GM and Honda calling it quits...
- Thread starter UncleDave
- Start date
garageman402
$100 Site Donor 2024
I think an EV would be good for puttin' around town. Take it home & charge it every night. Especially for women. No gas station hijackings. But then there's the cost.............
I’m not so sure. Toyota used to be the #1 selling automaker in the USA. GM has blown WAY
past them.
Honda’s growth rate is pretty massive right now too compared to Toyota.
I just heard they were doing alot better then the other automakers because there more focused on selling Hybrid EV"s
On the webternet we can tell someone they are 'wrong' without knowing what the 'wrong person' even said or meant. And then correct them, even though we don't know what they meant.
I am so glad that we are getting smaurter.
Back in the day, the common belief in the greater scientific community was that the Earth was heading in the direction of another ice age. 30 years ago it was taught (commonly, not just by select groups) that we were coming out of a "mini ice age".
dnewton3
Staff member
That Honda and GM are calling off the EV route does not surprise me. Others will follow. The pipe dream, while perhaps attainable some day way off in the future, isn't feasible in a practical sense in the near future. The public on a whole is seeing it, and it's reflected in the corporate agendas.
And companies have to make money to survive; they don't exist to set moral precedent. Sure, they put on a happy "green" face to look that part, but the reality is that bad decisions end up killing good companies. Many large corps have made plenty of bad decisions of late, and doubling down on the errant ways in the name of good intentions is a sure way to disaster.
Toyota recently said EVs are not their thing; hybrids are the future for some time to come. And the ICE is not maxed out yet; there are opportunities to improve the breed there also. Other companies are going to follow suit, as well they should.
And companies have to make money to survive; they don't exist to set moral precedent. Sure, they put on a happy "green" face to look that part, but the reality is that bad decisions end up killing good companies. Many large corps have made plenty of bad decisions of late, and doubling down on the errant ways in the name of good intentions is a sure way to disaster.
Toyota recently said EVs are not their thing; hybrids are the future for some time to come. And the ICE is not maxed out yet; there are opportunities to improve the breed there also. Other companies are going to follow suit, as well they should.
Last edited:
dnewton3
Staff member
I am going to warn the lot of you who insist on dragging environment and politics into this.
Knock it off.
Stick to the topic; GM and Honda have made a decision about research and production. Therein lies the discussion.
Knock it off.
Stick to the topic; GM and Honda have made a decision about research and production. Therein lies the discussion.
The kind of energy I'm talking about you don't need any mining or transportation. All you need is water and sunshine. The microbes seem to find their own way into the water, although I suspect they're probably placed there to speed up the process. And then all you have to do is wait for the microbes to go to the restroom and then collect their waste which is a nice refined oil. And then all you have to do is separate the oil from the water which isn't too hard to do since oil and water don't mix. The final process of refining the microbe waste into alcohol I'm not so sure about, but it's been done by some clever chemists.
Do you have an article on this? I would like to check it out. I will nose around as well. Thx.
By the way, Toyota makes the best hybrids. Wifey's RX450h F Sport is great, if not a little too cush for me. Excellent gas mileage which is big around here. We should really use it more.
Toyota makes great cars, at least the 6+ I've owned.
Yeah it's called ammonia. Not exactly safe stuff to be around. Hydrazine would also work, but my understanding is that it is even more toxic than ammonia to be around.
--------------
Hydrogen would also work but that's a gas and has to be contained in high pressure vessels in order to keep enough of it on a vehicle to make it worth using. And then there's the problem of obtaining the hydrogen. Electrolysis is probably the cleanest way to do that with respect to byproducts that you end up getting, but then you also have to pressurize it after you obtain it. Basically it would be a fairly complex infrastructure to provide fueling stations capable of transferring high pressure hydrogen to vehicles on a mass scale. Not something that can't be done, but it does have its own problems. Besides the safety and the entire infrastructure of distributing it, you also have a problem of how to generate the electricity to power the electrolysis to obtain the hydrogen. Essentially, either there's no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to electricity or even obtaining the hydrogen. If you're going to provide energy to the vehicle from the hydrogen you have to supply energy to the electrolysis system to make the hydrogen.
Toyota hasn't gotten anything EV-wise anywhere near mature. They're enjoying their 2nd gen Nissan Leaf stage right now.
No I don't want any ammonia. I want alcohol and I think bacteria is the way to make it.
You're right that it does. This is physics. Consider than electric motors are around 90% efficient while combustion engines found in vehicles are around 40% efficient, and that's for the Atkinson cycle types found in uber-efficient 4-banger type applications. So, we're improving efficiency for the same work done, by about 50%. Then you consider most power plants are powered by coal. Coal is produced here in America. Coal does not leak into the ground water if a pipe bursts. Coal does not kill a bunch of wildlife if the train hauling it de-rails. Coal does not depend on wars in 3rd world countries to determine its price for the day. Now you want to talk about power plant efficiency. Well...what is oil refinement plant efficiency? It's shockingly high at about 90%. Coal plant efficiency? 35% or so. So if we want to keep plugging along then we can talk about transportation and distribution efficiency...line loss and fuel burned by the delivery truck, but that's a very complex thing, and I'll just rely on Volvo to have done their work correctly in their white paper comparing their XC40 and XC40 Recharge:
https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/...com/pdf/c40/volvo-c40-recharge-lca-report.pdf
All of this is a lengthy way to say...give me the 2-300% more powerful vehicle powered by 'Murica! please!
This is a comment I've seen various times in different threads. Is getting hijacked or robbed at a gas station a problem? It may be the province or country I'm in but I have never heard of this happening anywhere
garageman402
$100 Site Donor 2024
You Tube is full of vids of that happening. The latest one that went viral was the guy fueling up, right rear, a van stops by his left rear, guys jump out of the van, the guy sprays all of them with gas, gets a lot of gas inside the van too. They jumped back in the van & left.
and blaming the auto workers union for the withdrawal.
Maybe he's thinking of this.
https://fortune.com/2023/10/25/toyo...vehicles-ev-ford-gm-tesla-earnings-elon-musk/
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
YouTube is full of all kind of videos. Doesn’t mean anything. That is not how anyone should draw any conclusions about certain trends.
Yeah but consider computer technology is exponentially better today which helps a lt.
