I am glad we have someone here who thinks science is important. So, how much of the energy in gasoline is actually converted to movement with present internal combustion engines?
I see at least a 200% potential gain in efficiency just waiting!
First thing you need to do is to learn when someone is LYING to you. These same scare tactics were deployed when lead was taken out of the gas, when seat belts and collapsible steering posts were mandated (so as to not send a bolt of steel through your chest during a crash), and when air bags were required.
The result of these things is fewer Americans dying on the road every year, and a marked drop in the lead detected in the blood of our nation's children.
Another the thing, let's be polite and call them skeptics, forget to mention. The $700 billion dollar defense budget -- never mind the Bush wars which are estimated to cost us in excess of $3 TRILLION in taxes.
There is one reason we are in the middle east. And that is to protect the world market price of oil. So, add that cost to your $11,000 car.
Physics is Physics no matter what some people think or government attempts to mandate. You have that right. More engineers should be in government and fewer lawyers. Things might become more logical/rational in the real world.
Let's make one thing clear. I am not anti-defense. But when the US defense budget is greater than the rest of the world combined, there is order of magnitude budget cuts available in that area.
Is the bloated defense budget entirely responsible for the budget deficit? No. President Bush pretty much guaranteed that we would be on the road for permanent budget deficits when he made massive cuts in taxes.
But even that is not the whole story. The baby-boomers are retiring. It is therefore NECESSARY that total of taxes to go up.
Of course, the size and causes of the deficit don't matter in this context. What does matter is that SO LONG AS THE STABILIZATON OF WORLD OIL PRICES IS THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE US DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, THEN EVERY SINGLE TAX PAYER HAS A RATIONAL INTEREST IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY STANDARDS.
Oh, and I forgot. EVs don't get rid of pollution; they only move the pollution elsewhere! If anything they create more pollution with making batteries, power plants, etc. Again, insanity. Let the market decide. Vote with our dollars.
@Isleguard I could not agree with you (and some of the other posters) more. Lawmakers posing as engineers! A better solution might be engineers being law makers. At least engineers have a grasp on physics. I disagree with the "tradeoff" concept. Each gallon of gas has a fixed quantity of energy and each passenger has a fixed quantity of mass. Further air resistance at a given velocity is fixed. If a car is made with zero mass one can calculate the MPG and this cannot be improved any more than trying to mandate gravitational acceleration. Of course a lawyer solution would be to change the volume of a gallon of gas to fix the problem! All insanity.
The problem could be realistically fixed by simply removing government help in all areas. Get them out of oil production, manufacturing, and money printing. Everything! Let them work on getting the mail delivered, just as the Constitution authorizes. That alone will keep them out of our hair for eternity!
Interesting that Japan is complaining the loudest. Is Detroit complaining much? Seems lately that Detroit is on a major innovation roll and the U.S. car industry just seems glad to be alive.
""The Prius has half the fatal accident rate..." Ever known anyone under the age of 35 buy a Prius?"
Yes because I participate in PriusChat and other user forums. We do find younger than 35 buyers including one that is already on his second Prius after rolling his first. Prius owners come in all shapes, sizes and ages. We have two others at work, youngsters to me.
"Do you think anyone who uses a car as a personal status symbol could drive a Prius? "
The false claim of "personal status" comes from hybrid skeptics such as CNW Marketing whose "Dust-to-Dust" report has been throughly debunked. GM's Bob Lutz also tried to make these claims until he came out with the Volt. The only status I care about is the smugness of having money in my wallet when I drive away from the gas pump.
BTW, we bought the 2003 Prius, used, with 49,300 miles. It has just reached 150,000 miles on its second set of tires and original brake pads. Our 2010 Prius has over 33,000 miles and counting. Both cars are fully paid for and the most expensive, the new 2010 was $24,000 and came with a lot of standard parts that are expensive options on other cars.
"That explains it. It's the type of driver, not the type of car thats influencing the statistic."
Then go to the FARS database and test this hypothesis. The ages of those involved are available but right now, it has as much standing as the CNW Marketing nonsense ... no merit at all.
UK-based Plastic Logic and French company ISORG have created what the pair tout as a first in flexible printed electronics: a large area, conformable, organic image sensor printed on plastic.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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