Monster Nerd Garage
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I'm posting this story for all of the lunatics out there who claim that there are all sorts of patents for engines that get hundreds of miles to the gallon, but that the automobile companies, who are married to the oil companies, are just buying them all up and stuffing them away into vaults so that they can keep making money.
Think about it. If you were an automobile manufacturer, and you could build a car that went a hundred miles to the gallon, it would give you an overwhelming advantage against your competitors. Did Henry Ford hide away his patents for the internal combustion engine because he risked killing the cart industry, which was married to the international horse-breeding industry? Of course not!
Automobile companies introduced those stupid, ugly little hybrid cars, and Americans bought a lot of them, so the companies continued producing and developing them. I have no doubt that eventually the automobile industry will develop a gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle that's usable (a utility vehicle or pickup), extremely fuel efficient, and doesn't look like a tiny little dorkmobile.
And how's it going to happen? It's going to happen with environmentalist hippy electrical engineers like this Ron Gremban bloke, tinkering in their garages and making their equipment do amazing things. That's the beauty of America.
CORTE MADERA, California (AP) -- Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away.
Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.
It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.
Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.
Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb -- all for about a quarter.
He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg.
I'm posting this story for all of the lunatics out there who claim that there are all sorts of patents for engines that get hundreds of miles to the gallon, but that the automobile companies, who are married to the oil companies, are just buying them all up and stuffing them away into vaults so that they can keep making money.
Think about it. If you were an automobile manufacturer, and you could build a car that went a hundred miles to the gallon, it would give you an overwhelming advantage against your competitors. Did Henry Ford hide away his patents for the internal combustion engine because he risked killing the cart industry, which was married to the international horse-breeding industry? Of course not!
Automobile companies introduced those stupid, ugly little hybrid cars, and Americans bought a lot of them, so the companies continued producing and developing them. I have no doubt that eventually the automobile industry will develop a gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle that's usable (a utility vehicle or pickup), extremely fuel efficient, and doesn't look like a tiny little dorkmobile.
And how's it going to happen? It's going to happen with environmentalist hippy electrical engineers like this Ron Gremban bloke, tinkering in their garages and making their equipment do amazing things. That's the beauty of America.
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