moabman Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 All the talk in Washington has me a little worried about the future of performance cars. I've heard a lot of suggestions about improving the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements for the manufactorers lately. Nothing specific and it's too early to tell but I am concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT500KR Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 All the talk in Washington has me a little worried about the future of performance cars. I've heard a lot of suggestions about improving the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements for the manufactorers lately. Nothing specific and it's too early to tell but I am concerned. Some times we gotta do what we gotta do. What's more important performance or, you decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moabman Posted January 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 I know what you mean. However, ideally, I would like the actions left to me. For example, I would like to have a supercharged GT but use it responsibly. I commute on the bus each day, ride my bike to the stores usually, replaced the insulation in my house and added a radiant barrier, etc. What concerns me if those decisions are taken out of my hands via a federal mandate. Isn't there a better way? I know that its too early to tell but there is that precident...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orf Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 All the talk in Washington has me a little worried about the future of performance cars. I've heard a lot of suggestions about improving the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements for the manufactorers lately. Nothing specific and it's too early to tell but I am concerned. A. Existing cars will be grandfathered, and given that I plan to keep mine forever, I'm good. B. There are groups out there right now working with high performance hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. I'll search around to see if I can find the links, but I'm pretty sure I saw some articles online. Granted, they don't perform as well as high end gasoline and diesel (yes, diesels can perform very well), but hydrogen fuel in passenger vehicles is still relatively new. Once some seriously performance minded people get into it, the hydrogen powered cars might just surprise you. Hopefully, someone will discover a reliable way to contain the hydrogen, both at service stations and in the vehicles themselves. IMHO, hydrogen is the future of personal transportation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68fastback Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 A. Existing cars will be grandfathered, and given that I plan to keep mine forever, I'm good. B. There are groups out there right now working with high performance hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. I'll search around to see if I can find the links, but I'm pretty sure I saw some articles online. Granted, they don't perform as well as high end gasoline and diesel (yes, diesels can perform very well), but hydrogen fuel in passenger vehicles is still relatively new. Once some seriously performance minded people get into it, the hydrogen powered cars might just surprise you. Hopefully, someone will discover a reliable way to contain the hydrogen, both at service stations and in the vehicles themselves. IMHO, hydrogen is the future of personal transportation. Yeah, and until hydrogen is [more] available I think we'll see a lot more hi-po diesels and diesel-electric hybrids in the next 3-5 years. Hydrogen's a usefull energy-storage medium (a good 'battery') but presently makes little sense as a fuel, imo, since it takes more energy to make it and distribute it than it does to make electricity and distribure it. If bio-hydrogen process (hydrogen from engineered bacteria and biomass) winds up scaling well, then hydro will come of age -- until then it will be an expensive novelty, imo. Having said that, I like that Ford is leading the way on burning hydrogen in an IC engine (Super-chief P/U concept) as well as working with Ballard on PEM fuel cells themselves. So much cool stuff happening -- someone will always be playing with making vehicles things faster, regardless of tech... thank God ;-) . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moabman Posted January 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 A. Existing cars will be grandfathered, and given that I plan to keep mine forever, I'm good........ I hadn't thought about that from a investment perspective Shift scenes to a lonely street corner late at night somewhere in future America HydroCar slowly and noiselessly drives up to a man standing under the etherial blue-white glow of a a fuel cell LED streetlight. The window rolls down: "Hey budy - wanna score some 94 octane?" Orf: "How pure is it" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orf Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 I hadn't thought about that from a investment perspective Shift scenes to a lonely street corner late at night somewhere in future America HydroCar slowly and noiselessly drives up to a man standing under the etherial blue-white glow of a a fuel cell LED streetlight. The window rolls down: "Hey budy - wanna score some 94 octane?" Orf: "How pure is it" Good one. I doubt that gasoline will ever be that hard to find. That is based on some assumptions, though. A switch to some other form of fuel needs to happen. Like I stated above, I think it will be hydrogen. It could be something else completely, though. That switch would need to occur within the next 20 years, or so. And the switch would need to be almost universally accepted. I also believe that there will be sufficient demand for petroleum based fuels that gasoline will still be readily available, just not as widely available as now. It will likely be far more expensive, too, as it would become a "specialty" fuel. Enough prognostication for now. I did search for some hydrogen fuel powered vehicle sites. I found plenty of good information out there. Too much to list here. I did find some interesting hydrogen powered cars, though. Available now. Hydrogen Shelby Vehicles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikspny Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 Great joke! Of course your other option is to pull off your plates, put in a roll cage AND RACE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orf Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 Yeah, and until hydrogen is [more] available I think we'll see a lot more hi-po diesels and diesel-electric hybrids in the next 3-5 years. Hydrogen's a usefull energy-storage medium (a good 'battery') but presently makes little sense as a fuel, imo, since it takes more energy to make it and distribute it than it does to make electricity and distribure it. If bio-hydrogen process (hydrogen from engineered bacteria and biomass) winds up scaling well, then hydro will come of age -- until then it will be an expensive novelty, imo. Having said that, I like that Ford is leading the way on burning hydrogen in an IC engine (Super-chief P/U concept) as well as working with Ballard on PEM fuel cells themselves. So much cool stuff happening -- someone will always be playing with making vehicles things faster, regardless of tech... thank God ;-) . Somehow, I missed your reply earlier. I agree with what you say above, mainly because you said "presently". Once there has been enough R&D with respect to separating and distributing hydrogen, I think it will become a viable alternative. Think economies of scale. It is very expensive now because the demand is extremely small compared to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, it will likely take the cooperation of the bigger oil companies to make distribution on a wide scale possible. It would take existing gas stations to offer a hydrogen "pump" at a majority of locations. Right now, California has something like 13 hyrdogen fueling stations. Unless you live close by, you could burn most of your fuel range just getting to the fueling station. Of course, the gas staions haven't exactly been setting speed records for offering diesel everywhere. And that's a product that their parent companies refine. I still think, with about 20 years of dedicated R&D, we'll see hydrogen as the fuel of choice. Just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUFDRAFT Posted January 24, 2007 Report Share Posted January 24, 2007 Ah - yet another issue that Ruf need not worry about. For the light is getting dimmer and dimmer..... Since I'm elderly, I enjoy each - and - every - tank of 93 octane I load into the Rufstang. Let my Bassanis Sing!! Y'all can worry about the rest of this on your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnut Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 With all this concern over depleting supplies of black gold, I am starting new countermeasures. I will be digging very very large holes in my back yard. I will begin breed large numbers of reptiles, Komodo dragons look good. Once they are full grown, I will lead them to these very large holes, pop them between the eyes with my ballpeen hammer, sending them to Tony Lama land. I figure if drill additional holes much much deeper and pipe them into the new pits, the heat will make them critters goo up quicker. I might need to find a bunch of old car steel to put on top of this mess to create some pressure but I will figure that out. I plan to pre-pipe the pits to bring up the goo when its ready. Some large vats will work to seperate the goo. Man, this is gonna work. I need some investment capital. Get in on the ground floor. I think I need a logo for my new company, maybe the Flintstone pet Dino. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUFDRAFT Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Go upstairs. Take off your Toga. Put on some grown-up clothes. Go back downstairs. Extinguish all smoking materials. Sober up - and have some Cheese Wiz & Sardines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnut Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Go upstairs. Take off your Toga. Put on some grown-up clothes. Go back downstairs. Extinguish all smoking materials. Sober up - and have some Cheese Wiz & Sardines. Soooo, your not going to invest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68fastback Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 If you look at hydrogen from electricity vs bio-diesel (from bacteria/biomass generation), the latter polutes much less, is much cheaper and requires much less development. Now, if bio-diesel replaces western coal for electricity generation, then hydrogen (as an energy transport medium) will become unnecessary, but becomes more cost effective as an energy storage medium. But hydrogen will never, imo, become truly competitive and, therefore, widely adopted until a bacteria/biomass process (already proven feasible) is proven scalable. Of the two (bio-diesel and bio-hydrogen) bio diesel is superior (from an investment threashold point of view) because there's virtually no new engine development necessary to commerciale it or distribute or store it. That's a powerful advantage. However if and when bio-hydrogen gets traction, it will change everything because it is the only known method of producing hydrogen that makes it cost effective and polution-free for the first time, therefore worth long-term investment -- even tho fuel cells will take a long time to come down to diesel engine costs. Bio-diesel is also compatible with existing pipeline facilities -- so, to my mind, the two techs with 'long legs' are bio-diesel and bio-hydrogen, and likely to achieve scale-commercialization in that order. The oil companies and independent pipeline companies have been buying-up pipeline rights-of-way and bidding-up pipeline 'futures' at a greatly accelerated rate over the past few years (so I've read, I'm no expert on this) -- and they'll be built-out as hydrogen, or nat.gas, or dino gas, or diesel, or... depending on the profit-margin du jour, but the investors seem sure there will be a great proliferation of alternative fuels in the relatively-near future, hence the greatly accelerated pipeline activity. Of course, there's always the possibility of a new breakthrough/disruptive technology no one has considered -- and then all bets are off -- but what that could be I haven't a clue. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUFDRAFT Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 The "disruptive technology" might be the Chinese and their war games attitude. Another reason I'm glad I'm nearing the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnut Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 So I take it you're not supporting my Komodo Dragon pit plan either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68fastback Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 The "disruptive technology" might be the Chinese and their war games attitude. Another reason I'm glad I'm nearing the end. For sure.. the Chinese have made it clear by their R&D that they plan to base satellite-killing satellites in deep-earth orbit. The ground-based test the other day was a foreshadowing. The Chinese government is a huge threat! With the tech to take out military and GPS satellites at will, our military advantage is greatly compromised and would be required to use alternative (more primitive) methods of communication and coordination. That's one of the reasons we're planning to go back to the moon -- to prevent china from taking the 'high ground' (pun intended;-) Oh, what was this thread about? performance cars.... right! ....yeah, what's that Chinese car that's coming here this year ...ahem, that Chery Vertex [that's the name!]sure is a beauty <lol> . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnut Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Okay 45 minutes later I stopped laughing, how much cash do you need and what do I get out of it? Lots of cash and you get a pair of Tony Lama dragon skin boots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
68fastback Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 This is funny because the Japanese have an electric performance motorcycle and they are ADDING sound to it so that it is more appealing to riders! Electronic sound. It would be cool because if your ride is running like crap, noone would know because it would still sound good! :happy feet: I heard that when Harley did the V-rod it was so smooth they had to work hard to make it lopey and 'Harley' again before they felt they could market it successfully. Maybe in the future the Shaker 20,000 will be a big hit because our hydro-stangs can then be made to sound like the Evo track-car -- you can just dial up the sound you like. Do you think the kids of today will be dialing up '97 honda fart-can sounds? . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUFDRAFT Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 I don't need any "lopey" sound tracks! Chinese: they may knock out our orbiting "eyes" - but they better not forget our Trident Subs. One Trident = 240 warheads. Sleep well over there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son of GT Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Two absolutes. 1. Sex sells. If it didn't, the internet and personal computers would still be an emerging technology today. 2. Performance sells. Certain personalties want/need performance, and for those that do, it's an addiction. The last performance car ice age ran from 1974 to 1982. In 1982, Ford took baby steps and installed the H.O. 302 in both the GT and LX Mustangs. The 302 put out a whopping 240 H.P. and people were thrilled to have it. Fast forward to 2007 and you now have 500 H.P. Mustangs and Corvettes. The bottom line is that as long as performance sells, auto manufacturers will produce performance cars. Sure, they may run on some alternative fuel, but the horsepower numbers won't change that much. Folks, this is America, 2007. Do you really think that we can't come up with a clean burning, alternative fueled, performance car in the next 10 years? I personally have complete faith that we can and will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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