|
|
Posted by D Sherman [72.47.153.24] on Friday, May 18, 2012 at 13:38:53 :
In Reply to: Re: OT... North Dakota ranks 2nd in US Oil production??? posted by Kaegi [24.16.253.154] on Friday, May 18, 2012 at 12:50:51 :
I hope the Volt works out. The engineers writing in the trade magazines seem to have big doubts. Electric and hybrid cars have their place, but that place is only in stop-and-go driving where you can take advantage of the regenerative braking, such as city delivery vehicles. On a long drive, the performance of a hybrid asymptotically approaches that of its gas engine, since the electric part can't contribute anything. In terms of thermal efficiency, from fossil fuel to rubber on the road, a grid-charged electric vehicle can never match an internal combustion engine, which is something the environmentalists need to figure out by calculating CO2 per ton-mile.
You may well be right about Chrysler being the first "production" car with hydraulic brakes. It's hard to call a Deusenberg a production car. Ones like my boss had were sold as an assembled chassis. The buyer would then have a local body shop build a custom body according to his desires. I daresay there are few "body shops" that could even do that today. Apparently the idea was that those who could afford such a vehicle didn't want anybody else driving one that looked just like theirs.
Another interesting thing about it was that the front seat was entirely spartan, with a simple painted steel instrument panel, while the rear seat was luxuriously appointed with a roll-up window that came up out of the back of the front seat. A man who bought a car like that did not drive himself. He rode in the back and had private conversation with his wife, friend, or business partner, while his driver drove the car. Sometimes I'd go in the garage and try out both seats and imagine what it was like.
I don't know if he bought the car himself or it had been in the family. The estate was supposedly quite the place back in the 20s and 30s when they had 6 full-time gardeners in the summer and 2 in the winter (I was trying to do all their jobs). It was 20 acres on Puget Sound, with an Olympic-sized swimming pool at the beach, surrounded by rose gardens and a life-sized bronze nymph. The pool house had a slate roof and copper gutters. Under the pool was a big cistern that collected water from springs on the property and a big pump to pump it into the irrigation system. The original mansion was stuffed with stuff, and nobody went in it. I sure wished I could have. I also wished I could have gone into the underground bomb shelter. But even in the garage and sheds I could go in there was the entire contents of an antique fire station, from nozzles and hats all the way up to the fire truck, several old wooden carousel horses, and all kinds of other "collectibles". In the woods there was a "Hupp" car with chickens living in it. It was quite a place, even though its glory days were well in the past.
Follow Ups: