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Category Archives: Automobiles
Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks
Preface. After all the research I’ve done on rebuildable, not renewable wind and solar, hydrogen, batteries, and other Green dreams of an endless future of growth based on them, I’ve come to see them as just as likely as nuclear … Continue reading
Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets
Preface. The past is future after fossil fuels, but minus the horses for a while, since before cars they required about a sixth of U.S. farmland for their feed. My grandfather, Francis J. Pettijohn, used to fondly reminisce about how … Continue reading
MIT: Why the electric-car revolution may take a lot longer than expected
Preface. This study from MIT explains why price parity of electric and gasoline vehicles is likely to take a lot longer than 5 years, and perhaps never if cars continue to depend on lithium-ion batteries. Deeper cost declines beyond 2030 … Continue reading
Why self-driving cars may not be in your future
Preface. Below are excerpts from several articles about why a completely automated vehicle is unlikely. Heaven forbid they are invented. Researchers have found that people will drive 76% more miles, stop using bicycles and mass transit, waste a considerable amount … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles
Tagged automated, NASA, not ready, reaction time, self-driving, tesla
1 Comment
How Much Oil is in an Electric Vehicle? by Nicholas LePan
LePan shows how plastics, made from fossil fuels, make up so much of a car, plus lighten the weight so the car can go further on gasoline. Since fossil fuels are finite, many assume we’ll just make them out of … Continue reading
Automated vehicles: more driving, energy wasted, & congestion
Preface. There’s no need to actually worry about how automated vehicles will be used and their potential congestion, energy use, and whether there are enough rare earth minerals to make them possible, because they simply can never be fully automated, … Continue reading
EV cars only go half as far in freezing weather
Preface. Below freezing, li-ion batteries don’t perform as well. Consumer reports found that about half the driving range was lost. Perhaps this is why nearly half of PHEV/BEV vehicles are sold in balmy California, while the half of the states … Continue reading
Not enough lithium to electrify transportation
Preface. Breaking news: The New York times just reported that there are only 25 years of zinc reserves left and goes on to say that lithium reserves are even smaller — just 5% of zinc reserves (Penn 2018). The authors of … Continue reading
If we really cared about CO2, we’d reduce car size and weight, not make electric cars
Preface. Since my book “When trucks stop running: Energy and the future of transportation makes the case that it’s trucks that need to be electrified to keep civilization going, since biofuels don’t scale up, natural gas and liquefied coal are … Continue reading
Notes from “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” by Steve LeVine
[ My notes from 2015 “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” by Steve LeVine follow this introduction. I read this book because I’ve done extensive research on batteries and was surprised by all the … Continue reading