"The most popular until the Model T was steam. Gasoline simply won out because it contains the energy density needed to make a vehicle usable with reasonable energy storage needs (a simple gas tank). At this time gasoline is still the best alternative overall. "
That’s what people in my biz call a “rational reconstruction” of history. It is possible to stand at this point in history, point backwards to a change, and describe the reasons that X happened in rational decision-making terms. But rational reconstructions pretty much never match up with actual history. There was then, as there is now, plenty of “things” going on - lots of actors and activities and paths and potentialities, etc. What there isn’t is any kind of “uber” consciousness that makes rational decisions about how history ought to go. On top of that there is never just one thing about any technology to optimize. We always do clean things up after the fact, but these become stories that tell us mostly about how we are now - not stories that tell us how we actually got here.
On paper horses look pretty good:
Advantages:
Can be produced domestically
Fuel source is renewable and domestically available
Exhaust is biodegradable
Modular, only use as many as you need
High starting torque
Great traction
Self navigating, great for cell phone users
Can be detached from vehicle and used independently
Good off road
Quiet
Disadvantages:
Consumes fuel 24-7
Requires water supply
Maintenance can be expensive
Limited lifespan, but easily replaceable, like a timing belt
Exhaust contains high quantities of ammonia and methane
Low energy density hp/lb
Low sustained top speed.
Sounds pretty good for the city or as a replacement for that ATV
Cig, I can answer in two words: lex parsimoniae (Occam’s Razor.
All things considered, gas won out because it was the best choice for the time. It’s still the power source of choice because, all thing sconsidered, it still is the best choice. I happen to believe that at some point in the not too distant future electricity will become the better choice, but it could end up being almost anythings. One major breakthrough in some other field could change everything instantly.
MT, you missed one other critical reason that horses lost uot: sanitation. Dealing with the vollume of horse waste depostited all over the streets was an impossible task, and the diseases that came along with it and the flys it drew would not be eradicated today if horses were still our primary mode of transport.
Ah, but it does. The very fact that gasoline became the fuel of choice and has remained that way for a century does mean that it was the best choice all things considered. The reasons are myriad, the causes and results debatable, and myth a part of the story, but gas won out.
Perhaps in the futuer a better energy source will be developed for automobiles. And whe n thet happens, that type of vehicle will displace cars, just as cars displaced horses, but as of now gas is still the best solution.
The concept of Accam’s Razor is that when you strip away all the peripheral stuff and the balogna, the reality that you’re left with must be the truth. Strip away all the technical arguments and the politics, and the fact that gas has been the overwhelming choice for 100 years says that it is the best solution.
"The very fact that gasoline became the fuel of choice and has remained that way for a century does mean that it was the best choice all things considered.’
mountainbike, you know how I respect you. But there isn’t an ounce of “reason” is on your reasoning. In fact, rather than reason it is faith. You are not alone on having it so you have plenty of company.
I agree Same, but the gas motor is a weakling compared to electric motors, hydraulic and steam as far as torque is concerned. The transmission has come a long way in making them as flexible as they are but none can deal with the sustained use that sudden direction change and really high load acceleration these other motors are capable of. We are surrounded by hybrids in commercial and industrial use. They are not new and I firmly believe they eventually will have a place in everyone’s daily driver and deliver mileage well above what we now have. It’s MUCH easier to make a flex fuel ICE motor whose only job is generate electricity or pressure and do this at one steady RPM…
I once used a air compressor That made from a 4cly Jeep motor. I dont remember if it a Flat head or OHV. It used 2 cly’s to compress the air. Now if you used this to fill a tank which ran an compress air motor. It sure would go a long way on a gal of gas. Not that I think this would really work. It is nice to dream.
“the energy recaptured while braking or decelerating was around 70% as opposed to 30% for electric cars, and it dramatically improved gas mileage especially in the city.”
You have your numbers backwards…Air compressors and air motors can only dream of 70% efficiency…They are difficult to regulate and control…
The way I see TSMB’s point is this: If there was an obviously superior (better for the money) alternative to gas engines, somebody somewhere in the whole wide world would be producing it today. It’s not like the ‘Big 3’ control the car industry in China, for example.
As for steam, it’s slow to start, requires frequent water fills, and can result in quite a large explosion if the high pressure system isn’t carefully maintained.
The way I see TSMB’s point is this: If there was an obviously superior (better for the money) alternative to gas engines, somebody somewhere in the whole wide world would be producing it today.
Yes, I know all about what underlies TSMB’s point. It is the conventional interpretation given by the machinery of the contemporary political-economy. It is what “everyone knows.”
And its all screwed up. (Not completely wrong - more like a partial truth). I’m not going on about it because its a fairly complicated process to drag all of the baggage out from under the bed, unpack it, examine & evaluate it, and then move on to alternative “stories” about how it works. I do it. But it takes me a full 3-credit 16 week course to do it all. And even then it only leaves people ready to get the ball rolling.
Dag, I agree, Personally, I believe that in the not too distant future we’re going to see electric cars become commonplace (after we’ve passed through a transitionary hybrid car period). I’m an advocate of electric cars. However in the discussion about how gasoline became and remains the fuel of choice, it simply continues to be the best alternative all things considered.
Cig, I suspect that you’re thinking about issues like the history of Standard Oil and its violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, stuff like that. However, I don;t believe that stuff can overpower market forces for 100 years.
No mountainbike, that’s not what I’m thinking about.
I’m thinking about how any “thing” has to be seen as part of an entire “technological system.” These things actually build the world around themselves and take on a tremendous momentum, and then they look inevitable and rational - partly because any of the criteria you’d use to evaluate them as “best” for X are actually there, in part, because of the development of the system itself. (The best known development of this stuff is from historian of technology Thomas Hughes in the event that anyone is curious. He never did cars, but the basic “story” doesn’t change a whole lot by system).
So I do understand that, given the way the world came to be constructed - in terms of the whole massive interconnected set of things that all intersect to make cars what they are - gasoline can be defined in engineering and physics terms to best fit the bill. And when I say interconnected set of things, I mean both material and nonmaterial things, both human and non-human things. You can’t take for granted the fact that the “bill” that needs to be fit for autos is itself partly an outcome of everything that has gone into making cars what they are today. And by that, I don’t mean cars as singular artifacts separate from the rest of the system of stuff.
It will involve some politics, and misbehavior, and pushing and pulling in terms of games of power - that’s inevitable. But that too is only part of any story.
So when I claim that oversimplifying history is a problem for me, assume that I’d think more along a “path-dependence” kind of a logic. Markets matter. But so do politics. So does random flotsam and jetsam. But what matters most are the properties of things as massive systems - they become like ruts, then ditches, then ravines in history. Alternatives become less and less possible all the time. Markets operate but now within very narrow parameters built, not by choice but with the inevitable conservatism of large systems. At the turn of the century it actually wasn’t clear what kind of propulsion was best. There were a few ruts, but not very deep. The ICE with gasoline was the path we ended up on. The world is now down that ravine and other paths seem obviously impossible or inferior. That’s always what it looks like from the bottom of the ravine. But way back when, the world could have gone differently. And people would make the same arguments about alternatives.
I know that the argument that markets optimize, especially over the long run, is the dominant one and taken for granted in most corners. So please take no offense when I say that I agree with those who have called these arguments for the intellectually lazy who can’t be bothered to do any real study. I mean - you know. Why bother asking how the world came to be as it is when you have a one size fits all answer? The other downside to those arguments is that they have a way of simply justifying everything that currently exists - making it all “correct” and “natural” and “best.” I’m a cynic at heart and by profession.
Cigroller, you’re describing a situation like the “QWERTY” keyboard, aren’t you?
The standard (Qwerty) keyboard was derived for the purpose of SLOWING DOWN typing at a time when mechanical typewriters couldn’t keep up with the keystrokes. Those limitations are gone…(almost any) different arrangement of keys would produce more efficient typing…but the “retraining” costs make conversion to a new system “not worth it.”
I could see this force in place with alt-fuels, for example…but I don’t think it props up the status quo, as much as makes it “sticky.” A sufficiently strong economic impetus will “unstick” it…you just won’t supplant a sub-optimal system that is working “adequately.”
The qwerty story is nice for its simplicity, and probably best for illustrating the fact that the skills of users themselves are part of what gets built into a system. The actual complexity involved in changing the technology (i.e. the order of the keys) is not very high. But the complexity of changing the users is. Its not any single user that makes it complicated. Any individual could relearn. Rather, its the diffusion that is difficult - both among all users but also among all of the axillary things - other parts of the system. (How many typing textbooks, lesson plans, teachers, school programs, etc. would also have to change?). QWERTY is also ok for talking about the unevenness of change in various elements of a system. Some parts may get ahead (in this case the skills of the users) while other parts hang behind (in this case, certain aspects of typewriter construction). Oddly enough, then, for keyboard what started with a “goal” of maximizing typing speed actually results in an engineering goal of slowing it down. And then, yes - the design gets “sticky”. But the qwerty case is very, very simple and its elements pale in comparison to things like electrical lighting or automotive or computing systems.
As for the “status quo” - it would be silly to come up with conspiracy theories where some hidden group “really” controls things. But its probably more silly to assume that there aren’t incredibly powerful actors in existing systems with very distinctive interests who will fight tooth and nail to protect their interests. There is no such thing as economics, or technological development, etc. that is somehow free from “politics” no matter how much people might want to draw the lines. In any case, even if you removed the politics, the “stickiness” of things is quite powerful in and of itself - even without any overt or conscious “power/politics” activity. In fact, if I was to say which was more influential - the inevitable stickiness of a system vs. the conscious power interest of the actors - I’d give the nod to the systems’ own momentum. But an important
part of the momentum comes from the interests and power positions of the actors too.
I have to agree with mountainbike about gasoline being the best option; at least until I see something better come along. Gasoline does what it’s supposed to do far better than anything else up to this point.
Propelling a car with compressed air means air pressure in the thousands of pounds per square inch and it’s going to take a lot of energy from somewhere to squash that air and more importantly, keeping it squashed.
A fully filled air tank will air the first tire up just fine; after that it usually becomes iffy and I’d consider an air car no different unless the car had one whale of a compressor on board.
My memory is hazy on this but in regards to the Tata Motors air car I think they bought the rights to that thing a few years back from a French gentleman and who may have been working with a lot of BS. If Tata bought the rights then I guess the French guy was not too stupid; he cashed in on it.
Cig, be assured that I take no offense in this debate. I liked the rut/ditch/ravine analogy. The rut forms because its path is the easiest path for the water to flow downhill. It then forms a ditch and becomes an even easier path with increased capacity for even more water. Eventually, it becomes a ravine. And even a canyon. And becomes the easiest path for far more sources of far more water than the original rut was carrying. The simple rut becomes the Grand Canyon. The icebergs? Well, I’m comfortable with saying that they made the original ruts.
And, in the end, the bottom line is that the Grand Canyon exists because for water, in its quest to run down into the seas, that path was the best solution when all was said and done.
Similarly, gasoline and ICE engines became the common choice because when all was said and done they were the best choice to power a motorcar. If some other fuel and some other engine were best, we would have gone that way. If a better solution is invented or discovered tomorrow, we’ll go that way.
It isn’t lack of knowledge or laziness that drives my belief. It’s recognition of reality and how the big picture works. And it isn’t blind faith in the market theory, rather it’s a recognition of how the world actually works.
You mention physics. Man doesn’t make physical laws. Man only strives to understand and define them. Physics is what it is. Just as man didn’t create gasoline as the overwhelming choice of a fuel. It simply won out because it was the best choice. The same happened with laced shoes vs. buckled shoes, and sheetrock vs. lathed plaster.
And, by the way, the ones who made and vcontinue to make billions in the petrolium fuels market are doing so not because they manipulated the marketplace, but rather because they “read” the marketplace and responded to it. Just as the Swiss attempted to prevent the watch market beoming saturated by quartz movements and eventually had to “cave”, so those who promoted other fuel sources in past history eventually had to make gasoline vehicle or go out of business.