What will The Future look like?

[dogman dan]

Yes, but how many people make that car/truck decision based on what they need? That would be two vehicles. One F350 double cab that tows the 40 foot camper to the lake 4 weekends a year. Then a plug in electric car that seats 2 people for the other 95% of the driving.

What you see, is one person driving a double cab F 350 to the job at the mall or office. Because they tow a trailer a few times a year.

It might not be that bad in Austin, Santa Fe or much of California. But in the rest of Texas and New Mexico, people ran out and bought the huge trucks and Suv's just before the gas prices went nuts in 2007-8. Even now, one of the indicators that the economy is coming back, is a huge jump in sales for huge trucks, cadilacs etc. Nothing has changed.

Sure, a few weirdo's like us are on the cutting edge. The rest just want a new V8, or turbo V6. That's America for you. The "future" is just like the past. Gimmie your fossil fuels, or we'll come take them. That's America for you.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Now we have quite a number of people without cars in California, but it's a long way from a trend. Even the serious bicyclists need their cars.

They need no such thing. What they need is transportation, and better imaginations.

What we need is a transportation solution that will allow a person to commute to work, be able to haul their 28 sailboat to the coast for the weekend, haul their camper to the grand canyon for their yearly family reunion, haul their dirt bikes to the races on the weekend, pull the cubscout parade float for the anual jamboree, and bring home their 8 foot sectional couch.

Americans enjoy their freedom of movement. they won't embrace something that limits what they can do. Untill we have solutions for all of those options that works nearly as easily as the current solution, we're stuck with what we have.

There are several solutions. One involves a complete restructering of our infastructure. we'll have to rebuild our cities for a more flexable mass transit system. Americans will want their freedom to live where they choose, so the nrew infastructure woukld have to include multiple transportation solutions based around mass transit and hub centered trqnsportation systems. Covered and enviromentaly stabalized coridors for those who walk or ride, ect.

Another involves restructuring socity. Getting to children early so they believe personal freedom is bad and that efficancy of socity is good for humanity, then rebuild our4 cities into a hive like structure. Living cells connected to work cells, healthcare cells, educational cells, and entertainment cells by mass transit arteries.

A third is just to build an emission free F350 double cab and call it good.

 

[Chalo]

Everyone has to move something that their car won't haul sooner or later. At those times, you hire a specialist, or rent another vehicle, or make a better plan. That's the same deal whether your new 32 foot boat won't go on your old boat trailer, or your drum kit won't fit into your Prius, or you can't carry both the bag of cookies and the six-pack of beer on your bike at the same time.

My wife has a membership with the local car share service. She pays $0.38 per minute to have a car when she needs one. It works out much cheaper overall than owning a reliable, efficient, paid-off car. And she has no incentive to use it when she doesn't need it. Driving an industrial vehicle every day, just because you might carry something big a few times a year, is a kind of madness that our legal system should help people understand if they can't make sense of it themselves. I believe that ownership inconveniences, responsibilities, fees, and penalties should rise exponentially with vehicle mass and speed-- because the imposition they make on everybody else also rises exponentially.

There are multiple problems with the car-based transportation model apart from the fossil fuels and accompanying CO2 emissions. First and foremost, we've sacrificed our quality of life and our commons to these noisy, dangerous machines with shockingly poor guidance systems. Out in the street, children can't play, adults can't talk, those who get hurt get blamed for just being there; all turn their backs on each other and go inside. We also throw staggering amounts of treasure at accommodating their rights-of-way and parking. In effect, we have this huge public subsidy that's just for folks who do something inherently damaging and antisocial.

And then there are the tens of thousands of lives per year cut short by car violence, and hundreds of thousands per year cut short or ruined by pollution-related cancer and lung disease, or sedentary living.

It's not worth it just so you don't have to walk to the corner for the tram, or so you can carry your dirt bike to go destroy something else that once was beautiful and peaceful.

 

[lbz5mc12]

What I can't understand is if electric vehicles don't have big engines so don't require as much space as a gas engine requires why can't manufacturers just use their existing vehicle models as electrics and just cram more batteries into all the nooks and crannies freed up by the removal of all the gas engine components. If you apply this to large vehicles like trucks and SUV's, that's just that much more space. Even if they have to use 2 electric motors to equal or improve on the existing gas engine it still takes up less room.

I mean quite a few years ago I saw a special on t.v. that showed a military APV hybrid that had it's big engine coupled with six hub motor wheels. The whole point of the vehicle was that if one of the wheels were blown or destroyed in an attack it could still drive. I think this was over ten years ago that I saw this.

I don't understand why they just don't make cars with 2 to 4 high power hub motors and this would free up all kinds of room for more batteries. I don't know you all just know so much more than I do and all I've got going for me is a childlike imagination tempered with a dose of reality and the ability to visualize really well in my head.

I like that picture from Chrono Trigger. I sold my copy plus a bunch of other SNES games and accessories and put all the money into my e-bike habit. Then I crashed and broke the only e-bike frame I've liked so far and now I'm stuck with components and no suitable frame to install them on.

Speaking of the future, in the near future I was planning on buying one of those super scooters on amazon for a $1000.00 due to the fact that it has a high weight limit and so many five star reviews. Does anyone know if it's a good buy or should I get something cheaper and upgrade it myself?

 

[Dauntless]

Now we have quite a number of people without cars in California, but it's a long way from a trend. Even the serious bicyclists need their cars.

They need no such thing. What they need is transportation, and better imaginations.

Oh man, don't forget they need to read beyond the 6th grade level. You're asking too much.

As for needing two vehicles, I have a Silverado Duramax diesel that is something like 21/28 mpg, not such a bad thing to drive a lot but I did get tired of it when it was my daily driver. I do a fair amount of carrying things around with it, most of which would have fit in my old Cherokee but not all. (4 cylinder Cherokee got less mileage than this turbo V8.) Eventually I got my V6 Mustang, something like 21/30 mpg. Not just more fun and more comfortable than the Chevy Volt, but something like $18-22k less. I don't think I'd get the chance to save THAT much gas. I really don't think I could have managed a Volt at the time.

What I can't understand is if electric vehicles don't have big engines so don't require as much space as a gas engine requires why can't manufacturers just use their existing vehicle models as electrics and just cram more batteries into all the nooks and crannies freed up by the removal of all the gas engine components.

It's been done, it's still being done, but there's a lot of drawbacks. The first truly successful electric will most likely be purpose built.

I mean quite a few years ago I saw a special on t.v. that showed a military APV hybrid that had it's big engine coupled with six hub motor wheels. The whole point of the vehicle was that if one of the wheels were blown or destroyed in an attack it could still drive. I think this was over ten years ago that I saw this.

That would be a wicked handling vehicle at speed. I don't think you'll make a freeway car that way.

I was planning on buying one of those super scooters on amazon for a $1000.00 due to the fact that it has a high weight limit and so many five star reviews. Does anyone know if it's a good buy or should I get something cheaper and upgrade it myself?

Post a link so we can be sure what you're talking about.

 

[lbz5mc12]

This one: http://www.amazon.com/Super-1000-Lithium-Electric-Scooter-Silver/dp/B0063V2DJQ/ref=sr_1_4?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1371049519&sr=1-4&keywords=super+scooter+1000

 

[Lightfeet]

How about that: A whole nation going Solar & Wind:
http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=30467

 

[Chalo]

How about that: A whole nation going Solar & Wind:
http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=30467

To put it in perspective, that's about the same population and physical area as Wichita Falls, Texas.

 

[etriker]

The future fair !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmWFrMq3qNY

 

[swbluto]

The future fair !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmWFrMq3qNY

That reminds me, whatever happened to the future-themed world fairs?

[youtube]2-5aK0H05jk[/youtube]

There is apparently a 2015 world fair in Milan, Italy but its focus is on feeding everybody with the burgeoning population and declining agricultural production. Doesn't sound very optimistically future oriented if you ask me, lol.

 

[swbluto]

What would solar powered desalination plants cost?

Well, here's some figures.

http://www.livescience.com/4510-desalination-work.html

Current methods require about 14 kilowatt-hours of energy to produce 1,000 gallons of desalinated seawater.

My $130 solar panel is 130 watts and can generate about 1.5 kwh on a sunny day. That implies it could filter about 100 gallons of water a day. Not too bad, considering I only drink a gallon a day. Green lawns and showers are largely optional, lol.

 

[veloman]

I too live in an Austin neighborhood where 13% of the population uses a *bicycle* to commute. Car ownership is not a big deal. Last year I lived in a house where all 4 of us used a bike for at least some of our transportation. Right now, 3 of us in our house use a bike for all or some of our transportation. I even got my roommate on an ebike and he doesn't own a car.

I want to sell my car, but my family thinks that's crazy. They aren't from around here and of course can't imagine life without a car. The truth is I've done 11000 ebike miles in 2 years. It seems every time I seriously think of selling my car, I get sick or have some mental breakdown.

I don't see everyday Austinites dropping their cars. But a fair number of us won't drive one. Maybe 10% in the future.

The car is a great tool for certain applications. It's just not for everything.

 

[dogman dan]

Love the way you are living the dream Veloman. Chalo too. But it's a nightmare to most americans.

The trap is that when you buy your house, you can't afford the middle of town, or they won't loan money for you to buy in the barrio, and viola, there you are living too far out in the burbs to bike anymore.

But that doesn't mean you have to do that commute in a big vehicle.

 

[friendly1uk]

Complacency is believing someone else will fix it after it is broke beyond repair.

Edit: Do you think there will be balloons? It would not cost huge amounts to let one climb in to the jet-stream. It could travel many miles, then tweak it's course with engines perhaps powered by solar energy. That's if we can make a Zeppelin out of power generating thin film material. I don't think we are far off tbh. It would be snail mail, but fuel costs would be low.

 

[swbluto]

Edit: Do you think there will be balloons? It would not cost huge amounts to let one climb in to the jet-stream. It could travel many miles, then tweak it's course with engines perhaps powered by solar energy. That's if we can make a Zeppelin out of power generating thin film material. I don't think we are far off tbh. It would be snail mail, but fuel costs would be low.

It seems possible, but I don't believe it's conventional enough for it to be embraced by society and it seems like it'd be cost effective mostly for routes along the jetstream. People can still afford package delivery for the most part, I believe. If it ever came to that, I'm thinking it'd probably be sent along the jetstream and then distributed by conventional means at the end points.

By the way, the actual energy cost per package is rather negligible in the grand scheme of things. I can't imagine they spend anymore than $2 per package in fuel with the large shipping trucks and the thousands of packages they ship per truck. That is, I think personal transportation is far more sensitive to oil/gas price fluctuations than package delivery. People would cut down on personal transport way before shipping methods significantly changed (Which, with my generation, seems to be happening. W00t the new economy! Same kind of people, different economic circumstances.)

 

[friendly1uk]

Yes, changing the way we ship things is a long way off. It's nice to think that long distance can be covered with no fossil fuels though. Even if the full journey can't be done.
I think advances in solar could skip the need for balloons. We now have drones that can stay up for weeks iirc. Through the night on stored energy, so they don't need the help a balloon would bring. Integrate the two idea's to have a large un-stealthy balloon do the lifting, and the drone basicly tow it along, and we kinda have what we need already. We can shift big payloads, but them big balloons blow about everywhere.

We have a number of cables under our oceans. Have you seen the tube delivery systems used in supermarkets to take the money away from the tills? I think a mid way station or two might be needed to overcome the ridiculously long distances I'm talking, but it is another quick shipping option for smaller items.

Ocean currants and the jet-stream change so often that they alone are no good, but they could help.

 

[swbluto]

Dude(Or is "Mate" the local slang in UK?), solar power is destiny. We're going to be powering everything (or nearly so) with solar. All it takes is future technological know-how, and we'll have the technology to harness an energy source that provides more than 100,000 times the amount of power fossil fuels provide every year. (seems like ibm is working on the problem: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/22/ibm-alliance-solar-collector-concentrates-power-of-2k-suns/)

Nice idea, that sounds like the equivalent to a solar powered dirigible. I wonder if solar could provide enough power? And wouldn't that be interesting? Wrapping the dirigibles skin with thin-film solar panels to power it. Would that even be able to fly long distances? I'm not really sure what kind of winds dirigibles have to overcome. It seems that they were popular during the early 1900s, and a quick Google search suggests that they were used for long-distance travel in the early days, so it doesn't seem entirely implausible.

Elon musk was talking about Tube Delivery, I believe. It's been a pretty popular concept since the mid-1800s. I don't know if it will ever come about, but there's a lot of different companies talking about it.

 

[swbluto]

Oh, hell yeah!

I want a solar blimp! Goes 25mph.

http://inhabitat.com/worlds-first-solar-powered-blimp-set-to-cross-the-english-channel/

 

[LSBW]

What will The Future look like?

Keep dreaming, guys

I'll give it 50 years

 

[Chalo]

The trap is that when you buy your house, you can't afford the middle of town, or they won't loan money for you to buy in the barrio, and viola, there you are living too far out in the burbs to bike anymore.

I'm a bicycle mechanic married to a self-employed musician, not a wealthy guy. I bought a house one mile from the center of downtown Austin, and less than half a mile from the lake that divides the city. Almost anybody can afford to live in a city center if they prioritize it. But you have to seek out a situation that works for you, instead of letting others with their own agendas push you into one.

It's hard to get away with less than about $500 per month average expenses to support a car (including payments, insurance, repairs, registration, maintenance, and let's not forget fuel). If you ditch the car and use that $500/mo to support a bigger mortgage or rent payment, you might find that you can live in the middle of town where you can bike to everything. And then you are building net worth instead of squandering your income. It's difficult to price the difference in terms of health and stress levels, but those are factors too.

A 1000 sq. ft. house from pre-war years is cheaper to live in than a 2500 sq. ft. house in some faceless 'burb where none of the streets pass through. Central neighborhoods have those small old houses; outlying ones don't. I could replace my sub-700 sq. ft. 1920 shack in its entirety for less than it would cost to replace the roof on one of the monsters I see at the edge of town. It's not like big houses give their owners a better lifestyle either; those folks have to spend their time fuming in traffic and working at crappy jobs to feed their cars and their giant air conditioners. I pay a lot less in utilities, upkeep, and insurance. The only thing I paid more for is the piece of ground I live on.

Consider this: One of the primary things I have squeezed out of my life is corporate profits. I bought my house outright using the winnings from my previous inner city house (that's another reason to buy in town), I don't own a car, I have largely secondhand stuff, and I don't use much energy. There's not a lot more corporate fat to trim out, frankly.

After not having kids, not owning a car may be the next most effective way to enjoy the life you want for less money.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

How about that: A whole nation going Solar & Wind:
http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=30467

To put it in perspective, that's about the same population and physical area as Wichita Falls, Texas.

this provides no perspective atoll.

in the future they will have solved that nagging problem of accurately measuing the circumference of a wheel.
remember to wear shades.
cuz the future's so brite.
from all that agw.

and where's my jetpack?

 

[swbluto]

How about that: A whole nation going Solar & Wind:
http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=30467

To put it in perspective, that's about the same population and physical area as Wichita Falls, Texas.

this provides no perspective atoll.

When you don't drive 100s of miles a day, your per capita energy demands are a bit more manageable and electric vehicles are far more practical. With a very small area and population, scalability isn't that big of a factor - especially when the majority of the country's wealth is derived from tourism and offshore banking. And, offshore banking's wealth is derived from the wealth of countries far larger and wealthier.

Btw, funny pun. :lol:

 

[swbluto]

and where's my jetpack?

[youtube]OtRUtJlacBI[/youtube]

 

[The fingers]

Cut to feet, landing on the floor.

 

[swbluto]

Cut to feet, landing on the floor.

lol. They actually do have videos of it flying, but of course, without a human. I'm thinking they don't want to risk the liability.