Tagged With "vehicle"
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
A great piece! Amazing to me how some of the best products of their day were not built commercially . Even when they were, sometimes they were not successful. Cars like the GE-100 are great examples of that. A true find and thanks for teaching us more!
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
Love it! Exactly the type of finding that makes a trip memorable. Something proponents of electric cars seem to forget or choose to ignore -- where does the electricity come from? Currently mostly from coal and oil fired plants, so the practical side of having them for most doesn't currently make that much sense (might as well burn the oil product in the car engine, right). But I am hopeful that was energy technology improves, as it surely will, we'll develop better ways of charging these...
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
The argument, and I'm not informed enough to judge it, is that the amount of fossil fuel needed to generate electricity for a plug-in is far less than that required to run a gasoline engine. The same sort of argument that points out that a gallon of fuel moves far more freight on a diesel train than a diesel truck. On the other hand, that's about plug-in cars. For hybrids, it's a different story because the batteries charge while the car is running on gas. So less gas is used than using gas...
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
As I understand it, with hybrids the batteries charge when the car brakes are applied (transferring the energy of moving to the battery), so they're especially well adapted to city driving in places with lots of stop signs and traffic lights. Less useful for driving on open road because you don't brake often. So living in Brooklyn, I think the hybrid would be a reasonable choice for you. I don't think battery technology is anywhere near "ripe" yet, but as with the Mercury and Gemini...
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
Much further to go, of course, but even in a highway driving situation (and a city/highway mix), hybrids are generally cheaper to run than their gas-only counterparts. That's Camry vs Camry hybrid, for example, not Corolla vs Prius.
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
A little further research confirms what I thought: at least in the Toyota and Ford hybrids, the gasoline engine powers a generator/charger while in use. That's in addition to the power captured from braking.
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Re: Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
I have some friends with a Prius, and their greatest fuel efficiency comes when driving in the city, not on the highway. Paradoxical, but it shows how good the braking is at building up a charge. Good to know there is a backup generator. While the hybrids save on fuel, they also cost thousands of dollars more than their non hybrid counterparts. For an average consumer, it takes many years to recapture that extra cost for the hybrid on fuel savings, if they ever will. And there's the issue of...
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Gasoline Alley: Rides from 1918 - 1928
Our visit to Gasoline Alley in Calgary continues. We've previously looked at this fine museum's collection of antique gasoline pumps and vehicles from 1907 - 1917 . Today our tour continues with my favorite cars and trucks from...
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California cops: How do you ticket a driverless car?
That's the puzzling question faced by cops in Mountain View, CA the other day. Mountain View, where Google...oops, Alphabet...is the most prominent corporate citizen is also one of the areas where Google's driverless cars are being tested. The...
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Museum find: GE's 'missing' electric car
Long forgotten except in Schenectady's science museum, the little GE electric car that could, long before Prius and Tesla. Here's its story.
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Re: California cops: How do you ticket a driverless car?
"...so we still don't know how a ticket for a (not)driver would look." Maybe it would look the same as a parking ticket which, presumably, is also driverless. Or possibly an aid, such as a tow truck, would be involved. Let Alphabet bail out their driverless vehicle at the impound lot. Revenge of the non-nerds.
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Re: California cops: How do you ticket a driverless car?
I'd hit the CEO with an abandonment of vehicle and reckless driving charge as well!
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Re: California cops: How do you ticket a driverless car?
My all-day question about this has been answered. I couldn't figure out how the cop stopped the car—does the car have a blue-light sensor? Did they have to call Google? etc. A friend found another article that clarified that the (non)driver is able to take over and stop and steer the car; Google has now come to an agreement with the police that if he notices traffic backing up behind him, the (non)driver will now pull over and let it pass. So there goes another dream job...riding around all...
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Re: California cops: How do you ticket a driverless car?
I see no conflict whatever. Just put a rearview mirror on your book.