Izzat an oxymoron?
Posted on 07/25/2017 12:15:08 AM PDT by aquila48
Many libertarians seem to love to hate Elon Musk these days. His crime is to live off the public purse.
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I have a more complex assessment of Musk as a figure. I enjoyed listening to his 2015 biography by Ashlee Vance. I tend to look for the positive things in people. One positive quality here is the ability to re-envision products from the ground up in a completely different way. The Tesla is not just the evolution of the car, but a completely new way to think about what a car is. A car is a thing with an engine and a drive train, right? True for a century, but not any more. Musk has done in the fields of cars and rockets, what Steve Jobs did for computers and phones, completely re-envisioned what they could be, how they could be built, and how they could be used.
A second quality is execution under very challenging circumstances. Anyone can have big ideas, but only the few are able to successfully execute on them in the "really existing" world. SpaceX's rocket designs and rocket reuse and the Tesla Model S were almost universally deemed impossible — until the job was actually done. Rocket reuse was just a science-fiction fantasy. SpaceX did it. An electric car "that didn't suck" was also an impossibility — until Tesla built the Model S, which has been assessed by multiple car review magazines as basically the best car in the world, bar none, on both safety and performance. It is not only as good as conventional vehicles, it leaves them all behind, not just on green measures, but on car measures as such.
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He has repeatedly staked recklessly large portions of his personal fortune on bridging impossible-looking financial stretches for his enterprises.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
“A tax credit is a subsidy.”
Is $7,500 the same as $15,000?
I expect Model S sales wouldn’t suffer much without the tax credit.
“I expect Model S sales wouldn’t suffer much without the tax credit.”
Let’s find out. Today.
L
Seems to me that's a pretty good reason to hate him.
I call it "welfare".
Do you also hate GM, Nissan, BMW, Toyota etc - their electric car customers also get the same tax credits that Tesla gets?
What about all the home builders whose customers get to deduct their mortgage payments from their taxes?
And what about hospitals and doctors whose customers get to deduct their medical expenses, do you hate them too?
And what about yourself? Do you have a house and get sick? Do you deduct those expenses?
I’d rather get rid of the deductions and fix the tax system, instead of using the Tax Code to social engineer.
“I’d rather get rid of the deductions and fix the tax system, instead of using the Tax Code to social engineer.”
Me too.
But do you use those tax deductions now, or any tax deductions?
Even accounting for all the failures, the system as a whole is overwhelmingly positive of benefits to taxpayers. It simply works. The social experiment has been done multiple times with reproducible results.
"And in most of the ones that were successful, it's very likely they would have been successful on its own, just less profitable for owners (eg: railroads) and maybe it would have rolled out a bit slower. "
There is zero evidence to support that contention.
My car has a range of 500 and if it runs out of gas I can easily transport some back. You going to haul an electrical plant to your garage?
Sorry, hunk of taxpayer funded junk loses.
But if you want to go FARTHER than that; in one day; electrons ain't gonna do it!
Izzat an oxymoron?
At 70 mph, that's ~2 hours 25 minutes. Toss in the 30 minute 'rest' and you can eat 3 meals in 510 miles; while taking 9 hours to do it.
I can get about double that range in a 5 minute fill up.
Seems like we'd need about 12 times as many SCSs as gas pumps to match the range/fillup time ratio.
Rationale for having a mistress in addition to a wife.
Why have I NEVER seen the range depletion reported when you want to HEAT/COOL your electric car?
That isn’t a free lunch either. It takes more energy to charge than to run it straight off the engine.
The Three Laws of Thermodynamics are a real pain.
Now, it DOES give you some benefits to go with a servo drive train.
(small displacement/HO powerplant)...Ever heard of "tuner cars"? 2L with 200-300HP is not uncommon. VW produces a 1.8T many manufacturers have lightweight HO engines.
(super-capacitors)...Most common usage; to replace the battery in a motorcycle. They're existing components that anyone can order.
Did I not say "Ska-rew the batteries"?
I think there should be some appropriately sized battery in the circuit, just to smooth out the dynamo's current pulses at lower RPMs, and at speeds under 25MPH. But for full acceleration and freeway cruising...direct connection...to all 4 wheels.
Additionally, you can't have the electric "regen" braking without some kind of resistance to suck up the current. The supercaps and deep cycle battery would likely provide that.
Now, it DOES give you some benefits to go with a servo drive train.
That was my point, it seems to work well on a larger scale with locomotives and mining trucks. Think of all the moving/wearing parts that would be replaced by the motors, which are pretty long-lived. As you stated, nothing is free, the currently used gear boxes also bleed-off a lot of power, especially automatic transmissions.
Friction brakes are also a total energy loss and weight penalty...plus you always have to replace them.
Heat, cool...excellent point! Gas/ diesel engines produce heat as a by-product and electric power as part of the system. Electric vehicles are drained for those purposes.
Servos give you exact control and internal breaking. For many applications I love them, sometimes I hate them (the internal brake can get stuck on occasion).
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