The New USA Automobile Manufacturing Presence

The New USA Automobile Manufacturing Presence

Change for Detroit is going to come.  Right now what is going on is only preparation for a massive change in ideology and product.  This change will be the New World Order or at least the new North American Order.  NWO and NAO will establish a new functional standard for cars and light trucks that will affect everyone.

Where Are The Real Changes

Fuel mileage and technology to achieve fuel mileage and safety are the key issues that will establish how New Detroit progresses into the future.  Federal Government financial assistance does not have much room for “fun” in their vision and it is OK to apply this same mind set to all Governments providing financial assistance around the World. … Continue Reading

Motor City Challenge: “Failure Is Not An Option”

Motor City Challenge: “Failure Is Not An Option”

GM Entering Bankruptcy and Chrysler Poised to Exit

Reading the Wall Street Journal or watching the nightly news makes it seem inevitable that GM will enter bankruptcy soon.  This is not an unexpected event as reported in the Tribune over the past months.  Chrysler appears to be on the verge of coming out of bankruptcy, and this is one fast trip in and out!  GM is too complex for a speedy journey like Chrysler.

Deadly Symbolic and Deadly Serious

In some ways this is symbolic and in some ways it is deadly serious.  Looking at the deadly serious side GM absolutely must be re-cast properly for the good of the US and all of North America if you take the proposition that GM is worth saving and the Tribune takes that position.  However, re-casting GM is not simple from the business plan side of the equation and it is imperative that the new business plan must “hold water” otherwise the entire Government assistance plan is flawed.  The New GM absolutely must have a viable business plan.  … Continue Reading

The Solar Powered Steam Car

The Solar Powered Steam Car

Reprinted from Volume 23, #3 of The Steam Automobile
(Fall, 1981 issue, pages 32-36)

Editor’s Note: this submission came to the Automotive Tribune from Peter Brow who had originally posted the article on on his site.   Peter had spotted an article in the Steam Automobile Club of America from 1981 and had found significant interest and some of the commentary is included here.  Additional information about the Solar-Thermal Hybrid Vehicle is included at this link for the Automotive Tribune.  In our archives we have a copy of this particular 1981 SACA magazine which were unable to locate to add a photograph of the magazine cover and for possible inclusion of graphics and artwork that would be relevant to the reader.

Note: Peter Brow’s updated comments following this article, below.

[1-30-2001]

Introduction:

Here is a very interesting article on a technology which I think holds great promise for the future. Imagine a future where all cars are powered directly by solar energy without toxic electric batteries or gaseous emissions. I believe the heat-battery steam car technology described in the following article can be developed to where solar steam cars are quickly refueled by draining cooled “thermal liquid” out of onboard tanks and pumping in hot “thermal liquid” heated at desert solar-collector farms. The hot thermal liquid pumped into the car’s tanks generates steam, which runs a steam engine, which propels the car. The cool liquid is shipped back to the solar farms for reheating, and hot liquid is transported from solar farms to distant cities, especially those in less-sunny areas, via insulated pipelines or insulated road or rail tankers.

Due to the simplicity of the equipment and the low cost of the materials, I think nonpolluting solar cars like these could run at a lower overall cost per mile (purchase, maintenance, and energy) than cars powered by fossil fuels, electric batteries, fuel cells, etc.. My calculations indicate that the range of these solar cars could be economically extended to about 200 miles with extra solar heat-tank capacity.

Homes could be heated by pipelined solar “thermal liquid” too, and small steam-powered generators at each home could provide all electrical service.

So we may someday have a world whose energy not only comes entirely from the sun, but where energy is both cleaner and cheaper too!

Check out the following article, and see what you think. Eventually I will try to scan the pictures from the article, and include them on this page.

On-board “thermal battery” can be charged by parabolic reflector to provide boiler heat for steam-driven experimental car. Widespread application of propulsion concept could result in sizeable energy savings.

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With a hiss and a burst of steam, the solar-powered test car jumped to life. I drove a short distance, eased to a stop, checked the steam-pressure and thermal-battery temperature gauges, shifted into reverse and returned. The car had moved smoothly with surprising power, and solely by heat energy stored on board.

An intriguing contrivance — a 1977 Vega wagon stripped of its engine, transmission, and drive shaft, and refitted with a 1915 Stanley engine, a monotube flash boiler and a 700 lb thermal battery — the experimental car effectively demonstrated the feasibility of using solar energy for vehicular propulsion. The thermal battery, a unique heat sink and the key element in the design, contains a stable, high-temperature, heat-storage material that can be charged (heated) by a high-temperature solar concentrator, such as a parabolic reflector (for convenience a small oil burner charges the thermal battery during testing). Water pumped through the monotube boiler, which is submerged in the heat-storage material, produces steam to run the engine. … Continue Reading

Auto Dealer Agony

Auto Dealer Agony

It is almost impossible to imagine that auto dealerships would be in such chaos today.  Dealerships, particularly for the domestic brands, are closing by the hundreds and thousands. 

Auto dealerships have been economic engines of success.  Yes there have been some failures as manufacturers and products have disappeared over the past 100 years.  For decades owning a dealership has been a “license to print money” in the opinion of your Editor who happened to have a dealership for 10 years.

Historically, auto dealers have been great community citizens.  Dealers have sponsored little league and many sporting events along with a multitude of civic and community activity.  Event sponsorship was because they had money to do it an they were part of the local “fabric of society” … Continue Reading

Professional Driving Focus

Drive Like A Professioal

Do you drive like a professional even if you are a professional driver?  Do you drive like a professional even if you are not a professional driver?  These are difficult questions that also include many other variables.  Is it possible to do everything right?  Or, from a more fundamental position maybe the question should be something like “what are the issues and characteristics associated with professional driving”?

Professional Driving Defined

Professional driving means that you know what to do and do it.  Sounds basic but it is very difficult to consistently execute.  Consider how an airline pilot controls the plane, there is one ultimate objective which is to safely make the trip.  In many ways aircraft operation is a parallel to automobile operation.  This is not to say that you have to be a pilot to be a professional driver.  However, applying realistic performance standards and expectations to driving will make you  a better driver.

But I Am A Good Driver

Driving  in a professional manner represents a set of critically important skills.  If you have a Driver’s License then you successfully got an identification card.  Driver training may have included some classroom time and time in a driver training car with an instructor.  With classroom knowledge and hands-on experience you were ready for the high-anxiety Official Driving Test which consisted of an eye exam, written and driving test.  Presumably you passed the first time.

A License To Learn

Top racing drivers are legends and they got to be legends because they were very good.  Consider a series of names: Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Elio Castroneves, Danica Patrick, Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, Fireball Roberts, Ray Fox, Fred Marriott, and you.  Being a professional driver does not necessarily mean that you have to race a car.

Does the Pilot have to race the Plane

You expect a pilot to professionally operate the plane.  Racing the plane is not the success point.  Getting safely to the destination is the success point.

Pilot Training and Driver Training

With the newly-minted driver’s license our driver goes to a Flight Training program which consists of classroom ground school which must be successfully passed and then a minimum of 40 hours operational time in the aircraft.  Realistically in today’s environment of airspace restrictions and operational restrictions 60 hours would be considered fast.  Completion of ground school and flight training permits you to go for a check-ride with a Certified Pilot that has the FAA capability to sign you off as a pilot that can fly the plane in a manner the FAA deems reasonably competent. … Continue Reading

GM Starting Over

“If it’s good for GM it’s good for the Country”

This is a classic paradigm statement that quickly polarizes everyone. Originally quoted by Charles Erwin Wilson defense secretary for President Eisenhower in the 1950’s.  Regarding this statement and your opinion, you fall into one of two distinct groups. GM is either very significant and should get Government help or GM is pretty much worthless and should go away.

The Automotive Tribune is of the position that GM is unique to the US with direct and indirect values so great that it must be saved. Major US based manufacturing is vital to the long term business and industrial health of the Country and that is why GM must be assisted through the current crisis.

Looking forward 5-10-50 years is the only way to get a realistic perspective of the importance of GM. However, looking back 100-50-10-5 years gets us to today. History provides a very real view that puts a strong foundation in place to support GM assistance. One fact that is absolutely clear is that GM has been off its core automotive track for a terribly long time and being off the core automotive track has caused a train wreck. Today, only the US Government can put GM back on track.

Industrial Education

History is a good word and the study of history helps to provide a basis and foundation for society today. Education, at all levels and in all cultures is respected for how and why it helps individuals and society. Industrial history education or simply industrial education is the study of tools, materials, processes, products, and problems associated with building things. Industrial education also deals with the larger scale issues associated with the who, what, when, where and why issues that shaped the broad scope of industrial activity. Industrial activity has built the infrastructure for the industrialized world that you live in today. You live in a house, drive a car, turn on lights or water, use the phone or television, visit the grocery or physician, breathe polluted or clean air, these are all facets of industrial society that represent direction that society wanted to have take and today you live in an industrialized world.

Industrialized World

People did not always live in an industrialized world. In broad terms when farmers got productive with agriculture to produce more food than they consumed some people could go to work in industry outside of farming; this is referred to as the transition from an Agrarian Society to an Industrial Society which started in the 1800’s. Government leaders recognized how important education was for both agrarian and industrial sectors so the Morrill Land Grant Act was passed in 1862 to set aside land that would be used to support education in the US and establish agricultural and mechanical university programs in each state, a process that provides financial support to the State Land Grant Universities.

Agrarian to Industrial

Industrial goods and services with increased productivity meant that fewer people could provide more food for society which permitted more people to enter the industrial work force to produce more high-value goods and services. Industrial output grows, financial output grows, and society as a whole gets richer.

Industrial to Information

In the 1950’s and 1960’s the transistor was invented. In its simplest definition a transitory could be though of as a very small off-on switch. Adding more transistors permitted computer software and hardware to utilize programs to make decisions. Contemporary terms such as computer programs, artificial intelligence, algorithms, Moore’s Law, personal computer, space travel, text messaging, and wireless represent some items that affect everyone to some extent each and every minute of evert day.

Getting To Today

Without Detroit the US would have lost WWII. Without North American industrial production WWII could not have been won. Allied forces used the industrial products of planes, tanks, ships, jeeps, guns, parachutes, electricity, oil, atomic weapons, and cigarettes to win the war. Some products were great and some not-so-great. Allied forces won the war. Axis forces were very good and resourceful but they ultimately did not have the available resources necessary to win the war. Germany did remarkable things in many areas including jet aircraft and synthetic fuels production to power their war machines but these activities did not win the war for the axis powers.

Post WWII Politics

Europe and Japan were re-built. A “Cold War” nuclear arsenal triad of mega-powers developed with China, Soviet Union USSR, and the Free World. USSR collapses and OPEC grows in significance to significantly influence the world oil supply which directly affects stability of the industrialized economies.

Energy Victory by Dr. Robert Zubrin

One of the most significant books in modern times is Energy Victory by Dr. Robert Zubrin published in 2007.  I met with Dr. Zubrin last year and found him to be a highly motivated and successful man who has many years experience in various scientific programs including the US Space Program.  Dr. Zubrin chronicles the developmental history of middle east oil and Saudi Arabia from the mid 1700’s and early 1800’s and how Saudi oil money has a direct link to politics in the US and international terrorism. 

On the book jacket is a quote from James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency “Robert Zubrin pulls no punches and moves effortlessly from a fascinating oil-centered take on WW II to making the mathematics of oil alternatives intelligible to lay readers.  Oil and hydrogen take huge hits and alcohol fuels win big.  Don’t miss this one.”

WWI Politics

Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated which brought Austria and Serbia into conflict and because of mutual support agreements Germany and France were brought into the war which then resulted in Germany, Italy, England, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, and the United States along with many other countries being involved.  World War I started because of an assassination.

Today’s World and Tomorrow’s World

Post WWI politics unfortunately set up the foundation for WWII. Post WWII set up the framework for today’s world. OPEC is a natural resource controlling group that affects everyone reading this article. Terrorist groups demonstrated their effectiveness on September 11, 2001. Pakistan has nuclear arms and Pakistan has a radical presence that is trying to control the country.

What is clear about world society is that major events are occurring and that major things will happen. Some major things will test or threaten all developed and industrialized societies.

Getting GM on Track is in the Best Interest of the United States.  There are serious problems associated with getting GM straightened out.  GM’s industrial capability is a strategic national asset that must be preserved.  Bringing the top business, economics, labor, technology, visionary, and governmental minds together can establish the Business Plan necessary for GM to be successful in the decades ahead.