Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

An old saying coined mostly by science fiction writers goes like this "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I find that saying to hold true in every aspect of what we do in our daily lives. Just like over unity, from what we know of physics in our little spectrum of knowledge of the universe you cannot get something from nothing nor can you create more of anything out of less than what is already there.
BEVs are being touted as the end all saving grace of vehicles, but nothing could be further than the truth than the purposeful omission of the cost of energy to produce them, the added strain on natural recourses to produce them.
Hybrids are as has been mentioned probably the better of the 2 worlds. However, from a purely economic means of going to town and back. If for instance you don't need anything more than transportation if you had a duel chargeable Hybrid or even a BEV that you could plug in to recharge the battery when it is parked at your home from solar panels instead of being charged from the grid once the initial cost outlay was covered from miles driven not having to pay the utility company for your electricity you would realize at net savings of cash, Driving the duel chargeable hybrid sensibly you might not even have to run the engine very much at all.
But none of anyof this will do a thing to save the planet as they like to say, unless you maintain and keep the vehicle for its full life cycle. This trading for new every year or even every 5 years will do nothing but continue the cycle of waste.
I bet my 30-year-old diesel pickup that gets around 20 MPG is as green if not greener than most vehicles sold within the past 5 years will ever be if they are not kept on the road for at least 15 years, assuming any of the plastic laden electronically overburdened pieces of junk will last that long

[mwmkravchenko]

An old saying coined mostly by science fiction writers goes like this "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I find that saying to hold true in every aspect of what we do in our daily lives. Just like over unity, from what we know of physics in our little spectrum of knowledge of the universe you cannot get something from nothing nor can you create more of anything out of less than what is already there.
BEVs are being touted as the end all saving grace of vehicles, but nothing could be further than the truth than the purposeful omission of the cost of energy to produce them, the added strain on natural recourses to produce them.
Hybrids are as has been mentioned probably the better of the 2 worlds. However, from a purely economic means of going to town and back. If for instance you don't need anything more than transportation if you had a duel chargeable Hybrid or even a BEV that you could plug in to recharge the battery when it is parked at your home from solar panels instead of being charged from the grid once the initial cost outlay was covered from miles driven not having to pay the utility company for your electricity you would realize at net savings of cash, Driving the duel chargeable hybrid sensibly you might not even have to run the engine very much at all.
But none of anyof this will do a thing to save the planet as they like to say, unless you maintain and keep the vehicle for its full life cycle. This trading for new every year or even every 5 years will do nothing but continue the cycle of waste.
I bet my 30-year-old diesel pickup that gets around 20 MPG is as green if not greener than most vehicles sold within the past 5 years will ever be if they are not kept on the road for at least 15 years, assuming any of the plastic laden electronically overburdened pieces of junk will last that long

BEV can be what they propose. But I like your caveats. Electricity has to be renewable. And the lifecycle of the car has to be reasonable. The two largest opposing forces are in play here. Big business not wanting to do anything bad for business margins ( almost makes sense ). A consumers habits. Uphill both ways.

I like the idea of a relatively cheap to drive vehicle. I see the quality of the engineering involved. But the battery type has to change. There isn't enough Lithium available right now for demand. Nor is there enough Nickel. Again there are alternatives. But there is 20 years of know how into making Lithium ion cells. And that is the true problem. Any other battery type is just not alive long enough in large production capacities to have the engineering expertise available to make this work. Another Big business versus profits versus commodity availability conundrum. Not saying businesses are not willing to produce at a loss what they see long term as a profitable product. There are many examples of large companies being willing to foot the bill. And that is probably what will have to be done to make these electric cars viable.

From what I have seen for true mileage numbers from hybrids they are kind of a does nothing better but costs a lot more situation. Peoples normal driving habits do not give a person better fuel economy in these hybrid cars. You have to want to chase the efficiency. Some get awesome MPG. But most people I have talked to don't get a whole lot more than I did in my little Toyota pickup or my Little Toyota van.

As for efficiency. I drove Diesel Jetas around for over 15 years. I'd get nearly 50MPG in the city and over 60MPG on the highway. Now you get half of that. I'm not a chemist. But isn't double the mileage mean that you have potentially half of the pollutants?

[Frank S]

I like the idea of a relatively cheap to drive vehicle. I see the quality of the engineering involved.
As for efficiency. I drove Diesel Jetas around for over 15 years. I'd get nearly 50MPG in the city and over 60MPG on the highway. Now you get half of that. I'm not a chemist. But isn't double the mileage mean that you have potentially half of the pollutants?

That is how it figures in my book, We can once again thank government intervention for poorer milage figures across the board. All while claiming to clean up the air.
In 1989 my oldest daughter bought her first brand new car a Chevrolet GEO metro 5 sp standard shift. Kept a record of every dollar spent every mile driven and where she drove those miles. every gallon of gas bought whether she bought the lowest grade the mid-grade or premium for 18 months of driving. This was done to be part of her master's thesis. I'm sure you can visualize how meticulous and diligent she was in her record keeping. Purchase price of car after all discounts and 1st time buyers' incentive, she paid cash the night she bought it a drove off after writing a check for $5,600.00. total additional monies spent over the 18 months a whopping $2000.00 this included insurance, ( under my policy) the gas and everything else averaging 58 MPG for 75,000 miles driven. bringing the total cost of owning and operating that car to $7,600.00 or just a little over $0.10 cents per mile. If she had sold the car for half of what she paid for it, still at that time the blue book was nearly the same as her negotiated purchase price, she could have boasted a nickel a mile driving expense. Try operating any vehicle for even 5 times that even adjusted for inflation today.

[Frank S]

The problem in allowing the government to get involved in anything is it makes everything 10 times more costly than it should be and is never efficient. Big corporate would never go for it for many of the reasons mentioned plus top management wouldn't be able to siphon as much profits away from the shareholders as everyone having their own micro-grids would be in effect investors

[mwmkravchenko]

The problem in allowing the government to get involved in anything is it makes everything 10 times more costly than it should be and is never efficient. Big corporate would never go for it for many of the reasons mentioned plus top management wouldn't be able to siphon as much profits away from the shareholders as everyone having their own micro-grids would be in effect investors

I agree. Just look at the latest NASA rocket or the F35 for well run and managed fiscally responsible programs created to line the pockets of large companies. Wasn't it Eisenhower who used the term military industrial complex. That's one of the largest drivers of the U.S. economy. Making it monetarily accountable would cost a great many well paying jobs. Similar things go on in Canada and every other developed nation. Truly sad. What needs to be done is known very well. Will it get done? I doubt it in my lifetime.