[ExI] Electric cars without batteries

spike spike66 at att.net
Mon Oct 25 00:14:00 UTC 2010


 

> ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson
> ...
> >>
> >> ...What I was thinking was a very small turbine, 20kw (roughly 30 
> horsepower...
> 
> There is really no need for gears.  The power takeoff turbine 
> can spin at whatever speed you want...

Well OK Keith, I need to do some more work on this idea then.  I just can't
imagine a gas turbine spinning slowly enough to have any kind of generator
hold together.

In the mean time, here's a description of late night comedian Jay Leno's gas
turbine motorcycle:

http://wizbangpop.com/2009/07/16/jay-lenos-200mph-60000rpm-jet-turbine-motor
cycle.php

He did a comedy routine about riding this thing up around Mulholland, and
some sap came up behind him when he was stopped.  He looked in his mirror
and saw the guy's bumber start to crinkle like a styrofoam cup in the
campfire.  {8^D

> Conceptually, you could replace the engine in a Prius with a turbine...

Jay also did a more serious interview regarding the bike.  The 150k price
tag wasn't the only thing stopping that bike, but rather that for all it's
300+ horsepower, it felt gutless, because it didn't accelerate all that
hard.  Reason: it takes a while to spool up the turbine to sixty thousand
RPM.  Imagine that.  {8^D  He also mentioned that it goes thru gasoline like
Senator Kennedy guzzling whiskey (his words, not mine.)

> 
> ...Big Detroit iron was just 
> plain fun in the days before electronic ignition.  I fondly 
> remember my second car, a 57 Pontiac with 347 cubic inches of 
> engine, 10.5 to 1 compression ratio and a carburetor you 
> could drop a half dollar through and it wouldn't hit 
> anything...

Ja I had a mid 60s vintage V8 in a pickup truck.  You had to drop half
dollar coins thru the carburetor on a regular basis, in the form of
gasoline, lots of it.

> It took 100 plus octane leaded gasoline would do 
> more than 120 mph, how much more I don't know...

Good thing you didn't try it.  The tires of those days were generally not up
to the task.  I had a second cousin who learned that the hard way (Gary
Jones, perished violently in a 1962 Buick Wildcat, age 19 years.)

> ...Now who among us would know how to set the ignition points dwell or 
> timing?...

I still know how to do that.  {8-]  I had a '65 British bike with ignition
points until four years ago and did all the maintenance on it myself.  I
still had a timing light until about 3 yrs ago.  But new cars haven't had
ignition points for thirty years now, and I don't even know when external
timing belts went away.

>  As for new cars there is no hope of understanding 
> something with a million lines of code. Keith

Ja.  It left me behind about 25 years ago.  Hell computers left me behind 10
years ago.

Keith you and I are two lucky guys pal.  We remember back to a time when
life wasn't nearly as good as it is now.  May we live until it is way better
than it is now, or failing that, get frozen and uploaded when life is good.

spike


 





More information about the extropy-chat mailing list