are these changes better for all of us?

[dragon370]

there is lately a lot of talk about these hybrid engines and fuel cells and all types of crap like that. i understand the advantages of low-or-zero-emissions and efficiency and stuff but i also see disadvantages. one disadvantage is the fact that we already know gas engines back to front, and there is the large group of people who enjoy modifying those engines for more power or whatever. it will be harder or impossible to do so with electric or fuel cell cars. and, these engines are weak to begin with, semingly by nature (for example, i found this thing called clever car sold in canada; it gets 111mpg but only has a top speed of 60mph!). the whole idea of a sports car will be thrown out like last week's trash, leaving us with nothing but boring, slow cars to drive, and we cant do anything to make them much faster like we can with today's engines. and what about all the really nice cars that are around today nobody has any intentions of getting rid of, such as restored muscle cars or someone's $10,000 tuner car. and a lot of people like stick shifts, but these new CVTs are going to take over allof them. those will become utterly useless and undriveable, either because there wont be any gas stations left or it will be illegal to drive a fossil fuel cars.

am i the only one who thinks these changes are too dramatic and that at the very least they should still leave us the option to drive our gasoline cars and continue to make some, so we at least have a choice and those of us who like what we have and what we can do dont have to give it up???

[2turboimports]

I think youre making it out to be way more extreme than it will ever be. Enough people love driving fast cars that there is a demand. No matter what the platform is, there will be sports cars built upon it.

And besides, with all the to do about E85 you can expect some fast fucking cars once it becomes widely available and there's a 'tuner' market for it. Until then you'll have to be on your own and know what youre doing to get the most out of it, which isn't a bad thing.

I think your view is a bit over the top, but whatever, the only place I can maabye see that happening is California. But everyone knows California sucks and if you're offended by me saying that...well...too bad

[drunken monkey]

Playing devil's advocate:
60mph is perhaps a tad slow but honesty, do you need to go faster than 70-90mph?
Restoring a classic car is not the same as tuning so don't put them in the same group.
CVT is not a neccessity for higher mpg.
Also, one thing you miss is that mpg isn't what it's all about. More importantly is how much CO2 is produced.
Then there's the whole thing about alternative fuels (bio ethanol?)

[curtis73]

Take a look at the air you're breathing... yes, its ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. If you don't think it is, fly into Los Angeles right now and you'll see what looks to be a brown lake covering the valleys from Palm Springs all the way to L.A.

Here's my problem without getting too existential or dolphin-hugging, but this is undenyably true. We're taking hyrdrocarbons from a mile below the earth's surface, pulling it up leaving a cavern, burning that stuff turning it into acidic gasses, CO2, and all kinds of other junk. Then we wonder why we're all suffering with this terrible air quality. Then we cut down most of the forest which is responsible for cleaning that junk out of the air and we wonder why the earth is getting warmer.

Most of the solutions like biodiesel, e85 (or e100 for that matter), fuel cells, hydrogen cars, whatever... use EXISTING things in the atmosphere as fuel. Let's say we went back to Oil City, PA in the 1800s and they didn't discover oil. Let's say we still didn't know that oil existed under ground and we had been burning alcohol and biodiesel all these years. I guarantee we wouldn't have a problem.

Now I'm gonna get weird, but its scientifically undenyable. It IS the circle of life. It IS the law of conservation of matter. Corn takes CO2 from the atmosphere, energy from light, water from the ground, and makes stuff; sugar, fats, trace amounts of protein. The harvested crop makes corn oil which gets used at McDonalds. Then I go get the oil from McDonalds and turn it into biodiesel and burn it. I return that CO2 and other stuff back to the atmosphere, and I CAN'T MAKE ANY MORE until more corn is grown which will remove that CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

That's the problem I have with fossil fuels. We're taking oil from the earth and putting it in SUVs and burning it into gasses for the atmosphere. That's not a cycle. That's a landfill. Why not take gasses from the atmosphere, burn them in SUVs and return them to the atmosphere? Makes a bunch more sense to me.

E85 is a very viable alternative fuel. It has much fewer BTUs than gasoline (about 2/3) and it takes a lot more to be stoichiometric so MPGs will suffer, but with some changes in the engines, the same power can be realized very easily. Car craft just took a 400-hp 350 and converted it with 12.5:1 compression, different timing, custom jetting in the carb, and it made 406 hp, while consuming approximately 30% more fuel. I look for E100 to be a very viable fuel in the near future with gasoline-like performance. Just a different set of knowledge.

I've always thought diesel was the best fuel we currently have. People buy hp but drive torque and diesels excel at making torque. Biodiesel is a direct conversion. The BTUs are almost identical and with the exception of changing some fuel lines, its super simple. You can mix and match bio, regular diesel, and even heated vegetable oil in any combination. The only reason you have to make veggie oil into biodiesel is because of its viscosity, but I know of several mercedes diesels that have two tanks; one for biodiesels (which runs the same as regular diesel) and a heated tank of straight veggie oil. You start on the bio then switch to the veggie once its hot enough. No change, no worries, no nothin. Need an extra gallon or two? Stop at the supermarket and dump two gallons of Wesson in the veggie tank. I get a kick out of people who still resist diesel because it smells and its noisy. Well, if you drove a VW TDI burning bio good luck with that argument. The engine is nearly as quiet as a gas engine, and the exhaust literally smells like McDonalds french fries. Then (as you get 50 mpg) you can laugh as you pass that stupid, complicated, expensive prius burning fossil fuels and only getting 38 mpg. Can you tell I hate hybrids?

I have to laugh that hybrids and CNG cars are granted clean-air access to the HOV lanes but bio-fuel cars aren't. I don't care how little they pollute, CNG and hybrid cars still burn fossil fuels putting stuff in the atmosphere that wasn't there before. bio fuel cars are only returning what we borrowed.

[drunken monkey]

Talking about diesel engines, you really should go and test drive the diesel honda accord. Apart from some tell tale clatter on start up, you will not know it is a diesel.
And if outright performance is your concern, the twin turbo diesel used in the BMW535 is a beast of an engine and faster than most cars on the road.
Lotus have also recently been testing/running an Exige on Bio ethanol and so far, it produces more power than regular petrol.

still worried about performance?

[dragon370]

i dont think restoring a classic and tuning an import are the same thing buit they similar in the way that they are vehicles we wont want to give up but may eventually have to due to this new "revolution" in what cars powered by. if you put 20 grand into the restoration of, say, a 1968 Pontiac or the tricking out of an import, would you want to have to junk that car (or at least not be able to drive it anymore) several years later, after all the work and money put in it, because of this??

and also, what about jobs?? people who are, today, being certified as mechanics on current vehicles, will need to be completely re-certified to work on cars as they will be in a few years, making their current knowledge obsolete, therefor their current ability to do the job, fix cars, obsolete. my best friend is training as an auto mechanic now, and i will be in a few months if i dont go into computers instead (my other hobby). where will he be in twenty years when everything he is certified for today is useless?? out of a job and having to go through another year-or-two long training program so he can make an income?? this seems to go for all current mechanics, also.

[redstang423]

You are correct in saying we know gasoline engines basically front and back. How did we get there? By experience. We spent time using them and learning them. At this point in technology and manufacturing capacity, we will learn all these other types of engines and fuels much faster than gasoline engines. We will know them well enough to produce whatever power we want by the time anything sees mass production. Additionally, people will learn how to modify it very quickly. Look at cars - once the popularity of fast and sporty cars really grew and took hold, it only took a couple years before people were making crazy street rods.

Also, you will not see a black and white change. It takes many years for this stuff to trickle down, and it will trickle slow enough that everyone will be able to adjust in time. Example: when Exxon Mobil makes a change to production or manufacturing, they are not making this change for a couple months from now. They are expecting to see the effects of the change 5-10 years down the road.

[KiwiBacon]

In addition to agreeing with the other posters (esp Curtis' views) I have this to add:

Electric motors have torque that can absolutely slaughter petrol engines. It's available from 0rpm too.

[dragon370]

is it possible to convert current motors to run on E85?? in a way like how old cars are/were converted to run on unleaded gasoline??

or will it require completely revamped engine design that is impossible to incorporate into existing motors??

[redstang423]

Yes it is very possible, and reasonably easy, to convert current motors to E85. There are actually a fair number of vehicles on the market that are considered flexible fuel vehicles. The can run on either pump gas or E85. I'm sure you can easily find a list online somewhere.

[curtis73]

Originally Posted by dragon370

and also, what about jobs?? people who are, today, being certified as mechanics on current vehicles, will need to be completely re-certified to work on cars as they will be in a few years, making their current knowledge obsolete, therefor their current ability to do the job, fix cars, obsolete. my best friend is training as an auto mechanic now, and i will be in a few months if i dont go into computers instead (my other hobby). where will he be in twenty years when everything he is certified for today is useless?? out of a job and having to go through another year-or-two long training program so he can make an income?? this seems to go for all current mechanics, also.

Well, its not a one day gasoline, tomorrow hybrid kinda thing. Its a very gradual process. Another VERY important thing about E85 and biodiesel is that its very evolutionary, not revolutionary. You could take a biodiesel vehicle to any diesel mechanic and they could work on it without even knowing what fuel is in the tank. Its literally no different than taking your car in for service with 87 octane in it or 93 octane in it. Biodiesel is that similar that the technology is the same.

E85 is nearly identical to gasoline, but given its different BTU content and the fact that its an alcohol engine means there are a few concessions that need to be made, but building an E85 engine is the same as building a gas engine, but you just have to know that it requires more compression, synthetic fuel lines, a different catalyst, etc... its not going to turn the world on its ear, just shake it up a tiny bit.

Honestly, once your friend completes training and goes to work for BMW or whoever, they will be continually educating him on new techniques and technology every month anyway. When BMW comes out with their first E100 vehicle, its not like he'll be a worthless employee. Rather its more like he'll be sent to a 3-day seminar at the BMW USA headquarters and he'll be caught up.

Not to mention, all of the procedures for repair are completely computerized in manuals. You could repair a Hybrid without even knowing what it was. You plug in the VIN, what job needs to be done and it even tells you what size wrench to use.

[GreyGoose006]

i was sitting in my engineering lecture class today and heard the scariest thing i have ever heard.
the class was a mechanical engineering class, and we were talking about automotive technology.
the professor mentioned how automotive technology was advancing so fast that in 30-40 years, cars as we now know them would be obscelete...
the idea is "Smart Cars" that drive on computerized highways, and run on automated GPS guided information. these cars would be safe. nearly ELIMINATING all traffic colisions and fatalities due to these collisions.
these cars would be electric, and have a nuclear battery pack located in a "Trunk-like" area. you wouldnt need to drive the car, just get in and say the name of the place you want to go. there would be no humans driving. just a bunch of automated vehicles driving around. worst prt of it is, when the technology is widespread, it will be impossible for a human driver to drive on these "Smart" roads. the computers will likely trim following distances to mere feet. there may not be turn signals, or headlights, or brake lights. it would be illegal to "drive" your car manualy due to the enormous risk.

this must not happen.
it would be bad enough to have an electric or hydrogen car, but i could live with it if i knew that it is still possible for me to push the clutch, jam the e-brake, floor the throttle, and sidestep the clutch while my car does donuts in the wal-mart parking lot.
as long as i can go to the autoparts store and buy extra capacity batteries and larger electric motors to put in my electric car, i'm OK.
but when cars become a means of simply getting from A - B, and are no longer an american passion, i dont know what i will do.

[TheSilentChamber]

Originally Posted by GreyGoose006

i was sitting in my engineering lecture class today and heard the scariest thing i have ever heard.
the class was a mechanical engineering class, and we were talking about automotive technology.
the professor mentioned how automotive technology was advancing so fast that in 30-40 years, cars as we now know them would be obscelete...
the idea is "Smart Cars" that drive on computerized highways, and run on automated GPS guided information. these cars would be safe. nearly ELIMINATING all traffic colisions and fatalities due to these collisions.
these cars would be electric, and have a nuclear battery pack located in a "Trunk-like" area. you wouldnt need to drive the car, just get in and say the name of the place you want to go. there would be no humans driving. just a bunch of automated vehicles driving around. worst prt of it is, when the technology is widespread, it will be impossible for a human driver to drive on these "Smart" roads. the computers will likely trim following distances to mere feet. there may not be turn signals, or headlights, or brake lights. it would be illegal to "drive" your car manualy due to the enormous risk.

this must not happen.
it would be bad enough to have an electric or hydrogen car, but i could live with it if i knew that it is still possible for me to push the clutch, jam the e-brake, floor the throttle, and sidestep the clutch while my car does donuts in the wal-mart parking lot.
as long as i can go to the autoparts store and buy extra capacity batteries and larger electric motors to put in my electric car, i'm OK.
but when cars become a means of simply getting from A - B, and are no longer an american passion, i dont know what i will do.

Not to be a complete ass... well ok I might as well be, I'm pretty good at it afterall.

What you said is one of the most ignorant things I'v ever read- reminds me an old man, removing the oxygen from the hole in his neck to take a puff on a cigarette. Roads are for transportation, not your pure enjoyment. There are plenty of tracks, be it drag strip, road coarses, ect or your enjoyment- that not only are better for the purpose, but also are safer. I'm all for driving, but if you look at the number of people killed every year in accidents that could be avoided, the amount of polution that comes from cars, the amount of time you spend stuck in traphic every day... does this stuff still seem like such a bad idea?

[GreyGoose006]

well, i must say it silent chamber, but you are an ass.
a total ass, and your head is stuck way up in that ass.

i dont race around on the streets like a madman, i dont drag race, and i rarely excede the speed limit by more that 5 mph.
thats not the point.
point is, the idea of a car was invented 200 years ago as a way to get around. first it was a horse drawn carraige, then a model A ford. now it is a S2000, or a miata, or a Exige, or a Lancer EVO, a toyota tercel for christs sake. thing is, as soon as the horse drawn carriage was invented, it became more than a simple mode of transportation. it served a social function as well. people were taking rides in the countryside, and going on trips to places that were completely out of their way, and un nessicary for them, except that it was enjoyable.
100 years ago, when henry ford brought cars to the masses, everybody could indulge in their little fantasy, and take rides to far off places that they had never been before. the automobile is as much a part of the american dream, as is the house in the suburbs, 2.3 kids, and a dog and two cats.
the automobile is a form of expression, a way to release tension, a way for the average man to, while behind the wheel, fulfill his dreams.

do you remember when you were a little kid, and you wanted to be a grownup so that you could drive?
you must remember.
you had hotwheels cars that you drove around on the floor of your room late at night. you had posters up on the wall of your favorite cars, and your favorite cars, no matter what they were, were faster than ANYBODY elses favorite cars. every teenager i know cant wait to be sixteen so that they can get their drivers liscence, and learn the finesse required to shift gears smoothly on the POS that will be their first car. you must remember the freedom that you felt the first time you drove all on your own.

this will all be lost if we go to an automatic GPS nav, driverless piece of CRAP.
cars will no longer be a form of expression, but a simple lifeless thing. an appliance if you will. chosing a car will be about as exciting as choosing your next washing machine, or garbage disposal. there will be no need for different makes, so the american car market will shrivel up and die. cars will be uniform and most likely made of japanese design in a poor country like korea, or ethiopia.

is this what you want?
is this how you want your kids to grow up?
what will kids play with late at night when their parents are asleep?
what noises will grown men make when the sounds of revving a cars engine are meaningless?

maybe i am a senile old shit that is sucking on his last cigarette before he dies, but it is a DAMN good cigarette, and ill be damned if i dont suck the very last bit of life out of it before i kick the dust.

[TheSilentChamber]

A form of expression can be found in anything, I dont like the idea either, but if you weigh the good and the bad, the choice is rather obvious from a pure scientific standpoint. It wont ever happen in my life time, maby not yours either, and if people are still alive for that next generation, maby they'll see it, and by that time they will have other means of happyness and joy that was lost when the car went shit up.