381–390 of 399 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
per train . Long track: more trains, right? Great points though!
Then you also need hefty wires and adjacent infrastructure on whole track to collect all this electricity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you also need hefty wires and adjacent infrastructure on whole track to collect all this electricity.
Sure, and magical robots that take no energy loading / unloading the trains.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get this sort of benefit with a gas car with a manual transmission too. Engine braking uses no gas, its just your wheels turning your pistons and the friction from all of that slows the car down. Most of the time I only hit the brakes to go from 5mph-0mph in a manual car thanks to this.
I recently changed from a 20 yo diesel to a 10 yo gas/benzine car ... on the old car "motor braking" got me reliable from 100 km/h (over land) to 50 km/h (city) speeds ... the "new" car apparently has less losses and motor braking doesn't seem to do me any good anymore :-/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get this sort of benefit with a gas car with a manual transmission too. Engine braking uses no gas, its just your wheels turning your pistons and the friction from all of that slows the car down. Most of the time I only hit the brakes to go from 5mph-0mph in a manual car thanks to this.
I recently changed from a 20 yo diesel to a 10 yo gas/benzine car ... on the old car "motor braking" got me reliable from 100 km/h (over land) to 50 km/h (city) speeds ... the "new" car apparently has less losses and motor braking doesn't seem to do me any good anymore :-/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ouch, lots of the VW fans I've known were die hard due in part to the ergonomics and feel of the manual transmission. Something about a cable I think. Too bad VW mechatronics doesn't read the throttle position for a clue here. It all just seems so obvious.
I think the rev matching to minimize the strain on the clutch pack. The car also had standard hill hold assist to minimize the risk of wearing out the clutch over a long period of time while living in a hilly area. The design of the VW Golf Mark VII was absolutely brilliant. The EU model got a few why-didn’t-I-think-of-that extras that the NA market didn’t get, particularly around towing. There was a hidden tow hitch…
I talked to a mkVII GTI owner today at work, I asked him about his DSG. He said he liked it a lot, but mentioned that he found the shifting too fast and got a DSG tune and either paid or on his own was able to modify the shifting, but I didn't have time to ask him what he meant or for more details about the tune.
He's a chemistry PhD, and is into German stuff. Hes also got a w124 e320 that he's un-rusting (!) so I'd say he has pretty good taste.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get this sort of benefit with a gas car with a manual transmission too. Engine braking uses no gas, its just your wheels turning your pistons and the friction from all of that slows the car down. Most of the time I only hit the brakes to go from 5mph-0mph in a manual car thanks to this.
This is commonly called power braking, usually called up in an emergency. It's a good technique that preserves handling. If you have RWD, your front suspension will remain more unsprung, in any case you can quickly apply the throttle to maneuver. The friction isn't what's working here, it is the compression of the cylinders in the engine draining momentum from the wheels, think of it as negative torque. As the forwar…
Does it really? After all, while it will take energy when cylinder goes up and air is compressed, immediately after that the compressed air will be instead pushing cylinder down, returning that energy to crankshaft. There will be loss from compressed air heat migrating into cylinder walls, but it doesn't seem to be large enough to be responsible for majority of engine braking. It would also mean that diesel engines should engine brake much stronger due to higher compression ratio, but this isn't the case.
It seems to me that engine braking is just various friction losses from all parts of the engine, without single main source.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in automotive, I’ve seen some amazingly bad towing examples. Sounds like a decent solution to get two vehicles stranded. I would think unless the tide is coming in, getting a generator and hanging out for awhile would be a safer for everyone solution.
>I’ve seen some amazingly bad towing examples Are we talking genuinely dumb things like forklift loaded facing forwards on a small utility trailer or the typical online pearl clutching when someone is 100lb over their tire rating?
Tongue weight, what is it and how does it work? I guess we’ll never know!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sure, but it would be worth it. Are there really no better investments in electric than tearing up 17,000-35,000 miles of highway to make them slightly more efficient?
If they are asphalt roads you can melt induction cables into the surface without tearing them up. But I can't imagine it would be worth the cost regardless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The heavy iron ore is essentially a large battery storing gravitational energy. In a way it's just another natural energy source. Maybe in the future clean power can be generated from pulling down mountains.
Scifi novel idea: A habited planet without a sun (these actually exist) with heavy elements and high gravity. The surface unevenness is the best source of energy. After millions of years of extracting energy from flattening, the planet becomes a perfect ball and all life ceases as there is no energy to be found anywhere.