Wrong Fuel Chokes Presidential Limo 612
An anonymous reader writes "Fueling your car with the wrong type of fuel happens even to POTUS. This happens when you put gasoline instead of diesel in the tank. ...." And Yes, the presidential limo really is a diesel. What about clean, renewable solar?
Um... (Score:5, Informative)
The link is to a story which says the correct fuel was used.
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They were so freaked out by OMG diesel!! in a car they assumed something must be wrong.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Interesting)
I found it interesting to see that because of bad previous experience, Americans have a huge biais against diesel which is common in Europe. Meanwhile, because of bad previous experience, European have a huge biais against automatic gear shifting which is common in the US.
I guess everybody is just as biased :)
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
The reason automatics rule in the US is because no one has time to use a manual. We are all busy texting, talking on the phone, eating, watching movies and sleeping. Sometimes, a few of those things at the same time... We only have two hands a knee to drive with!
Re:Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason automatics rule in the US is because no one has time to use a manual. We are all busy texting, talking on the phone, eating, watching movies and sleeping. Sometimes, a few of those things at the same time... We only have two hands a knee to drive with!
Okay, you get funny points, but in case anyone takes you seriously, automatic transmissions pretty much became the norm in the U.S. in the 1950s and from your list only eating and sleeping were available in the car.
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Okay, you get funny points, but in case anyone takes you seriously, automatic transmissions pretty much became the norm in the U.S. in the 1950s and from your list only eating and sleeping were available in the car.
Don't forget drinking!
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
1950s ... only eating and sleeping were available in the car
Is that what you think couples did in drive-ins? Ok, this is Slashdot.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that until recently automatic transmissions ate up significant amount of power\MPG right? How is that significantly better exactly? Anyone who has driven a stick for any length of time isn't flailing around - I'm guessing you're one of the fools who can't do so. It's got nothing to do with image and quite a bit more to do with control. The best "DSG" type automatics are actually stick shifts run by a computer - complete with one or more clutches. Stick shift transmissions are often capable of withstanding far more torque than automatics and they are most certainly a simpler piece of hardware. Not burning out the clutch in a heavy vehicle with a stick is simply a matter of knowing WTF you're doing and having proper gear range available. You should maybe take a gander in a few 18 wheeler cabs or dump trucks to figure out just how wrong you are, perhaps you think pickups are pulling more weight? The automatic is starting to make inroads there too but manuals are most certainly capable of moving those vehicles without issue...
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Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
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Well, I do happen to have a DSG. Every single other vehicle I've ever owned save for a V8 Vega has had a stick. I relented and bought the DSG because it had the manual gears inside and I thought it might be easier to drive in traffic.... I've had it 6 years now and regret not buying a manual! The manual diesel TDI get better MPG, partly because owners can shift them sooner than that damned DSG will shift on it's own. I believe the gearing may be slightly better too and I know for sure that swapping in a tal
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A Tale of Two Saturns:
1998 Saturn SL1, 1.8L engine, manual transmission - Highway 40+mpg; City 30+mpg; peppy and responsive
2001 Saturn SL1, 1.8L engine, automatic transmission - Highway 35+mpg; City ~22 mpg; sluggish
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
The reason automatics rule in the US is because no one has time to use a manual. We are all busy texting, talking on the phone, eating, watching movies and sleeping. Sometimes, a few of those things at the same time... We only have two hands a knee to drive with!
Now that I've done enough eating in my car, I can also use my tummy to steer!
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Yeah, well, not everyone is as uptight as you about it. Those people filling the parking lots at the bars? Guess what, they're mostly ALL above the 'legal' limit (artificially low), and they arent' with designated drivers, and they DO have to get their cars home so they can drive to work the next
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Americans have an ongoing bias against diesel because there's so many smelly diesels around. If you don't maintain them well then they stink. Mine is old enough to stink until it warms up but in good enough condition to stop stinking then. Funny thing is, my car stinks less and is less toxic before warmup than all but the newest gassers.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
I am an American. I've got a diesel VW Jetta Sportwagen with about 50,000 miles. I'm getting about 44 MPG (combined city highway) during the summer, about 39 during the winter. I do not have large batteries that will need to be recycled or tossed into a landfill next year. My pollutants spewed per mile are lower than a petrol engine.
I previously had a Hyundai Elantra (a petrol car that is not bad on fuel consumption). When I bought the new diesel, my fuel bill dropped almost in half.
The pickup on my diesel is good. Very nice torque. I did make sure to put a nice bright yellow sticker on the outside of my gas tank cover stating Diesel Only. There's another provided by VW on the inside.
I would strongly recommend anyone to buy a diesel. They are great cars.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Heh. I'm about as American as they come.
I find the word petrol is the easiest way of creating a strong distinction between gasoline (a word some Americans simply associate with fuel) and diesel for conversation purposes.
Also, there is a growing tendency for convergence of the English dialect and the American dialect. I imagine it will only be another decade or three before there's virtually no difference between a London and New York accent.
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I've never heard anyone use the word gasoline to refer to diesel fuel.
Possibly the word gas as in "I need to go put some gas in my car"
but never the word gasoline. I would think it would be more likely that
someone would confuse the word petrol for diesel than the word
gasoline for diesel.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
Old truck driver here. Drivers use "fuel" in their trucks. Motorists use "gas". Brits use "petrol". Maybe you should get to know some truck drivers. Like rherbert, I've never heard an American use the term "petrol". Not on the east coast, not on the west coast, and nowhere in between. The only person in recent memory to use the word, is an imported guy from England. We mostly keep him around to laugh at. When his jokes run out, his accent is still hilarious.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
Well if you live in a big city, you are probably familiar with seeing boots on vehicles when you don't pay the parking tickets.
That means something else here.
UK - US vehicle terms
Car - Auto[mobile]? (is "auto" old-fashioned?)
Lorry - Truck
Campervan - Motorhome
Pavement - Sidewalk
Car park - Parking lot
Petrol station (or filling station, service station) - Gas station
Railway - Railroad
Tram - Streetcar
Bogie - Truck
[Railway] Truck - [Rail] Wagon
Metro / underground [train] - Subway [train]
Boot - Trunk
Bonnet - Hood
Wheel clamp - Boot
Bumper - Fender
Windscreen - Windshield
Tyre - Tire
I'm sure I could think of more, but that'll do...
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New diesel vehicles have a smaller filler nozzle.
Old diesel pumps, however, do not have that smaller nozzle.
So if you have a new car and the station has old pumps, you're fucked.
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What reliability issues are there with a TDI? Mine is 9 years old with 270,000 miles on it. A few fuel filters, a fuel pump and two timing belts (all scheduled maintenance) are all that's been done to it. It does not smoke, I intermittently run it on BioDiesel or straight veg oil.
It still gets an average 40MPG and highway cruising is in the upper 40s. I can drive from Phoenix,AZ to LA and about 2/3 of the way back on a single tank.
I also (about once a month) tow 1,200lbs of hay bales behind my car on a smal
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Europeans talk about how much they dislike automatics but they've become increasingly popular. I wish I could find the stats, but the number of automatics being purchased has grown dramatically. I'm convinced the primary reason why manuals continue to have an edge is because they're still a good deal less expensive than the automatic option. If prices were to equalize, or even reverse, as is the case in the US sometimes, there would be an immediate and dramatic shift towards automatics.
I'll always prefer a
Re:Um... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because our NANNY GOVERNMENT has rigged the emissions and mileage games so that the only cars sitting in dealer lots are enormous gasoline guzzling full size trucks.
Not only that, Americans love having high torque at low engine revolutions, something gasoline engines are bad at but where diesel excels.
That's why all those trucks have 5-liter V8s in them where they should have a 2.5 liter TDi.
It's doubleplus-lose.
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On that topic, I'd like to see a series EV diesel truck. I mean, having the electric motors would fit in about ideally with towing requirements, while the diesel would give you the extended range/higher fuel economy of the more energy dense fuel.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think maybe you ought to tell the railroad industry of your theories and see what they have to say about the futility of electric for towing....
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I'm not sure if I'm missing your sarcasm, but I'm fairly certain he wasn't being sarcastic. The big V-8s in American trucks produce more torque at low revs than smaller engines, but less power at high revs. They could easily have smaller diesel engines, with the same torque, more power, and less fuel consumption. The older Fords with the 7.3 L diesel show that it can be done (albeit with far more engine than most pickup drivers need.)
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We just bought a diesel vehicle. The only issue we've had is that most gas stations that sell diesel seem to have the old nozzle style, while our new vehicle is designed to use the special diesel nozzle style. There are only a few stations we can use because of this.
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Actually no many American remember the truly SHITTY "diesel" attempts made by GM with converted V8 engines. These things quickly fell apart, spewed ungodly amounts of black smoke, and had to be recalled wholesale. Whenever diesel is mentioned to the majority of American buyers they hold their nose and tell you they don't want no stinkin' diesel! Oh that and they say "but diesel is more expensive" without bothering to do any math whatsoever...
Others are a little smarter and realize that these days are better
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Those shitty GM diesels of the 80s weren't converted existing engines but were designed to be diesels. The problem was that GM tried to cut cost with those Oldsmobile diesels and reused a number of parts from gasoline engines of similar displacements thus they had shit parts in them.
So they were converted, or they weren't?
The actual problem was that they wanted to build the diesel engines on the existing gasoline engine production lines. That limited the potential configuration of the engine block, which was of inadequate weight as a result. This is almost always a problem for diesels, which have more piston vibration due to higher compression ratio and lower RPM, meaning more work done per piston per cycle. They need heavier blocks so they don't take themselves apart. The only excepti
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If he wants a small truck, he's not going to want a big truck or a car, and I don't see why you think he's unreasonable for wanting a light pickup. Big trucks are, well, big. Hard to park, poorer fuel mileage, and complete overkill for what he probably wants. And of course, you don't have a flatbed on a car.
Now maybe he really is just a part of a vocal minority that wants those, but maybe not. I don't see why it is so hard to put a diesel in a pickup, it's not like he's asking for it to run on uranium o
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
Part of the reason for the US bias against diesel is the fuel taxes.
The US Government, and the States, have huge fuel taxes on diesel because "those big trucks do more damage to the roads". That could very well be true. But in my region, because of those taxes, diesel has been more expensive than gasoline for a long long time.
Most of our refineries have been modified to produce more gasoline than diesel now. If we were to switch the buying habits, they would have be be changed back.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, his statement is also factually incorrect.
No diesel truck driver pays what you see on the pump price for diesel.
They are all part of fleets and pay, in general, about half what you see at the pump as the diesel price.
Pump prices are high for diesel because people started switching to diesel to save money due to is increased milage. 30 years ago, in the 80s, after all that shit that happened in the 70s, you could be diesel at half the price of gasoline. And manufacters started producing more diesel cars ... and people bought them like made ... and within a few short years, the price per MILE (not gallon) for diesel and gasoline became almost perfectly aligned.
Again, truckers don't pay that much for diesel. Just a couple years ago I was doing a delivery route to help out some friends and they had a commercial account with a local fueler ... it was on my route, but about 1 mile off the main roads in an industrial complex (which of course has much trucking and no normal consumers) and the price per gallon there was less than 75% of the cost of gasoline. It would have actually been cheaper, but it was partial bio-diesel, so you pay extra to be another one of the ignorant trendy fucks who think corn makes a good fuel source.
The price of gasoline AND diesel is artificially inflated by the OPEC oil cartel. They charge the absolute most you will pay for it, and thats why diesel at the pump costs more.
Taxes are NOT the issue.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you actually driven a car with a modern Diesel engine?
I had a Diesel rental about 20 years ago, and was impressed how little difference there was to a gasoline engine. But yes, you are right, back then Diesels did lack some of the "oomph" that I had come to expect from a high-powered gasoline engine.
In the last couple of years though, Diesel engines have gotten so good, there really is no reason whatsoever to buy a gasoline engine -- unless of course, you drive an incredibly small number of miles, in which case fuel efficiency doesn't matter and the slightly higher cost for the Diesel engine does.
Other than that, modern Diesels drive just like gasoline cars, are a lot more fuel efficient, and are extremely clean. I have read (slightly tongue in cheek) research saying that tail pipe emissions tend to be cleaner than the intake air :-) It's pretty much just CO2 and water.
Good reasons not to (Score:3, Insightful)
the 3 diesel cars I ran all had one thing in common - the same 90-horsepower 1753cc Ford 8-valve diesel turbo engine. It was ludicrously simple, noisy, rough-running, but produced LOTS of torque at fairly low revs and in a fairly narrow band when the turbocharger was online and in full boost had a fairly impressive ability to spr
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Just bought a 2012 Jetta TDi for the wife last year; love that thing!
You really can't beat 40 MPG city / 50+ highway in a gasoline car. Plus, that Fender sound system is fuckin' boss.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Canadian ... we're basically the 51st state anyway
Puerto Rico recently voted to become the 51st, but you can become 52 if you promise to learn how to say "about".
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> You'd mix kerosene into your diesel for low temperatures
No. Never done that.
> . In some vehicles this requires a special "arctic" or "cold weather" package, which pretty much consists of harder parts in the injection pump
Nope. I don't think VW sells that. The 'cold weather' package is for creature comforts. Seat heaters and such. The TDI sold in all of north america (and Europe) had the exact same pump.
> In general, you need a block heater for diesels in cold climates, and some kind of fuel addi
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm Canadian, I drive a diesel. It starts unassisted down to ridiculously cold temperatures (hasn't failed me yet) in fact it will start when neither my gasoline powered work truck, nor my wife's gasoline powered compact car will.
People who think diesels don't start in the cold either have never used one, or have never bothered to maintain the one they had. If spark plugs burn out, people change them. if glow plugs burn out people complain about how hard it is to start a diesel engine (hint, even without the glow plugs, it will still start eventually, love you to say the same for a gasoline vehicle without working spark plugs!)
Re:Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the story says the Secret Service says the correct fuel was used... but an Israeli official is adamant that it was the incorrect fuel... and as the second link helps establish for you that it's known the limos are diesel...
"The correct gas was used." - diesel is not gas!
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But then the first link claims that the limos run on gasoline.
I'm not sure I care anymore. :)
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Neither is petrol at room temperature (for budding young scientists, I am not suggesting an experiment to find the boiling point of petrol).
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Yes, gasoline doesn't come in gaseous form and petrol isn't petroleum.
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"gas" is "gasoline" foreshortened, in the US, not just a reference to a state of matter.
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in typical
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You expected /. editors to actually look at the story before posting a summary?!?!? You must be new here.
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Neither the submitter nor the editor read the story. And "OMG Diesel means black smoke clouds."
Idiots. Makes me sad to be an American.
Actually, a lot of things make me sad to be an American.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Funny)
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Timmy!
Happened to me (Score:4, Informative)
So, uh... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So, uh... (Score:4, Informative)
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Which makes sense because gasoline / petrol is more common than diesel. But as I understand it, diesel in a gasoline / petrol engine is less harmful than the reverse situation - so it's all a bit unfortunate!
Re:So, uh... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it's the reverse.
Diesel engines actually have the broader range of fuels that can be used. Generally, as long as the engine can generate enough pressure to achieve ignition via compression heating, the fuel can be used. Putting gas in isnt actually bad for the engine; it simply lacks the ability to achieve combustion via compression pressures usually found in automotive diesel motors. Gasoline is actually "designed", so to speak, to not combust due to compression, for reasons stated below. so its not harmful, it just simply doesnt run with much power, if at all.
Technically gasoline engines can theoretically use diesel or other fuels if its volatile enough, and the proper air/fuel mixture can be achieved, but the risk is that the fuel is combusted early. ie, not by the spark plug, but the compression cycle itself before the timing cycle can light the sparkplug, which causes engine knock, power loss, and can destroy the engine cylinder eventually. So while the fuel achieves ignition, its not desireable ignition. which is why refined gasoline was developed to have a really really high heat of compression so that it wouldnt combust intil its supposed to.
"Diesel fuel" is actually simpler to produce than gasoline as well, requiring less refinement. Big marine diesels use fuel that is essentially almost basic crude. the major disadvantage is that being less refined the fuel is more prone to gelling in cold temperatures (more viscous components in the molecules).
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Generally you are correct, but one point should be clarified.
Diesel engines actually have the broader range of fuels that can be used.
The newer diesels of today are not nearly as tolerant as they used to be. This is due to high tolerances in the fuel systems (fuel rails are the common failure for "bad" fuel types) and the tighter emissions rules. Still a much broader range than gassers, but no longer like the days of being able to dump Kerosene into a HUM-V and having it work.
Re:So, uh... (Score:4, Informative)
WHOA! Gasoline will ignite due to compression at far LOWER ratios than what is produced in an automotive diesel engine! What do you think knock is?! It's autoignition occurring too soon. This is what occurs when the octane rating is too low - high octane gas is for higher cylinder pressure engines and actually is HARDER to ignite. Pump grade gas ignites fairly easily.
A diesel engine may have a 15:1 or higher compression ratio, gasoline auto engines seldom go above 12:1 unless they're running Nitro or pure Meth alcohol. Passenger gasoline engines run 11:1 or so tops.
Gasoline in a diesel engine is BAD news. It will ignite from the compression very early in the compression cycle while the piston is still rising and beat the crap out of the ring lands and bearings. I disagree that gasoline isn't volatile enough to ignite, it's TOO volatile! Your first paragraph gets it wrong, the rest I agree with - you appear to contradict yourself.
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Why aren't diesel spouts square?
Because engineers assume everybody thinks like them and would never make such an elementary mistake.
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More likely because a filler that isn't round will become damaged a lot quicker than one that is.
Solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
The presidential limo is much heavier than a standard limo due to the extra protection it offers. There isn't enough room on the thing to get enough solar power to move it anywhere, let alone a detail like wanting to move it at night. Adding enough batteries to provide reasonable drive time would mean making it even bigger.
There are some problems that solar can't solve. You'd think an editor here would know that.
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You'd think an editor here would know that.
The editor was being witty. And you can tell he succeeded because we're laughing at the joke, not trying to pick it apart and figure out what medical or mental issues the editor may have been suffering from at the time.
Re:Solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The editor was being witty."
No, no he wasn't. It was neither quick nor inventive. It was boring, predictable and obvious.
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Your sig is on topic as well.
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But it's essential that it have a diesel engine for when it needs to go at speed.
If they want it to go at speed then they can get more output for less weight than with a gas motor. However, as you say, using a diesel is more environmentally sensitive — more importantly, it provides more range. This means either not having to upgrade the fuel tank to be able to move that behemoth around over a reasonable distance, or being able to increase the fuel capacity such that it can be used to transport the president over long distances in an emergency situation. Even more important is that
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So I agree, we are not going to see solar powered cars any time soon.
Not so. (Score:5, Informative)
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a joke? (Score:2)
Diesel? (Score:2)
Perhaps diesel was selected for this particular car with a reason, e.g. better resilience against EMP attacks, or maybe the extended mileage and less danger of explosions? Or is it just a coincidence?
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two things you should probably know:
1) Fuel type is irrelevant regarding EMP
2) Cars are immune from EMP. Yes, yes I know. decades of bad apocalyptic movies and thos idiotic doomsayers go on and on on how EMP's would stop cars.
At worse it would make a couple of fault light come on erroneously.
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Cars *used* to be immune from EMP. Modern cars have electronic fuel injection completely controlled by solid-state microprocessors. EMP will stop them cold.
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As demonstrated in this documentary. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Diesel? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's sort of an abstract that points to another report.
http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/08/real_world_emp_effects_on_moto.html [survivalblog.com]
It is not true that cars are completely immune, but most vehicles (90%) only show minor anomalous behavior like blinking indicators, and when the cars do stall, they can be restarted immediately.
This could cause accidents, of course, but won't paralyze land transport.
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They're utilizing data from a 1962 study done at Sandia Lab. Those cars had no electronics.
Modern cars' electronic ignition systems get completely fried by EMP. Any car built since probably the early 1980s would be completely bricked by an EMP.
Non-story (Score:4, Insightful)
Diesel is the best choice (Score:2)
Because we cannot put the range into an electric armored limosine. Diesel is far more efficient at moving heavier vehicles than gasoline. Natural gas is good, but you still have range and refueling issues.
In a national crisis when the President may have be relocated across several states via said limosine. Do you really want POTUS stranded on a highway?
TROLL (and a lame one at that)
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In a national crisis when the President may have be relocated across several states via said limosine
You speak of the President like a super hero who can single-handedly save the world... we have fail safes and backups in case something happens to him. It's not like the country would go to hell because the President was stuck in Kansas.
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No, but Kansas might go to hell if he couldn't leave.
Not trolling; the few times the POTUS has been here in town, traffic gets messed up all day. It's obnoxious. About 20 minutes after Air Force One is wheels-up, things are back to normal, and people can get from place to place.
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that that's possibly the shortest Slashdot story ever, it manages to make only two assertions, both of which are confirmed as false (by the linked articles themselves, no less).
And I heard about this story about 6 hours ago on my way in to work and, honestly, didn't care then.
No longer "News for Nerds"
Now "Inaccurate insights for imbeciles".
Math (Score:2, Insightful)
Math [ucsd.edu] is why the presidents limo isn't run by solar power. The idea that you power something like that by solar is absurd. Solar power cars tend to way as little as possible [globalmarket.com]. While I don't specifics any more than any other lay person the presidents limo is built on a heavy duty truck chassis, is armored and it weighs [jalopnik.com] quite a bit. These are mutually exclusive things that probably won't be resolvable for a few centuries at best.
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Math is why the presidents limo isn't run by solar power.
Greed is the reason why the president's limo isn't run on biofuels, which is at least much closer to solar power, temporally or physically.
Solar? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought this was Slashdot - news for nerds and all that.
A simple back of the envelope calculation will tell you why the presidential limo (or any practical car) is not solar powered.
It *could* be battery powered, charged by a solar power station, but I'd rather not put yet another $100K - $200K of taxpayer money into the presidential limo (which already costs $300K) to add enough batteries to give that heavy car a reasonable range. Plus the presidential limo is not a good use-case for current electric po
Why oh why? (Score:2)
Why oh why is this a story on Slashdot?
Nice troll, Timothy (Score:2)
I like the stealth Solyndra jab in the OP (Score:3, Insightful)
What about clean, renewable solar?
For those who don't remember, $535 million was given to the Obama endorsed solar panel manufacturer - Solyndra, which went bankrupt.
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Someone with a four digit UID should really be old enough to know better than to believe a government press release. I mean, even if they were barely old enough to read when they created their account, that ought to make them old enough to distrust the US government.
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Sometimes the wire services will keep the same URL but change the text in the story and even the headline as more facts become available.
I had this happen to me a few years ago on a story I submitted about Fedex misplacing some radioactive rods.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/11/26/1948245/FedEx-Misplaces-Radioactive-Rods [slashdot.org]
By the time the story was posted the rods had been found and the linked story was a non-story with a new headline:
"FedEx Finds Radioactive Shipment That Vanished Between N.D. and Tenn."
So
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Re:herp derp trolling for more pageviews! (Score:4, Interesting)
Better for the environment but not better for people. Diesel exhaust causes asthma.
As it turns out, gasoline vehicles emit plenty of soot [slashdot.org], and the soot they release is more dangerous because it is finer. The finer soot is more difficult to expel from the lungs. If you can blame asthma on transportation fuel, it's gasoline exhaust causing it. We burn more of it (on the roads, that is) and more of it is burned in poorly regulated vehicles, and finally the soot that is produced is more hazardous. Further, since gasoline is more volatile than diesel fuel, when it is sprayed into the atmosphere unburned (as all vehicles tend to do shortly after start) it is more hazardous then as well.
Signed,
Asthmatic owner of two indirectly-injected diesels, whose asthma is readily activated by gasoline vehicles, but not by diesels, as repeatedly demonstrated when I have to move my lady's Astro and one of my diesels around on the same morning.
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Nope.
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3568825&cid=43234439 [slashdot.org]
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He should get a harley.
A Harley? Nah man, Bush hasn't been the president since like... 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/11/facebook-users-reveal-intimate-secrets [guardian.co.uk]
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This is not a President who leads by example; he's one who leads by rhetoric and simple mind-capturing speaking methods.
If a solar vehicle were actually to be used by the P-rez, it's hard to say what effect it would have on the public, but my gut feeling is it would encourage heavy-pocketed individuals to try and 'catch up' to what the top dogs (gov't) are doing.
Trickle-down behavior ensues. Just a theory.
I think the effect it would have on the public is to wonder why he is putting the country at risk by eschewing his expensive protective limo and is instead riding around in a glorified bicycle [wikipedia.org] that provides no protection at all from gunfire or explosives, while being surrounded by a half dozen 8 MPG SUV's.
Or if you're suggesting that he should suspend the laws of physics to allow his current limo to be solar powered (even at night), then yeah, I think he should do that.
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This is not a President who leads by example; he's one who leads by rhetoric and simple mind-capturing speaking methods.
Yessss... no other president has behaved similarly. OBAMA the DEBIL!! HE THE DEBIL I TELL YOU!!
Did I say that? No. I said how I think the action of a President can trickle down through the economy when it comes to goods. Did you FINISH reading what I typed or just react to the first statement?
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Perhaps the car that the President is transported in has more important requirements such as keeping the occupants safe, rather than making political statements. Talk about leading by rhetoric and simple-mindedness...
Since when does diesel fuel make a vehicle more safe? Explain, please, how with armor on the vehicle already, conversion to battery-powered motors supplemented (not completely 100% power by) solar panels make a Presidential vehicle unsafe? Please explain.