15,000 Feet

Back to the Water

Many of you may know the blog at Wired.com.  Recently, they posted an article regarding the new electric car Tesla. Here it is in all its wonderful opulence.

Several automakers are attempting to manufacture new vehicles that run on alternative fuels.  This new car is actually run on electric power.  The same lithium batteries that power your laptop are used in this vehicle except that they use several hundred of these batteries.  They are located in the rear of the vehicle and make up a significant amount of weight(a few thousand pounds).

Another informative media outlet, the BBC has a TV show called Top Gear.  In this last weeks show, they featured this new car tesla and tested it out on the track. While the car had impressive acceleration and at first glance the looks and technology of the car seem quite advanced, the latter part of the show was dedicated to the flipside.

This is a new car made by Honda.

the name of the car is the clarity.  This vehicle which interestingly enough resembles another gas saver, the Prius runs entirely on compressed hydrogen and oxygen. During Top Gear one of the hosts described how the car works.  Imagine you going to go fill up your gas tank.  You drive into the filling station, you fill your car with gas and you leave.  This is the exact thing you would do with the clarity.  The only difference is that the clarity runs on compressed hydrogen instead of gasoline.

Now you might ask: Which car is better?

At first glance, the Tesla’s much better looking, faster, and for god sakes it runs on electricity.  However, when you also take into account that the Tesla runs about 50,000$ and it takes nearly 16 hours to charge the batteries for about 300 miles of running time.  It pretty much rules out any normal road trip.  While this car would be good for the everyday commuter that only goes from home to work, the freedom that is part of our gasoline cars would be severely limited.

On the other hand, the Honda Clarity uses an unlimited source of energy.  The compressed hydrogen is combined in the engine with oxygen.  This combination might sound familiar to you because it is water; also known as H2O.  The exhaust from the Honda clarity is literally water.

Today, these two vehicles live in two different worlds.  A sports car versus a family car, an electric versus a hydrogen.  Eventually though, it is efficiency, reliability, flexibility, and demand that determines who comes out on top.  It’s not about these two cars, it’s about these two energy sources.  Electricity is not produced out of nothing; it is made through other means.  The majority electricity in this country is created through hydroelectric dams, nuclear reactors, and the burning of fossil fuels.  While electric car is dependent on those energy producers, the hydrogen car produces its own energy.

It seems that hydrogen would be the sensible route; however, according to another article on wired.com the hydrogen car is about “as relevant as relevant as Keith Olbermann in an Obama administration.” It might be the fact that hydrogen would require a complete restructuring of our fueling infrastructure.  Or perhaps that recharging batteries just sounds better then hydrogen powered vehicles.  I mean, hasn’t anybody heard of the Hindenburg?

While the future is yet to be seen, it seems to me that change isn’t what we might have imagined.  The prophetical sci-fi writers of the last century imagined us in flying cars, living in cities floating in the sky.  Truthfully, most of us still eat real food not squirting out of tubes and wear clothes made of polyester and cotton rather than latex.  The host presenting the Honda and the Tesla on Top Gear pointed out something I think is very pertinent.  The future of cars is probably going to look like what cars are now.

Technology takes what is and improves on it, and unless someone comes along with an antigravity machine, our cars will probably continue to roll on pavement.

Any comments or rebuttals would be appreciated :-)

enjoy!