Comments Wells has made

  • Marketing on 'cool' a mistake...

    The debate over which vehicle technology will dominate boils down to hybrid vs hydrogen fuel cell. My money is on hybrid, but this doesn't stop GM from building utterly preposterous prototypes based on the (AUTOnomy, Hywire, Sequel) 'skateboard' chassis, nor a slightly less impractical fuel cell car to be marketed next fall based on the crossover SUV Equinox.

    The fuelcell Equinox has a driving range of 200 miles, no mileage champ no matter how fueled. Even subcompact fuel cell cars have this same limitation. The 2-door Honda FCX will go only 190 miles on a tank.

    There are dozens of impracticalities with fuel cell technology, from hydrogen gas production, distribution and storage systems to vehicle manufacture and safety features, questionable energy inefficiencies, etc etc.

    Biofuels are ideally applicable in the hybrid drivetrain, but not fuel cell.

    GM hybrids also fall short of expectations. Their electric motor drive systems do not propel the vehicle as much as 'assist' a standard internal combustion engine and transmission. It is important to make this distinction between the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid and the hybrid system in GM Silverado and Saturn VUE. The Toyota/Ford hybrid can run entirely on electricity, whereas GM hybrids cannot.

    It matters not how 'cool' a fuel efficient car may be. GM is marketing their vehicles on 'cool', but are they being disengenuous? Are they purposefully failing to advance the more practical technologies in order to maintain a market dominance? The answer is, they're GM. We should expect nothing more.   On Prius makes an appearance in Last Kiss posted 3 years, 2 months ago 2 Responses

  • Even moderates use fear tactic

    This country's political divide, Right vs Left, has an artificial dividing point, republican on one side, democrat on the other. The truth is that many issues near the center of the political spectrum are shared by both and even most political persuasions.

    My political strategy for reaching obstinantly closed-minded republicans is to find those commonalities, and convince them that their leaders are not fairly representing majority interests, including their own.

    To be such a moderate is like climbing this dividing wall and becoming a target for attack from both sides.

    For exampls: When I'm trying to explain the complete futility of hydrogen fuel cell cars, those on the Left who've placed their hopes in such technofixes, will not hear it and may suspect such viewpoint as right wing propaganda. Those on the Right may be surprised to learn pertinent facts about Bush's fraudulent advocacy for hydrogen, but may be disuaded from in depth examination because the intellectually incurious on the Left matches that of their own.

    I have a small, measured amount of optimism that the industrial age can reduce its toxic impact. But, if the Left remains as closed-minded as the Right, the fear of an inappropriate technofix is a reasonable and legitimate political tactic.
    On Reason. Compassion. Forbearance. Selflessness. These are not the hallmarks or our time. posted 3 years, 3 months ago 6 Responses

  • Correction !!!!!!

    Sorry Sorry Sorry !!

    Both passengers in the Sentra died. On The future posted 3 years, 9 months ago 3 Responses

  • Hummer vs Sentra

    A few weeks back, on the 11: o'clock news, a startling video image of a traffic accident scene set off alarm bells.

    A newer Sentra had stalled and stopped on the shoulder of the ramp between I-205 north and I-84 east in East Portland. The shoulder there is narrow because it abuts a concrete wall which supports the 102nd Ave overpass. The Sentra was then slammed by a Hummer, perhaps a speeding and cutting the corner into the narrow but paved shoulder, perhaps not, I'm not sure.

    The accident scene first showed the Sentra in a state of complete demolishment, like a ball, crushed on every side and top, perhaps rolled between the support wall and the Hummer. The camera then turned to the Hummer. Not a scratch! Not a frikn scratch!

    Both passengers in the Hummer died; a husband and wife. They were on a cell phone to their son at the moment of the crash.

    Now that's an image, published alongside the child's plaything, that would be even more repulsive, but at least educational. Ya think? On The future posted 3 years, 9 months ago 3 Responses

  • Enough posturing

    Thanks for the link to Oil Drum. I will place it above Gristblog as a forum worth my time and effort. Enough with your mental masterbation posing Hybrids as futile, Roberts. Demonstrate your mental sterility about hybrid potential if you so choose, but don't try to convince readers that you're just posing an honest debate. Who's paying you to come up with this crap?    On Dilbert takes on foreign oil posted 3 years, 9 months ago 6 Responses

  • Blah blah blah

    We are owned. We don't have a choice where we live and how we conduct our lifestyles. Wherever we find ourselves, our lives are dictated by industrial and business interests who have constructed the US economy and culture to be dependent upon driving cars, financing them, insuring them, fueling them, organizing taxation and fees for road construction and parking.
    Most Merikans live in suburban wage-slave housing compounds, garages with attached houses, with lawns and lawn mowers, and fenced, (felled forests), to keep each individual suburbanite divided, separated, vulnerable but entertained with television and pop culture. Ha Ha! Thuh Prezadint said "sewerage" systems in his big speechifying talk blah blah today. Ha Ha!
    On More! posted 3 years, 11 months ago 35 Responses

  • Corporate rulers plunge knife into humanity's back

    Evidently and as suspected, David, you just don't get it. The WSJ dismisses hybrids not because of some prentense that the petroleum they save will ultimately be used elsewhere, but because the hybrid is a technology that threatens corporate profits, mechanisms of power and control, corporate monopolies.

    With the advent of Plug-in Hybrids and the matching energy supply of rooftop solar photovoltiac panels, homeowners/apartment dwellors gain the ability to measure their motoring habit and household electricity use.

    Motoring on home-based electricity has a limited range. This is an advantage! In time, shorter drives establish and support local economies, services, institutions and amenities, more of which become assessable without having to drive.

    Cars that run on renewable fuels and clean energy is not half the solution. The only way to maintain human habitation is to restructure economies so that driving is the secondary choice alongside other means of travel, (walking, bicycling, mass transit). The WSJ realizes the potential Hybrids have toward this goal, and dismiss Hybrids because they are a threat to corporate power. The Frickin Nazi's at WSJ don't care who suffers and dies as long as corporate masters continue to rule.

     On More! posted 3 years, 11 months ago 35 Responses

  • Hybrids threaten corporate amerika.

    You're a f*cking jackass, David. (and I mean that in a nice way). The hybrid automotive technology is a threat to corporate america. Don't parrot their shi*. You think Enron exectives want homeowners obtaining an energy source that will inevitably convert local utilities to public power?, an energy source that offers an education in household electricity conservation? You think GM wants motorists driving cars that are arguably the safest, and rack up the most trouble-free miles? You think Walmart (and other Big Box retailers) want their customers owning cars with a limited driving range (on battery power alone) which encourages them to patronize local merchants, rather than driving an extra 5-10 miles to save a nickel on Walmart bananas and toilet paper? Nevermind. You're just never gonna understand what I'm saying. On More! posted 3 years, 11 months ago 35 Responses

  • The hydrogen fuel cell car is ALL hype...

    To assert that 'hybrids are no more than hype' is to display ignorance. The Hybrid will forever remain technologically superior to hydrogen fuel cell in a dozen fundamental ways; vehicular safety, applicability, manufacturing and distribution practicalities, utilization of many fuels and energy sources, the perfection of combustion and emission reduction, perfect match with photovoltiac solar panel and battery industries, HOMEPOWER, Public Power, energy conservation, positive affects upon land-use and development. And this is the short list.

    GM produces special models of Silverado and Saturn VUE and label them hybrids. They are NOT hybrids because they only offer a 'start-stop' or 'assist' features, but cannot be propelled on battery power alone.

    Prius and Ford Escape hybrids have an electric motor that do propel the car, with the internal combustion engine 'assisting' by generating electricity. Add batteries to the true hybrid and you've got a practical zero-emission vehicle (zero emission where it counts that is, in inner-city neighborhoods and districts), and a long-range vehicle on those occassions it's necessary.

    By discontinuing the true hybrid technology, GM is siding with private energy companies who wrongfully prevent the public from gaining an energy source that can be installed at household level - photovoltiac panels and batteries. Valuable lessons in energy conservation are gained with such power supplies. In an emergency, such power systems will be invaluable.

    Chevron now holds patents to Ni-mH batteries and are withholding them from widespread use. GM crushed their marvelous EV-1 battery electric cars fearful of motorists fully realizing their potential.

    GM is deceiving the public about the potential of the hydrogen fuel cell, the 'drive-by-wire' and 'in-wheel' electric motor technologies they've incorporated into their 'ass-hyped' prototypes.

    Those who criticize the hybrid, like the editors of Popular Mechanics, may have their head up their ass. On Calming down the hybrid hype. posted 3 years, 12 months ago 7 Responses

  • The Bell Curve test

    A graph measuring efficiencies of mass production is like a bell curve. A local economy of household production may efficiently serve a market of neighbors, but that scale cannot efficiently serve the next larger scale of economy, the regional market. On the other side of the bell curve, the global economy is too big to be efficient because its energy gain in production is lost in distribution. The greatest efficiency then is the the regional and state market model.  

    Big Box retail is a global market model that only exists by displacing its transportation costs onto the car-dependent consumer and strengthens the automobile's monopoly on urban/suburban travel. The automobile presents a severe impediment to walking, bicyling and mass transit - a "Constitutional Inequity". The weak link in the 'transportation chain' of the global economy is the automobile.

    An unrestrained global economy undermines the viability of all the smaller, more human scales of economy, local, regional, state and national economies. The global economy has become a juggernaut.

      On Could chain stores actually be good for the environment? posted 4 years ago 19 Responses

  • = = = Seattle Sinking = = =

    Please don't put Portland in the same class of city as Seattle. This Portlander has been there and Vancouver enough times to make a fair comparison and conclude both those cities have a LONG way to go before they become as pedestrian and bicycle friendly as Portland.

    Seattle is the most carelessly planned city on the West Coast. Oh sure, it has reeel good PR departments putting out hype, "The glamorous skyline! The scenic view!" But, a look closer exposes filthy grime and social decay swirling around the footings of its cold and indifferent high-rises. On Vancouver city politicians take risky moves to fight climate change. posted 4 years, 4 months ago 1 Response