Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Emissions, law and oil - way OT

[Adam Green (FlatCrank]

#threadjack

If "everyone" followed your lead, we'd have no environmental catastrophe on the horizon (if we could see the horizon for the smog.)

1. Electric buggy: city air quality (the exhaust pipe is at the Tesla factory and the "other end" of the electric grid ... and that could be solar.)

2. Classic Roller: not building a new car is good, keeping an old car running "clean" is even gooder.

3. Weekend Exotic: short distance recreational motoring and motorsport accounts for 0.0001% of global pollution.

I have a deposit on the S, but until they bring it up to the spec of the Prius plug-in or the Volt, especially given the price increases of the S, I'm on the sidelines.  Several "early adopter" friends rave about their S.  Very few of them have been stranded or caught on fire. : )  

I had a sit in the Tesla X a couple of months ago and watched it being "driven" (really just "moved around a bit" ... not on public roads.)  I have no doubt it's a game changer -- if Tesla can keep the price in check (say $50K +/- in different models) they will need to build a bigger factory, which the Tesla CEO has suggested is a plan in process ... I can't abide the guy's business practices, but when it comes to setting high expectations and making things happen, he's damn good.

If the USA had a government, I think it would behove the whole planet for the US to set the tone by offering to provide an electric vehicle on a subsidized lease.  They could have a profitable program (no socialized freebies to exploit) that would offer a couple of models from a delivery or trade professional van to private vehicles sized from a town car the size of a Tesla S down to a micro car the size of a Smart.  Some sort of qualification process to be sure people aren't gaming the system, and bingo: the government brings in revenue while people take their gas guzzling gross polluter off the road and into a recycling facility.  Use the revenue from the program to build out zero-impact (eg. solar) charging infrastructure.  Make the vehicles field upgradeable to become "intelligent" (capable of partial self-driving and traffic congestion avoidance, etc.) as that infrastructure gets rolled out, too.  I won't bore you (further) with all the other goodness that's often suggested with the idea of a government sponsored electric car program (every car becomes a home emergency generator and decentralized grid that can power how suburbs and offset peak electricity demands ... powering the house during peak times or heat waves, recharging late at night, expanding the car program to an energy program for home solar, etc.)

Adam

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 8:15 AM, Matt Boyd <ferrari308driver [at] gmail.com> wrote:

My wife and I now have a Tesla Model S (it is her car...). I didn't buy it to be green, although Virginia's power source overall is 40% nuclear, so in some respects it is cleaner -- and reportedly the electric motor more efficiently uses the ultimate power source, regardless of if it is "clean" or not.

 

I'm hijacking the thread a bit just to post a little commentary on using an electric car. We love it. To get into the car it replaced (2004 Toyota Sienna) makes the minivan seem like a vintage old truck. The Tesla heats up instantly in the cold weather, has full torque at 0 RPM, you don't turn a key -- just sit down with your keyfob in your pocket and it's ready to go with no rev'ing, no warmup cycle, no sound. I have zero interest at this point in utilitarian internal combustion engine cars.

 

That said, one of my favorite things to do is to get into the 1939 Rolls-Royce of mine, push the bijur chassis lubrication pedal, turn the master switch to on, turn the ignition to "Both" (it has two ignition systems, one for intake plugs, one for exhaust plugs), turn the "strangler" (choke) before starting, listen to the dual SU fuel pumps click up to pressure, then finally hit the start button, immedately move the strangler back to "Run," push the throttle lever on the steering wheel up just a little bit if it is cold outside to warm the car up, etc. On another day, listening to the ANSA exhaust on the 308 with the top off is a highlight of any day....:-).

 

I've no allegiances or grudges, and it seems more fun that way to me....:-)

 

-matt

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 11:00 AM, Doug & Terri <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

BUWHAHAHAhahaha