New Electric Car Technology? An end to the internal combustion engine?

The secret Cheney Commission, advised by people were not allowed to know about, will never allow it unless those same shadows can acquire the patents.

 

Er...

EEStor's secret ingredient is a material sandwiched between thousands of wafer-thin metal sheets

Secret ingredient???The whole point of a patent is it tells you how to do something

 

No automotive technology that requires you to plug in the car, whether overnight or for 10 minutes, is truly environmentally responsible.

 

BTW - For anyone who's into technology, there has been something of a sea change in the patent process,

However there are various moves afoot to change this

So currently "first-to-invent" is considered to be somewhat shaky and patent attorneys (one of them should speak for themselves here) are advising to keep the "first-to-invent" system in place but they are encouraging people to file as soon as possible. Many expect we'll be going to a "first-to-file" system soon.

I'd really like to hear from an expert on this........ ?

 

You can't have a patent that leaves the most important part of the information in a 'magic box' which you keep secret. The point of patent's is that they tell other people HOW to do something so that they can contact you and use your invention, procedure, process, whatever, usually after they've sorted out some remuneration.

I would imagine either, a) The 'meeja', (as per usual), doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow and has got hold of the wrong end of the stick, or, b) these people are blowing smoke where the sun doesn't shine and they've only patented the bit they can get working.

 

agreed - all you would be doing is moving the pollution from the roads to large power stations. need to sort out electricity production first.

 

First to invent sounds like a good concept, and maybe it was in the 1790's, but it is obsolete today. The only people who benefit from "first to invent" are patent lawyers who can use the concept to sue for patent invalidity.

If you are planning to file in Europe, you are going to use the "first-to-file" concept anyway.

20 years ago, a US patent was considered prestigious and important. Today, the European patent offices are much stricter than the US.

 

Aren't power stations much more efficient than any combustion engine though? Also, whereas all vehicle emissions emit pollution, many power stations may run off of solar, wind or hydroelectric.

I agree with both yours and DoctorD's statements, however I contend in the short term they would automatically make more sense environmentally.

 

Let's say you invent something, create a product around it, and start selling it, but don't get a patent. Does the first-to-file system permit another company to then file a patent for your invention then demand royalties from you?

 

no. combustion engines are quite efficient, certainly far more efficient than old coal plants (not sure about the new ones, but in any case coal as a material is already less efficient that petrol or diesel). but the biggest loss comes not in the production, but in the transport of energy from plant to car. you loose a lot of electricity on the way, a way you simply don't have when you convert the energy localy like in a combustion engine.

 

Nope. Once you start selling it you have no protection under either system.

EDIT: slightly wrong. In the US you have a one year grace period to sell the product before losing patent protection. This is not really related to first-to-invent or first-to-file. Again, it is only in the US.

About a decade ago, the US instituted provisional patents, which are cheap ways to get protection before filing a "real" patent. So if you have an invention, pay the $200 and get a provisional while you line up VC money.

 

Or the two things can evolve at the same time.

 

What happened to the solar car?

 

From input to output an average (American) vehicle only consumes about 25% of that gasoline. The rest is simply burned off. And you can convert energy locally in the engine itself, but you also have to include drilling, transport, and refining that fuel as well, just like you would with coal.

 

Coal plants run in the 38 to 41% efficient range. Nt. Gas plants in the 40 to 60% range, all depending on the technology.

 

Thanks. I was actually thinking of situations where you were selling a product with a new 'invention' where it might not have occurred to you was worthy of a patent. Then having someone else come along and patent your invention.

I was thinking that when you invent something, but don't patent it, it goes into the public domain. But I know nothing about these issues. If I was smart enough to invent something, I guess I'd have to learn.

 

I'm waiting on a second opinion.

 

in the short term they would be completely unviable as there isn't capacity in the power grid to power everyone's car. all it would mean in the short term is brownouts and an emergency fossil fuel plants building programme to burn all the oil that would otherwise be used to make gasoline to run cars.

also internal combustion engines may be more inefficient than a power station i have no idea, but the power station has to run 24 hours a day and the internal combustion engine only has to run when the car is moving. most people would charge their cars up at the same times of day meaning that you would have to have enough capacity to cover this all the time.

and many power stations do run off solar, wind or hydroelectric power. however they provide a meagre percentage of what actually goes into the grid and the electricity they produce tends to be more expensive in terms of capital cost so you can guarantee that if you suddenly need a whole load more electricity most of it is not going to come from a mega wind farm covering half the country.

 

of course. however the electric car is environmentally useless without clean electricity production, whereas clean electricity production is not environmentally useless without electric cars.

 

sure, but it doesn't even come close. bear in mind that to get coal into a powerplant, you have to literally dig up entire mountains, often a couple of thausands of meters below the surface. in which base you have to heave millions of tons up a couple of kilometers. then put all that onto trains. oil on the other hand is liquid, all you need to do is to create a pressure difference and it flows. you really don't need that much energy for that. and the pressure is naturally higher a couple of kilometers below the surface. so you need even less energy.
in addittion to all this you loose a lot of energy transporting the electricity from plant to car.
now, modern coal plants are actually quite good. the new generations build in some places also use the heat generated, not just the electricity, making them very efficient. but only internally so to say, if you keep in mind the whole picture, they are still not. and it's a mute argument right now anyway, since most coal plants in the world are old tech. plus, combustion engines evolved as well. modern diesel engines are far more efficient that traditional petrol cars.

don't get me wrong, i'm not against electric cars at all, it's just that right now they simly would make things worst. we concentrate at the wrong end so to say. as long as energy policies are not modernised in at least the most polluting countries, electric cars are quite pointless.

 

By 'the wrong end' are you referring to the fact that we should be trying to use LESS energy anyway?

 

I looked up the patent. It is very troubling that they use a "paper example". That is, the inventors do not describe the operation of a "super-capacitor" made with their invention, or how a test specimen actually performed. they only describe how it could be made. One of the claims is that a certain dielectric breakdown voltage is achieved when such a super-capacitor is made. But they never show data from an actual super-capacitor.

The paper example describes how the super-capacitor can power a car for 5 hours going 60 mph with air conditioner, radio, and lights on. This is because a car requires only 14 hp to run under those conditions. So I guess another power source is needed for city driving.

If the inventors had taken the time to actually make one of these super-capacitors, it would be a more credible invention. As it stands it is just another indication of the poor quality of US patents.

 

I think electric cars are economically viable and necessary.

If you doubt me, imagine a quiet, smog-free L.A. or Beijing.

Can't do it? Me neither.