Musk's Cyber Truck speed bump

[padgett]

And a steam engine requires proper adjustment of your Johnson. Today with flash boilers and computer controls, external combustion may return.

 

Those on the left coast do not know how good they have it. Choices of power, wow ! 2019 has been an unusual year since I have not needed my generators even once, just a few glitches the UPSs could handle.

[Locomobile]

2 hours ago, padgett said:

Choices of power, wow !

 

All through the same wire, cheap stuff and expensive stuff   That is like the old joke about the two bums splitting a bottle of beer, one said he had to drink the his friends half to get to his half.

 

2 hours ago, padgett said:

And a steam engine requires proper adjustment of your Johnson.

 

You lost me with that one Do you mean "cut-off"?

 

2 hours ago, padgett said:

Today with flash boilers and computer controls, external combustion may return.

 

Here is what I posted on another thread regarding that:

It's doubtful that will ever happen. The glaring problem with an external combustion engine, virtually any fuel that can be burned in an external combustion chamber can be processed and burned in an internal combustion chamber much more efficiently than using water/steam as a means of transferring the power from the heat, even coal and wood can be gasified and burnt in an I/C engine more efficiently. It takes an enormous amount of heat to boil water with great loss, in a steam plant any flue gases which are high volume, under 400 Fahrenheit are useless for other than heating feedwater and lost, this kills any chance at any competitive economies with it's internal combustion rival. Another huge problem is thermal loss,  I've written the statement many times regarding heated surface that if a surface in a boiler is not seeing fire it's condensing steam. If it's not making it, it's losing it, and why they used to wrap the boilers and cylinders in wood on the outside, it was insulation. Pressure and temperature of steam are like two meshed gears, whatever one is, the other corresponds. ref. steam tables.

 

My little Locomobile can achieve around 18 mpg due to it's fuel type, weight and relative low friction drive train. A good running heavier Stanley - 10 hp etc will get about 12 mpg, the larger high performance cars like the Doble with it's 1.2M BTU burner will get in the range of 5 mpg. The SES Monaco steam car program, the Besler/Crank Chevelle and Australian Pritchard Falcon were probably the three best studies in to a modern steam car and although all three were successful, the mileage was abysmal in the sub 20 mpg range, and too, they all came in around the time of the 70's oil embargo and the last thing anyone wanted to see was the introduction of a vehicle with poor fuel economy. That is what kills the modern steam vehicle. No big conspiracy.

 

The key to a modern steam car, is to utilize a source of heat that cannot be used any other way except to boil water, etc. A common mistake made and misconception is that steam cars do not require very much heat, they require an enormous amount of heat, my little Locomobile has a 300k BTU burner, which is enough to heat about three average size homes in the winter. A cookstove burner is about 10k BTU so about 30 of those to get started

 

They are pointless, but sure fun to play with.

 

-Ron

 

[padgett]

Just as an aside, a number of times in my career as an engineer my designs included things that did not exist at the time but I expected when needed. The far out stuff at trade shows is often next year's big thing. A superinsulator could be just around the corner. All I know about the future is that it will be different from anything expected.

 

(Just replaced the two 4foot florescent tubes in my kitchen with a $15 LED light rated at 3200 lumens. (5,000 is $20). Now they are instant-on and my white sink is too bright to look at.)

 

ps never heard of the "Johnson Bar" in a locomotive ?

[39BuickEight]

LED headlights are completely unsafe to oncoming traffic.

[Locomobile]

6 hours ago, padgett said:

never heard of the "Johnson Bar" in a locomotive ?

 

You wrote "Johnson" without the bar, I thought that is what you meant, it is for cut-off. Or hook up as some call it. it's really "cut off" as the linkage is adjusted to cut the steam off earlier on each stroke, or simply put, shortening the stroke of the valve linkage for economy of steam.

-Ron

[Mark Gregory]

I guess this will be common place for a few years until they get the bugs Ironed out.

 

Megabuck Charger to the rescue.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7742983/The-surprising-moment-15-Teslas-wait-line-charged-California-Thanksgiving.html

 

The surprising moment 15 Teslas wait in line to be charged in California on Thanksgiving as drivers navigate across the country for the holiday season

• Footage showed a long line of Teslas waiting to reach a charging station in San Luis Obispo, California
• The video was taken on Thanksgiving day and showed around 15 cars backed up near the Madonna Inn
• Tesla delivered a Megapack charger to the area that was supposed to help lessen the influx waiting cars at Supercharger Stations during holiday travels
• Globally, there are 14,497 Superchargers contained in 1,636 Supercharger Stations

[auburnseeker]

Hope they don't have a brown out when everyone turns on their electric ovens to roast the Bird as they are outlawing natural gas in new homes I heard so you have to use electric. 

[John348]

1 hour ago, auburnseeker said:

Hope they don't have a brown out when everyone turns on their electric ovens to roast the Bird as they are outlawing natural gas in new homes I heard so you have to use electric. 

 

Where did you hear or read this? Who is outlawing in new homes natural gas? Are you talking about externally supplied propane as opposed to natural gas supplied by a utility provider? Local municipalities? 

Edited December 1, 2019 by John348 (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/11/10/climate-change-solutions-more-cities-banning-natural-gas-homes/4008346002/

[John348]

8 minutes ago, WQ59B said:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/11/10/climate-change-solutions-more-cities-banning-natural-gas-homes/4008346002/

 

Thanks, interesting article. Good for electricians on the new construction, and not so good for plumbers. The the quote at the end of the article sums everything up

 

“If I were given the chance and if it were a choice of gas or electric, I would choose gas because it’s what I’m used to,” he said. “But in all honesty, it’s not the end of the world.” 

[30DodgePanel]

No denying it's coming, but the last quote shows the simple fact that it's all a matter of choice at this point.

 

Once they get things perfected (how many years from now?), when the pros outweigh the cons and better design features are in place, then we MIGHT see that significant shift as the majority of the masses will be on board (not a Genie though so there's that..). Still, the bottom lines are affordability and practicality for most households... without those parts of the equation it's always going to be a choice as opposed to a need. Sure it's not the end of the world when talking gas appliances but for automobiles one can't help consider other factors that make it less feasible currently. To compare an automobile need to an appliance need is not really a fair comparison but for the sake of discussion....

 

Will the manufactures and others in control of where the electric car market leads us be concerned about the average household needs (affordability and practicality) ? That "need" is still un-met and may never be... time will tell. For now, it's obvious the interest in serving the consumer seems to be geared toward the upper class households. Now, if they want to force this on everyone then dare I say we will see a whole new level of poverty on the streets as families struggle even further to stay afloat (along with forced regulation and taxes that will follow you can bet)... 

 

It is indeed interesting where we are currently with pros and cons on both sides. Still, if you want to take advantage of a huge tax payer funded purchase as part of the upper class it looks like you still have plenty of time. Merry Christmas !

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/manufacturers-pushing-latest-developments-electric-cars-los-angeles/story?id=67189267

Edited December 1, 2019 by 30DodgePanel (see edit history)

[30DodgePanel]

2 hours ago, auburnseeker said:

Hope they don't have a brown out when everyone turns on their electric ovens to roast the Bird as they are outlawing natural gas in new homes I heard so you have to use electric. 

 

Might make for a long trip back home ….

 

 

 

 

[padgett]

More than that, Johnson bar is also used for reversing.

[Locomobile]

17 hours ago, padgett said:

More than that, Johnson bar is also used for reversing.

 

And neutral 

 

Steam engines are fascinating seeming simple but very complex beasts, valve linkage alone is practically a science in and of itself.  I'll refrain from taking this any further off-topic, apologies to the OP.

 

-Ron

[padgett]

Bottom line: the dedicated infrastructure required to support millions of electric cars does not exist. What we have today is cobbled up from existing facilities & ones I see are rarely in use.

[John348]

1 hour ago, padgett said:

Bottom line: the dedicated infrastructure required to support millions of electric cars does not exist. What we have today is cobbled up from existing facilities & ones I see are rarely in use.

 

It does exist, maybe just not where you are.

Edited December 3, 2019 by John348 (see edit history)

[mike6024]

I'm inclined to agree with Mr P.  How many watts does a charging car draw? The county I live has about 1/2 million vehicles. What if they were all electric and all got plugged in at people's homes at 8 pm. I think it would overload the grid, blow transformers.

 

Our best asset is a nuclear power plant at 2.2 megawatts. Two units at 1,100 kw each. How many cars could charge simultaneously with that?

 

[WQ59B]

Piece I just read within the week said Tesla has about 1,636 charging stations.
Gas vehicles have 168,000 stations to chose from.

[mercer09]

wait in line?     15 cars ahead of me?

 

nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[TerryB]

6 hours ago, WQ59B said:

Piece I just read within the week said Tesla has about 1,636 charging stations.
Gas vehicles have 168,000 stations to chose from.

Those are Tesla built charging stations.  You can charge a Tesla at ANY available charging station, the time to charge will be longer that it would be at a Tesla charger.  You can even plug it in to any 110 v outlet if you really have time on your hands.  Tesla is unique in that it addresses charging requirements as part of the EV experience by building charging stations, VW is expected to do the same.

[TerryB]

You can go to Walmart too.

https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/06/06/electrify-america-walmart-announce-completion-of-over-120-charging-stations-at-walmart-stores-nationwide-with-plans-for-further-expansion

[John348]

1 hour ago, TerryB said:

You can go to Walmart too.

https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/06/06/electrify-america-walmart-announce-completion-of-over-120-charging-stations-at-walmart-stores-nationwide-with-plans-for-further-expansion

 

I remember reading before I retired that the National Electrical Code was about to require that electrical charging provisions had to be installed in all new residential housing. This was a few years back.  

 

Electric cars is not the big change that we will have to accept, but driver-less technology, is real close to becoming part of our everyday life. I just got this AAA e-magazine article 

 

https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/the-future-of-self-driving-cars/?mqsc=ED4104369&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=AAA_ListAAA%20Daily&utm_campaign=Dec03_Daily19_Tues 

Edited December 3, 2019 by John348 (see edit history)

[39BuickEight]

Birdseye invented frozen food before anybody had a freezer.

[TerryB]

1 minute ago, 39BuickEight said:

Birdseye invented frozen food before anybody had a freezer.

He should have invited the freezer first.

[TerryB]

A local re-use it shop, a version of Goodwill stores except this one is church run, put in an EV charging station and given we are in Lancaster County PA it’s located next to the tie up area for horse and buggy store patrons.  Talk about new tech meeting old tech!

[John348]

1 minute ago, TerryB said:

He should have invited the freezer first.

 

He also needed freezers for transportation. I don't think he had the resources for that, The Post family did and bought him out 

[Restorer32]

In 1920 there were 1750 electric delivery vehicles operating within the city limits of Chicago and somehow they all got charged as needed.

[Locomobile]

5 hours ago, TerryB said:

Gas vehicles have 168,000 stations to chose from.

 

168,000 charging stations will not replace those 168,000 gas stations. Take the average square footage of a gas stations' property, there isn't enough available space to park the number of cars that need to stop for at least a few hours every few hours. It takes roughly 5 minutes to refill a standard passenger vehicles' gas tank -- see where I'm going with this?

 

A coarse estimation based on refill time, a gas station with est. 10 or 12 pumps can fill 100 cars per hour, a Tesla station with equal number of hookups, can fill about 5 cars per hour, including the people that say "screw it I have enough to get home" and leave before fully charged. Based on the above abstract they'll need 3.2 million charging stations. They have 16,000? yeah that's 0.5% of the requirement. Add in the typical I/C vehicle has twice as much range and it looks even worse for the EV.

 

The politicians pushing this want us riding public transit, that will be the breakthrough solution to fix this impending disaster. Cars would again be "play things for the few and the very few", to quote an old publication.

-Ron

[ply33]

12 hours ago, mike6024 said:

I'm inclined to agree with Mr P.  How many watts does a charging car draw? The county I live has about 1/2 million vehicles. What if they were all electric and all got plugged in at people's homes at 8 pm. I think it would overload the grid, blow transformers.

 

Our best asset is a nuclear power plant at 2.2 megawatts. Two units at 1,100 kw each. How many cars could charge simultaneously with that?

 

 

It doesn't really matter when the car is plugged in: All the cars I've read about can be set to charge during specified hours. So you set your car to start charging at midnight no matter when you plug it in. I picked midnight as that is when the "super off peak" rates go into effect for "time of use" (TOU) billing for my utility.

 

The nice thing about charging at home is you only have to charge enough for the miles you travel each day. Just plug the car in when you get home and it will be "topped off" the next morning. The energy needed depends on the efficiency of the vehicle and the distance you drive it. Looking around on the web it seems that 4 miles/kWh seems to be typical for current EVs. If you have a 40 mile round trip commute to work then you'll be putting in 10 kWh overnight. Assume you want to do that between midnight and 6 AM (that is when my local utility has the cheapest power when you are on a TOU billing plan) then you'll need 14 amps at 110 volts for 6 hours. That is far less than your home air conditioner draws in the afternoon and early evening. So one or even two EVs per household being charged during off hours could easily be supported by the current electrical system.

 

If you decide to pay for a 220v home charging station which are typically capable of more than twice the output of the 110v ones (dedicated wiring rather than using a 15 amp outlet), you still are putting no more demand on the grid than your home air conditioner but you are doing it during off peak hours actually leveling out the load on the grid and making it easier for the utility to manage. And with a 220v charger you can put in something like 80 to 100 miles worth of charge per night.

 

If you take a longer trip, up to 300 miles round trip for the better current EVs, then an overnight charge will still get you to work the next day. And little by little the car will charge itself up to full over the course of the next week or two. Or if you have a 220v charger you'll be topped back up in a few days.

 

For trips longer than 300 miles you'll need to recharge on the road at a public charging station. The better currently shipping EVs can get a 80% charge in about 20 minutes. The point being you don't need a public charging station at every corner to fill up the car like you do with a gasoline powered vehicle. I am actually surprised that companies are bothering to put in charging stations that seem to be targeted for local driving where the big real need is for long distance driving.

 

2 minutes ago, Locomobile said:

 

168,000 charging stations will not replace those 168,000 gas stations. Take the average square footage of a gas stations' property, there isn't enough available space to park the number of cars that need to stop for at least a few hours every few hours. It takes roughly 5 minutes to refill a standard passenger vehicles' gas tank -- see where I'm going with this?

 

A coarse estimation based on refill time, a gas station with est. 10 or 12 pumps can fill 100 cars per hour, a Tesla station with equal number of hookups, can fill about 5 cars per hour, including the people that say "screw it I have enough to get home" and leave before fully charged. Based on the above abstract they'll need 3.2 million charging stations. They have 16,000? yeah that's 0.5% of the requirement. Add in the typical I/C vehicle has twice as much range and it looks even worse for the EV.

 

The politicians pushing this want us riding public transit, that will be the breakthrough solution to fix this impending disaster. Cars would again be "play things for the few and the very few", to quote an old publication.

-Ron

 

You don't need those charging stations: Most people will charge at home, much cheaper and more convenient. The need for public charging stations is mostly for long distance driving. It seems to me that most public or semi-public charging stations will be at restaurants that cater to long distance travel (like Harris Ranch on I-5) or at hotels and motels. For local driving there is very little need for a public charging station so I don't understand why places like WalMart are putting them in but I do understand why the appear to be totally unused even in my area where it almost seems every other car is a Tesla Model 3.

[c49er]

How many EV cars will end up dead on the roads running low on charge?

Owners trying so hard saying I think I can make it...

A new huge market for EV tow trucks.

[Matt Harwood]

1 hour ago, c49er said:

How many EV cars will end up dead on the roads running low on charge?

Owners trying so hard saying I think I can make it...

A new huge market for EV tow trucks.

 

Because this has never, ever happened in the history of gasoline cars...

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, mercer09 said:

wait in line?     15 cars ahead of me?

 

nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

Because this has never, ever happened in the history of gasoline cars...

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Matt Harwood (see edit history)

[Matt Harwood]

10 minutes ago, mike6024 said:

"10 kWh overnight"

 

My electric bill for the entire month of November showed only 104 kwh. That is about 3 kwh per day.

 

So if I had an electric car I'd be adding about another 300 kwh per month.

 

California has many natural gas fired electrical generating plants, making up supposedly about 35% of our electrical generation. So if everyone had a EV and they start charging at midnight for off peak pricing i think these idled natural gas power plants would need to come on at full operational power.

 

 

 

As I said, my next door neighbor saw about a $35/month increase in his electric bill because he plugs his car in each night.

[mike6024]

The reality is we have many people commuting over 60 miles each way to work, due to housing costs and wage disparity. People live in the lower cost housing area and commute long distances for better paying jobs.

 

EV's are being bought by retired people and those who don't need to commute too far.

 

 

[39BuickEight]

3 minutes ago, mike6024 said:

The reality is we have many people commuting over 60 miles each way to work, due to housing costs and wage disparity. People live in the lower cost housing area and commute long distances for better paying jobs.

 

 

People choose to pay more for transportation  expenses than their home.  It’s a baffling way to manage money.  

[John348]

37 minutes ago, mike6024 said:

The reality is we have many people commuting over 60 miles each way to work, due to housing costs and wage disparity. People live in the lower cost housing area and commute long distances for better paying jobs.

 

EV's are being bought by retired people and those who don't need to commute too far.

 

 

 

Very true, but I feel the end game is urban areas and for commercial use. 

Everyone forget that every crankcase of internal combustion engines has 5-6 quarts of oil in it, and we did not even talk about transmission fluid.  

[auburnseeker]

If you run out of gas,  you can get a few gallons and go back.  Fill it up and you are on your way.  You run out of juice with your electric car and unless a stranger comes along with an extension Cord and figures a way to charge your car off his, then you are on a flatbed.  

 

Remember as well alot of people drive $2500 cars or less, atleast around here.   Hard to believe an electric will get down to the price point without needing $2,000-$3000 worth of batteries.   I think Matt also mentioned a neighbor bought a 2 year old leaf for 10G.  What do they cost new?  Sounds like terrible depreciation to me. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by auburnseeker (see edit history)

[mercer09]

Because this has never, ever happened in the history of gasoline cars...

 

 

well, not to me at least. Impatience is not a virtue that I do hold. I sum up a gas line and am on my way.

 

when I go food shopping for a few items, get to the front of the store and there is only one checkout and 15  people in line?

 

guess what I do? I drop everything and head exit stage right............ who has time for lines? not me..............

[mercer09]

Sounds like terrible depreciation to me.

 

 

Randy, who in their right mind drives a car named Leaf?????????????

 

sad.

[3macboys]

4 minutes ago, mercer09 said:

Randy, who in their right mind drives a car named Leaf?????????????

Well GM did Maple Leaf trucks for the Canadian market, but being a Mopar fan you might still be onto something here....

[auburnseeker]

10 minutes ago, mercer09 said:

Sounds like terrible depreciation to me.

 

 

Randy, who in their right mind drives a car named Leaf?????????????

 

sad.

It's all marketing.  It's meant to sucker in the people that think they are being all environmentally friendly buying a car probably not even knowing where the power is coming from to recharge it or how much pollution the batteries are going to create to be made,  shipped and replaced.  Sounds good until you think about it.  If you want to help save the planet stop driving any car and buy a bicycle.   Then they would really be doing their part.