My son recently rented a hybrid electric vehicle and was getting over 52 miles per gallon of gasoline. That’s over 1000 miles on a twenty-gallon tank of gasoline.
As a 1960 graduate electrical engineer specializing in motors, transformers, generators, circuitry, and transmission lines — I find the Leftist government’s focus on electric-powered vehicles to be ill-advised and deceptive.
Hybrid gasoline/electric vehicles make the most sense. A small, highly efficient gasoline-powered engine/generator set can keep a vehicle’s battery pack properly charged on an as-needed basis. Of course, household power could also be used for charging purposes when an EV vehicle is inoperative.
A couple of series wound electric motors could provide “infinite” starting torque and adequate running torque to the rear wheels of an EV. Running torque requirements are considerably lower than starting torque. Dual, electric, series-wound drive motors could eliminate the need for a mechanical transmissions, axles, and rear-wheel differentials.
A hybrid system could operate efficiently using a few conventional, low-cost, currently available lead acid batteries arranged in series and parallel configuration. They could make highly expensive and dangerous lithium-ion batteries unnecessary.
In 2022, hybrid vehicles equal a good idea. But gargantuan homes for families with few children? Not so grand an idea.
In this era when people are having fewer and fewer babies — and smaller and smaller families — we’re amazed that people are building bigger and bigger houses.
My wife and I took a lengthy tour around our neighborhood recently following a noontime church service. We noted how our neighborhood has been taken over by enormous houses — many of them replacing the 1950 and 1960 vintage structures, like our 1956 model home — with houses having two to three times the floor space, living room space, bedroom space, kitchen space, etc. as the once prevalent popular structures of our time.
Frankly, we both agreed that this change makes little or no common sense for today’s smaller families. But there is some good news: Our property value is skyrocketing — and our share of the area’s property taxes is decreasing.
