Say Anything Blog

Does ANYONE actually think that cars will STILL run on gasoline by 2020?

This legislation is laughably useless.

CAFE standards raised.  Incandescent light bulbs gone.  No border security.  10,000+ pork barrel projects.

The 12 most feared words in America: I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.

Assholes.

Beneath the very thin skin of every liberal lurks a commissar yearning to breathe free.

Regards…

The 12 most feared words in America:

1.  I’m
2.  from
3.  the
4.  government
5.  and
6.  I’m
7.  here
8.  to
9.  help
10.  you

Thank you for the first laugh of my morning.
BTW Raygun’s quote only had nine.

Excuse me, you were saying?

I though it was “I’m only 15”.

BILL,

Does ANYONE actually think that cars will STILL run on gasoline by 2020?

NO, I don’t think it will be gasoline (only).

IT WILL BE (you can write this on the wall):
Liquid
Sold by the Gallon or Liter
Dispensed at stations for money
Work in an internal combustion engine.
Your 2007 auto will work with this stuff (may be some timing modifications)

Consider how many 1994 cars and pickups are on the road today.  That’s what 2007 vehicles will be like then.

Do you think we will throw over a whole generation of vehicles? 

NO, despite all the big talk about electric vehicles (and there will be some), Hybrids (ditto), Fuel Cells (Doubtful), Hydrogen cars (nope), we are going to burn liquid fuel in our cars. 

There will be transition but 13 years is way to short a time to transit.  (I love making verbs from nouns, German does that all the time, it makes sense). 

Not until a new technology is embraced universally because of market forces will there be a change.  Government has no place trying to pick the technology or impose change.  DUMB

How will it happen?  Let’s suppose You, BILL, came up with a fuel pellet, sold it for $5.  Place ONE in a container under your hood and the car runs for a thousand miles. If that worked I would quickly do the math and replace the power plant under the hood of the Buick with this new and better form of power.

So would everyone.  If I then went to buy a new car and the offer was fuel cells, or Hydrogen at about the same cost per mile as gasoline is today or the BILL PILL, $5 1000 miles, what will I buy? 

All the gas stations would be ghost towns or converted to conversion to the BILL PILL garages installing the BILL PILL engine.

And that my friend is how it is really going to go down.  I’m rooting for Bill.

[b]Old Tigers are more dangerous when they believe this could be their last hunt.

From , “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”
Old tigers, sensing the end,
they’re at their most fierce. 
And they go down fighting.

Thank you for the first laugh of my morning.

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

Does ANYONE actually think that cars will STILL run on gasoline by 2020?

Yes. If this is sarcasm, you may wish to use the /sarcasm tag in the future.

laughably useless

Bill’s autobiography in two words!

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

The only way to meet this goal is to gut the safety standards. Cut 3/4 of the weight of a vehicle and the mileage will accordingly rise. Along with injuries and deaths.

billie, what do you suggest we use?

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Just for the record, a contraction is a new word formed by from two or more other words.  Examples including “isn’t” and “goodbye” by not “ain’t” or “shain’t”

Better than German though, where you can from new words by concatenating multiple others.  For example:

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

Carrik, I don’t know this word.  I’m German.

But, at first glance, it seems to be a word having to do the the regulation of beef gut usage (probably for use in summersausage).  I won’t dissect it but, thats how it reads?  I’ll bet some of you thought that could not have been a real word.

I’ll look it up.

[b]Old Tigers are more dangerous when they believe this could be their last hunt.

From , “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”
Old tigers, sensing the end,
they’re at their most fierce. 
And they go down fighting.

Gene, it’s the German Language Society (Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache) 1999 word of the year, meaning “beef labeling oversight transfer law”. 

I’ve got a bit of German ancestry in me, unfortunately language isn’t an inheritable trait (otherwise my Swedish would be very good as well).  My only real claim to fame with German, other than taking two-years of college credits in a 10-month period, is I once translated a 100+ page journal article (with the help of a number of German-speaking students) written by a Hungarian in baroque German. 

If it’s not too nosey, are you Lutheran per chance?

YES (but Pentecostal) which isn’t that unusual.

LCMS Charismatic.  Look it up.

[b]Old Tigers are more dangerous when they believe this could be their last hunt.

From , “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”
Old tigers, sensing the end,
they’re at their most fierce. 
And they go down fighting.

Carrick--Thanks.  I was about to give rbb a grammar lesson, but you saved me the trouble.  Must be that liberal education of his (thanks again to the NEA for all their hard work).

Beneath the very thin skin of every liberal lurks a commissar yearning to breathe free.

Regards…

Proof,

Consider changing your name to “Useless Commentary” as you never produce “proof” of anything other than the fact you are a complete idiot.

Anyway, try Googling the following:

“Hydrogen Fuel Cell”
“Nanophosphate Battery”

And you will see that not only will cars NOT run on gasoline by the year 2020, they won’t run on gasoline in 5 years.

Right, a new car is being sold in California that gets 300 MPG.  There is also a retrofit-type kit which will be coming out that can make the average gas powered car of today into a hybrid that get 150 MPG.

Although I don’t know why I am wasting my time trying to educate someone who is obviously severely retarded.

2H9, the number one thing you could do to improve mpg is to reduce the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle.  Weight is important, especially in stop-and-start traffic, but on the highway most of the fuel is eaten up combating vehicle drag.

Improved body design would go a long way in this regard.  People would have to get used to streamlined vehicles instead of the (what I regard as pedestrian and ugly as sin in any case) current boxy models.  Here’s what I mean by “streamlined”:

The second thing you could do is store kinetic energy from stopping then use it to start the vehicle moving again (regenerative braking).  For example, going from disk brakes to electric motors (with disk brakes still there as fail safes) would be another).

The third is to switch from a variable rpm gasoline engine to a constant rpm diesel (use as a generator to power an electric motor, diesel hybrids have been around for 50+ years, e.g used in locomotives).

and the list goes on.

I would be more sympathetic to the auto industry, but they’ve shown exactly zero adaptability in the past, and little ability to truly innovate.  To give them credit transmission design has vastly improved in 20 years and the electronic control of vehicle ignition is a big step forward, but for the most part, very little new has come from the auto giants.

To me this just illustrates the weakness of mega-corporation.  The economy of scale allows them to manufacture new products cheaply, but their size proves to be a burden when it comes to innovation.

I think this is why we are seeing a wave of new car manufacturers making sleek looking “environmentally friendly” specialized vehicles, for example Fisker Automotive and others.

Oddly, feature for feature, most are very $$$ competitive with the big giants’ selections.

Bill,

Could you provide links to the 300mpg car and 150mpg kit?

HG, he’s probably thinking of the Aptera, which is a plug-in diesel hybrid.  They are accepting pre-orders with (I think) $500 down and it lists at $29,900.

I believe the 300 mpg number applies to a fully charged battery, so there’s a bit of hype there.

Bill Mitchell,

Hydrogen is NOT a fuel source, it is a method of energy transfer.  Much more energy goes in to making hydrogen than goes into the production of hydrocarbon fuels.  So where is the energy for hydrogen production going to come from?

Out Here
Rodney G. Graves

Ceterum censeo Parthia esse delendam
Latin: “Furthermore, Parthia (Persia aka modern day Iran) should be destroyed.”

Golfman I had to delete your video as comments don’t support video.  Go ahead and resubmit it as a link.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

The Aptera brilliantly illustrates the difficulties with higher mileage.  $29k for a two-seater with minimal storage, and you’ve got to plug it in every night?

And exactly how do you define “mileage” for a plug in car?  Ahem.  At best, only one fuel source is liquid at all--it’s called “bait & switch” in the lexicon of informal logic, and this tactic used by engineers ought to give us pause about the other claims they’re making about this vehicle.

Ok here is the link:
this is a BIG deal in my opinion and I remind everyone to never forget “inspiration"… in the human spirit and the “problems” we face.

(Some call it Divine inspiration.)
Here we have the basics of a cheaper, BETTER and SAFER fuel delivery system, all the while being cleaner as well.

look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJIO-n3_Tvc&eurl=http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8215&SearchTerms=big

Guys, I checked out both of bill’s suggested googles, and I don’t see either supplanting petroleum based hydrocarbon fuel systems anytime soon. And damn well not in the next 5 years.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

And you will see that not only will cars NOT run on gasoline by the year 2020

Bill: Can I take that to the bank,like your prediction on Iowa & NH?

HERE IS MY PREDICTION:
Romney will carry Iowa by at atleast 12 points and probably 15 or more.  He will carry NH by the same.

Although I don’t know why I am wasting my time trying to educate someone who is obviously severely retarded, here goes. The year is 2008. Are there any cars on the road that were built before 1996? Oh, really? Then, if we have cars on the road today that are twelve years old and older, do you think that any retarded child would say that cars will not run on gasoline in twelve years? Are all those cars magically going to disappear? Is the government going to buy them all back? Didn’t think so!
You? You just didn’t think at all!

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

Jim Bohlhanen had someone from GM on his radio program tonight who said that 35 MPG is workable.  They were really worried about the politicians that thought that 35mpg wasn’t enough and thought that 40 to 45 mpg would be better.  He also talked about a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid that was getting 21mpg in the city they were testing.

Yep, there is a whole bunch-0-snakeoil salesmen scurrying around the envirocrap movement.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Unfortunately, someone needs to break the news to Bill that watching reruns of The Jetsons doesn’t make you an authority on cars of the future!
Or worse yet, economics! The main issue Bill so naïvely overlooks is infrastructure! Whether your car is powered by compressed air, as we discussed here, or runs on electricity or fuel cells or used vegetable oil (handy for Bill, he could fill up at work! ), before the American public (other than Ed Begley Jr) would buy an alternative fuel car, there would need to be the same kind of infrastructure in place that allows Americans freedom of choice in where they drive.
If you buy an air powered car that needs a 10,000psi compressor for a timely fill up, and there is only one in a 1000 mile radius of where you live, you might not use that car the way you’d like to.
To build that infrastructure, you’d need to convince entrepreneurs that there was money to be made in providing those goods and services.
But if you’re in Olathe Kansas and you have to determine what the Return On Investment is on the capital expenditure you need to make in that compressor, and the costs of keeping the doors of your business open, there’d better be a pretty damn long stream of cars needing your services before you make that investment. And until hundreds of thousands of people make that investment, you won’t see that long stream of cars! Get it?

And what does the “gas” station of the future have to charge to stay in business? To use our example of compressed air again (Bill: I’m trying use something you can relate to:air and nothing but air!): Air at $3.00/liter? Energy isn’t free, Bill! The capital investment on the equipment, the energy required to run a compressor, the maintenance required to keep it up...all adds up!

It is not enough to simply invent the ”car of the future”, you need to build the infrastructure of the future, and I don’t think it is reasonable (look that word up, Bill) to expect to see that in twelve years or less.

Especially, when you consider another inconvenient truth glossed over by many advocates of “new” technologies: Climate.
That compressed air powered car might go over great in Miami or Mexico City, but the good citizens of North Dakota are mighty fond of one of the waste byproducts of internal combustion engines: heat.
When it’s 10° or colder, how long do you have to run your compressed air engine before you can turn the heat on? Trick question. Now, in order to provide year round comfort for the people in the car, in every climate zone in the country, you need to add an electric(?) heater which consumes power and possibly limits your range of use. For small, electric cars, this is a big problem. For the Indian, compressed air cars, this may not even be a consideration. But, here in the good, old U S of A, I think your marketing people are going to want some say in whether or not a heater/defroster is included in the final blueprints!

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

Good points about infrastructure, Proof.  Noway without some major crisis (like total foreign oil disruption) are we going to see a major transition to unconventional power sources.  Ethanol-gasoline works of course because you don’t have to upgrade the existing transportation infrastructure for it to work.

He also talked about a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid that was getting 21mpg in the city they were testing.

21 isn’t anywhere close to 35 mpg.

Jim Bohlhanen had someone from GM on his radio program tonight who said that 35 MPG is workable.

In the old days when you had a product idea, you’d make the product and the consumers would decide whether or not it was the product they wanted.

Nowdays companies like GM encourage the politicians to force the consumers to buy what they want to sell by making what the consumers want to buy impossible to get.

I for one used to be strictly a USA brand guy.  Next car I buy I’m leaving my options open strictly because of Ford/GM going to bed with the environuts.

Of course we can build 35 mpg cars, in fact we already do.  But most people don’t like them.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

They were really worried about the politicians that thought that 35mpg wasn’t enough and thought that 40 to 45 mpg would be better.

Isn’t that too bad.  You go to bed with the devil and don’t like it when they start taking more than they said they would.

GM should have stood with the consumers.

Rush was talking about this yesterday.  He said that someone up high (maybe even Lutz) said that their customers wanted smaller cars. 

Um, what is it that sells for GM?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

It’s worth noting that the hybrid Tahoe has seriously degraded performance in at least one area compared to the standard; towing.  You lose a full ton in towing ability.

Not a huge deal for most of us, but for those who DO need to tow 4 tons on occasion, it is a deal-breaker.  Just a reminder that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” We don’t do well to assume that the engineers at car companies are doing their jobs so poorly that we can arbitrarily increase mileage by about 60% without reducing something else we like, like horsepower, towing, and so on.

I feel your pain - I drive a GMC Suburban because I need the room to carry search dogs and the 4x4 to get places where (and when) we are needed.  I challenge any “Greenie” to find something that will replace it with the same features.