I have been thinking about it these days. Perhaps it's too early to say so. However, I posted the following after reading U.S. Car Industry Faces Do-Or-Die Fight. Is it similar to the impact when the Japan car makers like Honda and Toyota entered the US market decades ago for the first time? These Japan cars were smaller but more gas-efficient than those made by the big three at that time. These imported cars were somehow generously accepted by this free country and taking up the percentage year by year quickly. In the meantime, the big three gradually figured out the need to build their own small and efficient models. Now here seems to be a decision to be made - hybrid or not. Another one is probably - hybrid or hydrogen? I'm not sure if my understanding is accurate or not because I'm just a 10 year driver and US resident and I did not pay much attention to the auto industry until this century. So any correction is welcome.
If we're thinking "innovation/revolution" is akin to "minor/major", I tend to think hybrid cars are an innovation -- but a major innovation. But it's a tough call -- I mean, what is considered a "revolution" in the auto business? I'd assume it to be pretty major.
Re: Hybrid - an innovation or a revolution to US auto indust I read somewhere recently that Toyota considers hybrids only an interim solution. GM has spent a lot of money hoping for a hydrogen fuel cell solution, but it's too costly and won't be available for years. Ford licensed the hybrid technology from Toyota but opted to use it on an SUV gas hog to reduce their fleet mileage rather than putting it in a already fuel-efficient model. In the meantime, they keep building and selling SUV gas hogs like there's no tomorrow (but lots of gas). So, I think the technology is a major innovation for those of us who value it, but I remain amazed at how popular those large, gas-guzzling behemoths remain. I can't fault the industry for building what the consumers want. I just don't understand those consumers. In the end, it may well make or break the U.S. auto industry if their R&D funds aren't allocated correctly or at all.
Re: Hybrid - an innovation or a revolution to US auto indust Ford's system is their own. They did a patent swap with Toyota, but the system in the Escape Hybrid is all Ford. Also, one could very easily accuse Toyota of doing the same thing. I don't see HSD in the 4Runner or Sequoia, and even tho they've stated it's coming, no date has been set.
From what I've read, the Ford Escape Hybrid pretty much is Ford. What I would really love -- and hope to see before the end-of-the-year -- is a good, technical comparison of the Ford Escape Hybrid system, and the Toyota HSD. (I can wait until the Highlander Hybrid makes it out). I'd really like to see someone knowledgeable compare the similarities and differences, and strengths and weaknesses, of each system.
The internal combustion engine only model of automobile motive force is an EVOLUTIONARY refined product of many decades of effort. Hybrid technology is REVOLUTIONARY in that it is a combination of ICE, battery and electric motor working in combination with generators to recapture the braking energy. Hydrogen sounds like a system that does not have an existing distribution chain, and it always reminds me of the Hindenburg. It burned and crashed. In that order.
The problem most are missing with Hydrogen is the cost of getting it. Sure it comes from water, but only after an expensive use of electricity to break it away from oxygen. It actually makes more sense to use the electricity directly, with no loss of energy transfer. The same applies if the hydrogen source is a petroleum product.
Instead of working to extract hydrogen, why don't we hire the French to build their nuclear plants here for all our energy generation needs? They use standard plant specifications instead of the unique design every time method that American power companies were doing and couple that with a heavy tax on fossil fuels across the board and make electric cars viable through taxation. This would actually create a green power chain. The only downside is the potential problem for removal of waste byproducts but the newer European designs are solving that slowly as these plants produce more in fuel that what they use. I don't understand the long ago preference by environmentalists for burning fossil fuels over nuclear power. Properly operated superior designs have worked well for the French. If they can do that there, we can hire them to come here.
Re: Hybrid - an innovation or a revolution to US auto indust "I don't understand the long ago preference by environmentalists for burning fossil fuels over nuclear power." Two reasons: The first if fear, and if you lived through Chernobyl and Three Mile Island you would be wary of Government assurances of safety. One California plan was half built when they discovered one drawing was flipped and they were building it wrong. Another DIStrust builder is the recently-released information about the Santa Susanna radiation leak the Government his from us San Fernando Valley residents for almost 50 years. Second, the fossil fuel problem will solve itself. Smog kills, but after the fuel runs out, so does the smog problem. Another 50 years and it's academic. But a nuc accident (or today a terrorism attack) or even just plain storage problems make it a thousand year problem. That said, when we learn to economically produce fusion (not current fission) energy, the disposal problem is reduced a thousandfold, and only then will cheap desalination and cheap hydrogen come to fruition. Imaging it, though: a world without draught and with CHEAP electricity. And a USA that is not dependent of foreign oil, or oil politics. Your grandkids will probably see that world.
Re: Hybrid - an innovation or a revolution to US auto indust I'm old enough to remember the first imports of the VW Beetle in the mid 1950's. The family down the street, who always had a new car every other year, bought one. Most of the dads on the block thought it looked ridiculous, but I, at the ripe age of 10, decided that THIS would be my first car. The Beetle had a purity of design and a simplicity that even I could see when compared to the over-wrought pretentious battle sleds most of the families on my block drove. 10 years later, it was my first car (not that particular Beetle, but a cute 1959 model with a sliding canvas sun roof and was, until the Prius, the most fun I ever had with a car). The Beetle was the cutting edge of Eurpoean imports. VW ads joked about how ridiculous it looked and ended up laughing all the way to the bank. VW was looking for US auto company sponsorship, i.e, a dealer of an American car who would be willing to take on VW as a second line. Studebaker said no, Packard said no, and so on. Several of the "big US" companies that said no later regretted their decision and also went bankrupt. The Beetle not only survived and flourished, it ushered in a new awareness of "small is beautiful". Americans, however, have the memory spans of 6 year olds and forgot those thrifty virtures of quality, efficiency and small size. VW, sadly, also forgot some of those virtues, and their present line of cars does not reflect the quality standards VW once exhibited. We are getting back to those values of small, efficient and fun cars, but very very slowly. Higher gas prices, which will likely top three bucks a gallon before long, thanks to India and China, might be the nudge to get overconsumptive Americans into more intelligently concieived cars. I am proud to be driving a Prius because I think I've put my hard earned money (more of it than I planned to spend) into something that represents more than mere consumption. Ideally, we should be working for a society that doesn't need so many cars, but failing that, we can at least work towards the most efficient cars possible.
Captain Baba, I do not think Americans have too many cars. They have too much car for the cars they do have. Most folks need to "right size" on their automotive needs. And quite correct, the India and China fuel demands are going to push up energy prices. The drilling in the tundra will start within a year, I figure coastal drilling off california will be demanded by Americans when 4.00 a gallon gas arrives. Don't forget that coal can be turned into gasoline, we have what, a 600 year supply of that on hand? Naah, we have more than a 50 year supply. The real bottleneck is refinery capacity right now. And present government policy is low taxation of fossil fuels. If fossil fuels were taxed more then product substitution would kick in. Chernobl and Three Mile Island did not scare me. When a containment building is not present ya got a problem, and the fraternal socialst comrades were the worst environmental polluters in the entire world. The French derive 80 percent of their electrical power from nuke plants and we could too.
If the Ford Escape Hybrid is going to be totally Ford, that's one more reason to avoid it. Nuclear waste is unimaginably deadly for half a million years. There is no way to safely store it for that long, and an economy based on nuclear would produce all the more of it. Fusion is NOT clean. Remember when the nuclear industry promised us clean energy so cheap it would not even be metered? They lied to us. They are lying again when they say fusion will be clean. The high flux of neutrons in a fusion reaction turns the containment vessel highly radioactive. Meanwhile, we have all the energy we could ever possibly use, just a-blowin' in the wind, and a-shinin' in the sun. Problem is, it's decentralized, which makes it much more difficult for energy giants to monopolize and profit on. (But also makes it much more available and easier to distribute.)
Sorry, Daniel, I have to disagree. The Mr. Fusion could take any trash and create power out of it, and I didn't see the DeLorian blowing out any black smoke. Plus it created enough power for the car to fly. FLY!! [Broken External Image]:http://grove.ufl.edu/~locutus/Pic/Bttf2/landing_dmc.jpg Can you tell it's Friday???
I never understood that so called disposal problem. All you have to do is mix the stuff with molten glass, create 1 foot square blocks and dump it into the Marianas trench at 30,000 feet deep. About everything can be mixed into glass, and the solid blocks would be easy to manuver after that, they could be cast with lead in them to neutralize the radioactivity quite a bit too. The indents for manuvering could be cast in also. Of course this is my own idea, but hey, we can make tons of glass and we have plenty of lead on hand too. And deep in the depths of the sea, what harm is going to come from those blocks? Hey, with any luck Godzilla will be born again and stomp Japan as the angry moths eat the pagoda. All we get is the poorly dubbed version in black and white with Raymond Burr dubbed in sitting in the most austere table imaginable.
Or we could mix it into soda pop and pay poor people to drink it, thus spreading it out so its radioactivity is below "safe" levels.
