I don’t mean BETTER. That’s a different conversation. I mean cooler.
An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.
If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.
That’s just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.
In the near to mid future, I think an answer to this question are Internal Combustion Engines. I love electric vehicles and look forward to the tech improving. But the sheer coolness factor of moving a large machine through perfectly timed and calibrated explosions is tough to beat.
It’s why I’m hoping that hydrogen ICE become a thing instead of going to full electric.
It won’t. Hydrogen has terrible efficiency even when fuel cells are in the pipeline. Putting it in an ICE only makes it worse. It’ll have some racing applications, but that’s it.
You have any sources for this? A quick glance at wikipedia says that hydrogen ICE has about the same energy efficiency as gasoline, if the engine is properly tuned.
Yes, that’s correct. Fuel cell efficiency is over 60%. The best gasoline ICE is around 50%, and hydrogen isn’t going to be much better.
The problem becomes especially apparent when you stack the end to end efficiency together. Grid -> battery for battery EVs, and grid -> electrolysis -> fuel cell for hydrogen. There’s a couple of different ways to run these numbers (are you using 120VAC or 240VAC or DC, for example), but when using like-for-like comparisons as much as you can, batteries tend to win at efficiency by a lot. Running hydrogen through an ICE is only going to make its biggest flaw even worse.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f0d42f16639a745affd633e/t/613226c869673e5e75509ffb/1630676682830/Why-Battery-Electric-Vehicles-Beat-Hydrogen-Electric-Vehicles.jpeg
Edit: there is a recent breakthrough in fuel cell efficiency that might put it on par with batteries. Note that even if it works in production cars, a fuel cell would be turning an electric motor, not an ICE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISuUlc8widc
I fucking hate cars, including electric ones… And I still agree. Combustion engines are cool as hell.
Thoughts on motorcycles? Totally fine if you really don’t like them either, I’m just curious :)
Grudging respect.
I don’t like motorcycles either, but they are the “noble steed” of my country’s entire service industry, and being a worker in said service industry is a very sucky (and dangerous!) position to be in.
So I don’t like bikes. But. I respect their riders. Their lives are hard and they are therefore stronger than I.
Interesting, that’s very different in my country so I appreciate hearing your perspective!
Hope you have a good one :)
I recognize that reference, but I can’t quite place it. Futurama? Star Trek: Lower Decks?
maybe I, Robot? been a minute…
It’s from the “I, Robot” movie, but would fit perfectly well in Futurama hahaha
Heinlein’s “The Rolling Stones” had a similar description.
As a subset of this, the fact that carburators worked as well as they did, until we had the technology to invent the simpler fuel injector, I think is pretty cool.
Constant velocity carburetors blew my mind when I learned how they worked, and I got the funniest introduction to them.
I had an Aprilia RS-50 motorcycle which had a slide-type carburetor. Instead of a coin-in-a-pipe throttle, this thing basically had a portcullis across the intake. Pulling on the throttle cable pulled the slide upwards making the aperture/venturi larger, allowing in more air, while also lifting a needle up out of the jet to allow more fuel in. It’s a 2-stroke race bike, so you could easily bog down the engine if you opened the throttle too fast.
Then I bought a Ninja 250F, which has constant velocity carbs. Which also have a slide, AND a butterfly valve. The butterfly valve is operated by the throttle cable to control power. The slide is vacuum powered from the engine, and opens and closes the venturi to keep the air velocity through the carburetor constant, in order to keep the suction at the jet constant. It also has a needle in the main jet which it lifts along with the slide, so the needle’s taper meters the fuel mixture for the amount of air going through the carb. This inherently compensates for air density; if the air is less dense the vacuum mechanism can’t pull the slide open as far so the slide doesn’t open as far, and neither does the needle valve. So it automatically maintains the mixture.
Which is why using constant velocity carburetors on the Rotax 912 engine is such a brilliant idea. A carbureted airplane engine with no cockpit mixture control.
RS50 is such a fun bike, and I know the pain with the carb, I have to ride mine uphill, also, just replaced the 12mm flat slide carb with a 17.5mm round slide, runs quite nice
I had one of the very few of them in North America. I don’t think they ever imported them at any great scale. I bought mine used, and it was obviously used as a track bike. It had a cylinder kit that took it up to about 72cc, the damn thing could do 70.
Whenever I hear a running hit and miss engine it brings a smile to my face, similar with small stationary steam engines. There’s a club in Baraboo WI that does a big meetup once a year where there’s just tons of early tractors and stationary engines powered by all sorts of different types of combustion with all sorts of creative new engine designs that stopped being viable around the time of the first world war. I haven’t been able to go most years but it’s really incredible to see so many wonky engines wirring and popping and hissing and clanking around, all while struggling to reach the performance of a present day lawnmower (and not a good one at that)
And the fact is “mechanic automated” system for me is what makes it even cooler. All you had to do to start is twist it a couple revolutions and bang, it works as long as you have fuel because everything simply works. Of course, today you have electronic fuel injection and so one, but if you want you can make it works just with a lot of metal to do the right parts.
Man, I’ll miss combustion engines (but I hope its use ends ASAP because planet can’t wait anymore)
That’s why I kinda like my carburated 2-stroke motorcycle.
Needs just 3 wires from the engine to work and 1 to shut it off. Weighs just around 100kg and will propel me to 90km/h with just a 50cc cylinder.
Not to mention the smoke, sound, and the narrow powerband, just love that feeling.
Suck, squeeze, bang, blow
Sounds like a good way to spend a Friday evening.
I never knew the complexity of ICE until watching the Garbage Time YouTube channel. They repair old cars (and sometimes break them to fix them later) and show the whole process, but do it as a hobby, so it’s all for entertainment.
Drag disagrees. If you want transportation with fire, ride a dragon. No need to pollute the earth. The emissions make it uncool, just like the ridiculous Mad Max cars.
Does your dragon not fart?
Username checks out. I see you everywhere, and your comments often make me happy.
I definitely agree with you that cars are terrible, and I wish they didn’t exist. Even though I’m a hater, I gotta admit the engineering and history behind them fascinates me, still.
Thank you!