The Terminator Terminates car emmissions.....

[webbie]

"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally brought the naysayers and feet-draggers in the auto industry to their knees. It's fitting The Terminator will be in Washington Tuesday, along with auto industry leaders to watch the President tell America it's cars and trucks will spew out less pollution in the years to come. After all, Schwarzenegger has become the face of the fight lower tailpipe emissions."

 

[fossil]

I thought he had a fleet of Hummers. Maybe he converted them all to hybrids. Rick

 

[smokinj]

I thought he had a fleet of Hummers. Maybe he converted them all to hybrids. Rick

he scronges for used veggie oil to put in them

 

[mainemac]

Plug in Hybrids should be the next great thing

I am afraid it may be too late for Chrylser or GM
but Ford could leapfrog the Japanese if they put out a
plug in hybrid.

Use it like a regular gasoline hybrid to get 50 mpg
Plug it in and use no gas for 30-40 miles ( average American commute) and get >200 mog
Add a solar panel and you have a true solar car for around town and regular commutes.

Even better would be to get the Electric Car Back

(broken link removed to http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=who+killed+the+electric+car&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=F-ERStaGFJio8gSh_pyhBg&sa=X&oi=video_resultroup&resnum=4&ct=title#)

Tom

 

[velvetfoot]

Bring on the new nuke plants!

 

[stockdoct]

THe Ford Escape has already been converted into a plug-in, with Valence's Saphion battery. It works, now.

 

[flyingcow]

Bring on the new nuke plants!

Got to have the electricity for the electric cars.

 

[Sting]

Be careful what you wish for!!

Electric cars will have a (do have) a whole new drama in repair and up keep -
some are simply crated and shipped back to the hazardous waste sites of the third world as the batteries cannot be disposed of here. Mechanics suit up like line men wearing leather and plastic full body protection to shield themselves from DEATH caused by electrical discharge of the systems.

 

[d.n.f.]

We had a half day workshop on vehicle extrication for hybrids. As a fire fighter they are a pain in the ass and can be extremely dangerous to emergency personal.

 

[Jags]

We had a half day workshop on vehicle extrication for hybrids. As a fire fighter they are a pain in the ass and can be extremely dangerous to emergency personal.

Very true, but they had the same stuff when airbags first started appearing in cars.

Everything is gonna take time to work out folks. Its not a simple light switch. And we sure as heck don't want to sit back and wait for everything to be perfected before we take the first step. Nothing would ever get done.

 

[begreen]

Be careful what you wish for!!

Electric cars will have a (do have) a whole new drama in repair and up keep -
some are simply crated and shipped back to the hazardous waste sites of the third world as the batteries cannot be disposed of here. Mechanics suit up like line men wearing leather and plastic full body protection to shield themselves from DEATH caused by electrical discharge of the systems.

Curious about what cars and battery types does this apply to? Right now, standard lead acid batteries in standard gasoline cars are shipped off to the third world to be stripped down, often by little kids that have no idea about the implications of working with lead and sulphuric acid. Or sometimes they just live next door to these recycling plants overseas.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28484477/
(broken link removed to http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1566703)

 

[karl]

Do you guys not own anything that is battery powered. Batteries especially the new lithium ions do not last nearly as long as people say.

Now lets look at efficiency. Around here we burn coal for electricity. It's dirty, and I don't know what their conversion efficiency is but there has to be alot of losses since they use turbines to generated it. Then they send it to my house. There are transmission losses. Then I put it in a battery. It takes power to shove energy into the battery. Then if I don't drive the battery slowly discharges. And now I'm driving a car that weighs alot more because I'm hauling around batteries.

I love the new VW TDI commercial. It shows the TDI(Diesel)VW talking to the owner of a hybrid. The guy says I get 40 miles to the gallon. The TDI asks what it sounds like. He says it's kind of a humming sound. The TDI says I go VROOM VROOM and I get 50 miles to the gallons. Obama wants 43 miles to the gallon in 6 years. VW has 50 now.

Obama's a dumbass. Oh, and did you hear where he wants to spend 50 billion of our tax money to buy batteries for plug in hybrids.

First we turn GM into the next Amtrack and now we are going to be buying the batteries to put in these.

Every industrialized country in the world has already come to grips with fuel economy and emissions and they have done a better job that what he is proposing.

Here's an idea. Let's knock a thousand pounds off the weight of a car. Believe it or not, most cars these days weigh about thousand pounds more than their 1960's version( the 65 mustang 2800 pounds, the new one 3600; the VW beatle 1500 pounds now 3100 pounds; etc) Then let's put realistic engines in them. Who needs 250-300 horespower in a family car. You could hit 40 on the highway easily without batteries or hybrids.

 

[mainemac]

Do you guys not own anything that is battery powered. Batteries especially the new lithium ions do not last nearly as long as people say.

I love the new VW TDI commercial. It shows the TDI(Diesel)VW talking to the owner of a hybrid. The guy says I get 40 miles to the gallon. The TDI asks what it sounds like. He says it's kind of a humming sound. The TDI says I go VROOM VROOM and I get 50 miles to the gallons. Obama wants 43 miles to the gallon in 6 years. VW has 50 now.


Obama's a dumbass. Oh, and did you hear where he wants to spend 50 billion of our tax money to buy batteries for plug in hybrids.





Every industrialized country in the world has already come to grips with fuel economy and emissions and they have done a better job that what he is proposing.



Here's an idea. Let's knock a thousand pounds off the weight of a car. Believe it or not, most cars these days weigh about thousand pounds more than their 1960's version( the 65 mustang 2800 pounds, the new one 3600; the VW beatle 1500 pounds now 3100 pounds; etc) Then let's put realistic engines in them. Who needs 250-300 horespower in a family car. You could hit 40 on the highway easily without batteries or hybrids.

No question an Escalade, Suburban, Land Rover are all monster trucks, and putting them on a diet would greatly increase efficiency



If everyone drove a VW TDI or Prius we would not have this problem BTW I get 45 mpg in Maine winter and 55 mpg in summer in Prius.
Now that the clean deisel is out the particulate matter is much less dangerous than it was before


Dumber than say......GM?



Every industrialized country has come to grips with this by doing what Americans forbid their elected leaders do: raise gas taxes.

 

[Jags]

Believe it or not, most cars these days weigh about thousand pounds more than their 1960's version( the 65 mustang 2800 pounds, the new one 3600; the VW beatle 1500 pounds now 3100 pounds; etc)

That mostly has to do with the increase in safety standards. Hit a tree in a 65 stang at 50 mph and then compare that with the new version. Its a whole bunch different, I will gar-own-tee. Safety standards is one of the reasons we can't bring over many of the small cars from overseas. Ya know, the ones that get 50+ mpg. Our hummers would squash them on the road.

There are lots of things we "could" be doing but aren't. Clean diesel?? Overseas there is a model of town and country minivans that get 40+ on the roads. We can't have them. They put out too much emissions. We rate emissions by the gallon, and not mile. That alone is silly.

 

[Delta-T]

last I heard the overall efficiency of the internall combustion engine was below 50% (about on par with our electric grid). Nevermind the amount of energy we use for cooling/heating. Agree with Jags, lots of the car's mass is related to safety and emissions (oddly enough, with a reduced mass we would have less momentum and shorter braking distances adn possibly safer vehicles, nevermind less HP requirements). I have had (3) late 60's VW's and they wouldn't go faster than 61mph downhill drafting a truck, I would be frightened to death if they coudl go any faster. Even at 55 there was little chance you woudl survive a crash. I'm curious why we don't have a diesel hybrid for 18 wheelers. Diesel hybrid is ultra common in Trains.

I personally am insulted when car companies advertise cars that get 33 mpg....thats a pitiful advancement in efficiency over the last decade. The one big plus to plug in electric is that you can charge the cars in "off Peak" hours. After a good few years of research the Dutch decided that the most efficient system of surplus energy storage is plug in cars. They currently generate way too much electricity at night and sell off a lot to neighboring countries. They are investing huge in an electric car infrastructure, along with france. Looks like once again, we will be playing catch up with other countries using technology that will probably be invented here.

 

[WoodMann]

I personally am insulted when car companies advertise cars that get 33 mpg....thats a pitiful advancement in efficiency over the last decade.

10-4 here- I hadda 1989 LeSabre- gosh I miss that car, with a 3.8 V6 that got a square 33mph on the highway.
On another note, I wanted to pose the question of environmental impact, this is what's cookin',
with the thought of getting a small vehicle as a decoy so it looks as if the house is occupied I thought on an S10, with a 2.2 liter engine for it’s lower acquisition cost and the fact that I won’t be dricing it much, but also a great thing to have if gas prices go into the stratosphere; I know I’m sounding like your run of the mill flower child of 30 years ago. But further than just gas mileage and cost is the issue of the impact on the environment- there I go again sounding flower- childish. Currently my 2001 Sierra 5.3 get’s me an honest 21mpg on the highway. The S10 I’m looking at rates at 30mpg, highway, with added labor. certianly there hasto be fewer combustion by products(pollutants) from the tiny engine, or is the fact that it’s working that much harder than the well tuned 5.3 the difference is minnimal?
Back in the day I had a 225cc 3- wheeler and my first bike a ‘76 Z50, and while the 50 couldn’t hold a candle to the 3- wheeler powerwise, you could run seemingly forever on a tank of gas with the 50. I’m not up on emissions and so fourth enough so I’d like to ask you guys in here is this line of thinking is correct of should I just forget all this and find the biggest V8 I can and live for today...............

 

[Jags]

Woodman - your question is exactly why I think emissions per gallon is a silly way to measure emissions. Think about it this way:

(the following numbers are for demonstration only, they are purely fictitious)

If I have a big 'ol tank of a SUV that gets 12 mpg at 100 ppm emissions per gallon burned (which is within the rules) and drive 50 miles - I produce 416 ppm of emissions.
If I have a small diesel car that gets 40 mpg and puts out DOUBLE the emissions (200 ppm, which does NOT meet the standards) and drive 50 miles I produce 250 ppm emissions. Which one has the advantage if looking at emission output? Doesn't make sense that the little diesel is not allowed in the good 'ol USA.

 

[MishMouse]

Woodman - your question is exactly why I think emissions per gallon is a silly way to measure emissions. Think about it this way:

(the following numbers are for demonstration only, they are purely fictitious)

If I have a big 'ol tank of a SUV that gets 12 mpg at 100 ppm emissions per gallon burned (which is within the rules) and drive 50 miles - I produce 416 ppm of emissions.
If I have a small diesel car that gets 40 mpg and puts out DOUBLE the emissions (200 ppm, which does NOT meet the standards) and drive 50 miles I produce 250 ppm emissions. Which one has the advantage if looking at emission output? Doesn't make sense that the little diesel is not allowed in the good 'ol USA.

I agree 100%.
I was looking at some of the vehicles Ford makes overseas and I came across the Kuga which is an SUV (2.0 TDCi Duratorq diesel AWD ) that gets over 44 mpg. link to info: http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/Kuga/Overview
If we keep our current emissions standards instead of driving something that can actually get the job done we will be driving beer cans with lawn mower engines and wondering why our fuel economy and our Co2 emissions is not matching other countries.
On a side note: Another car that Ford sells is the Ka, it gets 67+ mpg and is not a plugin.

 

[WoodMann]

That's certianly quite an illustration, I never thought about it quite that in depth. I was thinking gasser to gasser and a fresh, monolithic catalytic converter and this thing would be squeaky clean. That and smaller tires and all; but that's all been thought of in the past and didn't amount to much, slong the lines of steeply diminishing returns...........

 

[Delta-T]

we will be driving beer cans with lawn mower engines

I'm not sure about beer cans, but a beer keg with a lawnmower engine, a straight pipe and some 19" chrome rims sounds like a pretty sweet ride to me.

And i bet the mileage will still be 33mpg, cuz you can't go breaking the rules now can we??

 

[velvetfoot]

I think the Nox was a prob with diesels as well.
I had a vw beetle for 225k miles-great car; got 964 miles on a tank of fuel once, then I stalled out, lol.
Regularly got 54 mpg on the Beetle.
I'm getting 42 on my Mini Cooper now.
Diesel was higher cost when I sold my Beetle and VW still only markets the Jetta (and Passat?) in the US-I prefer hatchbacks.
You can buy Mercedes and BMW's now.
You might have to replace the urea in it though periodically, lol.
NOx: Is that a bogus pollutant like CO2?

 

[Corey]

Woodman - your question is exactly why I think emissions per gallon is a silly way to measure emissions. Think about it this way:

(the following numbers are for demonstration only, they are purely fictitious)

If I have a big 'ol tank of a SUV that gets 12 mpg at 100 ppm emissions per gallon burned (which is within the rules) and drive 50 miles - I produce 416 ppm of emissions.
If I have a small diesel car that gets 40 mpg and puts out DOUBLE the emissions (200 ppm, which does NOT meet the standards) and drive 50 miles I produce 250 ppm emissions. Which one has the advantage if looking at emission output? Doesn't make sense that the little diesel is not allowed in the good 'ol USA.

I guess I have not heard this one. Do they ask you what mpg you get when you go in for emissions or somehow measure fuel flow of the vehicle? The last I knew, emissions were measured in ppm - period. And ppm is just a fancy way to say percent - 1ppm = 0.00001 percent (or parts per hundred) All emissions test is doing is saying "of the air your tailpipe puts out, XX percent is NOx or hydrocarbons, etc. Unless they are doing something totally new, I don't think there is any specific connection to gallons of fuel burned.

You could argue that a bigger engine puts out more exhaust volume, hence more pollutants overall. But the basic physics of the internal combustion engine are the same, so it's not truly fair to use all available technology to reduce a 2 liter car engine to 10ppm NOx, but then somehow expect a 6 liter truck engine to somehow put out 1/3 of that amount. Plus, the gas hog driver pays substantially more in gasoline tax, gas guzzler tax, etc - so they are already paying for their "sin" (Not necessarily condoning it, just stating fact - I converted my car over to E85 as soon as I could after 9/11, so as far as mideast terrorists are concerned I get about 180 miles per gallon of their crappy gas)

I think some locations may be using grams per mile (g/mi) - but there again, unless different specs are applied to different vehicles or at least different sized engines, you ARE holding everyone to the same standard.

 

[WoodMann]

I can understand that the larger engine expells more ehaust and it would be logical to conclude pollutes more and hence a larger affect on the enviroment and not just using more gas. I guess I'm kinda lookin' to downsize, or be ready if need be and of course take it easy on my surroundings, of which I am a part of, and use less resources.......................

 

[karl]

Believe it or not, most cars these days weigh about thousand pounds more than their 1960's version( the 65 mustang 2800 pounds, the new one 3600; the VW beatle 1500 pounds now 3100 pounds; etc)

That mostly has to do with the increase in safety standards. Hit a tree in a 65 stang at 50 mph and then compare that with the new version. Its a whole bunch different, I will gar-own-tee. Safety standards is one of the reasons we can't bring over many of the small cars from overseas. Ya know, the ones that get 50+ mpg. Our hummers would squash them on the road.

There are lots of things we "could" be doing but aren't. Clean diesel?? Overseas there is a model of town and country minivans that get 40+ on the roads. We can't have them. They put out too much emissions. We rate emissions by the gallon, and not mile. That alone is silly.

Safety regulations don't add as much weight as you think. Most of the strength is gained by better shaped metal not more of it. Crumple zones don't add alot of weight. 6 airbags, might add 60 pounds to a car, but most of the weight is in the creature comforts we demand. Power heated seats are heavy, all the sound proofing is heavy. The dvd players add alot of weight. The 20 miles of wiring now in a car adds alot of weight.

Strip one to the shell and it doesnt weigh much. I raced a Fox body Mustang years ago and I got it to about 2400 lbs and that was with a roll cage in it. It was 3200 pounds from the factory and I didn't use any fiberglass parts either.

 

[Jags]

Corey - my example above (as rudimentary as it was) is simply an example of how silly todays emission standards and rules are, not really as a real life method of measurement. There are alot smarter guys than me that can figure out a "real" way of doing it. I am pretty sure that todays standards were generated by a bunch of lobbyists, not chemists and engineers. (got to keep those big SUVs chugging ya know).

Karl - yep, lots of creature comforts add up pounds too. But, there has been quite a bit added to the old "shoe boxes" of yesteryear (ie, stangs, camaro, CHALLENGER, etc.) that not only improve safety but also to bring them up to what we perceive as todays expected comfort level when we go shell out 20-30-40+ grand for a car. These things aren't marketed to the high school kids today like the stangs of old were......and it all adds weight. How about a nice Hyundai.....anyone???