By John Phillips III
T here are some 285 million internal-combustion engines in America, each as crazy as the Tiger Woods International School of Driving. Our road- going engines offer a thermal efficiency of roughly 38% – a $15 million Mercedes-Benz Formula 1 engine ekes out 50%. If you purchased an aluminum ladder that operated comparably – fitted with five of its 10 rungs – you’d never clean the gutters.
Where does that wasted energy go? It’s dumped overboard as heat wafting into Mother Earth’s slim skin. Think of an internal-combustion engine as a campfire. Think of 1 billion of those campfires ignited daily worldwide, as indeed they are. And let’s not even mention the crud exiting a billion tailpipes. Not only are our current automobiles inefficient, their Rube Goldbergian complexity surpasses any contraption that cartoonists could imagine. A hot lump of a V-8 might easily comprise 640 parts, each mounting its own frictional war against its neighbor. Further, the engine remains useless until connected to a starter, a fuel system, a cooling system, an exhaust system, and a transmission that might offer eight forward gears with a computerized mapping brain more complicated than Temecula chili. Electric vehicles (EVs) are thus alluring... Vermont’s Thomas Davenport invented the electric motor in 1834, no doubt under the influence of maple syrup, and the device hasn’t changed much since. Most motors comprise a dozen parts. There’s no transmission, as direct drive works ably. They
operate for ages with little maintenance. They don’t idle at stoplights but, instead, lie dormant. Yet from rest, an electric motor produces immense torque, right at the hit of the gas, of which there’s not a whiff. EVs work swell as golf carts and milk floats, that lovely clinking trolley that arrives at dawn bearing dairy products in rural British bergs. But they are easily overwhelmed by two tons of luxury, safety, and styling accoutrements, by extreme temperatures, and by drivers expecting unhindered 70-mph motion all day. Remember the George Jetson-esque 1996 to 1999 General Motors EV1, which conspiracy theorists still today claim was killed because it represented “too great a threat to Big Oil.” Under Car and Driver ’s lead feet, that first EV1 on a full charge lasted 12 miles. It was such a mess that GM would only lease them, then only after a suitability interview that recollected adopting a special-needs baby from Minsk. Big Oil’s CEOs threatened? The EV1 didn’t so much as wobble their Hugo Boss braces. The problem? Batteries... always batteries. Today’s are lithium-ion and work better than
CLICK HERE TO READ THE WEB VERSION
American Consequences
53
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online