[ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano

spike spike66 at att.net
Fri Jan 13 17:34:13 UTC 2012



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] RES: future ape haulers: the tata nano

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:38 PM, spike wrote:
<snip>
>> Ja, we haven't fully taken advantage of airbags.  We can have super 
>> lightweight poly shells with airbags to partially compensate for not 
>> having a huge Detroit V8 out there in front...
>
>

>...You might enjoy this video of crash testing one of the little two seat
Smart cars.
The Smart car has very good crash safety ratings.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=FGtWc4m8Z2E&gl=US>

Thanks BillK, this gets part of the way there, but the smart car is
surprisingly heavy, and still doesn't use all that much plastic.  I notice
that they go on about 70 mph collision tests, but I envision a car that need
not pass that test because they won't go that fast.

>...The diesel engine version gets 71 US mpg.
But you now have quite a wide choice of diesel cars that do about 70 US mpg.
<http://www.clean-greencars.com/top-fuel-efficient-cars.html>  BillK

70 mpg might be good enough for the decade of transition, but we can do
better.  I can imagine 400 cc twin cylinder 400 kg Diesels that exceed 100
mpg, if we get the top speed requirement down far enough.  Diesel has the
advantage of a good fraction of the waste carbon comes out as particulates
rather than carbon dioxide.   {8-]  {8-|

I have the notion that we are having a hard time letting go of the
accustomed specifications for cars, meaning they are required to go
traditional American highway speeds.  But power requirements go up as the
cube of the top speed.  If we can get over that requirement, we open the
door to waaay cheaper and vastly more efficient ape haulers.

This brings me to a question for you energy hipsters.  We know that shipping
manufactured goods over the sea (more specifically from China to everywhere
in the world) is cheaper in fuel but more expensive in cost of capital if we
slow down the ships.  In the last few years, fuel has gotten more expensive
and capital way cheaper.  So have we slowed the cargo ships? 

spike











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