Why only 8 horsepower can achieve highway speeds

7/23/26:

Well, I'll be. I forgot all about this one. Whatever happened to them? Let's ask Brave AI! The answer:

The Urbee, a fuel-efficient car prototype designed by Jim Kor and manufactured using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing technology, has seen its development evolve from the original 2010 model to the Urbee 2.

After the initial prototype garnered attention for its potential to achieve extreme fuel efficiency (up to 290 miles per gallon) using renewable ethanol and batteries, the project focused on the second iteration, Urbee 2. This model, weighing only 1,200 lbs and equipped with a 10-horsepower hybrid engine, was developed by KOR Ecologic with the goal of breaking a Guinness World Record for fuel efficiency by traveling from San Francisco to New York on just 10 liters of ethanol.

While the Urbee 2 represented a significant engineering milestone as the first road-ready 3D-printed car, the project faced financial hurdles. Despite securing sponsors and completing significant R&D, the company cited a lack of sufficient capital to fully develop and mass-produce the vehicle, leaving it as a prototype rather than a commercially available consumer product.

11/8/13:

That post about the Urbee may raise some eyebrows.  He has a 8 hp internal combustion engine.  How in the world can something that small achieve highway speeds?

It takes only about 20 hp to keep a much heavier car at highway speeds.  That heavier car wasn't built to be as aerodynamic as the Urbee.  It's all a matter of physics.  You don't need that much energy to cruise, just need it to accelerate.  The energy needed for cruising is kept down by the reduction in friction and weight.  It's a big drop from 20 hp to 8, but it is also a big drop in weight and drag.

He will need more horses to accelerate, but he can combine the two engines (it is a hybrid) for that.  With the lighter weight of the vehicle, he won't need as many horses to get up to speed, nor many horses to keep that speed.

So, I believe Kor's claims.

He has a Kickstarter campaign in effect.  I put that on the sidebar to express my support.  He has a modest goal, but frankly, he should be getting much more support than this, and the goals should be much bigger.

Update:

I'm in.  I will back this project.  This reminds me, I backed the Thorium thing that McDowell did too.  He didn't finish the project, it appears.  But there is this website with all the videos he has made.  I recommend this one.

Update:

I had to create a new account for Kickstarter.  Or I thought I did.  Anyway, I have backed 3 other campaigns, and this is number 4.  Here's the backer page for the Thorium remix.

edited to include the backed projects

Axial Flux Motor

The author here is familiar, as well as the subject matter. However, I cannot find any other examples of the author's work on this blog. How to fix that? I've got a database of videos that I've almost forgotten about.

Anyway, here's the video. First, let's put in the channel info:

Ziroth

and the video:

The label may be used to find it later:

New tech 2024 ( already obsolete, hah hah)

 

Forgot to mention this one. Could this be another one of these flash in the pan type deals? At least the VW and Citroen engines are tried and true. Still, the oldies are much more complex than these new fangled engines. There's always a fly in the ointment.

 

 

 

Spain is Living in 2050? Revolutionary 1 Stroke INNengine Analyzed

1/3/25:

It is an intriguing idea to mate a light weight advanced engine design to a light weight vehicle design.

The previous post link said that the Citroen was a 1000 lb car. The less weight, the better. That is, when it comes to battery/hybrid designs. That's because it needs less battery, which is what weighs so much. Keeping the battery size down is what the ICE motor is for. It gives the vehicle longer range, while keeping good performance over a wide range of driving conditions.

Since this would be adding additional hardware, keeping the total weight down to 1000 lbs might be a bridge too far. But the weight could be a lot less than you'd might expect for an electric car. People do conversions of these old cars to electric, but I haven't seen any hybrid conversions. Interesting to think about, anyway.

Update of Jul 16th post:

What if you were to pair this lightweight engine with the lightweight electric engine in a hybrid design?



A lot of torque and horsepower isn't needed in a basic car. Acceptable performance would be sufficient if the result could be an affordable and sensible automobile.

Good things might be possible in small packages. Let's say that you reduced the battery capacity to minimize the weight of the batteries. True, it would necessitate frequent use of the range extender, but who cares?

The idea would be efficiency. Electric engines can start on a load, whereas an internal combustion engine cannot. It only takes 20 horsepower or thereabouts to cruise at highway speed. Most of the time, you just don't need all that much horsepower. If you had an engine that could produce a lot for short periods, that would be ideal. Especially if it didn't weigh much.

The upper range of today's batteries would yield a kwh for every 8.3 lbs of battery. If the battery is limited to 5 kwh, that would weigh less than 50 lbs for the battery. You could put together a decent drive train for a modest amount of weight. Add a generator and an ultracapacitor. Surely you could put it all together with decent performance for not that much weight. A sub compact internal combustion engine type car could be about a ton. Perhaps you could do it this way for about that much.

Less weight means less fuel expenditure, too.

Comment:

There's a lot of nerdy stuff here...

Bottom line seems to be that to get sufficient torque, a supercharger is needed. That's because of low-end torque.

An idea popped into my head while watching this. What if you were to use this engine as a range extender for a battery pack? Batteries are way too heavy. If you were to include this small, lightweight engine to a generator, then it could recharge the battery pack on the fly. Shoot, you may be able to downsize this engine even more than that is. In order to cruise at highway speed, it is only necessary to have 20 or so horsepower.

The most power needed is to get moving. To keep moving doesn't need nearly as much power. That's why it could be useful for range extension. If the thing were small enough, it would presumably need not that much power to generate the necessary power to recharge the battery pack, or to take over electrical generation, or both.

The light weight design would save weight from all those batteries. It would need some support mechanisms, such as a generator. Also, a tank for fuel needs to be included. Again, these may be small enough to keep some weight savings, so the replacement of batteries doesn't get you back to a too-heavy vehicle. A little further on the video reveals that there is a 125 CC engine of this type. It generates 28 horsepower. Cool!

Advantages: Simplicity, low-weight, and compact design.

An interesting concept... So here's the video...

Tesla Cyber Truck (review video. psst. It's not mine)

I sure hope his rockets are better than his cars. Kilmer got this in a raffle. Tell ya what. I wouldn't waste money on a raffle in order to try to get this junk. There's such a thing as Cyber punk. Is there something called Cyber junk? I used to work out of a pickup truck. I'd wouldn't have anything to do with this. This thing is uglier than Basil's mother.

Stirling Engines

5/6/24:

PDF file of the NASA Stirling Engine test on a delivery truck.

If this engine just charged a battery pack, and if the battery pack was much smaller, you might have a winner. The set up would be a series hybrid that charged a battery pack with about 45 mile range. You'd have the option of having it charged at home, or work; or you'd just run the Stirling engine when necessary for a re-charge of the battery as needed. That would work like the Chevy Volt set up. Range anxiety would be a thing of the past. Just fill up like with an ICE.

The Volt has not been popular, and may not be available anymore. Why not? That's beyond the scope here.

Electric engines are getting smaller and more efficient. So the weight of the thing should be less than a battery-only Tesla-like set up. Not only electric engines getting smaller and more efficient, so are batteries. But even with those improvements, batteries are too heavy and expensive.

end update of 12/08/23 post:

12/08/23: Update to last post of 10/22/21:

Automakers turning to hybrids?

Actually, they could turn to Stirling Engines, or better yet, Stirling/Electric hybrids. The two types should complement each other nicely. Stirlings take awhile to warm up. A charged battery is ready to go. The Stirling can keep the battery charged, and end range anxiety.

Batteries are expensive and heavy. The batteries could be a lot smaller, and the hybrid Stirling can be smaller too. It has been shown that most trips are less than 45 miles round trip. A small battery could handle that much driving, and the Stirling can keep it charged up, as needed. The amount of power needed would be relatively small for constant speed, which is what is done most of the time. Consequently, the Stirling can keep up with the demand while not having to deliver all the power needed at one time. The electric motor can do that. Extra power for acceleration could come from ultracapacitors, which can also be charged by the Stirling motor.

Nuclear power can supply the energy to convert to hydrogen. Especially true if the cost of energy can come way down, as it is projected with the Focus Fusion device. In the meantime, nuclear power could be used from molten salt reactors. In such a case, no emissions would be produced at all. There would be some waste from the molten salt reactors, and no waste worth mentioning from the Focus Fusion device.



end update:

 

Comment:

This topic isn't new here on this blog, but what is new is this video. I hadn't seen it before. The thing that is different here is that it is a complete engine concept tested in real live situations over a period of time.

A Stirling engine was tested in a truck by NASA. Actually, more than one truck. One of the trucks was a service vehicle used on an airbase in Virginia. The other looked like a regular old pickup truck. The pickup appears to have driven everywhere you'd drive a conventional vehicle.

Popping the hood doesn't reveal anything radically different. It doesn't look like a conventional engine though. Incidentally, this test was done a long time ago. Back in the eighties, perhaps. The vehicle looks that way. It doesn't look modern.

The curious thing is why this technology hasn't been adopted. It is said to be "too heavy". The engine was only 75 hp, but what people don't realize is that most of the horsepower in a conventional engine is unnecessary. Internal combustion engines cannot start under a load. I'm thinking that public acceptance may be low for some reason, or that auto manufacturers may fear taking a chance on something different could be too risky of a decision.

There was a Ford program during the Energy Crisis of the seventies that tested Stirling engines in cars. The fault there was that it took too long to warm up. That could be an issue, but that issue could be overcome if they really wanted to do it.

Why bother with the Stirling engine at all? It is said to be clean and efficient. It can run on any heat source. For me, I'd like to be able to get one as a power generator. But these things are impossible to find. You can certainly find toys, but nothing serious like a generator. What gives?

If you were to scratch the surface of all the things that have appeared to have gone wrong, you might find a common denominator with this question. Just saying. It could well be the thing that I've been discussing since day one on this blog. Our culture may well have become dysfunctional. It is a "better mousetrap", but for some reason, it doesn't succeed. It makes no sense, but there's your common denominator. It's like mandating a vaccine to solve a problem that doesn't exist ( in children, covid is not an issue). If a "vaccine" that doesn't work can be thusly mandated, then it might be easy to understand why a motor that would be cleaner and more efficient cannot be adopted for some strange reason. The highest cost "solution" to solve a non-problem that has the least probability of success is the path taken. The very defintion of dysfunctional.

Update:

NASA report on the Stirling Engine Program

Comment:

After reading through the full report done back in the late eighties, I can see why the Stirling Engine has not replaced the internal combustion engine. For its size, it just doesn't put out the performance.

It could be adequate though. It all depends upon customer expectations. People are a bit used to better performance than these can offer, however. It would not be a marketing hit. It would probably be a dud.

Some folks would find the economy to be an attraction. Yet the internal combustion engine has some room to grow, apparently. The new Eco-boost engine in Fords packs quite a punch for its size. The fuel economy would be pretty good too, I imagine. That's why it was developed.

That doesn't dissuade me from being interested though. The value of this engine is that it doesn't need specialized fuel. It was tested with a lot of different fuels, so it can be used with most anything that can be burned. In fact, it doesn't require anything but a heat source. Therefore, the possibility of running a Stirling engine on concentrated solar power is a real possibility.

Electric car concept

4/4/24:

It has been in the news recently that Tesla is having some difficulties. Does Tesla have the flexibility to change their business model? How difficult would it be for them to offer a new hybrid model?

The combination of increasing resistance to EV's and Musk's political problems with the acquistion of Twitter may be a 1-2 punch that could floor Tesla. It could be a mistake to allow that to happen, but is that already a done deal? Is Tesla in real trouble, and by extension, Musk?

end update of last post of 2/24/24:

2/25/24: Update to post dated 5/2/18:

The propaganda has been so effective that erroneous leftist premises are accepted even here. Nevertheless, if push came to shove, an electric car can be built that could compete economically with the ICE. Indeed, this is the surest way to get acceptance of such vehicles.

Tesla's cars may not be the ticket, but could be a pathfinder of sorts. The problem with Musk's cars is that they are too heavy. Solving that problem may not be feasible. Why not go around it and downsize the batteries as much as possible? Using hybrids may show a way.

The objection to fuel cells is cost. If not fuel cells, the Stirling engines could be mated to an optimized battery size.  It could burn nuclear ammonia, or nuclear hydrocarbons, thus eliminating carbon as an issue for those who believe in the AGW argument.  But the AGW argument isn't going to be an economic policy anyway.  Too many faulty premises here.

The one premise that isn't faulty is the economic one.  If you can produce a carbon free car, which can compete with ICE cars, you may have a winner.  Mandates arising from faulty premises are double trouble.



end update, the original post from 2018 is directly below:

It may have been written before on this blog, but if it has, I cannot locate it easily.

So, never mind that.

With the previous posts, I have combined two ideas into a proposed system that would replace the internal combustion engine.

Read the two posts to get the idea behind the use of nuclear ammonia for a fuel cell car.

Now for the car itself, which is what I wanted to post about.

The battery need not be that large.  Consider the Chevy Volt.  It has a battery with a forty mile range.  Perhaps the battery need not be even this big.  That is because the Chevy Volt relies upon the idea of recharging from the grid.  But the Volt also can recharge itself while in internal combustion mode.

Now, the internal combustion engine is good for this task, but what if you don't want to use an ICE ( internal combustion engine)?

Just replace the ICE with a fuel cell unit.  It doesn't have to be as powerful as the ICE because....????

This is my next idea.  Instead of using an ICE for that big push for acceleration, just use ultracapacitors instead.  The capacitors are good for short bursts of energy, but not for long term cruising on the highway.  For that, we use the fuel cell as a range extender.  At highway speeds, we need only about 20 kilowatts to maintain a constant velocity.  The fuel cells can keep the battery and the capacitors charged up.

Such a system can be made to optimize the size of the batteries.  They need not be as much as the Chevy Volt's system.  If you reduce the size of the batteries, you can reduce the weight of the car, as well as the price.

By the way, the above system is not unique.  Somebody has done it before.  Who??  Cannot recall.  I think a Japanese manufacturer had such a design for fuel cell car.  It is probably not the one being marketed, however.

Arguments against this???

A 20 kwh fuel cell need not be that expensive, but that topic has been covered previously.

The hydrogen fuel need not be that expensive because of the nuclear ammonia.

Ammonia can be transported using existing infrastructure.  Therefore, the infrastructure argument has been refuted.

No reason why it cannot work.

Tesla makes "crate motor" for small block Chev V8

 Looks like Tesla is finding a new market for gasoline powered cars to be converted to electric.

Imagine dropping in an electric engine in place of a gasoline powered one.  ( You still need batteries, but Tesla makes those too.)

One of these days, they may figure out how to convert the whole darned fleet of gas powered engines.  Not that that would actually achieve anything.  You still need to power the things.  That part hasn't really been figured out yet.

Still it is kinda cool, if that is your thing.

click on pic for source

Trump bashes GM decision

Not sure what the plan is for GM.  Is it to drive them into bankruptcy?  If so, what does that accomplish?

I hate the bailouts as much as anyone.  The problem is that they don't solve the underlying problems, and the problems return.

GM was destined to get into trouble again.  I may even have predicted it on this blog.  After doing a search on it, there are many articles here that are critical of what Obama did with respect to General Motors.  Can't say that it was I who predicted it, but somebody did.

President Trump Tweets Disappointment in GM Decision.... https://t.co/mSoOPD7EQP via @thelastrefuge2

— Greg Meadows (@BootsandOilBlog) November 28, 2018

Chevy Volt will be discontinued

Yep, you can call me an enthusiast for electrical cars even though I don't own one.

Chevrolet is discontinuing six different cars that they make, and the Volt is one of them.

It's too bad, and I'm not so sure that the Chevrolet is all that bad.  The Cruze is being discontinued too, even though it is highly rated.

If GM goes bankrupt, that could be a problem.

Anyway, the Volt uses the same kind of hybrid system that a locomotive uses.  Diesel powered locomotives spin up a generator that runs an electric motor.  This works well for locomotives, but apparently not for cars.  Unless Chevrolet did something wrong with its design.  I am a bit doubtful that they did.

A Stirling powered hybrid would be more efficient than an internal combustion engine, and might be able to run on any kind of fuel.  Ford experimented with Stirlings back in the seventies.  My recollection is that the Stirling took too long to warm up.  This wouldn't matter if it was paired with an electric engine.  The two types of engines could complement each other, just as a gasoline engine does.

Anyway, we may be taking a step backward with this news.  It is too bad.  It is probably a bad sign for electrical cars in general, and American made cars in particular.  Watch out Tesla.

Digital valves to replace camshafts?

Updated,

8.27.18:

I have studied upon the issues discussed here, and for me, the primary issue is reliability.  The more complex something is, the greater the chance of failure.  The problem with this design is its complexity.  If it doesn't work, it isn't much good for anything.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.


Originally posted on 8.26.18:

A bit of grease monkey stuff here.  Engines are interesting to me, and these are no exception.

The idea here is to time valves to fit what the engine needs at various times.  A mechanical valve set up does not have this kind of capability.  Very high tech ICE engines as opposed to all electrical as an option for future.

World's first fully digital valves open up engine possibilities https://t.co/LmgN1EufIs via @nwtls

— Greg Meadows (@BootsandOilBlog) August 26, 2018

Eureka! ( I found it!)

Updated:

Originally posted on 1.19.13
Updated 5.2.18:

It so happens that as an intellectual exercise, the following is useful for discussion of the feasibility of an electric car.  Since Elon Musk is attempting to make this happen with his battery powered Tesla auto, could there be another, better way of doing it?

Hence the following discussion.

The problem with battery powered cars is with the batteries themselves.  They are too heavy.  There may not be any way around this problem.  However, there are those who think that batteries can be improved so that this problem is overcome.

Let's presume that it cannot, and that another way must be found.

The following post discusses how to produce the hydrogen in a closed loop system.  This closed loop system will eliminate the problem of pollution in the production of the hydrogen, for a fuel cell car.

It would make little sense to make a hydrogen car if you make another form of pollution, right?

It might be useful in going backwards in this series, so I include a link here to the previous post, which is part 3, linked below:

The next part is where I will pick up the discussion in the future.  See you around!



The original post follows:

A patented process to separate aluminum hydroxide from potassium hydroxide can close the loop in a hydrogen generation system for fuel cells.  [ fourth of a series studying the Apollo Electric Car]

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

The last part closed with the problem of removing the aluminum hydroxide from the potassium hydroxide.  The aluminum hydroxide is formed when pure aluminum is dropped into a potassium hydroxide solution in order to generate hydrogen for fuel cells.  The goal is to regenerate the aluminum again so that the system can be a closed loop--- no additional inputs needed besides water and energy.  Water for the generation of hydrogen, and energy for the regeneration of aluminum.

A google search yielded the pdf of an invention which can do this very thing.  Here's what I was looking for:

The present invention is particularly applicable to the
removal of an aluminum hydroxide precipitate from a
potasssium hydroxide electrolyte by agglomerating said
precipitate onto the surface of a cartridge filter, remov-
ing said agglomerated particles from the surface of said
cartridge filter, and allowing said agglomerated parti-
cles to settle in said electrolyte. The average particle
size of the aluminum hydroxide particles which precipi-
tate from a potassium hydroxide electrolyte is in the
range of about 0.5 to about 20 microns. Such particles
settle in the electrolyte too slowly for efficient separa-
tion by settling. By agglomerating the particles
using a cartridge filter, the rate of settling is increased to
the extent that separation by settling can be used.

This invention appears to have been granted in 1991.  I presume that it has resulted in products that one can easily obtain and put to use in a closed loop system.

Is Tesla a scam?

This article makes it sound that way.  Didn't read all of the article, because it has some sort of registration requirement.

One problem is identifying a constituent component as a resource that cannot be replenished.  It should be remembered that no atom is ever destroyed.  All materials may be recyclable.

Secondly, it seems to show an anti-EV bias.  I think EV's are possible.  Not that I would endorse Musk's ideas, though.

My impression is that the author has an ax to grind.

Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Car

Once upon a time on this blog, I was all gung-ho about fuel cell cars.  They still can be a good deal, but let me tell you what soured me on them.  It is the realization that the only way to get hydrogen to them is to use chemical means, which means it won't be cheap.

Fossil fuel's energy comes from burning carbon as well as the hydrogen within.  The "hydrocarbons" can have the carbon removed, but it comes at a price of a reduction in energy value of the fuel.  That means hydrogen cannot be cheap.  If half of the energy value cannot be used, the fuel prices will have to double in order to make a profit.  Not an economical proposition.

Unless it is produced with nuclear energy.  If you were to make "nuclear ammonia" with a molten-salt reactor, then the cost of the fuel should be low enough to make it cost competitive.

Now, this article discusses how "expensive" fuel cell vehicles are.  They don't have to be.  They are expensive because there is no refueling stations.  There are no refueling stations because there are no fuel cell powered cars.  Chicken and egg type problem.

If you build the cars, the stations will come, but to make it all work, the prices have to be more competitive.

 Fuel cells can be manufactured at reasonable prices from what I researched.  These vehicles have no inherent necessity for being expensive.

If you can create a market, the costs will come down.  The question is:  Do we want to be energy independent or not?  We can do this.  The molten-salt reactor was proven in the seventies.

I still don't believe in wind nor solar.  Nuclear energy is the ticket to energy independence.  Fuel cell cars can play a role in that.

Can we really be this dumb?

Apparently, yes.  It looks as if we are all barking up the wrong tree.  Ammonia could power our cars today, according to Greg Vezina, who retrofitted a car to run on ammonia way back in the eighties.  It's even worse than this, as you listen to Vezina, it isn't even a new idea.



So, what would it take to start doing this today?  In short, what would it cost to retrofit a car today?


Update:

More about Greg Vezina.  He doesn't fit the mold, you might say.

Quick post, 10.28.15; Chevy Volt

A thought occurred to me:  why not convert the Volt to run on the Stirling/ammonia powerplant as I mentioned?

The Volt gets 37 mpg in "charge sustaining" mode.  Using a Stirling could bump that to 48 mpg .  The conversion to ammonia means a bigger fuel tank, but the higher mileage mitigates that somewhat.  Still, for a 300 mile range, you could have a tank of about 16 or 17 gallons.  That's not unreasonable.

It's a thought.  Such a project is out of my skill set, though.  Besides, I don't have the time.

Update:

The ammonia has only about a third of the energy of a gallon of gasoline.  Hence, the need for a tank that is about 3 times the size.  Five and a half gallons of gas would be equivalent to 16.5 gallons of ammonia.  That's 264 miles in range for the ammonia and about 40 miles for the battery for a total of about 300 miles.

Ammonia from natural gas may be cheaper than gasoline

According to a more careful reading of that link in my post.  Natural gas prices ( 2010 in the link ) were about 1/6th the price of gasoline.  This is on a BTU cost basis.

If you were to convert natural gas to ammonia, run the ammonia in Stirling powered hybrid car, you could achieve even more savings.  Therefore, the stumbling block isn't necessarily price, it is probably going to be in the acceptance of a new way of doing things.

Stirling powered engines should be more efficient than internal combustion engines.  They were in the seventies when Ford experimented with them and found that they could save up to 30% on fuel costs.  A Stirling engine can run on any heat source, so combustion of ammonia would work just fine.

Now, if I could only get a few hundred million bucks to build a prototype, I could prove it.  Or maybe you could talk a major manufacturer like Ford to try marketing something they already experimented with.

Emission free car

Maybe it could pass the California rules so it can be called a Zero Emission vehicle.  The ammonia would be stored in a very strong, thick steel tank.  Even if it were hit by a big truck, it would survive.  You wouldn't need a whole lot of ammonia in order to get it to extend the range of a hybridized Stirling electric vehicle.

The Stirling Engine needs only to be about 25 kw or so.  This would enable it to supply the vehicle with enough power to cruise down the highway.  Otherwise, the battery will power it.  The concept is a lot like the Chevy Volt concept, but it wouldn't use an internal combustion engine.

The system to produce the ammonia would be a closed loop system except for the hydrogen, which would be obtained from heating fossil fuels up so that it would release it.  The system could use any hydrocarbon source, including coal.

Update:

Such a system can be built with existing technology.  The fact that it isn't means that those who claim to want zero emissions don't really mean what they say.  Their motivation isn't to improve the ecology, but to accomplish something else.

Next Big Future: Elon Musk says 500 mile range electric car will so...

Next Big Future: Elon Musk says 500 mile range electric car will so...: Elon Musk explains why the Tesla Model S has twice the range of the Nissan Leaf and why Tesla will soon have electric cars with 500 mile ran...

comment:

There is good news out there.  Just when you thought the world was going to drag everybody and everything into the sewer, along comes some good news like this.

Actually, it isn't news yet.  But with Elon Musk, you have to take some of the "blue skying" seriously.

How would he do it?  Make a very light weight and small car like Jim Kor did.

Toyota Throws Down The Glove For Hydrogen Cars; Good News For Platinum Prices | Kitco Commentary

Toyota Throws Down The Glove For Hydrogen Cars; Good News For Platinum Prices | Kitco Commentary

Speculation that Tesla's move to opensource their patents was an indication that their long term prospects are not good.  Or, in other words, hydrogen fuel cell technology will win out in the long run.

This would be good for platinum, it is also speculated.  However, it is possible to make an affordable fuel cell without using platinum.  I've already covered this in a series here.