Need help w/ school

[Ender2664]

So i need to do an informative speech for school. And i was going to do it on how electic cars never pay themselves off on a $ basis, but my professior is a tree hugger and said that is a proswasive speech. I told him it is prue numbers and i have the equations for different years and blah but he wouldn't hear it.
So instead i want to do an article on how the so called new Hemis are really Hemis. Hemi stands for Hemisphere and the old cars used have Hemi shaped combustion champers and many customers think that is what they are getting in these new cars, but they aren't really getting it. I remember either reading about it or seeing it on TV where they explained it in great detail, if someone could tell me if they know what i am talking about or where i can look besides car and driver .com and what not i would appreciate it.

[98Camaro3.8]

First 3 sites from yahoo:

http://www.thehemi.com/intro.php
http://www.classichemi.com/index1.shtml
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/hemi/chrysler-hemi.html

[Ender2664]

Thanks alot man...now i just need to find a site where it talks about how the new hemi really isn't a true hemi.

[kinetic]

if I'm not mistaken, hemis also have a camshaft with more mass, thus more momentum, than traditional cams.

and from an economic standpoint, the electric car would more than pay itself off in the long run, based on the social costs involved with gas combustion engines, and something you probably haven't taken into account...externalities.

[StudlyCamaro]

Originally posted by kinetic:
and from an economic standpoint, the electric car would more than pay itself off in the long run, based on the social costs involved with gas combustion engines, and something you probably haven't taken into account...externalities.

w3rd, but then again destroying the environment isnt a bad/costly thing in the eyes of most of the USA

[kinetic]

well, at least in the eyes of Big Business/Peak Oil, and the rest of the short-sighted consumers, it's not.

gj on recognizing the primary externality [img]smile.gif[/img]

the other explicit (obvious) cost of gas combustion cars is fuel taxes, waste oil disposal fees, and other fees of routine maintenance....comes with the territory of using a contraption that averages 25% efficiency.

ideally, I personally favor an auto design utilizing a magnetic motor, like some sort of variant of the Adams motor, using stator magnets; almost infinite power (theoretically) on tap. :cool:

[ June 26, 2005, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: kinetic ]

[Ender2664]

Actually electic cars cost so much in polution during production phase that they never actually help the enviornment.

[kinetic]

not sure how you figure that... I work for an electronics manufacturing plant, and the primary waste is H2O, though we don't fabricate housings, plastics, and metals ; i don't see how the production of the materials involved in producing electric cars would yield any significant increase of wastes as opposed to the production of gas-powered autos.


oil refining, on the other hand, dumps far more polutants into the environment.

however, there are certain measures the gov't takes, applying pigovian taxes as an incentive for factories to pollute less, a sort of regulation companies put on themselves, making it more costly to pollute.

but the externality I mentioned, referred to the one we have direct control over...the actual usage of these automobiles. why?

it doesn't take the sharpest knife in the drawer to deduce that the person driving the 2004 Expedition is going to do a lot more polluting than someone in an electric car....and there sure are a hell of a lot more of the former out there.

[ June 26, 2005, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: kinetic ]

[shenanigans]

If its for speech class, and you are doing something about saving money... I got a tip. When I did my persuasive speech, I did it on why doing routine maintenance is important on your car.

For the "attention grabber" I went to work and bought a $100 strap of ones, went in there and my opening line was.

"Imagine doing this every day for a month", then I threw the $100 with both hands in the air, got everyone's attention in my class. "that is roughly what it will cost you if you do no maintain your car" or something like that and got a 98 on the speech.

[Ender2664]

No it is a informative speech.

[Ender2664]

And as for the other guy i am talking apples to apples, do the comparo on a civic vs a civic hybrid not a civic hybrid vs a bus. It has to do with all the different factors of production...i am really busy and i don't have time to pull up the numbers, but you can do the research yourself if you are intrested it is on all the manufactors websites.

[kinetic]

ahh, well I did think of the scenario of producing batteries...that is a dirty process, but I still don't see how the fabrication of the cars themselves would be any more detrimental to the environment than gas-powered vehicle production, or maybe there's something I'm not taking into account...but that's irrelevant (because of the aformentioned taxes applied to companies to "regulate" how much they pollute; there are several ways gov't restricts how much companies pollute, in the US at least)

the externality (pollution) I speak of is the one society creates by using inefficient vehicles, and the social cost incurred thereof, would be far greater than the social costs (especially vs. benefits) of electric car usage; but the typical american is quite complacent, and due to short-sightedness, couldn't foresee any viable alternative to gasoline, but ethanol based fuels, and fuel cell cars have been in existance for several decades, and those vehicles have undoubtedly saved their users a considerable amount of money, not to mention (on a micro scale) the implicit social costs.

here are a couple of sites I periodically read regarding fuel sources: http://www.freeenergynews.com/
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

this is where I found out about acetone as an additive (less emissions, and some increase in gas milage)

I'm not exactly a tree hugger (trees have been around far longer than we, and will continue to live long after we die, assuming we don't create nuclear winter; they can manage themselves), but I'm not an oblivious capitalist pig either.

just a practical free-thinker.

*edit* meh... but I do love my camaro, and even large displacement musclecars, but the latter mainly for recreational polluting, rather than daily drivers. [img]tongue.gif[/img] supercharged/turbocharged V6s are cool, because they're more efficient, and I'm all for modding a V6 to make it more efficient, and powerful.

[ June 27, 2005, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: kinetic ]

[95Batmobile]

From everything I've ever read, it does not make any difference in pollution to produce a gasoline vs. electric/hybrid car.

I could not find anything that said otherwise online either.

As far as the hemi -
http://www.automobilemag.com/news/0407_hemi/

[kinetic]

^^

that pretty much covers the hemi issue to a T.

nice link.