Eight years ago, President George W. Bush proposed a $1.2 billion program to help develop fuel-cell vehicles and hydrogen storage systems. Now, in 2011, the U.S. still has no hydrogen fuel cell cars in commercial production.
At the State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama stated that his goal is to make the United States the first country with one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
According to Michael Omotoso, director of global powertrain forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates in Troy, Mich., the limited market for short-range compact cars and the high cost of batteries could be real obstacles to reaching Obama’s goal.
The first vehicles planned to be on the road will be the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf. General Motors wants to expand its production to 120,000 Volt units by 2012. So far, a total of 19 Leafs and 326 Volts have been sold in the U.S.
As the Energy Information Administration claims, automakers will sell about 281,000 light trucks and electric vehicles from 2011 through 2015.
Here we go again. A politician jumping on the “bandwagon” promising to make something happen. Well (deep subject “A”-Canadian ) Bush promosed what?
Let’s get somethings straight. A 5% fuel saving in a big hwy truck driving over 12,000 miles per month (as much as most cars drive in a whole yr) This truck would save as much fuel as approx 48 cars.
Let’s see if we put 30% (H20) in the fuel and get more power from less diesel we would save how much fuel?
If we forget the “fancy” stuff such as computer contolled and speed control of an electric motor (very expensive) and put an electric motor on the driveline (driveline goes directly through the electric motor) and we just “torque the driveline by “pressing a simple driver controlled button” adding 25% more torque- we would save how much fuel. This same motor would help “brake” the truck down a hill (like an engine brake) to charge up the batteries. Gee we just made the same truck a “hybred-“A”. How much fuel could we save?
If we use the exhaust temp (wasted energy) to make more electrical power to make more hydrogen in an hydrogen generator on the truck and put the hydrogen into the air intake. How much fuel could be save?
I have talked to truckers using high tech mufflers that are saving fuel. I have used high tech fuel conditioners and lubrication products to save fuel. And yes a “good” quality oil purification system to keep the lubrication clean continually will extend the life of the equipment (with out wasting the lubes) and how much fuel does that save?
We forget that it takes “energy” to even make a new vehicle. We are never told how much energy it take to make some of these new high tech “toys” and people think they are “green”.
There are lots of ways of saving fuel that are far better than saving a “little fuel” with an electric or “hybred” car
Rather we would really prefer have a “politician” solve our troubles.