What are you doing to reduce oil dependence and how can our country move away from it?

[zoony]

recently I've stopped pouring motor oil on my weeds. With the spike in crude prices, much cheaper to use roundup.

[twa]

What if there was a hybrid vehicle technology that could at least double the gas mileage of passenger cars, SUVs and light trucks? What if it could slash emissions by 50 percent or more? And what if it could challenge our usual mileage expectations by offering better fuel consumption in the city than on the highway?

Even better from an engineering and manufacturing standpoint, what if this hybrid technology didn’t rely on expensive, heavy, bulky battery technologies that aren’t really ready for prime time and instead used a time-tested energy storage method?

Well, there is just such a hybrid-vehicle technology, and it’s one based entirely on hydraulic components rather than electric ones.

http://www.designnews.com/article/7232-Hydraulic_Hybrid_Cars_No_Batteries_Required.php

What is new about these vehicles is that a growing chorus of academic researchers, start-up companies and fluid power suppliers are starting to evaluate the suitability of hydraulic hybrid technology for smaller vehicles such as passenger cars and SUVs. None of them claim hydraulic hybrids are going to kill the Prius and its ilk anytime soon. “Electric hybrids have a tremendous amount of momentum right now,” says Simon Baseley, director of engineering strategy and program management for Bosch Rexroth mobile hydraulics. And while hydraulic technology has matured in many applications, it still needs some development work to go into high-volume automotive production. “The major development need right now is for a pump motor with high efficiencies at low displacement,” says James Van de Ven, a Worcester Polytechnic mechanical engineering professor who is researching hydraulic hybrid vehicles. Accumulators also need work to make them lighter, smaller and less expensive to produce. But there has been some recent progress on both scores.

[mjah]

IBottom line is nobody can refute that right now electric cars are far costlier for far less performance than oil burners.

True.

...For now.

:secret: But automakers with high-profile hybrids like Toyota, Nissan, and GM aren't banking on "right now."

And even besides all that, our national power grid is already extremely taxed and can't even handle everyone turning on their ACs at home in the summer without brownouts. Now we want to plug in a few million cars every night, too? Good luck getting the good ol boys in congress to put the future first and invest the many, many billions in infastructure improvements to the national power grid to make that happen. They can't be bothered with that, they have taxes to cut.

"Oil-fill stations for horseless carriages? Why, they'd have to put one a' the durn'd things in every 50 miles or so from San-Fran clear across to Maine! Kin ya' imagine that! And who's a-gonna build all them flat slab roadways to ever' single town in the dang nation anyway? The gub'mint? There ain't enough rocks in the dadgum Grand Canyon to do it, and anyhow they got their hands plum full already with bannin' liquor and some-such!"

There's nothing like some good ol' hand-waving defeatism in place of vision.

[chipwhich]

I bought a Range Rover. **** it.

[DCsportsfan53]

mjah, do you deny that infrastructure is a huge, expensive and long term road block to any kind of widespread use of plug in electric cars? I'm not saying we ride oil until it's gone, despite how amusing the 1901 speak is. I just think we're overselling the true capability and practicality of electric cars in the name of having *something*. I am in no way opposed to trying to find alternatives, I just don't see this as it. I don't know what the answer is I simply feel like all the automakers are piling on these hybrids and EVs more to satisfy governments and for green marketing purposes because it's easier than looking for better technologies right now. It's not like EVs are new and there are reasons gasoline beat it out in the first place. Even the best hybrids today still can't truly compete with a modern diesel. Just as an example, VW has the Polo in Europe which is comparable to Corrolla/Yaris/Fit/Civic cars with a turbodiesel that returns 70 mpg highway on much simpler technology without the extra weight of all the batteries or the need to replace them. Other companies have similar diesels as well, we just don't get any of that stuff here in the states. I just wonder how much of this EV stuff is really a long term thing and how much is a distraction from finding and bringing better long term solutions to market.

Also just a thought I can't help but wonder why not a single automaker has come out with a diesel hybrid drivetrain. I mean, diesels are inherently more fuel efficient, by a significant margin at that, than gasoline engines. If you want to build a hybrid that maximizes fuel economy, how have none of them yet tried to do it with a diesel engine? Makes no sense to me.

[Sticksboi05]

We have a Civic Hybrid. My Dad has Metro'd to work since the mid 1980's (and has some pretty sick Metro farecards). I never drive into D.C. if I don't have to.

[mjah]

All the Volt and Leaf people crack me up. If you want to overpay for a vehicle with serious comprises and technology that's not ready for primetime be my guest. God I can't wait until the electric car myth falls apart.

Then...

I just think we're overselling the true capability and practicality of electric cars in the name of having *something*. (...) I don't know what the answer is I simply feel like all the automakers are piling on these hybrids and EVs more to satisfy governments and for green marketing purposes because it's easier than looking for better technologies right now.

I'm having some trouble reconciling the thoughtful, contemplative tone of the second quote with the pointed, dismissive ridicule of the first. Maybe you can help me learn more about how the real DCsportsfan 53 feels about EVs.

I agree that there are a lot of promising alternatives to conventional gas-powered vehicles. And any of them will require significant infrastructure changes to be made over time, akin to the significant infrastructure changes we've made over time in the past. Some more than others, e.g. electric vs. diesel. But none lie solidly outside the realm of possibility. If the people demand it, then it might be late in coming but we'll get it.

Regarding diesel, I think it got a bad rap during America's brief flirtation with it in the late 70s and early 80s, and that set of two living generations including my own will have to either die off or have their expectations reset somehow before it sees a true widespread resurgence in American passenger cars. Also, diesel isn't the bargain-per-gallon I recall it once was vs. regular gas (although the mileage is still notably better so it still makes sense).

Certainly, the alternate technologies that automakers put out there are based on what they think consumers will support. And electric allows consumers to say "It feel so much like my normal car," meaning it has many of the same creature comforts plus some neat-o electronic displays pertaining to the battery, and doesn't require going to the "weird" pump at the gas station. (See: resistance to the "weirdness" of a car with a cord.) There's nothing futuristic-feeling or sexy about diesel. It's just more efficient -- pfffft! Also, it still feels like 100% fossil fuel, because it is -- a nice contrast to the blind spot many (but not all) folks likely will exhibit when they use coal-fired electricity in their plug-in hybrids.

Still, electric technology has a lot of promise and I don't think all the cynicism is justified, even though I'm often an enthusiastic member of the iconoclast patrol. Right now, battery capacities are pathetic -- but they'll grow. Right now, cost and weight are too high -- but they'll come down. Right now, the nation's grid infrastructure can't handle the spontaneous overnight appearance of 5 million vehicles sucking copious power for hours on end -- but that capacity will grow as the market for electricity grows, probably with the assistance of government. IMO the battery will be the beginning and end of the electric car's fate, and I can't imagine that really being decided one way or the other until my kids are of car-buying age.

[DCsportsfan53]

Fair enough, mjah. Couldn't just let me get away with an oldfashioned ES drive by.

I think we're pretty much on the same page, I probably just have a fair amount less confidence that the battery technology will come around to a point that makes EVs truly practical.

[rdsknbill]

I got rid of my Tahoe (Been in full size pick-up since '98 before that) and bought a used Lexus. It's nice to put 10 gallons in and actually see the gas gauge JUMP!

[Thiebear]

I put off my oil changes to 15kmilies whether i need them or not.

[endzone_dave]

I have a long beltway commute and plan to buy a full-size pickup this summer. I'll just deal with the cost of gas. I guess I'm not really doing anything to help with our country's dependence on oil. You can put me in the DB thread if you'd like to.

[88Comrade2000]

When I am able too, I plan on getting a higher mileage car. Planning to get me the 2012 Ford Focus Hatchback:

When I go out in the car, I try do everything I need to do. That reduces the trips I need to make.

I personally think mother nature will take care of things when things get to out of balance. Look for an eventual reduction in population through natural disasters, maybe as soon as next year.

[twa]

I personally think mother nature will take care of things when things get to out of balance. Look for an eventual reduction in population through natural disasters, maybe as soon as next year.

I have a list of ones I want reduced......give me immunity and I'll help reduce the strain on the planet :evilg:

[Darth Tater]

Oil speculation

[Koolblue13]

I have a list of ones I want reduced......give me immunity and I'll help reduce the strain on the planet :evilg:

I see what you did there.

[Pedro]

Re: electric cars, this site is an interesting read especially this bit about batteries and replacing them with capacitors for instant recharge.

Could have charge points in the road activated at need, never needing to 'fill up' again.

[Skinsfan1311]

I have a long beltway commute and plan to buy a full-size pickup this summer. I'll just deal with the cost of gas. I guess I'm not really doing anything to help with our country's dependence on oil. You can put me in the DB thread if you'd like to.

+1. I'm doing something similiar to this DB.

The only difference is that I don't have a long commute and already own a full-sized pick-up. That baby gets 13.9 mph.

Guess I'll keep Dave company in the DB thread too!

[allannis]

Well ... I helped invade a country with lots of oil. Does that count as reducing oil dependence?

Thank you

[btfoom]

The real (and immediate) problem is not our "dependence on oil", but the fact that we are dependent on foreign governments for that oil.

The first answer is to generate and process enough oil ourselves that we don't need it from any other country.

After that, companies should be given tax break incentives to come up with hybrid/non-oil based driven automobiles.

I'd also say that each state should have at least two nuclear power plants (to offset coal energy), but that doesn't deal directly with oil.

[mardi gras skin]

Whether its an intentional strategy or not, it works to our advantage that we saw so much growth during an age of cheap fossil fuel. Gobbling up as much of it as we can puts emerging economies like China at a bit of a disadvantage moving into the future of higher priced energy.

[twa]

Whether its an intentional strategy or not, it works to our advantage that we saw so much growth during an age of cheap fossil fuel. Gobbling up as much of it as we can puts emerging economies like China at a bit of a disadvantage moving into the future of higher priced energy.

Not really,they get the advantage of technological advances others made

Probably cheaper to start fresh than sustain what we have created...especially the peoples expectations

cheap is relative

[Darth Tater]

Remember, fossil fuels were selected by society as the most effective fuel source available. If we select a new fuel source is not as effective as fossil fuels were to the alternative sources of their time, nature will take care of the problem by reduction in the population of humans. We can't really worry about it because either we'll be among the eliminated or not and the only thing we can do about it is to do our part to accelerate the profit opportunity in finding a viable solution for those capable of finding that solution (and maybe making a bit of it for ourselves in the process).