JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for March 26, 2012

  1. Emerald
    margueritem  over 12 years ago

    Not as many advances as we’d like, unfortunately…

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    Stan King  over 12 years ago

    It’s not the same thing at all. If Henry Ford had had to deal with the regulation on fuel production (try California, for instance) we’d still be using horse-and-buggies.

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    grandfather Premium Member over 12 years ago

    I was in the Rockefeller Carriage house last week and there is a 1908 Electric car that John D Rockefeller drove to Tarrytown Station to pick up guests.

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    Hufn  over 12 years ago

    So you really think it’s regulations that have prevented the advancement in automotive technology? Hmmm….. How interesting…

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  5. Little b
    Dani Rice  over 12 years ago

    Actually, a lot of the early cars ran on ethanol, until the grain was needed as food during WWI. Mileage didn’t improve until fuel was in short supply during WWII, but once the war was over, Detroit began churning out “land yachts” with ghastly mileage.

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    Luciamari333391  over 12 years ago

    we THINK we are so scientific and advanced…

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  7. Letterhead
    360guy Premium Member over 12 years ago

    If we were more advanced, it could run on wind, like ancient ships, or on solar, like reptiles.

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  8. Doodles
    monkeyhead  over 12 years ago

    Ford actually was looking at use of hemp (not weed) based ethanol. The man was very much ahead of his time.

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    Uskoke  over 12 years ago

    Where’s Cheety-cheety bang bang?

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    harebell  over 12 years ago

    What about steam? (all right, the occasional explosion, but surely we can fix that)

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  11. Carabao 1  751647
    whitecarabao  over 12 years ago

    As my father always said: “They don’t build ’em the way they used to — THANK GOODNESS!”Have you ever changed a tire on a classic clincher rim" My grandfather said one of the greatest advances in automobiles was when they got rid of the clincher rim.When I was a little kid in the late 1940’s there were a few 10-year-old cars around and almost no 20 year-old cars. Today, how many 20 and 30 year old cars do you see? The streets are full of them. Today, who would buy a car that they knew would be worn out and ready for the scrap heap in 5 years? That was the norm in 1910.

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    hippogriff  over 12 years ago

    harebell: A properly designed boiler doesn’t explode. A modified Stanley crashed attempting a world speed record. The boiler was seen rolling down the beach like Hero’s turbine. They also buried one and simply built up the pressure; it sprung a small leak and slowly deflated.

    sammysock: Not steam. Wood (or any organic material) was burned in a chamber excluding air. The fumes were burned in the internal combustion engine. It had to be disassembled periodically to scrape off the carbon deposits, had poor power, but did run. A cleaner version was built after the war in Sweden for tractors, which have an abundant supply of organic waste. In the late 1930s, Ford demonstrated the system which, at the urging of the witnessing press, ran on a dead alley cat.

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  13. Flash
    pschearer Premium Member over 12 years ago

    We still have tires with rubber wheels. So what? If it works and nothing else has proven itself better, why change it? More important, why allow the government to change it by decree?

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  14. Cathy aack
    lindz.coop Premium Member over 12 years ago

    Yup, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Nothing new in the energy dept, because the rich energy folks keep it that way.

    Whatever happened to those cute little low-flying cars we used to see in cartoons and which were promised as the “future” when I was a kid? Sure would solve the problem of paved roads going “back to gravel.”

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