They loved driving it on The Car Show
Posted on 03/09/2012 2:13:55 PM PST by landsbaum
Electric cars, which wouldn’t even be an option if taxpayers’ money wasn’t propping them up, don’t ultimately save money or cut down pollution. They aren’t reliable to get from here to there. But they can look nice, like the Fisker Karma.
Speaking of which, we have this shall we say not entirely unexpected news, courtesy Reuters:...
(Excerpt) Read more at orangepunch.ocregister.com ...
My bet - someone paid him a million or two to 'buy' his invention - and then locked it up forever. That should be classed as a gross crime against humanity, punishable by life in prison!
Saw my very first Fisker Karma 2 days ago. Was getting on the freeway and it was about a 1/4 mile in front of me. At first I thought it was a Jaguar XK-R, then I got close enough to see it did not say Jaguar, then I saw the 4 doors ... drove alongside it for about a mile ... stunningly beautiful car.
They loved driving it on The Car Show
That’s one damn nifty car from Finland. Not China, thank goodness.
When I hit the lottery....
Beautiful, but no thanks.
$529 million loan from fedgov.
Converting closed GM plant in Delaware (Joe Biden territory).
$100,000 green cars for the huddled masses.
“a $529 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy?”
Great!....Just more throwing our tax money down the drain!...These damn idiots in the White House!
$100,000 green cars for the huddled masses.
Yeah!...Obama can’t throw our tax money away fas enough.
I know. It sucks the feds throw our money away, but this doesn't keep me awake. Especially when you consider this car is on par with exotics that cost 3 to 4 times what the Fisker costs.
I’ve experimented with hydrogen.
The welder you describe uses electrolysis, to split the hydrogen and oxygen from each other. Problem is...it takes electricity to do this....and it is only 40% efficient.
The experiments I tried were to basically use spare battery power to create a small amount of hydrogen, and vent to the intake (hydrogen ‘boosting’)
I actually got worse gas mileage, since the O2 sensor sensed too much O2, and compensated by pulsing more fuel in.
This can by fixed by reprogramming the car’s computer...which I can’t do. There are commercial kits which do this. However, I can see problems with the water freezing in the winter; and, the plates used in the electrolysis (stainless steel) immediately have a coating form on them...which would have to be periodically scraped off.
All in all, not a great idea (hydrogen ‘boosting’).
And actually using water and battery power alone to power the car? Won’t get very far - alot like using a fan to power a windmill. So don’t worry, no conspiracy to be found.
One option experimented with in Japan is home fueling stations for hydrogen. Essentially something very similar to that welding box is converted to fuel up a hydrogen fuel cell...and this can be done in your garage. The problem comes back to the efficiency problems of using electricity to get hydrogen...and this is less economical than gasoline.
Thanks for the info!
Can I get one with a ZR1 motor? That would be cool...
Of course, but then it’d cost $250k !
Thanks lacrew. There’s no way to extract hydrogen from water, then use it to put more pop into the gasoline, and raise gas mileage. Extra energy to recharge the battery was needed, and that extra energy came from the gasoline. And it’s a losing game both ways.
If someone came up with a way of using waste heat from the engine to extract the hydrogen, the mass budget (which of course would include lugging around the water) for that would be narrow; IOW, the extra weight from the equipment would have to make it worthwhile. And it probably wouldn’t.
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