Man Builds Solar Powered Car… no not really…
April 28th, 2008
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If you define “car” as “four wheeled bicycle with multiple seats”
and you define “solar” as “Powered by a battery that charges if you leave it in the sun all day”
and you define “powered” as “You still have to peddle it but the little electric motor sometimes helps a little, but not much”
Here is the story video. They call it a “futuristic” car, but if that’s the case, then I’m not looking forward to much. Basically some guy in California decided to save gas by biking with his family. Unfortunately for them, he didn’t just go buy bikes, because that would be too normal, so he bought a four-wheeled peddle-powered cart. Then he decided he wanted to add ’solar power’ so he put a motor on the back and a lead acid battery and then put three ridiculously expensive panels on the roof. They’ll never pay for themselves, of course and he’d do better just with a couple more batteries and charging it at home from an AC adapter.
Had he done that, however, he wouldn’t have gotten a news reporter.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Just LAME, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 28th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I used to know a master engineer who electrified his Nash Metropolitan, but I don’t think that he used for anything other than a toy. This thing is not only useless, it’s dangerous for the riders because it can’t maneuver like a bicycle can.
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:01 am
The obvious question I have is if you want to save energy and gas money and get around locally on peddle power, why the hell not use a bike? I mean a good bike will get you around and you can move around traffic and it’s easy and effecient and you can all have your own…
but no. He had to get a four-wheeled peddle cart and put solar panels on it because apparently a bike was not normal enough or he wanted to impress everyone with how gay he could be. I don’t mean gay as in homosexual but gay as in this.
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Gasoline-powered cars are driving humanity to the end of the oil age, leaving electric vehicles as the best weapon against global warming because alternatives, such as hydrogen or biofuels, including ethanol from agricultural crops, and synfuels from coal wil do as much environmental damage as crude oil from conventional wells.
An increase in electric vehicles would be expected to put more demands on electric utilities and power grids, however a recent impact assessment of plug-in hybrid vehicles in the North America. concluded that power companies already had enough energy to charge 84 per cent of cars driving an average of 53 kilometers per day.
Pathetic efforts like this are not what is needed, so why does the media get attracted to projects like this?
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I would agree. Hybrid cars are great but they should all plug in and should have electric motors capable of propelling them on their own without the gasoline motor being needed for acceleration and only for longer trips.
They offer the perfect transitional step because you don’t need to wait until battery technology is 100% there for all circumstances and also they work perfectly with the existing infrastructure if they need to go on longer trips.
Some of the previous attempts at electric cars have been ridiculous. I remember some where the charger unit was a paddle which was an inductive coupler you stuck into the hood. Why the hell not just put a three prong retractable cord on it? They had it limited to “charging stations” and it was not even any faster or better at charging it that way.
Why is it so hard for people to realize that this has to integrate and coexist with the gasoline cars we have now because it will coexist with them until they reach the end of their lives. Some of the proposals I’ve seen totally miss this and propose things like “smart highways” with charging strips and stuff. That’s idiotic.
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April 29th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I agree although I’m not sure about battery technology ever being able to replace gas and deisel for some stuff like trucks, but I still think this vehicle is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen.
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April 29th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I don’t know, but I think there will still be a place for hydrocarbon fuel for a long long time on road vehicles. Long road trips are going to be beyond anything we have now for batteries and may ever have for battery based.
That’s fine though. You use a gasoline engine as an APU and if you only need it for road tripping of one hundred miles + then that’s not going to be an issue 90% of the time or more. Cut gasoline usage by that much and the remainder is easily filled by even modest oil reserves.
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Chem Geek Gregor said:
Don’t rule out fuel cells as a source of power for long-haul applications, ICE is not the only game in town.
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:01 am
What do you think about genetically modificated cellulases? If we get to produce a good one, we will be able to make ethanol out of any plant mass. AFAIK, that will be enough for everybody to drive, heat and get dead drunk.
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April 29th, 2008 at 6:19 am
DV82XL said:
Darn it, DV8! You have to put that figure in miles, or the Americans will not understand.
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Well, for those that remember the cartoons “the Jetsons” and the cartoon “the Flintstones”.
As a kid I always wanted to have one of the Jetsons flying cars, and found the Flintstones foot-powered cars ridiculous. But it seems the push is on to get to the Flintstone era as quickly as possible.
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Also, what’s the next big thing of “green” technology?
Will slavery make a comeback as the ultimate “green” tech?
After all, it fulfills all the requirements.
It’s inefficient.
It uses only natural resources.
It protects a large number of humans (the slaves) from rampant and destructive consumerism.
It steps on the rights and freedoms of many people in the interrest of being “green”.
It produces negligible amounts of CO2.
It protects the soil from destruction by machines.
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April 29th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
That’s not a car! That’s a bicycle for retarded people! I’m not kidding either. I’ve seen some of the special people who work as grocery baggers and that kind of thing use those as their mode of transportation.
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April 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
KLA said:
Yeah but slavery actually can be economically beneficial (for the non-slaves) and the Greens want to avoid that like the plague. Slavery means some suffer and others thrive. The Greens would rather not see that kind of equality. They want poverty on all levels. I guess it might be okay with them if everyone is made a slave.
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April 30th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Ken B. said:
Not really the ones I encounter. They want everybody else to live the livestyle they envision for THEM, not really for themselves. It’s not even a concious thing.
As an analogy, most people, when asked what they would be if they magically would be transported into the middle ages, see themselves as part of the nobility. After all, they today live a far better lifestyle than nobility did then. Statistically though, they really would be part of the 99.99% of poor starving peasants.
Same thing can be seen at military installations. Civilians ALWAYS expect to be treated at least the same as officers. Not below the lowest recruit.
Childhood fairytales don’t help. Everybody always lives happily ever after as King or Queen. And as you know, Greens DO fervently believe in fairytales.
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