Re: Electric Cars Not Yet Viable

Maybe that was because the rechargeable lithium-ion battery wasn't invented until 1980.

High-end battery-powered drones can stay in the air about 20 minutes, with no payload except a small camera. A weatherproof, enclosed drone with passengers and luggage isn't going to make it very far.

Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

And the world and industry still used heavier NiCad batteries until more recently.

The tech will get better and better.

Nanotubes, and graphene... all kinds of potential.

A graphene sheet condom you do not even know you are wearing (till ya have to piss).

That graphene sheet could also make for a better supercap, which is an inroad to calling the things batteries at some point. I am amazed at how light LiFePo batteries are for the same AH rating.(and amazed at the prices the greedy bat's turds are charging for them.

The condom thing was just a joke.

John Larkin wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Have you seen the units in the news recently? They fly forward at about 100 knots.

Other countries will advance faster than America will. We are too regulatory prone.

We should have already been back to the Moon.

Hah, talk about an EV being crippled w/o a big charger, your glider is crippled w/o another entire airplane!

An item like that will be an airplane, not a drone.

Cape Air is adding a few dozen all-electric planes to its fleet, for its short-haul passenger routes. They expect to save $400 in aviation fuel per trip, compared to $10 for the electricity fillups. With many trips/day the E-planes will pay for themselves.

Not really :) They can - fly higher than commercial airliners (UK record 37kft) - faster than light aircraft (150kt peak, up to 100kt average with a good pilot :) ) - 300km is a fun jaunt, >1000km the UK record (top to bottom of Scotland, twice) - very aerobatic: even trainers do +3.5G -1G, and you normally do some aerobatic maneuvers before going solo (at 14yo) - look like they are /right/ in the same way as swifts and racing eights look like perfect birds and boats - and are /fun/

But I wouldn't want to rely on one if I had to get to a meeting a long way away.

Mind you, that's also true with some cars I had when young, and also with EVs!

Combustion cars may be obsolete, replaced by EVs, but then all cars are obsolete, in cities anyway. But awwkk, I still prefer top drive.

That claim is totally bogus. And it's a stupid claim to make, completely not necessary to sell their product. I found a lot of their hype stupid, but it does appear their engineers have done a good job and it makes sense.

Not in central London you wouldn't, at least if you have any sense :) Boston is trivial by comparison.

My preferred mode of transport in central London is coach/train to the general area, then folding bicycle to the specific destinations. Not in other cities, though, since the traffic is moving faster.

EV charging will be problematic in London and many cities for a long time to come; see my previous posts with google streetviews illustrating why. I think even Rick C might have got that message.

It's not that the US is particularly enhtusiastic about regulation, but rat her that the US lobbying system is designed to leave people who are making a lot of money out of a particular market free to set up regulations that m ake it difficult for innovative competitors to get into the markets that ar e making the current generation of fat cats all that money.

Perhaps, but so far there doesn't seem to be a lot of money to be made up t here.

Not necessarily. You can get them into the air with a cable tow. It takes a while to get the end of the cable from the winch back to the next glider i n the queue to be launched, but it is quicker than landing a tow plane and hooking it up to next glider in the queue. For the avid do-it-yourselfer th ere are bungee cables, which you stretch yourself - one at time, and for th e particularly avid there are scheme that you let wind them all up into gli der once it has taken off.

Hang-gliders just jump off cliffs and the tops of steep hills.

Oh yes, I forgot. We usually /don't/ use other airplanes.

Here we launch them like kites: a mile long steel hawser connected to a 440HP engine, 0-50kt in 5s, climb with your feet higher than your head, and 45s after starting you are at 2000ft. It only uses a cupful of LPG.

A rather neat still picture of a launch:

Or if you prefer moving pictures, Jon's first solo on his 14th birthday:

How can you say their claim is bogus without even examining the device? This was discussed here previously and many thought it is possible. In particular they indicated it could simplify the electronics if I recall correctly.

So if the claim is bogus, what do you mean by "their engineers have done a good job and it makes sense"?

I was criticized for judging the UK without having experienced it. Have you experienced "many cities"? I think large parts of the world will be happy to make the small changes required to accommodate EVs.

It's hard to imagine the British being so intransigent when they invented the Steam Engine and Train. Had to make some changes to accommodate that, eh?

The personal helicopter idea has been around for ages. I don't think it's practical, especially using batteries. The hazards are too many, the cost too high.

Why? There's nothing very interesting on the moon. Robots could bring back more dirt, but nobody is bothering to do that.

Countless, in at least 19 countries in three very different continents. Usually backpacking on public transport, /not/ being whisked around on a coach like

So, how many countries and continents have *you* visited?

The smaller, the happier people will be.

But your concept of "small" may not match other peoples' concept, and might not match any.

Good argument. Not.

ather that the US lobbying system is designed to leave people who are makin g a lot of money out of a particular market free to set up regulations that make it difficult for innovative competitors to get into the markets that are making the current generation of fat cats all that money.

Sure, says the arm chair expert from Kangaroo Land. Yet we've done a splendid job in leading the world in almost every market. Show us some specific examples where regulations were set up to keep out innovative competitors. Did it happen with the PC? MSFT? Apple? Cell phones? Electric cars?

It will have the same dronish vertical takeoff/land props, so has the same energy and reliability issues. And many of the proposed shuttle things have no pilot, which I might call "drone."

I was talking about downtown rooftop to airport shuttles. Electric winged planes might well make sense for short trips, like SFO to the Oakland airport maybe. Recharge time will be an issue.

An electric powered sailplane would be cool, to avoid the tow.