Electric Vehicles AFTER WWIII?

[safe]

"Jericho" is pretty accurate from what I've studied about all this stuff. People in the cities get wiped out, but remote towns that have no strategic targets would be fine. You live in Australia. For you if there was a nuclear war the cities on the coasts would be destroyed, but out in the middle of the Outback you might not even know anything happened. Someone who lived on a farm 500 miles from the coastline would pretty much go on as normal. The supply lines would be gone and things like spare parts and gasoline would get in short supply, but people would figure out ways to get by. Owning an electric vehicle would simply mean that you could still get around without needing gasoline.

There are places in the center of America that are as remote as the Outback of Australia... both countries have most of their population on the coasts...

 

[xyster]

Dunno about you, but I'll be stealing someone's horse if/when it happens.

If and when I can afford a small ranch, I'll definitely buy a horse or two anyway. Wonderful creatures that enjoy taking their rider into terrain impassable on any wheeled vehicle. When star-wars like electric "walkers" become available, well I'd still seek to own at least one of each.

http://news.com.com/2300-11389_3-6124161-1.html

 

[lemmiwinks]

"Jericho" is pretty accurate from what I've studied about all this stuff.

Ah, I didn't make my point clearly enough. People playing happy families, and "lets all be policemen and firefighters and share everything" is a fantasyland scenario. I'm not saying there wont be communities where people will help each other out, but they'll be in the minority and if a nearby community that isn't playing nice gets itself organised then the nice people better look out.

People in remote areas would know something was up the second they picked up their phone and heard the silence, or turned on the TV and saw the static (assuming there's any electricity fo them to turn the TV on with that is). I've ridden my motorcycle through the fringes of central Australia and it was very remote, but unless you were living there you wouldn't go more than a few hours without seeing someone. Even if you were living there, you've got to go to a settlement for supplies eventually and then you'll find out you're shit outta luck.

So does this mean that you agree with me that electric vehicles will be nearly as redundant as ICE powered ones? :wink:

 

[fechter]

I'd think you want to go for both the ebike and the horse. Redudancy is good. You can always eat the horse.

I think I went through a "survivalist" stage a number of years ago. The earth was not destroyed in 2000, so I figured it was all hype. I still had a cool setup though. Solar and hydroelectric power, 20' trailer on a permanent foundation with gravity powered spring water. Ah, but it's gone now...

 

[safe]

I think I went through a "survivalist" stage a number of years ago....

There are people that are "jumping the gun" and getting their survival setup together right now. You will "know" when it's getting close. In the Nostradamus scenario there's one very clear thing that must happen before things get serious:

Iran must grow to such a degree that Turkey and Egypt decide to join in with them.

So until that occurs we have time... (I'm guessing at least 3-4 years, but I go by "events in the sequence" more than chronological dates)

So keep your eyes open, but don't get paranoid.... geez... 2000... what were you thinking?

 

[xyster]

fechter wrote:
I think I went through a "survivalist" stage a number of years ago....

....
Iran must grow to such a degree that Turkey and Egypt decide to join in with them.

So until that occurs we have time... ...
So keep your eyes open, but don't get paranoid.... geez... 2000... what were you thinking?

Really Fechter, what kind of nut case are you? LOL

 

[safe]

People playing happy families, and "lets all be policemen and firefighters and share everything" is a fantasyland scenario.

That's the "Hollywood" aspect, which I agree is silly.

They want to depict the nuclear war.... and still get good ratings.... so they have to throw in the romantic stories and heroic stuff to feed the appetites that are out there. (if it was completely bleak no one would watch)

 

[safe]

Really Fechter, what kind of nut case are you? LOL

Xyster you are our "Neville Chamberlain" always confident of "pure reason" and the "perfectability of mankind". (Chamberlain was a very reasonable man, but the world he was living in was insane and he was unable to see it)

 

[Geebee]

Lets see, they have been predicting a nuclear holocaust for more than 50 years and it aint happened yet, It may happen it may not but I am not going to worry about it unless it gets a damn site more imminent than in the last 50 years.

Ah well back to more important things, I am working on a new tike/quad design.
Night all

 

[safe]

Lets see, they have been predicting a nuclear holocaust for more than 50 years and it aint happened yet

A little like major earthquakes I guess.... you know they are going to happen, but you can't say exactly when.

 

[safe]

New Thought

What bike design would be best for a post-nuclear world?

My first thought would be that it would need to be designed for range and not power. Long distances need to be covered and it doesn't really matter how fast you get there. (you literally have all the time in the world)

Second would be the ability to carry cargo. Ideally you would be able to carry 100 lbs of cargo on flat land (and up and down hills) for the long distances mentioned above. This way you could go someplace and pick up supplies (coal maybe?) and bring it back to where you are living. One must ask if a hub motor could pull the 100 lbs up a hill or if you would need to gear it down. Or maybe have a very high torque hub motor that is designed to have a top speed of 10 mph so that it can climb the hills. (sort of tractor like power when needed, but thrifty on power usage otherwise)

The idea of a trailer attached to the back seems good because you could attach it when needed and remove it when you don't. This would lighten the load for when all you want is human transportation.

What else?

 

[fechter]

A bunch of solar panels would be good.

Speed does matter. Didn't you see "The Road Warrior"? You don't need to use the speed unless some dude with a mohawk and a crossbow is after you, but it might be nice to have that turbo button.

 

[safe]

Speed does matter. Didn't you see "The Road Warrior"? You don't need to use the speed unless some dude with a mohawk and a crossbow is after you, but it might be nice to have that turbo button.

Well... what are you waiting for?

I'd love to build the "Boost Control" or the "Current Based Throttle" circuits if it was my "specialty" for such things. You're the "pro", you're the one who needs to "strut your stuff" here...

 

[Mathurin]

In a post nuclear war, a ratty looking coasterbrake bike with robust wheels designed to use common 26' tires and at least a rear rack would be pretty much the best you could get.

It'll keep running with nearly zero maintenance, just oil to keep the chain quiet and get air in the tires every few weeks. It should be possible to salvage usable tires off mountan bikes if one actually survives long nuff to wear em out.

An Ebike yells out: "I'm loaded! Plase kill me and loot my body!" or: "I'm loaded! Please observe me to figure out where I live, then kill me and loot my stash.". Personally, I'd go for option 2. There's no way I'd pass on some place that has electricity, bet I'd get all giddy fireing up my laptop for the first time in so long... If you just want to haul dead weight around though, bricks or a cinder block on the rack would be prefferable to ebike components; it would not look as desireable and be faster to ditch should the need arise.



I've learned a thing or two from Katrina:

Many alcoholics and other drug addicts go apeshit when they run out and can't get their fixes, this can take a day, months. Some of them have firearms and shoot at random people for no apparent reason.

Displaying wealth is a really bad idea.

Groups of unrelated city people form spontaneously and search for any kind of food, water, ect. They stick together and share whatever they find, but if they cross someone with a stash who refuses to share, things get ugly. The groups tend to travel away from urban centers, towards the country.

 

[safe]

Groups of unrelated city people form spontaneously and search for any kind of food, water, ect. They stick together and share whatever they find, but if they cross someone with a stash who refuses to share, things get ugly. The groups tend to travel away from urban centers, towards the country.

But there WON'T BE any city people. That's the whole point about nuclear war is that the cities get evaporated and anyone within about 5-10 miles will die in the first couple of weeks. The example of Katrina would not reflect a nuclear war scenario because all those city gangsters wouldn't exist afterwards.

Think "Dukes of Hazard"... and you get the right idea... the future will belong to rednecks with shotguns...

 

[xyster]

rednecks with shotguns

Got a problem with rednecks with shotguns? Their culture has a lot going for it too. In eighth grade in a town of 800, I especially enjoyed the cow-tipping and chewing tobacco.
I'm not kidding.
Anyway, rednecks aren't that bad. Just dress in denim, learn fluent hick-speak, basically adhere to the whole 'when in Rome' thing and you'll do fine.
That's another reason to choose the horse over the bike!

 

[safe]

Got a problem with rednecks with shotguns?

You're asking the guy that thinks "Country Music" has "sold out" and gone "Hollywood"? I prefer the old style Polka music. Basically I'd like to see people get back to their "roots" in music and away from rock and roll. (and now country music has fallen into the same downward spiral)

I've got nooooo problem with "down to earth" people. It's the "pie in the sky" idealists that get on my nerves... Just because I was a third generation Californian DOESN'T make me a liberal by default! To truly be a "city person" you have to buy into the whole "pie in the sky" idealism and I've never been that way even though I've lived and worked in San Francisco.

 

[lemmiwinks]

But there WON'T BE any city people. That's the whole point about nuclear war is that the cities get evaporated and anyone within about 5-10 miles will die in the first couple of weeks.

But there will be plenty of cities left. They're called tactical nuclear strikes for a reason - they're tactical. So (bearing in mind I don't know much about the USA), I imagine targets would be New York (finiancial capital), Washington (political leadership), and various others (I've pretty much exhausted my knowledge of US cities and what their speciality is), but there'll be pleny of major population centres of no strategic value left behind.

What Mathurin says is spot on. Stick with him (better to be with him that against I suspect! :wink: )

 

[lemmiwinks]

rednecks with shotguns

Got a problem with rednecks with shotguns? Their culture has a lot going for it too. In eighth grade in a town of 800, I especially enjoyed the cow-tipping and chewing tobacco.
I'm not kidding.

I think rednecks in the US take it to a whole different level (but I don't have much solid info to base that on). I'd say I'm a redneck cause I like huntin', fishin', shootin', and drinkin' (not all at once though). But probably a milder version of the Australian version (which in itself is more mild than the US version). It's all relative I guess.

We have bogans which are kinda urban, city slicker rednecks probably comparable to trailer trash in the US. I'm not one of them!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan

When I was a kid we went looking for some cows to tip, we'd just seen it in some movie (cow tipping wasn't something we'd heard of before then). We drove around for a while, but we were starting to sober up slightly (the driver was 100% sober, we were dumb, but we weren't stupid) so we gave up and went home.

 

[Mathurin]

Well, during Katrina shurely some of them were gangsters, but mostly they looked like ordinary people driven to mobilise in order to survive. Every now & then they showd one of theese groups on TV, lumps of a few dozen people. I don't see there beeing very much a redneck with a shotgun could do faced with such a mass, short of hoping not to accidentally attract attention...

If you only count as city the ones that have 100K+ population, then there's still 242 of them to neutralise in the US alone. But, in my view 5K seems to be a more reasonnable population tipping point for the "ignore the mobsters because there won't be any" plan to work, having lived in one it was an rural/small city mix, and nearby smaller cities didn't have very dense of an urban part for the people living in it to leave by lumps once they run out of food. Think buildings next to the main road for a couple km's, but mostly rural, EG: Dukes of Hazzard. So, if you only count as city the ones with more then 5k pop, then you've got 4322 places to wipe off the map. I just don't see this scenario unfolding, the sheer volume of bombs and logistics required for this to work out seems unlikely.


Pop stats from Wiki, the rest is a shot in the dark.



Back on topic: I see EM sheilded cable exists, but it's not designed for the same kinda EM sheilding I was looking for. At Alouette aluminium plant they had computers in cages on wheels that ran right next to the electric smelting tubs where you could litterally make a couple coins hold together by the stray magnetic feilds. The computer cages had a really thick cable coming out of them to plug 'em in. I'm thinking a big rheostat and battery voltage switch would be a better solution then trying to make a modern controller workable.




PS: Big fuckings to all you sickos who suggested eating horses.

 

[safe]

But there will be plenty of cities left. They're called tactical nuclear strikes for a reason - they're tactical. So (bearing in mind I don't know much about the USA), I imagine targets would be New York (finiancial capital), Washington (political leadership), and various others (I've pretty much exhausted my knowledge of US cities and what their speciality is), but there'll be pleny of major population centres of no strategic value left behind.

Go here:

http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/nuclear_targets_addtl_shelter_info.htm

...and they have EVERY STATE listed with an image like this one that shows the "most probable" locations of the nuclear strikes if there is a full scale war between the US and Russia. (China)

If you are outside the "rings" then you live (maybe) otherwise you are toast!

This is the result of our "best minds" thinking about defense strategy. I'm sure the map of Russia would have the same kind of targets... both sides think alike... destroy the cities and whatever else you can. The most devastation is the nuclear silo states (read about "hot spots") because there would be an attempt to "suppress" the launching of ICBM's by "carpet bombing" the areas.

It wouldn't be EXACTLY as specified, but pretty close. Any city with 20,000 or more people would be a target... only the "rednecks" have a chance to survive.

I live near Kansas City and if you look at the map I'm "currently" toast if a war happens. I plan to move to a safer location in a few years. (I think we still have plenty of time and plenty of warning before it will happen) There was a movie called "The Day After" a long time ago that dealt with all the targets in an around Kansas City. They dealt with the silos too.

 

[lemmiwinks]

Back on topic: I see EM sheilded cable exists, but it's not designed for the same kinda EM sheilding I was looking for. At Alouette aluminium plant they had computers in cages on wheels that ran right next to the electric smelting tubs where you could litterally make a couple coins hold together by the stray magnetic feilds. The computer cages had a really thick cable coming out of them to plug 'em in. I'm thinking a big rheostat and battery voltage switch would be a better solution then trying to make a modern controller workable.

Maybe a faraday cage could help inside the controller too? I know diddly about such things...

PS: Big fuckings to all you sickos who suggested eating horses.

:lol: If it goes down I'm going to stick with you. Then when you starve to death rather than eat your horse, I'll eat you and your horse! I'll be the fattest nuclear war survivor :lol:

 

[safe]

Maybe a faraday cage could help inside the controller too? I know diddly about such things...

I've seen that term "Faraday Cage" in the literature about nuclear war preparations. That would help I guess.

If the controller was simply "disconnected" at the time of the EMP it would proably be fine. It's all about the length of wire... the longer the wires are the greater the current that is generated.

So to test this you would need to use an EMP tester on the controller alone verses the controller connected to wiring.

My guess is that if you kept a "spare" controller in a "Faraday Cage" you would probably be prepared... A metal safe located underground would perform that function wouldn't it? Wrap the spare controller in insulation and place it into the safe?

 

[fechter]

My guess is that if you kept a "spare" controller in a "Faraday Cage" you would probably be prepared... A metal safe located underground would perform that function wouldn't it? Wrap the spare controller in insulation and place it into the safe?

Just a metal box would protect a spare controller. Even wrapping it with aluminum foil would probably do it unless you take a direct hit, in which case the controller will have other issues beside EMP.

 

[safe]

Just a metal box would protect a spare controller. Even wrapping it with aluminum foil would probably do it unless you take a direct hit, in which case the controller will have other issues beside EMP.

That sounds to me like an easy enough solution to making your electric vehicle survive a nuclear war.

Now that wasn't so hard was it? (it's all the other stuff that will be hard)