franklin loved his attention too, but he did not patent things that would have made him very wealthy. he gave away the ideas for the good of humanity. or so he said. seems true to me.
if every other ev maker decides to use his battery design, he can sell to all of them until they build their own battery factory.
just having a good battery available may entice more ev start ups.
I ll choose to trust his motives until I see evidence to the contrary. I haven t seen any yet…
BTW I've been seeing that Volvo is bringing out a slightly different concept. The XC90, a crossover that will seat seven. ICE driving the front wheels with an electric motor driving the rear wheels.
Actually that’s an interesting idea. I’d like to see a study of using EV FWD added to a truck to make a 4X4 out of it. It just might be simpler/cheaper than a xfer case, twin differentials, etc; also, with individual motors at each wheel, you only need purchase on one wheel, akin to a locker diff.
Even if it was close, you could use EV 4X4, and gain additional benefits of a hybrid. I’ve made no secret that I scrap/curb crawl in my F150, which is a lousy mission profile for an ICE: lots of idling and driving <10 MPH with frequent stops thrown in. I could just shut down the ICE and loaf!
(And I’m well aware that nobody builds new trucks for the needs of scrappers…so they better put one out there SOON if it’ll “trickle down” to me before I’m too old to need it!)
OK, I wish him well but lets just call a spade a spade. He’s not at the level of a Ben Franklin. Franklin was much more than an inventor-a statesman, ambassador, politician, government trouble-shooter, advisor, etc. The country was better off with a postal system but the question still remains whether the country would be better off if all vehicles were electric or if it is a red herring. The market will determine that though.
I like Volvos concept,thats a concept I concieved on my own a while back,it would make a good curb crawler.
MJ,did you see the intra-city class eight semi,powered by a tiny APU and batteries? seemed to work well arround LA-Kevin
More like Tesla than Edison. Tesla is responsible for the AC power grids in every electrified structure you’ve ever been in. JP Morgan backed Edison, who wanted to electrify Manhattan with DC power. Tesla, part of Westinghouse Electric by then, wanted to electrify Manhattan with AC power. ACs big advantage is that it doesn’t lose power over long distances nearly as fast as DC does.
So he sees himself as the modern Tesla fighting the establishment for the benefit of the populace? I hope he’s not thinking of trying to convert the US to DC though. That would be like the metric convertion triple fold.
On the plus side though, having thousands of DC plants scattered around the country instead of fewer AC plants would offer more protection from terrorist attacks I believe. Right now they have the capability of bringing the whole grid down so keep your cars charged up at least.
I don’t know Elon Musk personally and have no idea who he sees himself as, except perhaps as Elon Musk. And we might presume has holds Tesla in high esteem since he named the company after him.
Please explain yourself. I’m not sure what you disagree with
I truly believe Musk is nowhere near as altruistic as some people think
I also believe he wants to be remembered as the guy who made EVs available to the masses . . . because he will benefit from it
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but he did, in a way, make them available to the masses
Musk didn’t invent the EV, but if his technology will allow the EV to dominate the car industry, thus making them available to the masses, he will go down in history as a great man, like Thomas Edison
i think Edison was over rated as an inventor. he refused to see tesla s brilliance. edison was more astute financially and hired good people to invent for him
Edison overrated? Hardly. His failure to acknowledge his rival is easily forgiven, to me. What egotistical innovator goes around saying “Well yes, I was wrong, he was right.”
Here’s a good discussion of some of his most important inventions.
