[ExI] Energy hints

spike spike66 at att.net
Sat Mar 6 03:27:06 UTC 2010


 

> ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Energy hints
> 
> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:54 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > If we settle for slow, light cars, we can get high fuel 
> economy.  Our 
> > current Detroits are such comical overkill, our grandchildren will 
> > laugh and envy.
> 
> You mean the way we envy our [great-]grandparents who 
> shoveled chunks of coal into boilers to drive steam engines?


No not at all.  In some ways we may see a generation which will look
backward to a time when transportation was better in an important way than
it is for them, but in a sense we already do that now.  Production cars from
40 years ago are generally faster than modern cars, if measured by quarter
mile times at the dragstrip.  Modern cars are actually better in so many
ways, more comfortable, more reliable, cheaper to run etc, but not faster.
Do go hang out at the local dragstrip to see what I mean.

I extrapololate that into the future and can foresee cars that can drive
themselves to some extent, reconfigure themselves to maximize the comfort of
individual drivers, automatically play their favorite music and so forth, be
a dream car in all but one important area, speed.  They could be really
advanced yet be slower than today's cars.

There are likely plenty of people on this list who remember grandpa's V8
that would go like a bat outta hell.  In my case, he had a '65 Chevy Malabu:
lotsa power, light, faster than stink, fun to drive.

spike


 




More information about the extropy-chat mailing list