Solar paint won't have any affects from NVH, and is expected to be commercially viable within the next 10 years.
If it gains in efficiency at the same rate as solar panels have, within 20 years we could see truly solar powered and maintained cars, except for the massive profits energy companies would lose out on.
Look at how far batteries have gone on the last 5 years. Heck, look at the Lipo packs from an old insight versus a newer car.
I'm afraid my main argument against electric powered vehicles isn't very forum friendly and could turn into a problem, but it does sound like you know far more about semi trucks and their logistics than I do. I would be interested in continuing this conversation in private at some point in the future. Not having an argument, not that I'm defending my half assed idea(which I know it is), but I do like to learn things.
What was the last production vehicle to have 8 track?
In reply to RevRico:
Yeah, sorry for derailing the thread. I'm not a trucking expert, but my job depends on the trucking industry quite a bit, so I try and monitor it. Shoot me a PM if you want.
Looks like I got it right. What do I win? An electric OTR truck?
Long-haul trucking is a great first use case for fully autonomous vehicles (no mandatory rest breaks means you just doubled your trucking company's efficiency). Simultaneously, it's also a lousy use case for direct solar power, because the average power consumption is high and there's no downtime in which you can charge batteries to use later. It's hard to say how high panel efficiency will get, you can't assume increases at the current rate per year for very long, because each further increase is harder and harder to get. You can put an absolute upper bound on it, because you're not going to go over 100% efficiency without violating teh laws of physics (in the form of conservation of energy).
Solar flux varies with a lot of things (latitude, altitude, weather, time of year, etc), but the average figure is something like 6 kw-hour per square meter per day. Federal limits on trailers are 14.6m by 2.6m, so you've got about 38 square meters to play with. 100% efficient panels would give you 228 kw-h per day, and if you assume the truck is moving 24 hours/day (let's ignore the loading/unloading time for the moment) then that gives you an absolute best-case instantaneous power of 12.7 hp. Can you run a semi on 12.7 hp when cruising down the freeway at 60mph? I dunno, but I doubt it. Back of the envelope calculations, that would be the equivalent of about 90 mpg with a turbo diesel engine.
And yeah, I really don't understand why people seem to equate electric vehicles with autonomous vehicles. The two technologies really don't have anything to do with each other.
As far as the original question about the last car (not truck, not motorcycle) sold with a purely internal combustion power plant, I suspect that's going to be determined by regulation rather than by the free market.
JG Pasterjak wrote:
Knurled wrote:
I'd think it was a Honda, probably an '89 Accord.
That was our guess, too. Or some Mitsubishi something or other.
The 1989 Honda Prelude S had twin carbs.
In Reply to DrBoost:
JG Pasterjak wrote:
What was the last car sold in the US with a carburetor?
Notes:
1) Car, not truck.
2) Mass-produced, commonly available at a dealership. Not a custom job.
We think we've narrowed it down to a brand or two and an era, but we can't quite come up with a model.
See number one above. Car NOT truck. This would disqualify the Isuzu Pickup.
Therfore, I think, making the 1992 Subaru Justy the last CAR sold with a Carb.
If you count Low Speed Vehicles registered on the road, one could blow this thing wide open.
