Gasoline Powered Cars and Electric Cars We are engaged in a never-ending search for a way to store more power. We are also trying to discover how to suck power out of space and some think we are making progress in this area, but there is no way to know for sure from the information which is available. There was news which has come out recently which states several entities have come together in an effort to develop a new type of powerful battery. They are Honda, CalTech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The most powerful battery for the masses right now is lithium-ion, but it has problems and is not good for the environment. The idea is to develop a Fluoride-ion battery. It is much denser and would allow a device to function a lot longer on a battery the same size as a lithium-ion battery. It is also much safer. The history of batteries has been one full of conspiracy. In an effort to keep gasoline powered cars on top of the heap it has been said many times there were buyouts of advanced battery companies. Electric transportation has been around as long as gasoline powered transportation and has managed to hang on, even at times when the utmost pressure was being exerted on it to take it entirely out of the picture. We may not have noticed, but that is because it was hanging on in mostly short haul vans and such, which would deliver to homes. Electric cars were actually more popular in the beginning of car manufacture. If you read about the history of electric cars you might see where someone says they were surpassed by gasoline powered cars because they were too expensive, but many believe their development and progress was stifled by big oil. It is amazing how far back the idea of electric cars goes. The first known one was invented in 1837 in Scotland. I don’t think I have to tell you it was extremely crude. In 1859 the first rechargeable electric car was invented. When I read these things, I can’t help but think about the American Civil War. Can you imagine where electric cars would be today if the armies on both sides would have adopted electric vehicles to carry supplies and troops? Some say it would have been impractical because of the range of the vehicles, but if one vehicle would have been used to carry charged batteries for another which was hauling supplies, they could have probably covered more ground than horses could. I equate this with the ancient Greeks who invented the steam engine but never put it to practical use. It has been said there is one giant oil company which controls the patents for NiMH batteries and will not allow their use in electric vehicles. Why are these batteries so important? One reason is they last for over 150,000 miles and some say 200,000 miles. It is said the first ones could drive a car at 80 miles per hour for a hundred miles. General Motors sold the rights to the battery to an oil company which was purchased the next day and since then it has kept the batteries out of the hands of everyone. It is a shame when useful technology is purchased just to keep it off the market, but it happens all the time. While there have been many stories about how oil companies have purchased technology, which could have been used to extend mileage or create better batteries and shelved the tech to keep it off the market there are some sites which deny this fact and ridicule the idea. I can’t remember the name of the particular battery company I am about to talk about and it has been gone since the 1960s, but I do remember the company had stated they have a revolutionary battery which was far more powerful than the lead acid batteries of the time. One of the big oil companies purchased the company and their batteries were never seen again and that so-called revolutionary battery never made it to market. The Guardian stated in an article the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil lobby, opposed the government’s funding for research into electric vehicles and told congress in 1967: “We take exception to the basic assumption that clean air can be achieved only by finding an alternative to the internal combustion engine.” It seems to me just by this statement one could see they didn’t want electric cars and trucks to succeed in getting onto the roads. While electric vehicles are pollution free, the increased manufacturing of batteries itself will contribute some more pollution to our environment. It won’t be as much as some gasoline engines, but we also have to remember gasoline engines to acquire lower emissions need extra devices on them such as catalytic converters and expensive materials which in turn cause more pollution when manufactured. The point I am trying to get across is the fact it is not only the emissions which come from a vehicle, but also the emissions coming from factories which are manufacturing parts for the vehicle. Electric vehicles require far less parts, such as transmissions, large gasoline engines and emission devices, and this in itself helps control pollution. Maybe battery technology is a waste of time for automotive use? As I have mentioned before there is another method which has been spoken about quite often and it is on the verge of becoming a reality and that method is broadcasting power to devices including cars. Think of this, you are driving a car which has only an electric engine or engines and yet you don’t have to worry about charging it, because all the power it uses is broadcast to it wirelessly. This would eliminate the idea of putting power lines in the roads and save hundreds of billions of dollar’s worth of construction. You would need stations to broadcast this power, but it should be much cheaper than having to put power lines in all our roads. We know this works, because Tesla did it a hundred years ago. It wasn’t easy to get electricity broadcast to a moving object. Stated simply, there is oscillating coils broadcasting the energy which has to be received by the object being tuned to those waves. Recently this problem has been solved. A vehicle will be able to automatically tune itself to the correct setting to receive electricity. This could spell the end for battery use in electric cars, however there may be a short-range battery pack used in the beginning before enough broadcasting stations are built for the entire country.
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