Recent Comments:
Ronn Motor Company reveals 40mpg hydrogen hybrid supercar plans {Autoblog Green}
Jun 5th 2008 8:28AM I believe in the first law of thermodynamics: Energy can be converted but not created or destroyed
I believe in the second law of thermodynamics: Entropy always increases in closed systems
I believe in Barnums' Law: There's a sucker born every minute.
Conclusions: Using electricity from the alternator to make hydrogen onboard the car just increases gas consumption. Burning that hydrogen in a futile attempt to reclaim that energy is fruitless because the closed system will not be efficient enough to even break even. But it doesn't matter because foolish people with money will "keep an open mind" and buy the stock. This isn't about making green cars, its about defrauding investsors. I would like this blog better if it didn't play into these repetitive ridiculous schemes.
Is George Soros right about an oil price bubble that will burst? {Autoblog Green}
May 30th 2008 9:44AM The sky is falling, the sky is falling...
"If oil prices collapse it may well kill demand for those cars..." Yes it probably will, Americans have short memories
"...and if the collapse is driven by recession, it will definitely kill cars like the Chevy Volt..." maybe yes and maybe no - hopefully GM and others will not be so completely stupid. Unfortunately, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior so you might be right
"...and may well kill several automakers..." Like automakers have never been through recessions before. Prognosticators, bloggers, politicians, and journalists all love to predict how big the next disaster is gonna be and almost always are wrong. Chrysler could fold, I think Ford would probably survive, GM will certainly survive. Honda, Toyota, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Nissan, do you really think any of these will fail in a recession?
Wait a minute - you mean Tesla and ZAP and Aptera and all the other make believe car makers you always hear about on this blog.
My next car will still get 50 mpg minimum and will hopefully have a plug also.
Tom Friedman takes on the idiocy of a gas tax holiday {Autoblog Green}
May 1st 2008 10:02AM OH, yeah.. tax the crap out of those big bad oil companies and see how oil supplies get larger and prices come down. 1977 called and they want their windfall tax back - Jimmy Carter proved we can have double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. Just meddle with the market, too much.
The gas tax holiday is just another stupid politician trick that will probably make things worse. The stimulus package is another (but hey, I'm gonna take my $600 bucks). If you want more energy, get used to paying the marginal cost of new energy. And don't whine when somebody somewhere gets rich out of the deal - that's how the economy works. $4.00 gas means fewer hummers, more prius's, more riders on city buses, faster development of EVs, maybe more solar panels on houses and factories. Face it cheap gasoline has gotten us and the environment into a bad situation, more cheap gas ain't gonna fix it.
Maximum Bob talks pure EV Volt, battery-free Volt and prototype drives! {Autoblog Green}
Apr 26th 2008 5:19PM 'architected'? didn't know architect was a verb. how about 'the volt wasn't designed' for that mode.
sorry to be a grammar nazi but I hate it when we make up verbs when perfectly good ones are available. conserving our natural nouns is just another way to be green.
Pelosi's replies to GOP's call for a "commonsense" plan to lower gas prices {Autoblog Green}
Apr 24th 2008 4:31PM People that lobby for energy independance or for low carbon emissions or for people to drive less or for people to buy environmentally 'responsible' cars or for people to use more mass transit should NOT NOT NOT NOT lobby for or promise low oil prices. If you think you can suspend the law of supply and demand you live on some other planet. Government can mandate safety nets to help people that are truly hurt (not just annoyed) by the true cost of our gasoline addiction - but they should encourage prices to go higher on gasoline itself. THEN maybe the market would find alternatives.
Click and Clack talk future cars on Nova, then you can create your own re-mix {Autoblog Green}
Apr 14th 2008 2:07PM You may have heard the show but you don't know much about Tom and Ray. They are both MIT grads so they just might know a few things about the cars of the future - or at least sort out the obvious snake oil merchants from the real contendors.
Mowing your grass with a hybrid lawn mower {Autoblog Green}
Feb 12th 2008 9:48AM ummm, just why is a hybrid lawnmower better than a gas only one? The whole point of hybrids is to save gas by capturing energy that would otherwise be wasted during breaking and by using the battery to level out the spikes needed for acceleration. My gas lawn mower gets set at one speed and it either goes or doesn't go depending on the clutch position. It don't got no brakes. On the other hand, my manual push reel mower is totally off grid and off oil. Might say its on the original biofuel. cheers
CT Biodiesel plant not exactly popular with area residents {Autoblog Green}
Feb 4th 2008 12:02PM As a former planning commissioner in a CT locality I can say the response is unsurprising - NIMBYism is alive and well in the nutmeg state. Let me guess how this "filibuster" actually happened. Land use commissioners have two roles - they work to create rules and regulations AND they work to implement them. When CREATING rules they need to meet any applicable laws and to respond to the needs and wants of the community. This is democracy at work. When someone comes in to apply for a permit the commission is IMPLEMENTING the rules by ensuring that the records are complete and that any DECISIONS are in accordance with the rules. Inevitably citizens angry about whatever come in and expect their opinions to matter - sorry, your opinion mattered when the rules were made not when they are used. You CANNOT go to your local DMV and say "do not give a drivers license to my neighbors kid because he isn't reponsible" Sorry - DMV says "is he old enough? does he have insurance? did he pass the test" check check check here's your license.
Oh by the way - public hearings get continued all the time to let everyone speak their peace - this one probably did, too. And if the applicant didn't present all its evidence and if the commissioners didn't ask all their questions, the process wouldn't be valid. Filibuster, my foot.
WSJ: GM making sci-fi cars, Volt is a "moon shot" {Autoblog Green}
Jan 7th 2008 9:15AM Blackbird has a good point about the WSJ. The biggest problem I see in the summary is that the moon shot was NOT sci fi. It was a real deal. GM has invested tons of money in sci fi in the past. Some would say fuel cells are more sci fi than proven automotive technology. However, a moon shot is a different matter altogether. The Volt may indeed be a moon shot - it is pretty much "bet the company" time for GM. An all out "land men on the moon and return them to earth in this decade" effort is what we need to solve both our dependence on foreign oil and global warming.
Japanese rail company to build $45 billion MagLev train {Autoblog Green}
Dec 31st 2007 5:07PM The squandering billions comment is just so much crap. Which squandering are you considering? Billions on social security? Medicaid? Oh, you must mean THE WAR. OK, squandered, but lets not fool ourselves into thinking it was ever a choice about WAR or MAGLEV TRAINS. As far as the transportation choices of other countries, I'm really tired of reading posts about what other countries do without comparing all the difference.
Land mass - US has 3.7 MILLION sq miles. ranks third. Talk to me again about MAGLEV when Russia, Canada, and China are building them.
Japan - 60th in land area at 146 thousand Sq Miles.
France - 47th with 211 thousand Sq Miles.
Japan is about the size of Montana.
France is a little bigger than California and New York combined.
We could be making much better transportation choices but mag lev trains ain't it.
