San Francisco Regular Mid Premium Diesel Current $3.711 $3.951 $4.016 $4.119 Yesterday $3.700 $3.939 $4.004 $4.076 Month Ago $3.314 $3.527 $3.586 $3.658 Year Ago $3.204 $3.411 $3.467 $3.180
But HI will get there this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wailuku Regular Mid Premium Diesel Current $3.943 $4.169 $4.247 $4.159 Yesterday $3.876 $4.098 $4.175 $4.116 Month Ago $3.810 $4.029 $4.104 $4.031 Year Ago $3.205 $3.389 $3.452 $3.572
I am doing the only thing I can at the moment, (since I just got a new Mazda 3 last year). I have lowed down to exactly the speed limit (100 KPH (62.5 mph)) from 20 KM/h over (~ 12 mph over)) this has added about 45-50 miles per tank before I need to fill up the car. I am always looking for a different job to decrease my commute (but it is slim pickings at the moment up here). They are aparently projecting that gas (RUG) will be $1.40/ litre in Canada by the summer so I may need to look at other more extreme options still (I wouldn't mind doing the commute in a used deisel smart for instance) we will have to see what happens. Scott
Scott, you are doing the best you can. Can you imagine we are in the same predicament as we were in the '70's with the energy thing. Get ready for some stagflation in the US. I assume this will be a down year globally from the looks of things.
Wonder why there is such a big jump between regular and mid-grade, but only a 5 cent increase from mid-grade to premium petrol for the SF prices.
I'm pretty much out of options as my usage is only to drive to work and home. Trips are already combined so that I handle them on my way to work (usually when I fill-up) or on the trip home (groceries, pharmacists, P.O.). I arrive to work early so that traffic is light; I leave work accordingly or stay later to have a lite-trafffic ride home. Speed limit (or a few ticks lower without causing issues if possible), you betcha!! Going out, yeah right. Don't have a huge truck or SUV and don't haul or work a construction job for a living (plus no need to bling & show off for the neighbors) so no need of one.
I'd hate to be someone who may be in lower financial situation, just making it check to check. Granted I'm not one of the rich and infamous but hanging in there nonetheless.
"Wonder why there is such a big jump between regular and mid-grade, but only a 5 cent increase from mid-grade to premium petrol for the SF prices."
Around here mid-grade is a ripoff, too. For 1/3 the octane increase (87/89/93) you pay half the price. A patient person would fill 2/3 reg, 1/3 prem., and save a little. Sounds even worse in SF.
Geez, wouldn't it be nice? I'm glad I'm not the only one who has sat at light after needless light (often with nothing on the cross street, I might add) wasting gas and wondering why the lights aren't phased. I SO appreciate the few towns (like San Francisco) where lights are time-phased to just below the speed limit so that you can cruise a goodly distance before having to stop.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It's funny...my mother lives in a smallish town adjacent to a couple other little backwater towns...combined population maybe 25K - and their lights are sequenced very well. Yet I do not know of any municipality in the Puget Sound area where the oh-so-credible transportation planners have bothered with such niceties. It almost seems random from intersection to intersection in this area. Sometimes one car will pull up at a side street and trigger the whole sequence within 5 seconds, stopping dozens of cars for a few minutes. Other times, the lights will not change at all and a car can sit with no cross traffic for 5 minutes plus. And from major intersection to major intersection, the primary road never "flows" - you'll make a light here and there, but miss most of them. This has to be incredibly wasteful.
I have noticed in the mornings around here, the lights stick a lot. I am out early each workday, before 6am, and at one light in particular, I just stop and go. If I was to wait for green, I might idle for 5-10 minutes. There's going to be a big fight if this ever results in a ticket - there's some kind of negligence owned by the city.
What Will You Do This Summer When Gas Prices Exceed $4 a Gallon?
Well, many people here already know what I'll be doing but it has more to do with a healthy lifestyle than saving money on gas.
Now I just need to convince more people to dust off their saddles and replace those dry-rotted tires on that thing hanging on the garage wall and get out and enjoy it.
Gas prices in the St. Louis area shot up to $2.99 recently. Today they're back down to $2.96. We might hit $3.00/gal by the summer.
do you realize what kind of governments you have though up there? Ones that are willing to let the Seattle Supersonics be sold to a rich guy from Oklahoma City and move them to OKC?
And not fight longer and harder? Unthinkable sin going on in my homeland, man. Oh, this is a thread not about sports, eh? Well, here's a thought. When I was a teenager driving Highway 99 in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area, I could hit many, many green lights on 99 and just keep flowing. It became fun to try and time it to keep moving. I-5 was a nightmare to drive even in the 70's so Highway 99 was a cooler way to cruise from Edmonds-Lynnwood down to the Emerald City.
And heading north on Highway 99 from Edmonds-Lynnwood to Everett was the same deal. As the 80's and 90's grew on this became nearly impossible to continue doing. More traffic, more sluggishness on the roads and harder to time those lights. I wonder if huge Seattle-type bogdowns just make such an enterprise impossible. For some electronic timing kind of reason. Any traffic engineers on the forums that could answer this question?
"... will irresponsible municipalities finally be forced to sequence their stoplights and improve traffic flows to decrease in wasted gas?"
Not hardly. All levels of gov't make a FORTUNE on gasoline taxes. They want everyone to waste as much as possible.
That's why they never sequence traffic lights, and never build adequate roads to handle traffic. The longer we sit idling and doing the stop-and-go routine, the more money they make. .
Good point, it is in their best interest to have consumption at a high level, especially during high prices when travel may decrease. If anything, as prices rise they may do an even shoddier job at fulfilling their responsibility to manage traffic. :sick:
It would take a massive public outcry and possibly some tougher action to get these simps to change...and people are more concerned with Idol and simply making ends meet to care.
The Sonics can go and never be seen again for all I care. I am very much against the public subsidization of the playthings of billionaires (sports teams) when such subsidization has never been shown to be fiscally responsible. It's an ego thing, nothing more.
And on subject, I have to believe a better job could be done...but it likely will not. Of course, the ineptitude of local drivers doesn't help.
off-topic point about the Supersonics. I know, some people are sports fans and others are not and are bored silly with them. Others get all hot and bothered over taxes raised by the public to finance things like sports stadiums. Seattle is literally crammed to the hilt with people who moaned and groaned over Safeco and Qwest getting even an iota of public tax money. Got it, been there and done that for years. It's sad that a bunch of dorks like the Seattle Mariners are supported so well and are staying and a sport that has done whole big bunches of economic good for both the City of Seattle and the general populace of Seattle(the Sonics)are going to a dusty Midwest cowtown. Yikes. This is not only big...it's huge.
And what's more, these "taxes" are "taxes" that are raised completely by visitors! They are the infamous "hotel-motel-rental car" taxes. Joe Schmoe living and working in Skiddattle doesn't pay diddly for the stadium. Christine Gregoire dropped some loud hints that the State Legislature isn't going to do a thing about the Ballmer Proposal, indeed.
So, yes, buying the Hornets might be what they coulda/shoulda/woulda done...I mean do. It's a shame. Oh well. Now that I'm in Arizona I could just pull for Phoenix and Shaq in the 2008 NBA Playoff run. Icckkk. :sick:
As for things more on-topic, ummm....the west side of Warshington state is a traffic nightmare and it's unfortunately beyond the help of the smartest traffic engineers the populace refuses to pay for to help them out of that dastardly mess.
Crank up the Rockford Fosgate 650-watt stereo to some vintage Foghat and just enjoy your rides.
mean the entire Midwest region. I meant OKC and only OKC.
I mean, who am I to judge, I live in the town that now hosts the "National Day of the Cowboy" Center. Right here in hot and dusty cowtown Willcox, AZ. Willcox was once the cattle capital of the U.S. There exists a remnant of those cowboys all over Willcox and Cochise County that love to be here because it is a cowtown.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have nuthin' against the Midwest. That is where I moved to go to college in my 40's. Rolla, MO, to be exact. I liked but didn't love Missouri and I liked but didn't love Arkansas, and, I like but don't love Chicago, too.
I do have something against rich men from the Midwest who buy a sports team, say they're going to keep it in Seattle when all along they knew they were moving them to OKC. Oh, well. Not a crime, right. Why did Starbuck's owner Howard Schultz sell them to Clay Bennett of OKC? Because they were losing money, $17 mil in just the last year Schultz and Co.owned the Sonics. So, Bennett bought them from Shultz and Co. and then finally, drawing everything painfully and slowly out, proposed building a new stadium. However, he didn't offer to put in enough of his group's money and the State Legislature and Governor said no dice to him. So he's moving them to OKC. He didn't make a good effort to keep them in Seattle. Oh well.
No, I am not judging adversly the Midwest at all. Understand that. So the Ballmer Group buys the Hornets and brings them to Seattle. New day, a new world order of Seattle NBA basketball. The only way anyone would understand the disappointment would be if they are a sports fan.
The Midwest is fine. The Seattle area has some of the nastiest traffic in the country. The Sonics are moving and Britney Spears is still in bidness to make us all think she's losing it so the paparazzi follow her every move and we all look on and watch her every move with amazement. What a country. Amazing.
"So the Midwest is "dusty"? And a "cow town"? What other kinds of put downs do we have for the Midwest?"
Hey, I live in Texas, just a few miles from the OK border. It is dusty, and we have plenty of cows around town.
I don't think that calling OKC a dusty cow town is much of an insult. I'd call San Bernardino a smoggy, crowded city without regret. And I doubt that Californians would take offense.
Watching a History Channel documentary about oil. They say that we have several alternatives to Saudi and Venezuelan oil.
The tar sand in Canada is a viable option. Right now Canada has passed Saudi Arabia as the largest exporter of oil to the United States.
Here at home, we have the shale oil. But getting it is expensive and highly damaging to the environment. Otherwise, coal is a prospect. Apparently the Germans developed technology during WW II to extract petroleum from coal. So we could do it, and we have huge deposits of coal. One expert calls the U.S. "the Saudi Arabia of coal."
The documentary isn't very hopeful about ethanol. We just don't have enough land to grow enough corn to make a difference. The experts seem to prefer nuclear power that produces electricity to run battery-powered cars. Reducing the consumption side of the equation helps as much as increasing the supply side.
a man's mind a wandering a bit about alternative propulsions, eh? I mean, they're talking about gas prices continuing to go up. It's not Spring Break yet, is it? Prices start going up then, right?
I think all-electric vehicles are the answer, but we're not there yet in the EV-technology department. My current favorite carmaker, Mitsubishi, is working hard on their iMIEV city car. Trouble is, their propulsion system works pretty smoothly and things work out well while driving and acceleration is good, but...range is a big problem right now. This latest iMIEV version can get in economy mode about 100 miles. Then you have to re-charge. If you're just going to Wal*Mart in town or to a movie in town or to a drive-in in town, that's fine. But, if this was our only car and my wife and I want to go play in Tucson, which is only 80 miles away from us, we're boot-scooted.
That's not good enough range. And, knowing car repair places that you could plug-in to re-charge at, you'd get "charged to re-charge!" Wouldn't ya? Nobody talks about that..not a word about charging for re-charging. Sure, a Mitsubishi dealer would almost be duty-bound to re-charge your 2010 Mitsubishi iMIEV for...ummm...free, wouldn't they?
Mitsu has developed a "super re-charger" for the iMIEV that restores your iMIEV to 80% of full power in about a half hour. That's not bad, a half hour, but, how convenient is it all gonna be? We're working on it, though. No, I don't work for Mitsubishi, but I admire them and would consider buying an electric car from them in the future, so, I consider the study of these vehicles at this point work.
I worked on buying my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS for literally months online before I bought. No kidding, I literally spent hundreds of hours researching the vehicle before I bought one. This iMIEV is not in that same category, to me it's just kind of like a "special interest" story at this time. But, they're coming along, and ICE cars are not our future. Not even close, my car-crazy friends.
So the Midwest is "dusty"? And a "cow town"? What other kinds of put downs do we have for the Midwest?
Do y'all still say "forward fast" instead of "fast forward"? :P (and yes, I really do say "y'all" )
My grandparents had friends in Indiana. Little town called Monon, I think. Lived out on a big farm with something like 160 acres, and a grass airport runway in the middle of a corn field. I think it got sold in the late 80's though. Probably a housing development by now. Or an ethanol factory.
I just needed to know if I should feel deprived or offended.
I am against public funding of the plants for the highly paid union folk to practice their skills, i.e., sports stadiums for overpaid criminals (Bengals only) to get overpaid for football. Cincy should have told the Bengals to go to Baltimore (was it Baltimore they threated to move to) 15 years ago when they were extorting a new stadium at taxpayers' expense. Ohio kicked in many millions, the local sales tax was raised, the county signed a deal that pays for any unsold tickets so that the owners get the full ticket gate amount for any game--at taxpayers' expense.
Mitsu has developed a "super re-charger" for the iMIEV that restores your iMIEV to 80% of full power in about a half hour.
I wonder if that's with 220V service? Or more likely that is 480V, which almost no home is equipped with. Figure on everyone having to buy another circuit breaker panel, upgrade the service (larger cable) to their house, and maybe get a 480V transformer.
And that's great if you have a house and garage to charge their cars. What do renters do or people who park on the street? Does every parking spot in America get a charger?
The car can be recharged using normal household current at 100 volts (taking approximately 14 hours to recharge), 200 volts (7 hr recharge time) and 3-phase 200 volt. In the latter case, it would take only 30 minutes to recharge the vehicle to 80 percent SOC (state-of-charge) using a Quick-charge system. The charger is built into the vehicle, the 100 volt female plug on the right rear, the 200 volt receptacle on the left rear (see photo below).
The article also says it has a 16 kilowatt-hour battery pack, so to charge it 80 % in 1/2 hour at 200V would take BIG amps, something like 120 amps. That's a THICK extension cord!
The article also says it has a 16 kilowatt-hour battery pack, so to charge it 80 % in 1/2 hour at 200V would take BIG amps, something like 120 amps. That's a THICK extension cord!
Heck, my house only has a 150 amp circuit breaker, so I guess I'd better make sure I'm not running the air conditioner and nuking a tv dinner while I'm charging up my hybrid!
Well, gas prices here in Georgia have jumped to about $3.15 per gallon in the last week. :mad: I'm guessing if this continues, or jumps over $4 per gallon we'll have to be making some severe changes to our budget. Even though my car gets about 29 mpg, we also have a truck that chugs gas like nobody's business. Though if the summer weather is nice, he will ride his motorcycle and that will keep the gas costs down for a few months anyway. Between $5 for a gallon of milk and $4 for a gallon of gas I have to wonder how people with less means than us will make it. :confuse:
so to charge it 80 % in 1/2 hour at 200V would take BIG amps, something like 120 amps. That's a THICK extension cord!
me: yes and that's a little car with a 100 mile range. For electric cars to be much use they are going to have to be at least 75% of today's vehicles, say in the 3,000 Lb category (+ figure another 700-800 Lb of people/stuff), with a 300 mile range. Even if you have great batteries, you still need to put the energy into those batteries to move that mass that distance.
To recharge a car the size of an Accord and give it a decent range, requires a lot of energy. It requires high voltage and high amperage recharging.
The best option I could see for electric vehicles recharging is to exchange the whole battery-pack at a station. You pull in a station that has 100 batteries in various stages of recharging. A winch is used to remove your 500Lb battery pack, and a new one is dropped in - total 5 minutes. You pay $40 for a new battery pack rental (contingent on you dropping one off - just like with propane tank refills). Of course manufacturers have to agree on a common battery design, so that the recharging station doesn't have to have a bunch of different types.
The expense of converting every home and every parking spot in America to a recharging station with heavy-duty amperage and voltage is exorbitant and wasteful. If anyone thinks that's a good idea, I'm sure you're investing in copper right now!
Between $5 for a gallon of milk and $4 for a gallon of gas I have to wonder how people with less means than us will make it.
Ditch the cable or satellite TV for starters?
Do you have cellphones on top of having a house-phone? Do you need both? I just have a cell-phone.
And it also seems to me that the states still are making a lot of money on lotteries - daily numbers and scratch tickets. Obviously more people lose than win, so maybe people can quit wasting money on those.
And then maybe people can quit their $5/pack/day cigarette habits?
There's plenty of places people can save money. Or there's no reason someone can't get a 2nd job. My father always worked Sat. painting or doing carpentry, and even an a day at a minimum wage job would get most people enough money for gas for the week.
There are a lot of outdoor home 110 outlets in the northland for people with block heaters. And you'll see them in employee parking lots and some public spaces have them.
The parking lot ones are a big maintenance problem since many of them are just stuck on posts in front of the space and they get knocked down by the cars or snow plows. Some of the public lots charge to use them, so there's another hassle of trying to collect the outlet fee in addition to the parking fee.
I like the idea of swapping battery packs - if you get the range up to ~300 miles, it shouldn't be much worse than hitting the gas station. The station could get power from solar, the grid at night, or some other cheaper source than your home power.
The rant about hydrogen cars is that the filling process is time consuming (plus you have to wait for the other drivers to fill up since there are very few stations available).
"The rant about hydrogen cars is that the filling process is time consuming (plus you have to wait for the other drivers to fill up since there are very few stations available). "
Same for natural gas. That'll be a huge advantage for EVs, plugs are everywhere, so even if you don't get 'filled up' over night it wouldn't be that big a deal to plug in somewhere. Can't do that with H2 or natural gas!
The expense of converting every home and every parking spot in America to a recharging station with heavy-duty amperage and voltage is exorbitant and wasteful
Why would you need fast charging capability at your home? My vehicle is parked at my house for about 10 hours at a time almost every single night. Being able to recharge at home in less than an hour would have almost no value for me.
....on the history channel last night that said if we don't step up the development of alternatives big time and bring them online over the next 5-7 years, the world economy will be facing a deep recession so bad it'll make the great depression seem like Camelot. There will be total collaps of economies, wars, famine, and everything else bad you can think of. Society as we know it will end. Pretty scarey.
I could see a situation where you zapped your battery driving home, and an hour later you need to take your sick kiddo to the ER or doc in the box for an ear infection or something.
The target customer would have more than 1 car. I don't think every car in the household really needs 400+ miles of range plus quick refills.
My commute is 26 miles roundtrip.
I bet 100 miles range is more than enough for a commuter car like mine. And I could charge it overnight on a 220V. My dryer has one so it can't be hard to have another outlet in the car port given the dryer is right next to it.
I'm not gonna lease something like that for $600 per month, though, no way no how. They have to get the costs way down.
I could see a situation where you zapped your battery driving home, and an hour later you need to take your sick kiddo to the ER or doc in the box for an ear infection or something.
Most people that buy an EV with ~100 mile range would almost certainly have a second vehicle, especially if they had children. My guess is that when these first EVs hit the market over 80% of initial buyers will have another vehicle. So for these people whether it took 1 hour or 10 hours to recharge wouldn't make much difference.
Actually, I read it. This is a well-documented theory that holds some truth but because things will change, the severity of a global depression is hard to asses with great accuracy because the economies are so dynamic.
Look at the current recession that we are facing here...now revers to 1974 when we had gas rationing. My point is we will adapt to make sure this energy crisis will not go overboard. Watch closely this year how many SUV behemoths sell as the price to fill up the tank is $100....
Soon, electric vehicles will be the norm. But, say we changed every combustion engined vehicle in the US in a matter of 2 years to strictly electric. There would be a major shock to certain economies dependent on oil (Soviet Union,Middle East), guaranteeing certain war, famine and economic collapse as the price of oil shot to record lows.
It's about evolution to a new system. It will happen without complete collapse, IMHO. Not to say it will be easy.
Why would you need fast charging capability at your home?
I didn't say it would be fast. I said that if you consider a typical family size car, van, SUV, or pickup; not a mini car or even a Tesla, and put batteries in it such that that car can go 300 miles, not 100 miles, that the amount of energy you have to put into those batteries (and they can be some new compact type battery) is going to be 5 times (back of the envelope engineering estimate) the amount of energy of what these minicars use. Therefore you need a big thick high voltage or high amperage line to do that. So the voltage and amperage that will recharge a minicar with a 100 mile range overnight, will not necessarily work for a fullsize vehicle with a 300 mile range.
Being able to recharge at home in less than an hour would have almost no value for me.
Well I remember several days of news this year watching the wildfires in CA, where the winds shifted, and people had several minutes warning to evacuate the neighborhood. It wouldn't have been too good if their car batteries were only charged enough to go a mile or so.
And what would people do when the power goes out for a few days or longer, like when an ice-storm brings down an area's powerlines? I guess it'll have to be well thought out before you see any police, fire, plow-vehicles, utility, or other vehicles running on electric unless they have a large backup generator.
You need to plan for emergencies, tampering, and consumer ignorance when proposing any new technology, not just what is "normal".
But, say we changed every combustion engined vehicle in the US in a matter of 2 years to strictly electric.
You forgot to add ... "and the hundreds of new electricity generating plants that would be needed", and the imaginary fuel that powers the electrical generating plants (as if that wouldn't be natural gas or coal).
The target customer would have more than 1 car. I don't think every car in the household really needs 400+ miles of range plus quick refills.
I don't see the typical family buying 2 electric cars - what price do you see? and then having a 3rd car which is used for the long trips, the towing, the family outings etc. If people are having trouble coming up with $500 or $1,000 extra for gasoline this year, I don't see them paying for another vehicle and all the taxes and expenses associated with that. As a single person, and living in an apartment complex, I don't see myself having 2 vehicles, and I don't see myself trusting that when I plug an electric vehicle in at night that someone wouldn't have disconected or otherwise tampered with it. And I'd really hate to think about hooking it up or disconnecting it in the rain or when encased in ice! As I said before, there are a lot of issues with recharging vehicles.
I think the batteries need to be professionally handled, and to minimize cost this needs to be done at a "filling station". In this way the large amounts of energy that need to go into the battery can be done over hours, in a dry and controlled environment.
Comments
San Francisco Regular Mid Premium Diesel
Current $3.711 $3.951 $4.016 $4.119
Yesterday $3.700 $3.939 $4.004 $4.076
Month Ago $3.314 $3.527 $3.586 $3.658
Year Ago $3.204 $3.411 $3.467 $3.180
But HI will get there this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wailuku Regular Mid Premium Diesel
Current $3.943 $4.169 $4.247 $4.159
Yesterday $3.876 $4.098 $4.175 $4.116
Month Ago $3.810 $4.029 $4.104 $4.031
Year Ago $3.205 $3.389 $3.452 $3.572
Regards,
OW
Scott
However, we have to remember the price gap will increase as demand increases.
Not to mention they cost $2000-3000 more to begin with. Though you tend to get it back at resale.
There is a time to laugh and a time to cry.
Regards,
OW
"What Will You Do This Summer When Gas Prices Exceed $4 a Gallon?"
or
"What are some strategies for dealing with outrageous gas prices?
Regards,
OW
I'm pretty much out of options as my usage is only to drive to work and home. Trips are already combined so that I handle them on my way to work (usually when I fill-up) or on the trip home (groceries, pharmacists, P.O.). I arrive to work early so that traffic is light; I leave work accordingly or stay later to have a lite-trafffic ride home. Speed limit (or a few ticks lower without causing issues if possible), you betcha!! Going out, yeah right. Don't have a huge truck or SUV and don't haul or work a construction job for a living (plus no need to bling & show off for the neighbors) so no need of one.
I'd hate to be someone who may be in lower financial situation, just making it check to check. Granted I'm not one of the rich and infamous but hanging in there nonetheless.
Around here mid-grade is a ripoff, too. For 1/3 the octane increase (87/89/93) you pay half the price. A patient person would fill 2/3 reg, 1/3 prem., and save a little. Sounds even worse in SF.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I have noticed in the mornings around here, the lights stick a lot. I am out early each workday, before 6am, and at one light in particular, I just stop and go. If I was to wait for green, I might idle for 5-10 minutes. There's going to be a big fight if this ever results in a ticket - there's some kind of negligence owned by the city.
Well, many people here already know what I'll be doing but it has more to do with a healthy lifestyle than saving money on gas.
Now I just need to convince more people to dust off their saddles and replace those dry-rotted tires on that thing hanging on the garage wall and get out and enjoy it.
Gas prices in the St. Louis area shot up to $2.99 recently. Today they're back down to $2.96. We might hit $3.00/gal by the summer.
25 NX 450h+ / 24 Sienna Plat AWD / 23 Civic Type-R / 21 Boxster GTS 4.0
And not fight longer and harder? Unthinkable sin going on in my homeland, man.
Oh, this is a thread not about sports, eh? Well, here's a thought. When I was a teenager driving Highway 99 in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area, I could hit many, many green lights on 99 and just keep flowing. It became fun to try and time it to keep moving. I-5 was a nightmare to drive even in the 70's so Highway 99 was a cooler way to cruise from Edmonds-Lynnwood down to the Emerald City.
And heading north on Highway 99 from Edmonds-Lynnwood to Everett was the same deal. As the 80's and 90's grew on this became nearly impossible to continue doing. More traffic, more sluggishness on the roads and harder to time those lights. I wonder if huge Seattle-type bogdowns just make such an enterprise impossible. For some electronic timing kind of reason. Any traffic engineers on the forums that could answer this question?
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Not that that info has much to do with $4 gas...
25 NX 450h+ / 24 Sienna Plat AWD / 23 Civic Type-R / 21 Boxster GTS 4.0
Not hardly. All levels of gov't make a FORTUNE on gasoline taxes. They want everyone to waste as much as possible.
That's why they never sequence traffic lights, and never build adequate roads to handle traffic. The longer we sit idling and doing the stop-and-go routine, the more money they make.
.
It would take a massive public outcry and possibly some tougher action to get these simps to change...and people are more concerned with Idol and simply making ends meet to care.
And on subject, I have to believe a better job could be done...but it likely will not. Of course, the ineptitude of local drivers doesn't help.
And what's more, these "taxes" are "taxes" that are raised completely by visitors! They are the infamous "hotel-motel-rental car" taxes. Joe Schmoe living and working in Skiddattle doesn't pay diddly for the stadium. Christine Gregoire dropped some loud hints that the State Legislature isn't going to do a thing about the Ballmer Proposal, indeed.
So, yes, buying the Hornets might be what they coulda/shoulda/woulda done...I mean do. It's a shame. Oh well. Now that I'm in Arizona I could just pull for Phoenix and Shaq in the 2008 NBA Playoff run. Icckkk. :sick:
As for things more on-topic, ummm....the west side of Warshington state is a traffic nightmare and it's unfortunately beyond the help of the smartest traffic engineers the populace refuses to pay for to help them out of that dastardly mess.
Crank up the Rockford Fosgate 650-watt stereo to some vintage Foghat and just enjoy your rides.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
So the Midwest is "dusty"? And a "cow town"? What other kinds of put downs do we have for the Midwest?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I mean, who am I to judge, I live in the town that now hosts the "National Day of the Cowboy" Center. Right here in hot and dusty cowtown Willcox, AZ. Willcox was once the cattle capital of the U.S. There exists a remnant of those cowboys all over Willcox and Cochise County that love to be here because it is a cowtown.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have nuthin' against the Midwest. That is where I moved to go to college in my 40's. Rolla, MO, to be exact. I liked but didn't love Missouri and I liked but didn't love Arkansas, and, I like but don't love Chicago, too.
I do have something against rich men from the Midwest who buy a sports team, say they're going to keep it in Seattle when all along they knew they were moving them to OKC. Oh, well. Not a crime, right. Why did Starbuck's owner Howard Schultz sell them to Clay Bennett of OKC? Because they were losing money, $17 mil in just the last year Schultz and Co.owned the Sonics. So, Bennett bought them from Shultz and Co. and then finally, drawing everything painfully and slowly out, proposed building a new stadium. However, he didn't offer to put in enough of his group's money and the State Legislature and Governor said no dice to him. So he's moving them to OKC. He didn't make a good effort to keep them in Seattle. Oh well.
No, I am not judging adversly the Midwest at all. Understand that. So the Ballmer Group buys the Hornets and brings them to Seattle. New day, a new world order of Seattle NBA basketball. The only way anyone would understand the disappointment would be if they are a sports fan.
The Midwest is fine. The Seattle area has some of the nastiest traffic in the country. The Sonics are moving and Britney Spears is still in bidness to make us all think she's losing it so the paparazzi follow her every move and we all look on and watch her every move with amazement. What a country. Amazing.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Hey, I live in Texas, just a few miles from the OK border. It is dusty, and we have plenty of cows around town.
I don't think that calling OKC a dusty cow town is much of an insult. I'd call San Bernardino a smoggy, crowded city without regret. And I doubt that Californians would take offense.
Cities are what they are.
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The tar sand in Canada is a viable option. Right now Canada has passed Saudi Arabia as the largest exporter of oil to the United States.
Here at home, we have the shale oil. But getting it is expensive and highly damaging to the environment. Otherwise, coal is a prospect. Apparently the Germans developed technology during WW II to extract petroleum from coal. So we could do it, and we have huge deposits of coal. One expert calls the U.S. "the Saudi Arabia of coal."
The documentary isn't very hopeful about ethanol. We just don't have enough land to grow enough corn to make a difference. The experts seem to prefer nuclear power that produces electricity to run battery-powered cars. Reducing the consumption side of the equation helps as much as increasing the supply side.
Interesting documentary.
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I think all-electric vehicles are the answer, but we're not there yet in the EV-technology department. My current favorite carmaker, Mitsubishi, is working hard on their iMIEV city car. Trouble is, their propulsion system works pretty smoothly and things work out well while driving and acceleration is good, but...range is a big problem right now. This latest iMIEV version can get in economy mode about 100 miles. Then you have to re-charge. If you're just going to Wal*Mart in town or to a movie in town or to a drive-in in town, that's fine. But, if this was our only car and my wife and I want to go play in Tucson, which is only 80 miles away from us, we're boot-scooted.
That's not good enough range. And, knowing car repair places that you could plug-in to re-charge at, you'd get "charged to re-charge!" Wouldn't ya? Nobody talks about that..not a word about charging for re-charging. Sure, a Mitsubishi dealer would almost be duty-bound to re-charge your 2010 Mitsubishi iMIEV for...ummm...free, wouldn't they?
Mitsu has developed a "super re-charger" for the iMIEV that restores your iMIEV to 80% of full power in about a half hour. That's not bad, a half hour, but, how convenient is it all gonna be? We're working on it, though. No, I don't work for Mitsubishi, but I admire them and would consider buying an electric car from them in the future, so, I consider the study of these vehicles at this point work.
I worked on buying my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS for literally months online before I bought. No kidding, I literally spent hundreds of hours researching the vehicle before I bought one. This iMIEV is not in that same category, to me it's just kind of like a "special interest" story at this time. But, they're coming along, and ICE cars are not our future. Not even close, my car-crazy friends.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Do y'all still say "forward fast" instead of "fast forward"? :P (and yes, I really do say "y'all"
My grandparents had friends in Indiana. Little town called Monon, I think. Lived out on a big farm with something like 160 acres, and a grass airport runway in the middle of a corn field. I think it got sold in the late 80's though. Probably a housing development by now. Or an ethanol factory.
I just needed to know if I should feel deprived or offended.
I am against public funding of the plants for the highly paid union folk to practice their skills, i.e., sports stadiums for overpaid criminals (Bengals only) to get overpaid for football. Cincy should have told the Bengals to go to Baltimore (was it Baltimore they threated to move to) 15 years ago when they were extorting a new stadium at taxpayers' expense. Ohio kicked in many millions, the local sales tax was raised, the county signed a deal that pays for any unsold tickets so that the owners get the full ticket gate amount for any game--at taxpayers' expense.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I wonder if that's with 220V service? Or more likely that is 480V, which almost no home is equipped with. Figure on everyone having to buy another circuit breaker panel, upgrade the service (larger cable) to their house, and maybe get a 480V transformer.
And that's great if you have a house and garage to charge their cars. What do renters do or people who park on the street? Does every parking spot in America get a charger?
From this page:
I want my MiEV
Heck, my house only has a 150 amp circuit breaker, so I guess I'd better make sure I'm not running the air conditioner and nuking a tv dinner while I'm charging up my hybrid!
Though if the summer weather is nice, he will ride his motorcycle and that will keep the gas costs down for a few months anyway. Between $5 for a gallon of milk and $4 for a gallon of gas I have to wonder how people with less means than us will make it.
:confuse:
me: yes and that's a little car with a 100 mile range. For electric cars to be much use they are going to have to be at least 75% of today's vehicles, say in the 3,000 Lb category (+ figure another 700-800 Lb of people/stuff), with a 300 mile range. Even if you have great batteries, you still need to put the energy into those batteries to move that mass that distance.
To recharge a car the size of an Accord and give it a decent range, requires a lot of energy. It requires high voltage and high amperage recharging.
The best option I could see for electric vehicles recharging is to exchange the whole battery-pack at a station. You pull in a station that has 100 batteries in various stages of recharging. A winch is used to remove your 500Lb battery pack, and a new one is dropped in - total 5 minutes. You pay $40 for a new battery pack rental (contingent on you dropping one off - just like with propane tank refills). Of course manufacturers have to agree on a common battery design, so that the recharging station doesn't have to have a bunch of different types.
The expense of converting every home and every parking spot in America to a recharging station with heavy-duty amperage and voltage is exorbitant and wasteful. If anyone thinks that's a good idea, I'm sure you're investing in copper right now!
Ditch the cable or satellite TV for starters?
Do you have cellphones on top of having a house-phone? Do you need both? I just have a cell-phone.
And it also seems to me that the states still are making a lot of money on lotteries - daily numbers and scratch tickets. Obviously more people lose than win, so maybe people can quit wasting money on those.
And then maybe people can quit their $5/pack/day cigarette habits?
There's plenty of places people can save money. Or there's no reason someone can't get a 2nd job. My father always worked Sat. painting or doing carpentry, and even an a day at a minimum wage job would get most people enough money for gas for the week.
The parking lot ones are a big maintenance problem since many of them are just stuck on posts in front of the space and they get knocked down by the cars or snow plows. Some of the public lots charge to use them, so there's another hassle of trying to collect the outlet fee in addition to the parking fee.
I like the idea of swapping battery packs - if you get the range up to ~300 miles, it shouldn't be much worse than hitting the gas station. The station could get power from solar, the grid at night, or some other cheaper source than your home power.
The rant about hydrogen cars is that the filling process is time consuming (plus you have to wait for the other drivers to fill up since there are very few stations available).
Same for natural gas. That'll be a huge advantage for EVs, plugs are everywhere, so even if you don't get 'filled up' over night it wouldn't be that big a deal to plug in somewhere. Can't do that with H2 or natural gas!
Why would you need fast charging capability at your home? My vehicle is parked at my house for about 10 hours at a time almost every single night. Being able to recharge at home in less than an hour would have almost no value for me.
I could see a situation where you zapped your battery driving home, and an hour later you need to take your sick kiddo to the ER or doc in the box for an ear infection or something.
My commute is 26 miles roundtrip.
I bet 100 miles range is more than enough for a commuter car like mine. And I could charge it overnight on a 220V. My dryer has one so it can't be hard to have another outlet in the car port given the dryer is right next to it.
I'm not gonna lease something like that for $600 per month, though, no way no how. They have to get the costs way down.
And it's downhill all the way home, so if I did run out of (pardon the expression) juice up there ....
Gotta love regenerative braking.
Most people that buy an EV with ~100 mile range would almost certainly have a second vehicle, especially if they had children. My guess is that when these first EVs hit the market over 80% of initial buyers will have another vehicle. So for these people whether it took 1 hour or 10 hours to recharge wouldn't make much difference.
Look at the current recession that we are facing here...now revers to 1974 when we had gas rationing. My point is we will adapt to make sure this energy crisis will not go overboard. Watch closely this year how many SUV behemoths sell as the price to fill up the tank is $100....
Soon, electric vehicles will be the norm. But, say we changed every combustion engined vehicle in the US in a matter of 2 years to strictly electric. There would be a major shock to certain economies dependent on oil (Soviet Union,Middle East), guaranteeing certain war, famine and economic collapse as the price of oil shot to record lows.
It's about evolution to a new system. It will happen without complete collapse, IMHO. Not to say it will be easy.
Regards,
OW
I didn't say it would be fast. I said that if you consider a typical family size car, van, SUV, or pickup; not a mini car or even a Tesla, and put batteries in it such that that car can go 300 miles, not 100 miles, that the amount of energy you have to put into those batteries (and they can be some new compact type battery) is going to be 5 times (back of the envelope engineering estimate) the amount of energy of what these minicars use. Therefore you need a big thick high voltage or high amperage line to do that. So the voltage and amperage that will recharge a minicar with a 100 mile range overnight, will not necessarily work for a fullsize vehicle with a 300 mile range.
Well I remember several days of news this year watching the wildfires in CA, where the winds shifted, and people had several minutes warning to evacuate the neighborhood. It wouldn't have been too good if their car batteries were only charged enough to go a mile or so.
And what would people do when the power goes out for a few days or longer, like when an ice-storm brings down an area's powerlines? I guess it'll have to be well thought out before you see any police, fire, plow-vehicles, utility, or other vehicles running on electric unless they have a large backup generator.
You need to plan for emergencies, tampering, and consumer ignorance when proposing any new technology, not just what is "normal".
You forgot to add ... "and the hundreds of new electricity generating plants that would be needed", and the imaginary fuel that powers the electrical generating plants (as if that wouldn't be natural gas or coal).
I don't see the typical family buying 2 electric cars - what price do you see? and then having a 3rd car which is used for the long trips, the towing, the family outings etc. If people are having trouble coming up with $500 or $1,000 extra for gasoline this year, I don't see them paying for another vehicle and all the taxes and expenses associated with that.
As a single person, and living in an apartment complex, I don't see myself having 2 vehicles, and I don't see myself trusting that when I plug an electric vehicle in at night that someone wouldn't have disconected or otherwise tampered with it. And I'd really hate to think about hooking it up or disconnecting it in the rain or when encased in ice! As I said before, there are a lot of issues with recharging vehicles.
I think the batteries need to be professionally handled, and to minimize cost this needs to be done at a "filling station". In this way the large amounts of energy that need to go into the battery can be done over hours, in a dry and controlled environment.
Yep thats what they were saying in the 70's. Still waiting for that to take effect.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Check out the headline pic:
http://drudgereport.com/
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