Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Top-down government spending can goose an industry. Nobody's questioning that. But where will electric cars -- for example -- really come from?
The coolest thing about this electric car isn’t the Lola racing car chassis, or the clear plastic bodywork or even the fact it gets the equivalent of 300 mpg. The coolest thing about this car is the kids who built it.
The car was a class project at the Automotive Design Studio at the DeLaSalle Education Center, an alternative high school in Kansas City, Missouri. The school serves those kids who fall through the cracks, and most of them live below the poverty line. A lot of them have seen some violence in their lives, others have kids, others have drug and alcohol problems and many of them struggle with basic educational skills. It’s an amazing opportunity for them to follow up two years of work in a class called Creative Studio and Entrepreneurial Studies by designing and building a record-breaking electric car.
DeLaSalle draws its funding from government and private sources, but it provides the kind of education that public schools in general are failing to provide. Entrepreneurial Studies! How weaker would the temptation be to dump federal dollars on favored industries in a world where most kids got a sound education in Entrepreneurial Studies? That would be a world where the future would arrive from the ground up.
(via Ricochet member PEG)
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Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
No thing of value will ever be created by the top-down government approach. Ever.
Does anybody else remember the excitement of reading Gilder and Wanniski in the '80s? Those guys got it. Entrepeneurs do not exist to get wealthy at the expense of others. The exist to fulfillour desires and solve our problems, to take chances on what the people actually want. Create the right environment and they wlil find answers to the problems that vex us. And create prosperity in the process.
Americans - honestly - don't give a hoot about electric cars. Pointy-headed wannabe tyrants care about that. What we - the consumers of automobiles - care about is cars. Produce a car that we love that runs on electricity and we will buy them. Force us to buy them because they are electric and we will become stubborn as mules.
Unfortunately, the public school system is the last place we can expect to find the beauty of entrepeneurship championed. Well, maybe not the last. The current Adminstration may be the last.
May '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
America will only embrace an electric car when the electric car can embrace our lifestyle. I have four kids. A family of six cannot travel in anything less than a minivan. The Chevy Volt has four bucketseats.
And can they produce a minivan that, when fully loaded, will take my family the 7-hour drive to see the in-laws? By the time that happens, my kids will have kids and I might be dead.
Edited on Aug 26, 2010 at 7:53pmJul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
I dream of the Pelosi GTXi SS/RT Sport edition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY
(Am I allowed to do that?)
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Kenneth, I absolutely love that video! I just tried elevating it to the front page, but for some reason our embed-video button isn't showing up for me today. Hmmm. Time to ping Busy System Admin.
Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Iowahawk is a hoot. Maybe Rob should get him to contribute. Or as a guest on the podcast.
Just a thought.
May '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Electric cars, meh. Flying cars, yeah!
I also am a fan of Iowahawk, Ace of Spades, Red Eye, and other somewhat risque like-minded sites.
Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Honda FCX Clarity
Makes the Chevy Volt look like a Duryea.
Aug '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
All people will grow to dislike electric cars over time. Batteries are the major problem. There are too many limitations, and worn out batteries are highly toxic. Huge nuclear, natural gas, or coal-fired electric plants will have to be built to charge up electric cars, should they ever become numerous.
Hydrogen fuel cells - which can covert many different fuels directly into electricity - are the answer. They've been developed. We can have Ferrari-like performance with Ford Focus-like economy. Fuel cells - just like those the Space Shuttle uses - are over 40% efficient; unlike the best internal combustion engines, which don't approach that level of efficiency Fuel cells produce almost no pollution.
Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
River, did you see my link?
Aug '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Michael, I just watched it. Fabulous. Clearly, the future is here, and hydrogen cars are the answer.
In 2006, I saw Dan Rather drive the GM hydrogen car and report on it. It was equally impressive. Why are we so overcome with inertia, as a nation? It's tragic. We would have led the world in this years ago if.... if what? Where did we go wrong?
Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
River: All people will grow to dislike electric cars over time. Batteries are the major problem. There are too many limitations, and worn out batteries are highly toxic. Huge nuclear, natural gas, or coal-fired electric plants will have to be built to charge up electric cars, should they ever become numerous.
Hydrogen fuel cells - which can covert many different fuels directly into electricity - are the answer. They've been developed. We can have Ferrari-like performance with Ford Focus-like economy. Fuel cells - just like those the Space Shuttle uses - are over 40% efficient; unlike the best internal combustion engines, which don't approach that level of efficiency Fuel cells produce almost no pollution. · Aug 27 at 4:37am
My understanding is that it takes more energy to extract hydrogen from water than the hydrogen yields in a fuel cell.
The future is still a long ways off...
Jul '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
I think it's something to do with the fact that hydrogen production consumes more energy than the combustion. And that the only large scale production of hydrogen is from natural gas, which (when processed to create the hydrogen) releases the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than just burning st the natural gas would do. Can't escape physics people.
Jun '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
I'm with you, Paul Ryan, it's read it and weep physics, especially when you factor in the energy-in hydrogen-out equation. The only material on which this in-out equation comes close to working is with hydrocarbons, meaning that the "clean" vehicle is clean only because the pollution source is mover upstream to the refinery.
Aug '10
Re: Do Americans Dream of Electric Cars?
Extracting hydrogen from water consumes more energy than it produces, but I don't think that's true of extraction from natural gas. Which we have domestically in super-abundance; enough to last hundreds of years even with anticipated demand increases.
I can't seem to find exact figures regarding natural gas/hydrogen extraction.
The tremendous advantage with hydrogen cars is that in heavily smoggy areas, like L.A. - where cars are the major offender - the air would be dramatically improved. A large number of nuke and natural gas plants would reduce overall pollution a great deal, as they can be sited in advantageous locations.