventional (IC) or hybrid car?

      So far, the answer is – no.

      When you add to this the functional compromises such as a best-case range that’s less than the routine/average range of an IC car with just half a tank of fuel – and which in less-than-ideal operating conditions may plummet to a third or less the range of an IC car with half a tank of fuel… plus “refueling” (recharging) times of an hour or more, under best-case conditions… well… who is going to sign up for that?

      PS: Interesting in re Musk’s not knowing what “tool and die” meant. I suspected as much. If I’m correct in my suspicion – that Musk has little, if any, theoretical or practical understanding of mechanical engineering – then it’s all the more outrageous that he’s so arrogant about his taxpayer-funded toy.

      • “Efficiency of operation and total cost of ownership are the paramount considerations. Not style. Not acceleration. Just: Is it cheaper to buy/operate than a conventional (IC) or hybrid car?

        So far, the answer is – no. ”

        Yes, this is the crux of the issue.

        Something for everyone to think about:

        My belief is that if there were ZERO gov’t regulations, this type of vehicle might be about already.

        Superlight, carbon fiber(or equally light) material, bare bones…low cost. (although the same could be said for a IC powered car…so there’s that)

        I’m not sure today’s business environment/regs can even allow for a battery powered vehicle/Model T style event.

        (hence my shelving my own technology and playing a waiting game…though I’ve entertained doing it outside the US and via other models….but I’m at the mercy of what the big boy lithium battery companies are doing/not doing)

        I quickly realized there’s not much point to using such technology for motorcycles for a variety of reasons at this point in its development.

        • Hi Nick,

          Yup!

          Merely shaving 500 pounds off the curb weight of the average new (IC) car would have a dramatic – positive – effect on fuel efficiency. A hybrid that weighed say 1,600 lbs. or so could probably achieve close to 100 MPG (the original Honda Insight hybrid coupe was capable of 70 or more).

          But…. there would be comprises. The car would probably not be as “safe” as government standards require. Or it would be be very small (Insight) and lacking amenities most people expect.

          It’s an economic-engineering Catch 22. You can’t have it all in the same car. You’ve got to prioritize – and accept compromises.

          Because… there’s no such thing as a free lunch!

      • The image in my head of Tesla product development looks like this:

        Technically cluess guy at the top.
        His friends as vice presidents.
        corporate political types as directors (likely good at school types)
        Good at school engineering managers
        A mixture of technically good engineers and good at school engineers.

        Somewhere in that mix on the lowest level is an engineer who argued for proper BMS to prevent the car from becoming a brick. He may have been fired by now.

        This is simply a projection of my own experiences from the limited data and observable product outcome. I have -zero- factual knowledge of Tesla motors’ internal operation, this represents a gut feel. Disclaimer complete 🙂

        • I don’t know the specific issues they(Tesla) are having surrounding battery use/life….but I can only offer that a properly designed battery pack can even overcome a substandard BMS…and can even negate the need for one if the speed controller has the proper capabilities.

          In my testing I found that the dominant manufacturer specs for a certain size I was working with weren’t exactly in line with my testing. They were still good though, just not in line with the spec sheets.

          I can imagine engineers @ Tesla reading spec sheets & designing packs on that basis without enough real world testing….

          • I am referring to the fact that the Tesla becomes a brick if not charged for mere weeks, like two months.

            From what I recall they are using quality cells so that means the BMS is at fault for allowing the cells to drop too low.

        • That’s my sense of things, too.

          I just can’t imagine someone with even basic knowledge about how cars work – and what people expect from their cars – to believe a car like the Tesla could ever be more than a toy. A rich man’s bauble. An accessory – for people with money to burn.

          To believe a car like the Tesla has any prospect of being a viable production car capable of recouping the money put into creating it – and earning a profit – strikes me as the product of ignorance or arrogance or some combination of both.

        • The image in my head of Tesla product development looks like this:

          Technically cluess guy at the top. His friends as vice presidents. corporate political types as directors (likely good at school types)
          Good at school engineering managers A mixture of technically good engineers and good at school engineers.

          Somewhere in that mix on the lowest level is an engineer who argued for proper BMS to prevent the car from becoming a brick. He may have been fired by now.

          Brent, I think you’ve nailed it. This is EXACTLY how the typical DotCom boondoggle was run back in the ’90s (been there, done that). Given Musk’s background, I have no doubt whatsoever that he’s been running Tesla Motors the way he’s been running his tech enterprises. While he obviously (and, I’d say, miraculously) got away with it in in the tech sector (hence his fortune), that approach in an engineering-based firm will only end in disaster (it usually does in the tech sector too; see the DotCom meltdown of 2000-2001 for example) – especially if his welfare handouts from the gubbimint ultimately dry up and he has to rely solely on his own capital.

  20. Wow!Murphy said a mouthful,I watched that segment on a engine runnng basically on water,beat anything I had ever seen,still dont believe in the “Fish” carburater or other urban Myths,FoMoCo has done research on vehicles utilizing hydraulic accumulaters,as far as the battery fiasco goes ,I think hybrid technology has pretty well solved that until a better source of electricity is developed,They have Class 8 tractor&trailer rigs running around large metro areas running battery packs and essentially a tiny APU to keep the batteries topped off,wouldnt work on the highway,but apparently works great around town,even seen an apu powered bus at PigeonForge(must have been somesort of Hybrid)
    While we can always do the best average,its hard for one size to fit all-Kevin

    • Hi Kevin,

      The hybrid concept is sound, I think. The problem is the “have your cake and eat it, too” conflicting requirements. It’s certainly technically and economically feasible to build an 1,800 lb. (or even less) hybrid, with a very small (1 liter, three-cylinder) engine that would be capable of operating on electric/battery power probably half or more of the time and so delivering 70-plus MPG overall. The problem is it would not be “safe” enough to meet federal standards – and also, too many buyers don’t understand that AC, power windows and other convenience/luxury features add weight and so reduce economy.

      There were 40-MPG capable cars 30 years ago – without the advantages of modern technology. But most of them were very basic cars, without AC and other such equipment.

      You can have low cost and high gas mileage – or you can have power/convenience/performance. But good luck combining all these things in one car!

      • Heh.. Start with a go-kart and work your way up. It won’t be long before it’s discovered where economical and federal mandates start to bang heads.

  21. OK, people smarter than me, a question.

    It seems the problem is with range and recharging. Right? If that’s the problem why not have a battery PACK that can be removed(unplugged) and have another unit popped in? I can see EV areas added to existing gas stations that would have a unit in which the removed pack would be placed, fully drained then fully recharged. It would be a conveyor belt type thing, put in low unit, remove fully charged at the other end. Perhaps the car could go on a lift or drive over a pit for removal/install.

    Outside doing something like that it will take a techno revolution to make an EV viable…IMHO

    • Hi Mark,

      “It seems the problem is with range and recharging. Right?”

      That’s part of the problem.

      As discussed in the article, another problem is performance decrease associated with temperature (heat as well as cold). Having to swap out a dead battery after 40 miles (or less) vs. waiting hour(s) for the batteries to recharge is still a PITAS, either way.

      Cost is the other big problem. The Tesla’s batteries cost $40,000 (not a typo). Put another way, the Tesla’s batteries cost more than a brand-new (and nicely optioned) BMW 3 Series sedan. Or, buy two Nissan Versas and put the money left over – about $10,000 – toward gas for the next several years.

    • They do exactly that with the electric forklifts at Costco and Sam’s club. The batteries are recharged in the back and can be swapped out in minutes. They weigh hundreds of pounds, so training is required. I see a couple of problems in applying this to personal vehicles. First, It can’t be done by the driver, like filling a tank. The weight of the batteries would make it impossible. A trained employee would have to be available 24?7. Secondly, what recourse does the driver have if he gets a defective battery that either strands him (possibly costing him his job or a big contract) or leaks and damages his car?

      • Hi Doug;

        It’s perfectly feasible to swap out batteries on forklifts as extra batteries are supplied by the rental arm of the fork company, at minimum cost. Each battery costs about 3-5K (AU) and are simply rented instead of purchased. Of course they’re heavy because they’re lead-acid type in a heavy steel box because they’re used as counterweight. They weigh anywhere between 700-1800kg and run from 24-48 volts.

        For cars they’d be lithium poly or lithium ion. Although much lighter, hugely expensive. A “swapover” battery station would have to invest millions and have a storage and charge capability for hundreds of flat batteries, including charged ones. We’d be looking at a service station around the size of WalMart.

        Swapovers would simply require driving up on a ramp or over a pit, where computer controlled robotics would replace it.

        Not only is the initial cost huge, the cheapest and easiest way to do it would require a “standardised” battery for ALL vehicles. As we know even that kind of stuff takes time.

    • Swap out packs are an existing idea. However the problem is that batteries are very dependent on how they are treated. So here you are with your $2000 or more well cared for battery pack and you trade it in for some fully charged pack of unknown condition.

      Even if the system has a way of checking you can end up with a pack that is barely acceptable and then after a few charge cycles when you need to swap it quick you find it is rejected for being used up.

      Who wants to be the guy who gets stuck with the bill for a new pack?

      I suppose there could be a battery pack leasing arrangement where some company owns all the packs always, but then that company pretty much owns your car too.

  22. TO ERIC PETERS: My contact email is entered. Contact me if the information I disclose at the end of the comment is something you want to discuss about perhaps breaking as a story. When you read it, you will know what I mean. This is a long comment.

    The whole game seems to be fixed in terms of picking electric hybrids as a winner for so called hybrid tech or alternative fuels in favor of the “electric car” using out of date technology. I am NO EXPERT in AUTOMOTIVE SCIENCE (but am an engineer), but years ago, mid 1980s, I saw a 60 minutes or similar news story about fuel efficient technologies that went down the memory hole, mainly about the late 1970s inventors of add on conversions for petrol-hydraulic hybrids that conservatively (and at affordable cost) let most existing model vehicles more than double mileage to about 75mpg. A car designed from the ground up as such could easily get over 140mpg, and would be mechanically simpler, cheaper, than existing conversions because (apparently) things necessary in mechanical petrol vehicles (like U joints) would NOT be needed. Before I comment further, read the following link stories. One is about Vincent Carman who invented it (and was given run around by government proofers until he ran out of cash apparently, do some searching online for more). Another was how Ernie Parker, an instructor at a technical college in Minnesota got his students together and designed an off the shelf capable conversion that worked well.

    http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1978-03-01/This-Car-Travels-75-Miles-on-a-Single-Gallon-of-Gasoline.aspx#axzz2Krgxly1r

    http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1977-11-01/Can-This-Transmission-Really-Double-Your-Cars-Mileage.aspx#axzz2Krgxly1r

    ADDITIONALLY, even wikipedia says that the EPA proved the concept again with an American Sedan in the 1990s. Doing this would allow all those Crown Victoria’s Eric Peters likes for cops to be cheaply converted for REAL mileage savings until ground up designs were made by Detroit (or the various Japanese and Korean companies since American auto companies have had almost 40 years now to get with the program and replicate what an independent penniless mechanic and a voc tech class and instructor each did off the shelf with 1970s tech). Here is what Wikipedia said about the EPA efforts (which have languished for about 20 years since):

    “In the 1990s, a team of engineers working at EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory succeeded in developing a revolutionary type of petro-hydraulic hybrid powertrain that would propel a typical American sedan car. The test car achieved over 80 mpg on combined EPA city/highway driving cycles. Acceleration was 0-60 mph in 8 seconds, using a 1.9 liter diesel engine. No lightweight materials were used.The EPA estimated that produced in high volumes the hydraulic components would add only $700 to the base cost of the vehicle.[34]”

    The fact is, any of the following combinations I am suggesting above and below are nothing more than the modestly creative combination of existing, long proven, off the shelf, long developed technologies from 1940 to the 1970s (as a rule) that would allow far better, more fuel efficient, mechanically simpler, safer, lighter, stronger, lower polluting cars at a FAR lower price than is available today. It would save lives, allow home mechanics to modify their simpler, more affordable vehicles, convert old ones, and reduce the price (but perhaps increase margins) of newer ones. At some point, if American companies do not intelligently adopt these technologies (or the more advanced ones I am mentioning below), I promise you, certain foreign entities may well. The question is whether certain, entrenched big money interests in oil and auto are more important than the whole nation (to them, yes), and the other big money interests that could healthfully adopt or push these technologies. America is more of a nation where it is now a battle of special interests because currying government favor, and the regulatory approval (or hammer against enemies) has more to do with market success and availability than good tech (we would have no auto industry, electric industry, aviation industry, oil industry, etc. if Federal regulations back when they began allowed government bureaucracies the power it has now, which is stifling many new technologies as small businessmen cannot afford to bring them to market through the maze of regulations and approvals, and often the corporations they would sell control of said inventions to would never want the new technology competing in the market against their established products and interests).

    Now, if we wanted, we could make the vehicles lighter using FORD’S 1940 HEMP PLASTIC PANEL vehicle (constructed over a tubular steel frame-google it), and it could even run on Hemp Biodiesel too (but probably not a pogue carburetor then). China leads the world in Hemp production because the USA won’t grow it anymore. I worked counterdrug ops when I got out of a Spec Forces unit and it turned me against drug war, a lot of wasted money and man hours, national guard activations go to eradicating wild hemp while pretending to stamp out cannabis (itself a huge waste). Anyone who wants to look into the industrial uses of hemp (let alone the medical uses of cannabis and thc oil as found at http://www.phoenixtears.ca) can look here (and many other places:

    http://www.illuminati-news.com/marijuana-conspiracy.htm

    http://www.illuminati-news.com/2007/0601a.htm

    Now note, combine ANY of those technologies with the rediscovered (and long suppressed Pogue Carburetor) and you are on to something. First, however, you have to get the oil companies to quit adding lead. They started adding lead to gasoline to gunk up the pogue carburetors after buying and shelving the patent (to prevent independent developers from doing this), and even “unleaded” fuels STILL have lead in them. Read this for the university lab proven tests and science:

    http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Carburetors/McBurney/press_release031117.htm

    Read this for the story about how the Pogue Carburetor was accidentally rediscovered. Now, nothing seemed to be available on this for quite sometime since the original article was published and I saw it in the USA carried affiliates in early 2003, and I wondered if the guy who found it and tested it (and happened to be a mechanic) was “bought off” too. Certainly nothing MAINSTREAM (and with the science of how today’s formulated gas is specifically designed to gunk up these things, that tells you how and why). The reprint of the article from 2003 is at the beginning of the next link with all kinds of patent drawings and the technical info:

    http://www.rexresearch.com/pogue/1pogue.htm

    Some more (with the parent site being FULL of great suppressed info, from the Stanley Meyers hydrogen fracturer to foreign inventors who accomplished same thing, from Japan to Phillipines):

    http://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?page_id=986

    The fact is, it does not take a genius to insist that ALL additives to fuels be taken out, and fuel injectors, because the Pogue carburetors let vehicles run much cooler burning the fuel much more efficiently as described in the science article on it by
    Bruce McBurney that I linked above. This alone reduces the emissions AND gets so much more efficient mileage that far less fuel is being burned, period, anyway. There is also far less wear and tear on engine and components, engine stays cool, clean reducing maintenance and repair costs significantly over time, and increasing reliability.

    Pogue was not alone, and it has been alleged that others (not just Stanley Meyer) were murdered to prevent their world changing tech from getting mass awareness and eventually distribution:

    http://truedemocracyparty.net/2011/09/vapor-fuel-system-tom-ogle-full-story/

    Additionally, combine the technologies, and you see the 200mpg pogue carburetor running on a hydraulic hybrid conversion that effectively doubles mileage plus (so now a baseline of 400mpg or more). Add that in concept to a ground up designed hydraulic hybrid like the INGOCAR, info available in base here: http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3112 and more can be found here: http://www.valentintechnologies.com/ plus Youtube has videos.

    Using a ground up hydraulic power train vehicle like the Ingocar we see the actual likely mileage using UNADULTERATED gasoline go from its estimated baseline 170mpg (using normal fuel, no Pogue tech) to 800-1000 mpg if also run on a Pogue caburetor (or lesser miles but full alternative fuel such as hemp biodiesel). Make the vehicle itself out of that hemp plastic and it is tougher than steel, but lighter, for even greater mileage savings, safety ratings, you name it. Even realizing HALF those benefits, just converting existing vehicles by using Pogue carburetors, let alone combined as I mentioned, etc., would so drastically reduce emissions (read the McBurney article I linked) and fuel consumption that prices for fuel would fall, the need to ethanol, MTBE, and other stupidly wasteful, expensive wastes of food and environmental pollution would dry up. If fuel quadrupled in price driving costs would still be cheaper by far than today per mile driven due to the massive mileage gains.

    Just using KNOWN, proven, tested, patented technologies I linked to the articles above would allow a revolution that would drop costs and allow a simplification of cars (no more computer controlled emission equipment, fuel injectors, and all kinds of parts) so that the vaunted V8 could return, and V6’s (or be unnecessary using super accumulators for the hydraulic hybrids), and with modular designs (see some wired.com articles on this and batch productions), kit cars, a renaissance in auto production could be realized here in the USA, sparking numerous companies and injecting life into the moribund American auto industries.

    The problem, of course, is it is a threat to many interests. You could just start ticking off the huge list of threatened political interests. Peak oil would mean nothing, and all developing world cars, and fuel needs, and emissions, would have negligible impact on the ecology (and the world would have even more reasons to again buy American).

    Now, do not get me started on the alternative tech like that pushed and developed by Stanley Meyer and others (watch the 1995 “It Runs on Water” video now on Youtube, get the long version (50 minutes or so, it shows several proven techs, for a primer). Paul Pantone’s GEET is also something that has great promise on several levels. There are many others, and IF the USA had the same legal environment (lack of government regulations and the legal ability to halt public disclosure of technologies and scientific papers on “national security” grounds”) and scientific freedom, a number of these technologies would surely have already had widespread adoption. The average person, even the exceptional person, typically has NO IDEA. This, however, is not the place for discussion of same, but if called upon I can recommend a number of books and websites with credible, detailed information.

    Now, for the comments specifically for Eric Peters. I was part of a DARPA research conference on developing a “Petroleum Free Military” by 2035, and I am a US military veteran and medically retired engineer. I maintain my promises of confidentiality about the work product of the conference and the people because I made them and will not break them, but I also have things I CAN share about some of what I learned that do NOT violate confidentiality, classifications, and non-disclosure. I can prove this assertion with hard physical evidence in every way if called upon.

    If Eric Peters would like to discuss the information I have on this, and can discuss without violating any security information, he can contact my email address. If he misses this, because of my long post, encourage him to read it and contact me so that we could schedule follow up. It is a tricky subject to discuss things I think SHOULD be disclosed to the public now, without disclosing any of the things I learned and worked on that I promised to keep confidential, so with the understanding that there will be things related to the conference and projects and information imparted to me by DARPA personnel, etc., if he would want to discuss what I believe I CAN discuss, I would welcome the contact. This is a single, one time, public offer because I have made several, very limited, private, unsuccessful attempts to bring some of this information into discussion with people in relevant fields but the lack of introduction and inability to disclose substantial amounts of information upfront has caused a general lack of interest. Mr. Peter’s expertise in automotive tech, his interest in liberty, and his willingness to investigate and disseminate (as relevant) information make me willing to discuss the matter with him, and he can decide to take, or not take, further steps in investigating my information, and to disclose, or not disclose, what he learns, in a more public forum.

    Otherwise, I ask that the following temporary contact address NOT be abused by attention seekers: ancientengineersgooglemail

    • Well Murphy, I won’t comment on much of the rest of your diatribe (I don’t have time) but the Pogue carburetor is something I will bother with. In a word, it’s bunk! You seem to have a partial, anecdotal and flawed understanding of the subject. And your apparent obliviousness to the first law of thermodynamics is self evident. I have met a man who actually builds Fish carburetors. Although they do deliver better fuel economy specifically on older Ford pick-up trucks, it’s nothing miraculous; merely simpler (and less costly) than electronic engine controls and fuel injection. Here’s what that man who has studied this subject extensively (and other’s of similar stripe) and actually put it in practice writes about your elusive and vaunted “suppressed” technology: http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/fish3.htm

      Murphy, the simple fact of the matter is an IC engine is a “heat engine”. That translates in common English to: Combustion generates heat which is converted to useable kinetic energy. Once you subtract mechanical losses due to internal friction and parasitic loads (e.g., fuel pump, water pump, cooling fan, oil pump, etc.),you can roughly determine the efficiency of the process by the amount of residual heat exiting the device (i.e. exhaust temperature vs. combustion temperature). Car engines are notoriously inefficient. There is no “miracle carburetor” that will change that fact. There are very probably “super top secret” things that “our” gun-vernment and its corporate owners hide from us “mere mundanes.” Some of those may have to do with inexpensive, clean and renewable energy sources. But with only a cursory knowledge of basic thermodynamics and engineering, we can rest assured that the “200 MPG carburetor” isn’t one of them…unless you’re referring to a motor scooter with a <30cc engine.

      • OK Boothe,

        I had a lengthy, detailed reply, and computer problems followed by a crash, then the inability to restore documents or recover them meant I lost it. Looking through my history to find the myriad pages I had up from my research, I found this, checked the site, realized I never got around to rebutting your erroneous assertions prior to the crash. I will, in a limited, modest way correct you.

        First, if you do not have time to read my links and references, you should keep shut about what I have to say because what you opined, from start to finish, about what you think I know about science, to what you think you know about science, to the reference you used is wrong. If you do not have time to check MY facts and references, which addressed everything you said in depth, then you really should not have the time to respond. What you probably meant to say is you do not think it is important to know what I am talking about, NOR what YOU are talking about before actually insulting me and venturing your ridiculous assertions in a public forum.

        Since you are not likely to be open minded, nor to check data, nor to have read what I asserted, and call it a RANT, it is clear that you just dismiss information when it does not suit your preconceptions. Do not presume to tell me about the law of thermodynamics and I will spare your ego a bruising regarding science, background, expertise, and the fact that you do not seem to know anywhere as much about is as you think you do. Your assumptions that a Pogue Carburettor violates said law is false. Your assumption that said law is immutable about how much energy a system technology might access from the vacuum or from matter-energy conversions betrays an ignorance of quantum physics and zero point energies, as well as above unity energy systems PROVEN to work, sometimes through unknown mechanisms, by being OPEN systems. I have studied those issues and have a library of physics and engineering texts and treatises on the material, do you? Did DARPA invite you to a conference and solicit your opinion and presentations on such systems? I can prove they did so to and for me.

        The Pogue Carburettor is not an open system, nor a zero point system, but your assumption that its operation must violate any physical laws betrays ignorance of the technology AND those laws.

        As I was invited to a present my research and systems ideas at a DARPA conference specifically about creating a petroleum free military and it was THAT which opened my mind to these technologies, and I was surrounded by notable scientists and engineers with relevant PhDs galore, so when you presume I am a fool for believing in the information I was exposed to, and did not hold or know prior to, then you really are making a nut of YOURSELF and I guess you think you know more than the accumulation of the best and brightest that can be found in the scientific establishments and the mass of scientific and engineering data and documentation I have spent years accumulating and studying. I was humbled by the mass of talent and intellect I worked with, and assuredly, most of the ones I interacted with would vehemently disagree with you based on what you referenced in your insulting half baked response to me.

        Having read and re-read your post, and checked your reference, I see NOTHING of the calibre of what I gave you to mull over, and I do not see you trying to expand your knowledge, but simply doing your damnedest (and it is not much at that) to equate what you already think you know as true. That kind of idiocy barely merits response, because if YOU want to be satisfied with the nonsense you think is truth, then go ahead. That is your right, but do not think you convince me or anyone who has any ACTUAL knowledge on this material first hand or via extensive research. Everything I write is probably a waste when it comes to hoping you will open your mind and follow a most fascinating subject, but I do this on the chance that someone else reading the exchange will be like I was some years ago, and awaiting the expose of a truth to provide the focus and path for further illumination as to the existence of the most incredible science and engineering materials. I only wish I had exposure back in my teens. Instead of spending years in the military and going into a special forces unit, I would have focused on physics, mechanical and electrical engineering with the aim of delving into this stuff young, and building a career around researching it. I came late to engineering, teaching myself into six figures AFTER the military (and am now in my seventh year of continuous university math/engineering/science education since retiring), but I have worked hard to expose myself to, and learn new ideas, science, and technologies.

        Boothe, First AND foremost, you plainly did not read the articles I linked, especially the science behind Bruce McBurney’s explanation as to why a Pogue Carburetor works AND why, with the continued adulteration of petrol (lead, etc.). Do that. It should open your eyes. Better late than never. At least you would not have sent me link you did thinking it passes for clever rebuttal. The guy you quoted is NOT the expert upon whom all arguments rest. The Pogue Carburetor is NOT the Fish Carburetor. The technologies and operating principles are different.

        Secondly, I raised a number of points, and a number of PROVEN technologies. These are not technologies dreamed up in a classroom but never tested. Every single one of them was designed, tested, built, operated, and even refined, sometimes many decades ago. It is not a matter of debate, but of RECORD. None of which you even began to address, all of which would do far more to address fuel efficiency and pollution, all of which were PROVEN, than what is being done now, expensively and poorly. I guess you saw “Pogue Carburetor” and like a red flag to a bull ran at it with the load of assumptions already pre-installed in your psyche, reacting to ALL of what I wrote based on what you THOUGHT YOU KNEW about the one thing that caught your attention. Rather than reading what I posted about IT, and learning a thing or two, you sent me something ELSE as if THAT addressed the matter definitively and once and for all. When I want to get to the heart of a matter and how it works and can be used, I do not talk to the people who have FAILED, but SUCCEEDED when deciding whether or not it is possible. 1000 people can tell you something doesn’t work because when THEY tried it, they could not make it work. I have seen several “myth busters” and (being an engineer myself) see the terrible flaws in their methodology. They do something badly, and convince themselves and a large percentage of their scientifically illiterate audience that their failure equates to “myth” when their failure is a failure linked to their limited intellect, education, resources, or attention spans. Talk to the guys who HAVE succeeded when finding out if and how something is possible. Edison was a genius. HE could not understand what Tesla intuitively easily understood about AC power (probably being biased and blinded by the profits he wanted from DC power), and it ultimately did not matter what Edison thought was and was not possible about AC power. In the end, Edison was reduced to making cheap shots and electrocuting poor puppies in public to try to attack Tesla’s superior system. Edison was eloquent, he was accomplished, and anyone who listened to Edison about what was possible with Tesla’s system was a fool. The point stands, go to the guy who is doing something successfully, not the critic, when deciding if it works or not. If the guy who says he can make it work cannot, period, then, maybe, you are justified in thinking it might not work. All that is proven by the guy who says something is impossible is HE cannot figure it out, not whether it is or is not possible. The links I gave were to people who HAVE succeeded, and scientifically documented how and why, and problems with using the tech today (adulteration of fuel, as mentioned).

        The guy who went on about the Fish technology was not addressing ANY of the points I raised, and really, neither were you Boothe.

        What about the hemp plastic making cars stronger and lighter? What about the hydraulic petrol hybrids? Hydrogen Fracturers (Stanley Meyer being but one, and do not send me the wikipedia link, but go look up the “It Runs on Water” hour long video from 1995 for a basic intro to three above unity proven technologies before you make up an opinion). In fact, here is something I did not mention, but aptly demonstrates that no matter how capable, successful, or practical a technology, if it threatens existing oil financial interests (and the tax revenues government gets in parasitic symbiosis from the sale of said oil) then it will be binned. Incremental, expensive development may be allowed, but not revolutionary technological advance. This has been proven, repeatedly. The 1963 Chrysler Turbine vehicle? SUPPRESSED. Jay Leno has what is likely the last remaining one. It was superior in virtually every way to the piston engine. Read the story and learn something cool. It was an education for me, and I took the time to look up an individual who had personal knowledge of it, and my discussion with them verified ALL of the details in the story.

        Go here for THAT story, as well as numerous reference links and so on. You can look it up on Youtube too.

        http://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?page_id=943

        Turbines should have revolutionized the entire automotive landscape, and perhaps would have ensured an American domination of the auto industry for decades more. The sad fact is the best, most cost effective innovations have been shelved and kept from a public for fear of the impact on the oil industry, and the taxes paid on oil products. In light of easily obtainable information on the historical record, there is really only one conclusion regarding CAFE and the adding of ethanol, MBTE, etc for pollution. IT IS ALL A CON. IT IS ALL A FRAUD. THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTED OVER 50 YEARS AGO TO ENSURE THAT ALL VEHICLES COST LESS, RAN ON ANY VARIETY OF FUELS, BURNED FAR CLEANER, USED LESS OIL, REQUIRED LESS MAINTENANCE, ETC. The whole thing, like the cancer industry, is a fraud aimed at fleecing the public and controlling them for the enrichment of certain interests. It does not matter what it costs the individual, the nation, the national interest. It is all just a con and as long as the right pockets get lined, they do not care what it does to entire companies or the standard of living and environment. Environmental protection is just another excuse to bleed the taxpayers because the technologies existed more than 50 years ago to drastically reduce pollution and petrol use, a number of technologies actually, and they were, and continue to be, prevented from mass production.

        Look it up at http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org and while there, look up lots. When you get done reading ALL of the articles on that site Boothe, and doing at least twice as much reference checking and going to the other sites and papers and videos on Youtube, THEN perhaps you might be able to comment.

        I mentioned wanting to discuss matters with Eric Peters. I guess he is too busy, did not read my post, is not interested. That is a shame. Given his philosophical bent, I figured he might want some information from someone who had some useful “insider” perspective based on experience. The short of it is I have observed over time that there are tremendous special interests working hand in glove with government to use the force of government to suppress existing technologies for political and financial gain. Alternative fuels, better technologies, you name it are all over the place and the story is the same.

        You can find the same thing in medicine. I found THAT story out after putting OVER 100 thousand dollars into conventional care to be given a terminal diagnosis and total disability, and it was the “quack” stuff that I found not only treated the problems, but CURED the underlying conditions. After bitter, then life saving, personal experience, I spent years fact checking and doing research and as such have lost most of my faith in the medical systems and government approved medicine beyond mechanical adjustments and trauma care. It is too expensive, and often a con. Why are the “quack” cures, which actually do cure thousands and have far better safety and efficacy than conventional medicine, suppressed? Money. We live in an era of heresies, and the major heresies threaten the prevailing, and often government funded/politically driven research and industrial models. This was not a conclusion I came to as a result of a paranoid mindset. It was something I learned after research, intense, multi-year research, kept bringing the same facts, same issues, and same results and systems into focus. I was not quite dragged kicking and screaming into the realizations I had, but I did not take any leap of faith either. It was cold, hard, repeated evidence and a historical record viewed with a jaundiced, engineer’s judgement that made me wakeup.

        TRUE FUEL EFFICIENT VEHICLES are one such example, and it was not until learning about them at DARPA (I was invited for my “out of the box thinking and MILITARY systems concepts) and spending years doing extensive research since that I came to realize that truth is FAR stranger than fiction, and that there is so much smoke AND fire that the general public is not exposed to. It is not just a matter of there being smoke and thus fire must also exist. It is a blaze, but the average person, even the average auto enthusiast, won’t stumble across it by accident. The approved sources of media and teaching drop most of the otherwise available data down the memory hole. Most of my revelations resulted from incidentally happening across anomalous data while researching other topics, and then, having aroused my curiousity, I would take peaks, and it was like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole with eye opening revelations as I pursued the topics and the data, and the corroborations further and further. The data is there. The official sources do not draw attention to it, do not put it in text books, do not tell you how they screwed various inventors and the environment and all of our pocketbooks, but it is information you can find, and as a matter of public record. Quite a lot of articles were written at the time of these technologies, but it was far easier to bury stuff then, pre-internet, and to plant false stories as hit pieces (especially for medical matters) than it is now. The history record bears out my assertions, and I can give a number of examples.

        But again, the simple link you claim “settles” the Pogue carburetor “myth” is NO SUCH THING. It is tripe, a rehash of a formula as if that explains all. Including a formula is not an argument. The formula given is NOT the only one applicable. It is not the end of the matter, but a footnote, and not an important one. Learn some science and then learn some more before you presume to pass off a few paragraphs as indicative as the final word of the state of the art when the world is awash in proof of concept inventions that demonstrate incredible mileage for petrol, or the use of hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen fracturers, biofuels, etc. that should have revolutionized the world more than 50 years ago.

        The FISH carburetor IS mentioned here, if you scroll down, in the super carburetors section of http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org.

        http://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?page_id=785

        Let me run you down some excerpts from the article that detailed the science and engineering and function of the Pogue Carburetor, though I would advise ANY intelligent onlooker to look to my above previous post, and check EVERY link and article in order, in regards to what I posted.

        The link about HOW the Pogue Carburetor science and operation was cracked is here.

        http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Carburetors/McBurney/press_release031117.htm

        Now, as regards to the efficiency of operation:

        “In Dec. 12, 1936 Canadian Automotive Magazine states that the standard carburetor gets about 25 mpg at only 9% efficiency. Therefore the Pogue carburetor is 72% efficient overall at 200 mpg. “

        Hmmm, carburetors only use a small fraction of the energy available in gasoline. Fuel injectors are marginal, not revolutionary improvements. They do not access much of the energy within the fuel. Let us take a look at the excerpts from the analysis of the Pogue Carburetor by someone who
        actually tested it on the road AND in a university lab (the above freeenergynews.com article).

        ***EXCERPT STARTS***

        “He [Bruce McBurney] says the key to gasoline efficiency is found in ‘cracking’ the fuel from the large-molecule octane into small molecule methanol and natural gas.  This yields far more ‘dynamic’ explosions than ‘heat’ energy in the piston.

        “Most people who tinker with increasing the efficiency of carburetor systems think that it is the vaporizing of the fuel that is the primary cause of the increased efficiency.” Actually, following a basic law of physics, the vapor is quickly turned back to liquid by its compression in the piston. “The methanol and natural gas that are created while the fuel is vaporized are what result in the increased efficiency.”

        According to McBurney, the process is really quite simple. You vaporize the fuel through any of a number of methods, then in the presence of heat generated from the exhaust, and added water vapor, run the fuel-water mixture across a catalyzing agent, and a vast portion of the fuel molecules will break down into methanol and natural gas. The heat and catalyst and water drive the reaction.

        Gallon for gallon, natural gas and methanol burn approximately as efficiently as gasoline. The efficiency of McBurney’s system comes because by using this process of ‘cracking’ the fuel, one gallon of gas with two gallons of water will produce four to five Gallons of natural gas and methanol.   These smaller molecules occupy a greater amount of space.

        “The chemistry is straightforward, and proven,” says McBurney. He verified this process at Brock University in Ontario using UV spectrum analysis and gas chromatography. “

        ***EXCERPT ENDS***

        I should note that the article is accompanied by the test data, graphics, charts, etc. Check it out, and the other material I quote and reference before you presume to tell me what you know that I do not, because I took the time to check your single reference, and it was relative nonsense, at least in terms of proving your assertion and debunking mine. I have probably wasted all of the time I spent writing if my hope was to reach you. My sole purpose in doing so was perhaps to possibly reach the attention, and pique the interest of an intelligent, open minded individual who will then go, check the varied references, note the related articles and links at the reference sites, and delve deep into the well of knowledge and awaken their perspective the way mine was. If I have failed to reach anyone, or have reached anyone, I doubt I will ever know. I take solace in the parable of the mustard seed (despite my generally not being very religious) in that many seeds fall on barren ground, and will not find fertile environment for growth. I sew ideas to be of service to those few fertile minds waiting for a seed to germinate to help their intellectual development.

        • Murphy, I really don’t have the time to explain each and every one of these items to you. However they are based on a variety of misunderstandings and myth. However there is a universal reason why there isn’t any ‘shelved’ technology for great fuel economy. They don’t work, or they don’t work as the stories say they did and they may even have drawbacks that override their advantages. How can I say this? Car companies and oil companies do not get along. Automakers want high quality fuels. Oil companies don’t want to spend the money to do it. They have been historically at odds with each other.

          If a car company could achieve 100mpg in a car that met all federal regulations, they would do it. If they could make a car that didn’t run on gasoline but something their buyers could get a hold of just as easily and cheaply they would.

          There is zero evidence of conspiracy between automakers and oil companies. There are too many car companies, even now, for that to be possible.

          Oh, BTW, anything patented is fully described. Any story that talks about a patented device that can’t give the patent numbers is likely bullshitting the reader.

          • Brent, Eric, others:

            How is it all of the people who “do not have time” to address the points I made are SO sure they are right? I have SEEN some of these things work.

            Additionally, from an engineer perspective, it is an absolute fallacy to say that “everything is there in the patent drawings.” No, it is not. The goal of a good patent drawing is to reveal enough data that it protects the concept of the design and artifact, but not so much that it is readily reverse engineered. I know this from industry, I know it from [recent] education having returned to university, and having explicitly covered the matter as part of a design course. ALL kinds of information is withheld from MOST patent drawings, especially with complex technologies. Rarely are explicit schematics included, and by and large, unless you know particular trade secrets in many cases, you cannot build a working model of a device if the drawings submitted have been done right (though it MIGHT offer clues to fundamental principles of operation when they are not otherwise clear). Patent drawings are NOT working schematics nor design documents, nor detailed build lists, etc.

            I have met the scientists who describe some of the incredible technologies I have mentioned in some cases, and many more who had detailed understanding of the technologies I mentioned, and if you actually followed the links, you would realize, for instance, in the 1990s the EPA actually replicated the technology from the 1970s I mentioned for the same results. It is a matter of record for cripes sakes.

            I cannot believe that, as a rule, the lot of you would so criticize what I right and reference without taking the time to check it in detail. Mr. Peters, if you think your time is too valuable to bother checking my data because any so called crazy person can offer links, that is your prerogative. I would emphatically suggest you are an ass to comment on what I say without checking on the assumption you already know the issue in depth. I heard the same thing from doctors about “quack” cancer cures (“if it worked, we would know about it”, and the other things that saved my life and reversed “incurable” conditions. I have never encountered the professional idiocy in life that I have seen in doctors, who routinely dismiss anything outside of their education, but then I guess I am out of step. I take the time to check anything that looks useful or interesting. I certainly offer no opinions on things I do not make great efforts to know in detail. I realize, from experience, I am the exception. If you actually took the time to research the evidence, read the links, follow up, you would realize the mileage HAD been achieved, via numerous technologies. You happen to be one of the barren grounds that seeds won’t reach, an impenetrable closed mind.

            I really could care less at this point. Having actually learned first hand about some of these technologies, and having confirmed the existence of other ones via intensive research (that goes well beyond just checking websites) and contact with the inventors in some cases, I can assure you there is a large body of suppressed work (in fuel economy AND cancer treatments, and other things by the way). There is also a large body of incredibly advanced technology awaiting funding and procurement right now, in a variety of fields. At the DARPA conference you so blithely, and ignorantly, dismiss, I met the inventors of it. It has been interesting to read articles in certain technical and engineering publications and recognize the development of advanced systems I encountered via DARPA years ago. Most importantly, there are surely a number of technologies I encountered then that have been developed and secretly deployed without public mention. My time in the SF saw me encounter these things on the operational end, in a very limited capacity, and when I was invited to work with DARPA, I saw the beginning of the pipeline and had numerous revelations about how the whole system worked that NEVER would have occurred to me prior, despite the SF experience. I darned well know the lot of you are speaking through your excretory sphincters on DARPA, but I guess it makes you feel better to insult that which you have no chance of participating in.

            I know first hand about the suppressed health methods and treatments not only through research, because not only am I alive in the case of health issues, I have been USING the cheap “quack” cures to resolve medical conditions over a decade old that many thousands of dollars in conventional care never touched (and often made worse).

            But hey, I read the comments about DARPA, and I realize I am in the midst of a group of people who assume ANYTHING that comes from government is bad. Don’t use the roads, drink the water, or accept those social security checks. Don’t use the Internet. All of it carries the taint of government funding and approval and involvement. Never mind that ARPA/DARPA is the origin of the Internet, as well as numerous other advanced technologies.

            While I am very much a libertarian, and as a rule I buy into the idea that the world and the nation would be far better without a Federal Reserve, the federal government downsized by 80%, the income tax abolished, the 10th Amendment enforced, etc. (including a radical downsize of most of the US military), the fact is we have the systems and organizations we do, and in some cases government HAS been a paragon of efficiency and virtue in getting certain tasks accomplished and in getting certain projects going because the costs, lack of potential profits, plus risks act as a disincentive to most private sector involvement. Having STARTED things off, proven feasibility, and funded the necessary research for technology to access (like space exploration), THEN private sector involvement comes in.

            I will take the random attendee at the conferences I attended over ANY of those of you making what you think are witty comments. I really have no [polite] words for the depth of idiocy I encountered from the lot of you on this matter. It never occurred to me that the average reader of THIS site, let alone its author, would be so close minded and deliberately obtuse. It is the opposite of what I encountered during that exalted time with DARPA, and perhaps with a SINGLE exception of hundreds of people, I have never, ever met a brighter, more motivated, more educated and accomplished group of individuals (from within DARPA, and, like me, invitees to participate in think tank, conference, and research work). I doubt most of your readers could carry their water when it came to comparing education, intelligence, and creativity. You truly do not know what you say with the comments I just encountered.

            So…….

            Do NOT read the links I took extensive time to ensure offered a representative sample of useful and traceable information about the technologies I mentioned. Definitely don’t take that interesting information and follow it further. Your mind is already made up. Leave the matter lie. It is hard facing the fact that the world is often so very different from what we think, and it keeps you awake at night. It challenges almost everything you think you know, and it takes intellectual fortitude to transit from ignorance to partial awareness and to continue to question and learn. Don’t bother. I doubt most of you are close to up to it. Dismiss everything I said, well, continue dismissing it, and continue with ad hominem attacks. Those always show just how clever you think you are, because insipid wit and insults are certainly better in life than getting to truth. When I want something designed or built, or improved, heaven knows I always seek the dude who can quip clever about the competition versus the competition who can actually DO the job.

            I seriously assumed, erroneously, that the website and Eric Peters’ general audience would be more intelligent and open minded. Instead, one and all by and large assume that what you think you know about the way the world works is the way it is, and everyone else, especially those who might invite you to peak behind the curtain in some limited ways are “crazy.” I guess this makes it easier to maintain the illusions and keep b1tching about the state of the world, smug that you think you know better than everyone else, but ultimately powerless because the first step in really becoming independent is to become informed. It does not matter that you won’t. As long as the world makes sense to you NOW, it is best to avoid anything that disrupts that viewpoint.

            I tried. I really did. I offered the information and perspective because I would have killed for someone to have offered the same to me. I have broadly always been open minded to look into new information rather than dismissing it out of hand. It took years for to encounter the germs of the information that led me to first hand verification of what I consider to be incredible and amazing things. Had someone pointed me in the right way, the way I tried to point you, I would have been incredibly grateful. In many ways, I have had to pay a high price in lost opportunity, research materials, books, time, effort, and so on to develop what I have learned. Anything that could have sped the journey, simplified the task would have been an incredible boon. I realize now, having actually been given an education by the assembled pig headedness and idiocy I have encountered here, that the reason so much of this info was easy to drop down the memory hole in the first place is basically down to the average person (and by and large, most of the time, we are ALL average people) will not accept anything that contradicts their world view to the point where they will go out of their way to explain away and avoid information that contradicts it, and insult and demonize those who try to bring them that information (this is, if you care, called cognitive dissonance). I have striven, since first becoming aware of the concept of cognitive dissonance, to minimize or avoid its effects because it is the preferred method of social control. You do not spend tons on propaganda, or nearly so much, as when the people themselves are keen to propagandize themselves and attack anything that contradicts their preconceptions. You lot have certainly proved the concept.

            Your idiotic comments about DARPA and tax feeders and cheats I wager come from ZERO EXPERIENCE with them. I was going to try to discuss with Mr. Peters everything that was NOT covered under my security agreement regarding classified and confidential data, but it is clear that I would be talking to a wall. Ultimately it does not hurt ME if you do not know this stuff. It puts no money in my pocket, adds nothing to my resume, nor does it complete any research projects. I offered it because sharing knowledge is one of the best ways of sharing wealth without reducing what one already has. I realize that clicking links, following and checking references, reading a few articles is just crazy crap and so time intensive that it is a hell of an imposition to expect. Go back to four hours of TV and Youtube videos of cats playing drums or whatever. Hell, it does not matter that I bought and read a number of books and pulled hundreds of patent drawings as part of my fact checking for anything I am discussing. You never read the material and are ignorant of it, so it must not be worth knowing.

            Ever consider that said approach (sharing information, links, forwarding articles, etc.) is exactly how many people come to YOUR site Mr. Peters? Perhaps, just perhaps, someone else reads something YOU write, and source, and investigate (as opposed to all of the popping off about clovers and various things that just piss you off and the public venting about what YOU think is right, and the rest of the world is wrong apparently). Maybe consider it takes an open mind to carry on reading your article from a stub on LewRockwell, or to open a link and follow it when someone references something you wrote in an article. Thank god for your traffic counters and google ad income that OTHER people might have enough time in their day and an open mind to check up. Then again, I guess there is a hell of a market for servicing people who only and already agree with you, which, based on the commentary received is what I got and who populates and reads your site.

            I doubt the lot of you read what I said, nor availed yourself of the data. It is easier to insult me and make assertions ignorant of reality and facts.

            To sum, and likely continue wasting my time (for the last time): The technologies I mentioned are real, and I have verified them one way or another, sometimes first hand. There are plenty more I could have referenced that I believe work, but the ones I did, I KNOW work. I am in the process of arranging a lab to personally build some of them myself as final proof of concept, and because I think it would be cool as hell to enjoy the benefits of the tech. My mind opened up regarding technologies when I delved into the world of suppressed medicine, and I wish I had learned or put my money where my intuition was 100,000 dollars sooner because it would have saved me years of torment, disability, and near death, plus significant permanent damage and mobility impairment. I would likely be working with DARPA on a project or for them instead of taking an early retirement and delving into scholarship and independent research.

            It was my hope to help steer people toward the same enlightenment I received. My experiences opened my mind, which was already more inclined to check into facts before dismissing them. Once again, you “gentlemen” have confirmed something I have long known, but am always surprised when I encounter the extent. Your mentality is so foreign to my mindset, so counter-productive, I am always surprised when i encounter it, despite being intellectually aware of it. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a thing, and the vast majority of people are so mired in it that their minds are impenetrable, yourselves included. Enjoy your ignorance, comment amongst yourselves and get p1ssy. I won’t be following up to check for responses. I learn from experience. I wonder if my post will make it past moderation since I am not kissing up to the ego of those who run the site. I have had confirmed the lesson I knew in my heart was correct. I should spend any of the time I am inclined to spend trying to point others toward knowledge on working on my own research and education and experiments. At least there, I have a chance of making some progress. Then again, I value knowledge, because I am always making an effort to obtain it, and people value what costs them. I offered it to you free, and likely, fools that you were, you assumed what I offered had no value because it came to you easy, and required no effort, nor money to access. Since so many of you plainly took pride in being “too busy” to check my links, but not being “too busy” to spout off (even at length), I am guessing that knowledge is something you do not value as much as the opportunity to insult those who try to offer it. I have wasted more than enough time. I never should have posted, nor followed up, but I guess my own flaw is the stubborn hope I would get someone else to open their mind against ALL evidence. Whatever.

            • Murphy,

              Calling people “asses” and “idiots” for politely asking you to substantiate your assertions (and expecting them to substantiate your assertions) doesn’t add weight to your statements; it makes the people you abuse even less receptive to giving you a hearing.

              These claims about “100 MPG carburetors” have been around for decades. I’ve read about them for decades. I’m sure Brent and others have also. Believe me, I have “checked it out” – that is, read the claims, the stories, the assertions… .

              But where’s the beef? Where is the working, actual 100 MPG carburetor? If the material you link to/reference is so substantive, so real, then why not build the damn thing and show us? Surely someone with the necessary comprehension and aptitude could do so. Many of the people here are very capable mechanics (and engineers, too). People who understand how machines work – and can build mechanical things. If the theory behind the Pogue carburetor is valid and comprehensible, then a device based on the theory ought to be buildable. Not by an isolated genius – but by anyone with a good grasp of the necessary theory and the ability to apply it.

              Either that – or the device is a phantasm. This is not FTL travel, Murphy. It’s a fuel metering device of some sort. It cannot be so complicated, so mysterious, that it hasn’t be put into practical application.

              If, that is, the theory is valid.

              You’ll find the people here are smart – and open to ideas. But they’ve also got sensitive BS detectors and don’t accept bullying and name-calling in lieu of testable/verifiable evidence in support of claims made.

          • Murphy,
            I can’t read all that. Your style plus length just causes MYGO. (my eyes glaze over) This isn’t as an insult, it’s just what it does to me. So help me out here…
            boil it down to the best stories that I probably haven’t looked into already. Believe me, I have heard of probably all of them.

            As to the patents, just give me the patent numbers. Most patents describe enough for someone of my education and experience or close to it or beyond it to figure it out. Usually materials are the key missing items.

            That’s all I ask, the patent numbers that go with the stories. Since these stories are all over 30 years old, the technology is free and clear.

          • I suppose it’s possible he was a brainiac.

            I doubt it though.

            Murphy, said he, ‘tried’.

            There is no ‘try’ there is only ‘do’.

            He failed.

            If his message was important and worthy, he really must continue. I would have suggested using shorter comments, a.k.a. baby steps for us stupid serfs, and avoid insulting those he does not know.

            He wrote, “in some cases government HAS been a paragon of efficiency and virtue in getting certain tasks accomplished and in getting certain projects going because the costs, lack of potential profits, plus risks act as a disincentive to most private sector involvement.”

            That seems contrary to every bit of experience and written works I’ve read. It makes me doubt he really considers himself a libertarian as he says.

            He wrote, “Having STARTED things off, proven feasibility, and funded the necessary research for technology to access (like space exploration), THEN private sector involvement comes in.”

            Yeesh, he is acting as if railroads would never have been built without the goberment or private space exploration was impossible without goberment.

            His skin is wayy too thin “I won’t be following up to check for responses.” So weak too.

            And not a single word about geoengineering!
            He was such a disappointment.

        • Hi Murphy,

          When one presents an argument, it is the obligation of the person making the argument to present facts in support of his argument. To demand that the people you’re haranguing “research” links (and so on) and accusing them of being wrong (and yourself right) because they won’t accept your arguments at face value, or because they haven’t “done the research” you demand – well, that’s a tactic of people who haven’t got much of an argument. It’s not up to Brent or me or anyone else to confirm what you’ve stated as fact. It’s up to you to present the facts themselves.

          That said:

          You’re certainly right about Tesla and AC vs. DC power. That can be factually verified. The Pogue carburetor? Not so much. Oh, there are lots of assertions about its capabilities. But nothing demonstrable and verifiable. As the old commercial put it, “where’s the beef”? I’m open to virtually any possibility – but I won’t just believe anything.

          Give me facts – not anecdotes and claims.

          The principles behind AC power are comprehensible and applicable. They have been applied. The Pogue carburetor? If the idea is sound, it ought to be intelligible by someone who can put it into practical use. Where is the applied technology of the Pogue carburetor? Suppressed? That’s very hard to believe. There is this thing called… the Internet. Millions of people have access to it. Perhaps the physical Pogue carburetor was suppressed 30 years ago. But the principles behind its operation? Either they’re testable – can be applied – or they are not. If they are not, then all you’ve got is an assertion. One that’s no more substantive than saying there are ancient cities on Mars, but the evidence has been suppressed. Interesting, perhaps. But without some real proof, what have you got?

          The turbine car. You say it was “superior in every way.” That’s just not true. And it was not “suppressed.”

          I have some direct experience with the GM Firebird turbine car (similar to the Chrysler turbine car). Turbine engines in civilian automotive applications weren’t pursued because of consumer-market limitations such as the tremendous heat and noise, the exhaust, concerns about the durability of extremely high-RPM use over long periods of time, etc. (these considerations do not apply to military turbine vehicles like tanks) that imposed obstacles to mass production for the civilian market. Like electric cars, turbine cars certainly work. The problem is they don’t work as well as cars with conventional IC engines – or have issues they don’t.

          Same goes for the hydrogen powered cars you reference. I have driven virtually every vehicle built during the past 20 years – including most of the one-off concepts. They all “work.” But the bottom line as regards a production car is: Can it be built and sold for a profit? Will enough people buy it to make it worth building?

          • Although it sounds plausible that people should present facts in arguments, that fails a sanity check. It is itself a mere argument by assertion, without any facts supporting it. (I won’t go into the many legitimate categories that are possible, as for now it is sufficient to show that this one fails the standard it sets itself.)

            • So, if I argue that there is a UFO base beneath the Denver Airport, it “fails a sanity check” if you decline to accept that as true without supporting evidence?

              When a person makes an extraordinary claim – alien bases, 200 MPG carburetors suppressed by the oil mafia – it is incumbent upon the person presenting such claims to back them up. An obligation to offer counter-argument isn’t even involved. The original (unsubstantiated) statement can simply be dismissed as a mere assertion. Because that’s all it is.

              That’s neither insane – nor an argument by assertion in reply (against the original argument). It’s simply, “Well, that’s interesting… but have you got anything to prove the truth of what what you say?”

              If not, it’s perfectly reasonable to either ignore or dismiss the statement.

              Or, should we be obligated to “check into” every wild claim that’s tossed into our laps before being able, in good conscience, to say bullshit!

          • My late uncle was a car salesman in Nebraska and many many years ago, somewhere in the 40’s or 50’s, they had a car brought back to the dealership by the owner who said that it seemingly never ran out of gas. The company man later came in and took the car back and they provided the owner another car of the same make, etc. It appears this vehicle had a far higher gas mileage, possibly an experimental fuel system for the time, than the stock units. I’ve been told by naysayers that my uncle was a liar but why in the hell would he say such a thing and for what benefit? He had nothing to gain from telling his brother-in-law or young nephew a wild tale like this. Proof? All gone in the mists of time.

            • It’s an intriguing story – but that’s all it is. A story. I’m not imputing dishonesty to anyone. It’s just that we’ve got nothing to objectively evaluate. Just “so and so said this.”

          • Auto makers put a good 25 years or so into trying to make turbine cars work. In the end it just didn’t work.

            Today or maybe in the future, electronic controls and new materials and new manufacturing process might make it work. But it didn’t work back then and that’s why it went on the shelf. It will likely come around again when some new technology creates a desire to try again.

          • Hey Murphy!

            I think going full Samuel L Jackson mode and using this unreadable text Lorem Ipsum generator to spice up your posts will help:

            http://slipsum.com/

            -Samuel L. Ipsum – here’s your motherfucking placeholder text motherfucker!
            -Make your fucking code dumb ass
            -How many fucking paragraphs?
            -Want a motherfucking Header tag?
            -Add some fucking bitchass “<p" tags!
            -Copy the motherfucking code below and paste it where you would fucking like it to appear!

            –Generate it Bitch!–

            "Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I'm not a mistake! It all makes sense! In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they're friends, like you and me! I should've known way back when… You know why, David? Because of the kids. They called me Mr Glass.

            Look, just because I don't be givin' no man a foot massage don't make it right for Marsellus to throw Antwone into a glass motherfuckin' house, fuckin' up the way the nigger talks. Motherfucker do that shit to me, he better paralyze my ass, 'cause I'll kill the motherfucker, know what I'm sayin'?"

          • MoT, that’s a classic story. Like Murphy’s links, it’s something I’ve heard before. It’s a classic used car tale. Experimental car somehow makes it to the used car lot only to be collected by the manufacturer….

            Now it’s true some pilot production cars made it to the new car show rooms. Such a mustang was found a few years ago in the Yukon. And that’s the kind of place they got sent… to the middle of nowhere after being carefully disguised with proper serial numbers. If I remember the info right this car was no later than number six down the line for a pilot build.

            However, experimental and prototype cars were not sold. They were crushed. Today’s survivors that weren’t saved and locked up by the manufacturers were hidden away by the junkyard operators. Any experimental guts would have been stripped before even sending them there.

            Ultimately I believe it’s just an old used car tale passed down from one generation to the next.

          • I use to believe the 100 mpg carburetor thing when I was a child and then I studied university physics and chemistry and now I can laugh at myself about my childhood beliefs. Funny how that adulthood thing works. Most people are FAR too lazy to study to that level so I can just laugh at them…Except when they get their murdering government to steal from me then I just want to…..

            A word – “Thermodynamics” It’s not just a good idea…It’s the law.

            • Hi Chas,

              “Thermodynamics” It’s not just a good idea…It’s the law.

              Superb!

              And, exactly so.

              Murphy is ardent and clearly believes – and like a lot of believers, gets angry when others do not.

              His resorting to name-calling when people ask for proof – not articles saying “it is so,” but an actual working example of his 100 MPG carburetor – indicate the basis for his belief is not fact but wishful thinking.

          • One last bit he wrote which bothered me, “I have been USING the cheap “quack” cures to resolve medical conditions over a decade old that many thousands of dollars in conventional care never touched (and often made worse).”

            AS IF we had no clue or something?

            The Man Who Cured Heart Disease With a Natural Molecule, 20 Years Before Cholesterol Drugs!

            http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi149.html

            • Yeah –

              He interspersed stuff that’s known to be true (Tesla, AC power; hemp; the fallibility of mainstream medicine) with conjecture and assertions about 100 MPG carburetors. Fact by association, if you like.

              If he wants me to entertain the idea of a fuel delivery system that might do as he describes – fine. Of course. I’m all ears. But he seems to be angry that I (and Brent and Boothe) haven’t agreed with him that it’s a fact, based on his statements and excerpted materials/links.

          • One has to be seriously stupid to believe in a 100 mpg carburetor when todays modern high-pressure computer-controlled injection systems can’t even come close to 100 mpg. You don’t need to study science to figure this out but you do need the mindspace for reason and logic which rigorous study of the math-based physical sciences usually produces. The HC oxidation process is near 100% complete on these new systems. All that come out an exhaust pipe is CO2 and Water with free Nitrogen.

    • You were invited to a DARPA conference because you can go on-and-on-and-on-and-on without saying anything…Like a woman at a quilting bee, a DARPA conference is like a tax-funded quilting bee for taxtaker parasites trying to find ways to control and murder their fellow man more efficiently. Why don’t you start a company in the productive sector and become insanely rich from your ideas?

      • What a great paragraph to start my morning, Anne!

        Point 1: Anyone invited to DARPA is a blood-sucking leach dirtbag:
        “I was at DARPA 1938. I submitted a proposal for CFC free concentration camp gas to meet Hitler’s goal of a 100% Green Holocaust initiative.” Only a psychopath would consider producing anything for DARPA, much less be a big enough attention-seeking-psychopath to bother freedom-lovers about their predations.

        Point 2: Going on and on at a quilting bee. Spot on again. The less one has to say, the longer one goes on about nothing. If one’s mainstream ideas really have economic potential, one could profit from them?

        I can see discussing regime-resisting forbidden ideas on this forum, but anyone who could bring about a “petroleum free military” like Murphy the PTB-jackboot-licking-groupie, would have millions of stolen tax-slave dollars thrown at them to create such a highly-desired pacification capability.

    • Hi Deuce,

      Yup!

      And: Any old beater bike – for example, my ’83 Honda GL650 – runs laps around the Tesla in terms of economy of operation. $1,500 for the bike (that’s $500 less than the cost of a Tesla “supercharger” rig; now you can charge up in about an hour… but you still have to spend $65k – minimum – to buy the car) and 55 MPG all day long.

      Granted, I also must stop every 150 miles or so to refuel. But it takes less than five minutes – not an hour – and costs me about $10 – not close to $100,000.

        • I love airplanes, but airplanes = big money (if you want a high-performance airplane, Monopoly money!) and – thanks to Uncle – lots of hassles. An annoying bureaucracy (FAA) to deal with, endless rigmarole to comply with.

          But, a high-performance bike – and I mean by that a machine that is quicker than a Bugatti Veyron – can be yours for around $12,000 – less than the cost of a basic economy car. And you’re much freer to actually use the thing. Just yesterday, I had a window of warm enough weather and took my Kawasaki 1200 out for a quick toodle. There’s a nice straight stretch just before the turn off to our road. It’s about a mile long, with unobstructed sight lines. You can hit 170 here, no worries. And no flight plan, no permissions… when the opportunity arises and the mood hits you…. you just do it.

          • I love bikes, but flying is like riding, only free-er.

            I mostly stay out of controlled airspace and I have never had any contact with the FAA or its personnel with out personally initiating it, in 40+ years of flying.

            Flying can be quite inexpensive, though it is much more expensive these days, because of our litigious society, and the near ending of our domestic manufacturing of light civil aircraft. Also, the loss of the neighborhood airport has driven up hanger/tie down costs, and access.

            The after market has stepped up with many options, from slow to continent leaping planes.

            The SD-1 and RV’s are just a few of the planes available for entry into world of flying at a relatively low price. Planes also hold their value. You can make money building RV’s.

            The SD-1 has a ‘scratch built’ plans option, so if you have the time, inclination and discipline, you can build and fly for under $15,000. But the $22,000 kit is a quick way to get off the ground.

            One of the members of the local EAA, just completed a plans built Midget Mustang for under $12,000.

            The nice thing about these planes is the short takeoff roll. If you have a farm or a large acreage piece you can fly from home if local ordinances don’t prohibit it. You need less then a 1000 ft of run for the 50 ft. obstacle.

            My first scratch built plane was a KR-1 powered by a Type-4 VW motor.

            I flew for years in my Texas Tail Dragger, a modified Cessna 150. A lot of camping and rock hounding in remote areas.

            Flight plans are optional for most VFR flights. I have only filed a handful in all these years.

            Most of my flights, these days, are fun flights that usually involve aerobatics.

            The only hassle for trips is ground transport at the other end.

            One of the most exciting things you can ever do is when your instructor gets out of the plane and tells you to take your first solo flight. Like ‘your first time’, something you will never forget. It was way more exciting then my ‘First time’. COL!

            Go Fly.

            http://www.vansaircraft.com/
            http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/rv4.htm
            http://www.mustangaero.com/
            http://www.nvaero.com/pages/KR%252d1-Aircraft.html

  23. Eric,

    You are a pleasure to read. I found out about you on lewrockwell.com, but now just love to read your stuff even when you haven’t contributed on that particular day.

    I am one of the unfortunate souls who lives on Long Island and have for the past 40 years except for my five year hitch in the military. The 32 mle ride to the office often takes 1:30+, most often due to the clovers, or left-lane bandits. Prius drivers are the biggest clovers as they have the “right” to drive in the HOV lane with only a driver due to their being a “low emission vehicle” and they drive at speeds far below that of those in the left, and even middle lanes of the Long Island Expressway (an oxymoron if I have ever seen one). The whole purpose of the HOV lane is to reward those with multiple occupants with a faster commute.

    I am not a car guy, and generally just consider a car something that gets me from A to B, but I sure miss my first car, a 1971 Camaro with only 58k when I bought it in 1983. I had to sell it for $300, because I couldn’t afford the upcoming insurance payment as a youngster. Man, I miss that car.

    • Hi Ken,

      Thanks – and, welcome!

      I know your pain. I used to live in Northern Va. and worked in downtown DC. The distance was only about 20 miles one way but often took more than an hour due to the sclerotic Clover Clusters that abound in the heart of darkness. I did that for nearly ten years, then finally could not take it anymore – and now we live in a rural and relatively Clover-free area. Or at least, an area where it’s still possible to avoid/end-run Clovers when you encounter them. If you can finagle it, I highly recommend country life. Especially given what appears to be in-process.

      A ’71 Camaro… one of the greats! I’ve owned several second generation Camaros – and still have a mid-’70s Trans-Am I bought when I was 25 and they were still affordable for 25-year-olds.

      Unlike now!

  24. Nikola Tesla was a genius. It’s a shame that con artist Monk used Tesla’s name on such a retarded boondoggle as this battery powered “car”.

    • Tesla was a genius – who even now doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He’s right up there with Maxwell, I’d argue.

      The Tesla car is many things: Attractive, quick, luxurious. But none of these attributes are anything particularly “genius.” They’re pretty commonplace, in fact.

      And the electric drivetrain? Well, by what measure is it better than an IC drivetrain? It’s much less economical to operate. It’s more cumbersome to operate. So why, pray, should anyone buy it? For the sake of difference? For the glamor?

  25. Reg; “One of the things I really like about my old bikes is the kick starter. There’s just something about kicking an engine to life vs. pushing a starter a button.”

    Yes, Eric, it involves you in the mechanism, the machinery of motion. It is also why I like seeing the motor in a bike or Hot Rod. There is a certain emotional component to the experience when those involvements are included, most just don’t get it.

    Speaking of Mechanical fun, check out this… >

    http://www.cyclekarts.com/CycleKart.html
    http://www.gittrevillegp.com/www.gittrevillegp.com/Welcome.html
    http://www.gittrevillegp.com/www.gittrevillegp.com/The_Cars/Pages/Panhard_Levassor.html#0
    http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7042985

    • Yikes!

      For potential investors….

      I see no future for a start-up car company. If anything, the number of existing/established brands will winnow down – my prediction.

      Ten brands have disappeared during the past decade. A die-off unprecedented in modern times.

      There’s just not enough market to support not just the number of brands on the market, but the number of individual models being sold by each brand.

      It seems everyone believes they’ve got to sell one of everything – from subcompact cars to big SUVs (with luxury cars and SUVs on top of that).

      It’s too much – for too few.

      I have fond memories of Studebakers. But where would Studebaker fit in today?

      • I think that a nearly infinite number of brands can be supported. What can’t be supported are multiple brands that offer essentially the same cars.

        Because current manufacturing cost structures drive brands to make essentially the same product and make low volume production expensive while government regulation stifles new entries and grants gifts to the connected to enter, reduction in brands is what will continue to happen.

        If we could get the government out of things, allow competition to favor ever more flexible manufacturing, then there can be lots of brands making very different cars.

        Sadly that’s not the track we are on. We are on a track where eventually the choices will be soviet like. Why? Because government must control choice.

        • Brent,

          That’s an excellent point.

          I agree – if engineers/designers were free to make whatever car they wished – and people could buy whatever car they wished – then indeed, we’d have a cornucopia of choices. As opposed to the increasing sameness offered under various different names we’ve got to today.

          Hat tip, sir!

        • And of course there is the old theory about strapping a piece of buttered toast on the back of a cat and dropping it. The cat insists on landing on its feet but the toast wants to land buttered side down – so it hovers, rotating but never landing.

  26. I wish one of the smart clovers would hurry up and invent the perpetual motion machine so we can completely bypass the growing pains of the electric lemons.

    • I used to work with a guy who suggested just this. Electric motor drives the car, and wheels turn a generator that provides power for the electric motor. I’m pretty sure he attended a government school.

        • Yup.

          A colleague of mine, overhearing an electric car conversation, interrupted to say it was silly that e-vehicles do not have windmills on the roof to regenerate power while driving. The other participant in the conversation laughed thinking this a joke. He then got a really concerned look when he realized the interrupting idiot was serious.

          Physics and thermodynamics…. completely lost on some.

          • Some days I understand how a little knowledge turned people into the rulers of the ancient world. People are apparently no smarter today.

            Then again the global warming scam is just the same ancient scam in a new wrapper with a different priest class.

          • Physics and thermodynamics are indeed completely lost on some, considering that those suggestions are completely sound physics and thermodynamics. Under any wind conditions other than a dead calm, a car can draw additional power that way with any apparent wind (i.e., if it is not moving with the wind). It’s probably still not worth it in practice because of even greater losses from inefficiencies and the overall inconvenience, but it’s perfectly sound in the sense that those could conceivably be overcome. Weirdly, a car doing 60 m.p.h. with a 20 m.p.h. tail wind would have to run the windmill in reverse, as a propeller driven by the wheels pushing its 40 m.p.h. apparent head wind back at 60 m.p.h., but it would still come out ahead doing that. Do the numbers and see for yourself.

          • Weirdly, a car doing 60 m.p.h. with a 20 m.p.h. tail wind would have to run the windmill in reverse, as a propeller driven by the wheels pushing its 40 m.p.h. apparent head wind back at 60 m.p.h., but it would still come out ahead doing that. Do the numbers and see for yourself.

            I had to think about that one for a minute, but yes, pushing against the tailwind at a relative 40 mph is more efficient than pushing against the road at 60 mph.

            Under any wind conditions other than a dead calm, a car can draw additional power that way with any apparent wind (i.e., if it is not moving with the wind).

            Is that true even for a direct head wind? I guess it is: put a windmill on top of the car, gear its motion down, and cause the car to inch forward against the wind. In theory, this could allow a “sailing ship” to steer straight into the wind (using a propeller in the water, driven by the windmill).

          • JdL, a car using a wind mill to head straight into the wind wouldn’t have to “inch” into it, even though it would have to gear down to make the trick work. Consider a car that geared down 2/3 to go into a 15 m.p.h. head wind. It wouldn’t end up going at 10 m.p.h., i.e. 2/3 of the true wind speed, but at 30 m.p.h., twice the true wind speed, i.e. 2/3 of the apparent wind speed of 45 m.p.h.

            There’s a simple insight to show just what is practical. You draw energy from the wind if and only if you continually get hold of fresh air mass and reduce its speed (the vector doesn’t matter). But you can always do that if there is any wind speed at all and if there is always fresh air coming within reach, i.e. some apparent wind (if there isn’t, you can still stir the air around by using the wheels to drive the windmill as a propeller, but the air involved will just recirculate around the car and never get hold of fresh energy content). That allows any car speed other than moving with the wind, if there is any wind at all, though other energy losses will show up in practice and make some speeds impractical. You might think that going down wind faster than the wind would be impractical because first you would have to accelerate through the dead zone of moving with the wind, but you could still do it with stored energy or by quartering around the points of the wind, i.e. tacking down wind.

    • There apparently IS a “perpetual motion machine”, in the form of a ring of super-conducting material. Start a current going, and it (apparently) goes on forever if left undisturbed. This stores energy that can be extracted later.

      BUT, and this is a huge but, when people dream of “perpetual motion”, they’re really dreaming of free energy, not simply energy-stored-as-long-as-you-want.

      If someone ever does find a counter-example to the first law of thermodynamics, aka conservation of energy, all physicists are back to square one. Me, I just dream of finding a counter-example to the second law (ever-increasing entropy), which might allow ships to extract useful energy from the heat in sea-water, spitting out chunks of ice behind them… 😉

  27. Here is some useless but fascinating information relating to batteries. World War Two submarines had four engines and two batteries. Each battery had 126 cells. Each cell was about 54 inches high, 15 inches deep by 21 inches wide. Each cell weighed about 1650 pounds. That’s about 104 tons per battery.

    Granted, those subs were a mite heavier than a passenger car, and battery technology has improved somewhat since then. But 208 tons in each sub is still a lot of battery.

        • I’ve read that hydrogen gas was indeed the day-to-day problem. To address it, the batteries were vented into the boat’s exhaust system.

          Another problem was that the electrolyte produced chlorine gas when mixed with salt water. That’s a danger from even a slight loss of hull integrity (e.g., from depth charges) that I had never thought of.

          All things considered, including my tendency toward claustrophobia, I would never have served on one of those boats. It is fascinating to tour one of the retired ones, though. Along with watching Das Boot, that can give you a very good idea why someone had to be a bit nuts to go to sea in one of those things.

  28. I think the main problem when charging a battery is this:

    Most battery level or state-of-charge meters are nothing more than a voltmeter. When a battery has been used and not charged fully, initially, the charge level meter will show more voltage than actual charge has been put in the battery. Leaving the battery to settle for a while, the voltage eventually drops, but not quite back to the level before charge.

    Conversely, when a battery has been heavily used, if the battery is left to settle without charging, the voltage will slowly creep up again, but not back up to the level before discharge.

    This is a common problem in electric forklifts and batteries of all kinds in my electric model aircraft, of which I have much experience in service and usage of. ACTUAL battery capacity is very difficult to measure, unless a computer averages several rotations of charge and discharge, logs the k’s travelled and the amps drawn and voltage thereby.

    All batteries exhibit this voltage drop phenomenon, to a slightly greater or lesser degree depending on the battery type, being lead-acid, lithium, nickel-metal-hydride, nickel-cadmium or calcium.

    However, heat and cold will always have adverse effects. Cold will reduce the ability of the battery to change its chemistry during discharge and, heat generates resistance within a circuit. This doesn’t just affect the battery, but gearbox oil, grease, motors and their circuits etc.

    It’s entirely likely that all these problems with batteries and electric power were either not fully addressed, or even ignored by Tesla in their marketing. It’s also likely that Broder isn’t aware of these battery facts. Regardless, battery power for transportation continues to be disappointing.

  29. The parasitic sociopath Elon Musk must have been “helping” Boeing with their 787 battery problem and let his own product battery quality plummet…Maybe he gave Boeing all his “good” batteries.

    • Yep –

      The sad/tragic thing is that with say $100 million of his own money (chump change for a billionaire) Musk could have hired some top drawer engineering talent and had them design a commercially viable, economically sane electric economy car.

      Instead, he took almost half a billion of our dollars – and created a contradiction in terms. An electric luxury/high-performance car.

      • He couldn’t even hire people who know how to make a BMS that doesn’t allow the load to totally drain the battery cells and brick the car.

        If a Tesla car is left for weeks without being charged the parasitical drain of various systems will fully drain the battery pack, ruining it. $40,000 repair bill. Not covered under warranty. In development I’ve done, where the batteries were single and double digit dollars, we would get reamed if we had allowed such a thing to happen. $40,000 and they didn’t know what anyone who’s developed hand held battery equipment does.

        If the car was left uncharged for a year or two, then blame the customer. From what I’ve read Tesla motors does use quality li-ion cells so self discharge should be on the order of a year plus.

  30. I think one of the issues with cars (especially electrics/hybrids) is that there is a tendency to try to turn them into wheeled multitools.

    The fact is some vehicles work better at some tasks than others. You see electric vehicles used a lot in sunbelt retirement communities. They are called “golf carts” for the uninitiated. Granted they fill up on grid power; but they also are very light and don’t have a lot of .gov mandated safety requirements. Also in these same communities there are huge land yachts/RV’s parked in driveways for traveling outside the communities themselves.

    Speaking for myself; my next automotive purchase will likely be an early ’90’s Mazda Miata. Simple, fun to drive, easy to maintain,that will used mostly as a grocery getter and curve carver. That will make 3 vehicles counting the Pick-up and the motorcycle. If my scheme holds together in the future the one after that will be something like a Roadmaster station wagon or a big-ass Cadillac for interstate travel.

    Different tools for differing purposes.

    • I agree –

      For close-in, short distance, low-speed in-city type driving, an electric car can make a lot of sense. What makes zero sense – as I see it – is a six figure luxury car that can’t make a 200 mile trip without stopping for an hour (or more) to charge along the way.

      • BINGO!

        Most of my driving involves less than a 40 mile round trip. Even if I had an electric powered vehicle easily capable of that distance between charges, I would still want a gasser for the occasional 120 mile round trip to New Orleans.

        Kathy just purchased a 2013 Rogue and so far we love it. It has some Geezer friendly features that her Altima lacked, such as good visibility and easy ingress and egress. If we experience any unpleasantness, I’ll let you know.

        Like everything else, it is overpriced but we can easily afford it. At our age it may be the last new car we will purchase. What I hate most is paying the sales tax.

        And dammit, I just wanted to enjoy the smell of a new car again. Our 2005 Altima was a program car and the new car smell was gone when we purchased it.

        tgsam

      • I thought of this after I posted.

        I already own a viable electric vehicle. Somewhere in my shed is an electric scooter that I purchased for my then preteen daughter.

        Made by Schwinn.
        Carrying capacity listed at 250 pounds. I weigh around a buckfifty.

        Top speed 20-25 mph. Surface street limits in my neighborhood are 30 mph and have little to no traffic except at rush hour.

        I think the range is around 30-50 miles per charge. While I live outside the city limits, none of my usual errands (grocery/video rental/hospital/big box/doc’s office) are more than 6 to 12 miles round trip.

        While carrying capacity is limited (small wire basket) I could always increase it with a milk crate and bungee cords.

        I’m not sure if the battery is still good (have to check on replacement cost and availibility).

        LOL–I could actually see myself using this thing on a late spring or summer morning. The WTF factor from other road occupants would be PRICELESS.

        Where’s MY subsidy?

  31. I am optimistic about the future of the electric car. At some point, somebody will figure out how to store a few hundred kilowatt hours in a battery the size of the current 12 volt battery in a conventional car. That may sound far fetched. But if you tried to tell an electronics expert sixty years ago that someday it would possible to put millions of transistors on a chip the size of a postage stamp, they would have thought you crazy too. The CPU in the computer you are using is such a chip.

    The story of Tesla motors is not a condemnation of the electric car, but rather a condemnation of government subsidies. Heavily government subsidized businesses have a completely different set of priorities than the business receiving little or no government subsidies. That shows in the company’s products. The Tesla roadster is a white elephant of an electric car. Big on hype and price and offering little of practical value. On the other hand, there is the Nissan Leaf. Much less subsidized than the Tesla and at half the price, practical for some people.

    Affordable electric cars will be a reality some day. Government subsidies will put that day farther off rather than bring it closer. Technological advancement is like a horse race with many horses in the running. The government invariably bets on the wrong one. This ties up money that could have been spent on a winner.

    • Well, I’m more cautious.

      Being a car guy, I know something non-car guys may not: Electric cars are not a new idea.

      They’re literally a 100-year-old idea.

      Electric cars were successful – somewhat – at the turn of the last century because they were functionally competitive with conventional cars. Which at the time were crude and balky (no self-starters, among other things) while the electrics were not. But by the 1920s, electric cars were no longer competitive. They had the same problems they still have today: High cost/limited range.

      Meanwhile:

      You can buy a solid little 2-3 year-old used economy car for under $10,000 that will deliver 400 miles on a tankful, takes 5 minutes to refuel and will probably last for 200,000 miles.

      That’s damn hard to beat.

      Is it quick like the Tesla? Sharp looking? Have heated seats and a great stereo and all the bells and whistles?

      No.But if you value those things primarily – rather than economy – than why even bother with the electric drivetrain? Unless it’s just for whatever “green pride” you get out of the deal.

      • The first Studebaker autos were electric. They also made the first Mass Transit electric vehicle.

        In my quest to drive(or Fly) everything I can before I leave this planet, the 1909 Studebaker ‘Victoria’ was the first EV that I drove.

        Ok, Back to work … err! play, I have to weld, straighten, then polish some trim for the Olds ‘Speedster’ project.

        • I’ve driven a circa 1908 Baker (IIRC) Electric. Neat little buggy. But inferior in every way to a Model T except one – no need to break your hand trying to crank it up!

          • COL! To much spark. Cranking cars and propping airplanes are lost abilities.

            As I recall, Studebaker had some connection to Baker EV’s. I think Baker built the later Stude EV’s.

            And what the hell is this(IIRC)(?), I see it often in your comments.

            Thanks for the laugh, Eric

      • Great point, Eric regarding the power suckers such as heaters, headlights, A/C, etc. No one really talks about that. Electric cars would be great if you drove only in sixty five degree sunny weather during the day. Add to that a predictable say, 60-70 mile round trip commute on flat roads. Anyone know about how the electric cars deal with all the accessories that draw tons of power?

        • Hi JJ,

          “Anyone know about how the electric cars deal with all the accessories that draw tons of power?”

          Back in the ’90s, GM sold (well, leased) the EV1 electric car – but only in CA. Where it’s warm. Electric heaters are energy pigs. The Tesla multiplies the problem by having a full array of onboard electronics – every luxury/convenience feature you’d expect in a car with a sticker price that starts at $60k. The combined draw of all that stuff – plus the necessary stuff such as the heater/defroster, headlights, etc. – probably reduces the car’s range potential significantly. And don’t forget that in summer, the AC will draw power. A lot of it.

      • Thorium Reactors from China?

        Or when the economic collapse happens, bring back the Stanley Steamer fueled by waste material. Efficient and green through recycling all the packaging we’ve been wadding into the garage as the city charges to take it away. When that runs out, dried turds also burn.

    • Storing electrons in a chemical goo is NOT efficient and never will be. The only viable alternative to HC oxidation is Hydrogen but you will need nuclear power to produce H2.

      Did Musk become a billionaire by getting politicians to put a gun to 300M people’s heads? Musk is a violent sociopath.

        • No one seems interested in HHO. ( Search youTube for HHO and see what you get–bubbles, tiny bubbles…..)

          Oh, well. *I* just completed my second mileage run using 2 stainless steel spatulas immersed in tap water. The vehicle is an old (1990) 560SEL Mercedes sedan, air conditioning running (Phoenix and summer). Without the HHO, I would consistently get 12-13 mpg. With the HHO I get 18-19 mpg.

          Lemme see now, subtract the … divide by ….. carry the …. hmmm. Looks like a 50% improvement over the gasoline-only mileage. Wow! It didn’t even require learning the New Math!

          Thank goodness I didn’t have multiple millions of $$ to throw at this project. I might have been lured into building a hybrid or something.

          Gee, I wonder why Stan Meyer got murdered … water doesn’t burn!

    • “That may sound far fetched.”

      It IS far fetched. Extremely far fetched.

      The battery powered vehicle will never compete with vehicles powered by the otto engine and gasoline. They physics just ain’t there and science cannot extract what just ain’t there.

      tgsam

  32. Let’s consider a reversal of gasoline versus battery question. Imagine that gasoline, with it’s incomparable burning quality, has not been discovered. Served by charging stations, for more than a century man has moved loads and himself with battery powered vehicles. Mules are still bred, and horse drawn wagons are still quite common.

    Can you imagine the excitement that would accompany the sudden appearance of gasoline and the otto engine? I can imagine it now in bold print:

    AT LAST. MANKIND NEED NO LONGER DEPEND ON INEFFICIENT BATTERY POWERED TRANSPORTATION!

    Gasoline and the otto engine promise a quantum leap in the transportation of people and goods….

    tgsam

    • Excellent! Exactly!

      I think there was already a headline in 1915:

      “Battery powered car sales plummet as the gasoline motor electric starter arrives”

  33. Apparently Musk is working on a solution with Boeing to fix their Lithium-ion battery problem on their latest Dreamliner aircraft- good luck to him.

  34. It’s a simple power density problem. 40 pounds of gasoline is equivelent to 400 pounds of batteries (assuming they are fully charged, in which case they’re just 400 pounds of dead weight).

    Now factor in the portability and the transportability of gasoline, not to mention the long term endurance of the internal combustion engine. The technology simply isn’t there (yet?), and all of the subsidies in the world will not change that. (Besides, subsidies are only cost transfers, not cost reducers.)

    • Two things especially annoy me about Tesla:

      * Musk is a billionaire. Why can’t he put his own money behind his electric car project? Bad enough we’re robbed to subsidize anything. But robbed to subsidize a billionaire’s pet project?

      * Is there anything more demented than a six figure electric car? Or even a $60k electric car? These things are above all else about economy. If they are not economical to operate, then they are pointless. Range, 0-60, all irrelevant if the stupid thing costs 3-5 times the cost of a decent A to B transportation appliance.

      If someone can make an electric car that costs $25k and which can go reliably go at least 100 miles in between charges, winter or summer (and so on) then it might be viable.

      Until then, forget it.

      • How can a company sell a good $25000 car without first making a profit. The luxury car starts first and wealthy people buy it. Once you make money, then the mass produced version comes. You have no business sense and no idea what you’re talking about. And musk has put MILLIONS and MILLIONS of his own money into TeslaClover

        • Oh, you mean like VW say?

          Or Toyota?

          Honda….?

          Maybe Ford?

          Mazda?

          How about Subaru?

          Chevrolet?

          American Motors (Nash, Rambler, Hudson, etc.)

          Perhaps you can enlighten me: Which of these successful companies began by producing luxury cars?

        • “musk has put MILLIONS and MILLIONS of his own money into Tesla.”

          Yeah. And $465 million of other people’s money, too!

          Musk should put only his money into his venture.

          Not mine or anyone other unwilling “contributor’s.”

          • How much of that $465M ended up in his own pocket? And the pockets of the politicians that stole that money for him.

            Clovers have the minds of children.

            • Honestly, I don’t care where it ended up. Whether it bankrolled endless nights of $3,000 hookers or R&D into his electric car boondoggle… in the end, we lose – and he wins.

              It’s the principle that has to be challenged, not the utilitarian (or not) end-use to which our money is put.

              No one – not a billionaire, not a pauper – has the right to place a gun to someone else’s head (or have it done on his behalf) in order to compel said someone (or someones) to hand over their property for his benefit.

          • I am wondering because the slick parasite is already rich and putting stolen-at-gunpoint taxpayer money in his own pocket….

            I bet he spent it on $3000 hookers and charged it as a business expense. I have no doubt.

          • The problem is not the making of only luxury/exotic vehicles can’t work (consider Pagani). It’s that he’s using government pork to do it.

            In another website, a reviewer commented that this was not a vehicle single moms were likely to buy.. but in response one poster said “they ARE, through their taxes”

          • Government employee…Mugger.
            What’s the difference?
            A gubmint employee will cry like a little girl and scream that their violent mugging is beneficial to society.

            • “A gubmint employee will cry like a little girl and scream that their violent mugging is beneficial to society.”

              It’s worse than that. Most do not regard what they do as thievery. Some even operate from what they genuinely believe to be benevolent (“liberal”) motives. They’ve literally never followed the logic of their position to its ultimate, inevitable conclusion – a gun pointed at some victim’s face. Or, they do not consider their victims victims.They really do believe that people “owe” – and that those who decline to pay up are stealing from their fellow men!

              No mugger I’ve ever heard of is possessed of that kind of psychotic effrontery!

        • I don’t understand why I have to subsidize toys for rich people. Or for that matter all sorts of things for people far wealthier than I. Then again, that’s probably why they are wealthy, because myself and those like me are forced to finance their endeavors. I’d be quite wealthy if I could be spotted half a billion dollars or so and get the government skids greased so they left me alone.

          In this society the way to wealth is through the political means. Plain and simple. No political means, no wealth. A few people get rich in the productive means despite the barriers, but it takes finding that niche where the political means hasn’t yet taken over or skill at getting around/through the political.

          • No wool over your eyes Brentp.

            The path to connections and wealth is political.

            Join one of the two corporate parties, run for party jobs, gather support in the party, sell your soul. Run for office, sell your soul again and again. Get elected… doors open. Open doors open more doors. Hang on to your job with a lot of BJ’s, make more contacts that open more doors.

            Cash in!

            The route to power and influence_Cash/wealth is through the Democratic or Republican parties. I know Second hand. My aunt was the secretary of Democratic party of a Northwestern state for many years. One uncle was a county commissioner, another a state representative, and another a county prosecutor of the states most populous county. A real slime ball.

            And so it goes……

        • ROFL! Man you made me laugh more in one paragraph.

          “The luxury car starts first and wealthy people buy it”

          Where does he get the money to build luxury cars?

          “Once you make money, then the mass produced version comes”

          why would he mass produce a cheaper car if – according to you – he’s profiting from luxury cars?

          Your statement implies that he decided to make the more expensive, less profitable car first in order to eventually have enough money to make the MORE profitable car.

          No doubt a lot of successful businessmen have followed that business model.

          WooHoo! Thanks for the laugh though, seriously.

        • Dammit, I hate when I miss the memo that we’re having a guest expert on the site! Oh shoot wait.. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about! Dang, just another moron clover.

        • “The luxury car starts first and wealthy people buy it. Once you make money, then the mass produced version comes.”

          Wow…just wow.

          • Yeah… pretty spectacular, isn’t it?

            He’s upended the business model of every car company that ever succeeded in the market. Well, every car company that succeeded on its own nickle…

          • wait a minute here guys, I know the original poster said, “luxury cars”, but (in general) all products are like this;. Meaning the earliest production units must recoup all/most of the up-front expenses to develop the product. (called ‘non recurring effort’) Afterwards, the vast majority of the cost for follow-on units is recurring effort (RE). Therefore, a manufacturer uses the RE to make up for all the NRE he has spent. This is why new car models typically rarely have engine/powertrain changes and only gingerbread changes. It keeps the “new” NRE down on a model refresh. That is why I cant believe Ford has done away with the crown vic, econoline and ranger cars…. they are all RE (e.g. cash cows…)

          • Conventional wisdom says that electric cars are economy cars.
            Tesla, recognizing that electric technology was too expensive to be considered economy, took a novel approach: appeal to high-minded high income liberals with a luxury electric vehicle, then transfer economies of scale to a cheaper model.

            It was a novel idea, it was outside the box, and sometimes ideas like that pay off big. This one has obviously not paid off big. Conventional wisdom has seized the day, and any notion that Tesla’s novel approach is the obvious approach is just flat wrong.

            • Hi House,

              Electric vehicles need not be preposterously expensive. It’s a matter of parameters. If the parameters are:

              * In-city, low speed (40 MPH and under) use.
              * Minimalist (a radio, perhaps – but certainly no AC or high-end infotainment equipment).
              * Light weight (no requirement to comply with government “safety” mandates)

              Then it would absolutely be economically and functionally feasible to build a viable electric car.

              Musk made the mistake of not building a luxury high-performance car that also wanted to be a viable electric car.

          • The panther platform wasn’t supposed to live past 1985 I think.
            Somehow Ford managed to keep it going CAFE wise. It was big enough that it could keep meeting safety standards. However with fedgov always looming in the ‘vic’s rear mirror a proper next generation was a bad risk. So it just kept on keeping on. But the reaper fedgov eventually closed the gap.

            Sales to individuals suffered because it was an old design and Obama’s fedgov has pushed cafe up and safety requirements up. Thus Ford had no choice but to kill the panther. It would require significant effort to meet both of fedgov’s edicts, but the sales weren’t there to justify the investment.

      • It’s a good question: Why didn’t Musk pony up the money himself rather than bothering with the subsidy? Part of the answer lies in the mentality of the rich-and-wanna-be-powerful. The amount of dole is not so important as the fact that Musk gained political leverage within the (corrupt) system of power. The point is the political connection, not the money. After you have a few billion who cares about money anyway?

      • * Musk is a billionaire. Why can’t he put his own money behind his electric car project? Bad enough we’re robbed to subsidize anything. But robbed to subsidize a billionaire’s pet project?

        EXACTLY!

        If this asshole wants to waste his own money on a pet boondoggle like this, then by all means let him be free to do so. But how DARE he reach his sticky fingers into MY (or anyone else’s) pocket!

        Seriously, in addition to calling out what a piece of shit Musk’s giant electric toy is, there ought to be an accompanying shaming campaign against him for being a corporate welfare queen.

    • One of the most interesting proposals I saw for batteries was flow batteries. I believe they’re used commercially for wind-power storage systems.

      The idea is to cycle a metal solution through the battery–rather than relying on solid cathode/anode in-place.

      You could “fill up” by dumping the oxidized metal solution, and replacing it with fresh solution in a lower redox state. It runs through the battery until it’s exhausted.

      I’m not holding my breath–and now that we know we’ve got natural gas and petroleum to last quite some time, I can’t see it being commercially relevant in the foreseeable future.

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