Tag: Electric car

Un-Detroiting

While video recording and taking photos (time lapse) of our Electric Vehicle Tech session, I couldn’t help thinking about Detroit.

You see, these students have sat through 10 weeks of theory. Now they have a go at “degutting” the Internal Combustion Engine, to essentially make a “glider” (shell) for Electric components. The intended end-product is an All-Electric Vehicle, with zero emission (Bye Bye Sandy).

It’s not far-fetched or idealistic. Just realistic and achievable, right in front of my eyes.

When there is a will, there is a way.

More than a century of Detroit, of Fordism, and oil addiction.

Now at least someone somewhere is trying to jerk the chain, or even cutting it.  UnDetroiting.

Of course we need to take the economics of this into consideration.

Is it pie in the sky? Does it have a good chance of getting broad-base support?

While the I-pod is reduced to the size of a match box, we still can’t drive a carbon-fiber EV which costs less and leaves less carbon footprint.

Of course, we need recharging infrastructure. Of course, battery companies better not file bankruptcy etc..

I just saw something in the making.

I can’t figure it out.

What it is, ain’t exactly clear.

But with $5.00 per gallon on the West Coast, and Sandy on the East Coast, I think the idea of Electric Vehicle needs a relook.

As long as we get from point A to point B, why does it matter that the “mouse is black or white?”.

Technology changes all the time and is supposed to serve not enslave people.

But we have worshipped at the altar of the neon god we made (Sound of Silence).

No wonder we are subjected to OPEC and MidEast fluctuation  even when only 1/3rd of our supplies are from there. I am glad other energy sources and new-found ways are taking a larger shares of energy wealth. It’s in the head, in the heart and out there in space.

Whatever we need to survive (including being nice to one another) is available. Just a matter of coordinating and negotiating.

For a moment, the sky was the limit. If we hadn’t sent them home at the end of the day, many students would have stayed to finish “un-Detroting” the car. It is to show, when people are convinced and are together, they can achieve great things.

Rev tone

Public concerns for traffic safety create a new market for rev tones used in electric vehicles.

People fear they cannot hear those noiseless cars approaching. So with multiple “ring tones” currently in the works,

pedestrians might get more than what they were bargaining for: out-of-sync responses to false stimuli (young men get a kick  souping up their Civics with fast-approaching Ferrari sound).

Similar chaos were experienced in the streets of New York before the DoT came up with the Red-Green-Yellow convention.

A friend of mine got hit from behind while walking in Dalat with MP3 on. The motorbike that hit him was

going down hill with engine off (apparently during the months of high fuel prices) with rider  facing down to avoid heavy rain . Hear no evil, see no evil.

With each invention comes a cluster of ancillary products: PBX + voicemail and headsets, wire line phones + answering machines, and now electric vehicles create a need for revving tones.

Just like those Ford automobiles (as long as it’s black!) in the old days, electric vehicles will clutter our nation ‘s highways,and personal “rev tone” will deceive our ability to I.D. them (our audio memory bank hasn’t yet been updated, except for a meager sound effect collection, e.g. electric luggage carts operated inside the airports or the fast beeping of backing-up trucks.) Cars will be manufactured Just-in-time like Dell. And with voltage (or storage capacity) options just like our choices of CPU. Would you like to pick out your rev tone to go with it?  Gas station will be changed to car station, and won’t take up all the precious real estate

(there is no need for a large driveway to accommodate fuel trucks).   Soon, charging stations will be cheap enough like treadmills to be installed in one’s garage. Garages will really be crowded: it gets in-sourced as home gym, hot water tank storage, home office,

garage band studio and vehicle charging station. Apartment and condo managers will be busy assigning

charging spots. So are corporations with assigned “employee of the month” space. Obnoxious salesmen won’t be able to hide their “rev tone” as easily as they did their tattoos.

Best way for rev tone to serve electric vehicle drivers is to give them an option to turn it on or off. That way, a party goer can sneak back into the neighborhood at night, undetected. That would be quite eerie even to the by-then drunk driver himself.

He might all of a sudden hear not just the rev tone, but a prerecorded ” raise your hands up to where I can see them!”. At least, this can prevent a possible screeching sound then complete silence preceded by that awful wham (of an automobile at impact). All is quiet on the western front. That is, until the next rev tone cruises by. In South LA, a drive-by is nothing but quiet.