05.26.2K6: 30% of Americans want scooters?!? | ||
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Here's an interesting article from Powersports Business: As gas prices soar to record highs, a survey released last month indicated that 30 percent of U.S. consumers would be "extremely" or "somewhat likely" to use a scooter for their everyday transportation needs. Nice article, offered by an organization promoting sales of scooters, of course. Do I believe it? Well... let's say, I wouldn't be surprised if 30% of Americans surveyed said they'd consider using scooters for commuting and other trips. But knowing Americans, saying so and doing so are nowhere near the same thing. There is still a stigma about scooters that a lot of Americans can't get past. It's a toy... not a real bike. And speaking of which, since it is a bike in most states, they require special motorcycle licensing. Then there's the gear, the helmets... and where do I put my cellphone and latte? So, when it comes right down to it, I expect the majority of those 30% surveyed to jump right back into their SUVs to go to work, and find some way to excuse themselves later. They might be interested... but to get them to do it, you'll probably have to force it on them first, and maintain the pressure for awhile. Then, maybe they'd eventually come around. Addendum 5.26.06: Recent surveys into who's actually buying what tell an interesting story: Overall, new car and truck sales are down nationwide; and of those sales, cars and trucks are still being sold in roughly the same proportion as before the recent gas crisis. The difference comes in what people are buying: Americans are opting for more fuel-efficient versions of what they intended to buy, which means smaller cars and trucks... mostly foreign. So they're buying the (slightly) more efficient SUV... there's your excuse. | ||
05.22.2K6: Hack your Prius! | ||
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"Boy, y'know, I just love my new Prius, and I love saving gas and all... but... I bet it could do even better!"
As a matter of fact, yes it can! Apparently Prius owners are hacking into their hybrid's on-board computers and doing everything from silencing seat belt warning beeps (shame on you!), to manually adjusting the engine switchover systems to predominantly electric mode, and saving even more in gas usage. Another popular hack is to configure it to plug into a wall outlet and charge the batteries overnight (a great plan, providing your electric utility isn't putting out more pollutants than your gas engine to create that power!). Prius drivers know better than anyone else how they drive, and these hacks are allowing them to be even more efficient. Hopefully, they will also help to clue automakers in to the things drivers need, and lead to more options for hybrids and electrics (hopefully something that won't automatically void the warranty, anyway). Addendum 7.31.06: A number of battery research companies are developing the next generations of batteries today. The lithium-ion battery of Valence Technology, for example, is already proving itself to be much more efficient than the lead-acid battery common to cars today, while better engineered to prevent overheating failure. As more of these batteries find their way into electric cars, where they have already shown to almost double the effective range on electricity, electric cars will become a lot more usable for every person and usage... not just limited range commuting. | ||
05.08.2K6: Here come the scooters (or should we call them lightcycles?) | ||
There's no mystery behind this, of course. Everyone who has to fill a gas tank should know why scooters are becoming the fastest growing vehicle segment in the country. For those who don't know, scooters can get anywhere from 40-100 mpg, depending on the model... that's pretty attractive at $3 a gallon and rising! Their small size makes them easy to get around, in the city or the suburbs, and they do have a cute factor (to anyone except a hardcore biker, anyway). And they're not all city-bound putt-putts: The larger scoots can do highway speeds like any car, and can easily handle long-distance rides, rivalling motorcycles. They are generally quieter and smoother-riding, better equipped, smaller and lighter than motorcycles. Scooters have automatic transmissions, for those who can't be bothered with all that manual shifting. Many people appreciate their economy of scale, and hate the idea of driving to work alone in a 4-6(+) person vehicle. Finally, a new scooter can be had for as little as $1000... and the largest, highway-capable long distance scooters are about $8000. And with more motorcycles offering huge engines for the younger buyers, and price tags that rival a compact car sticker, being able to buy a commuting vehicle for under $10K is a great selling point. What car is going to give you all that for so little? It's also worthwhile to think about the favors scooters are doing for everyone else: Taking up less space on our crowded highways and parking areas, easing congestion; putting less wear and tear on our roads, easing roadway maintenance (and our tax burden); cutting back on pollution; and, of course, lessening our need for foreign oil. Since the intro of scooters in the U.S., Americans have always thought of them as cheap toys. (Beware: Many of the "no-name" scooters invading U.S. shores are apparently cheap Chinese scoot-clones, barely distinguishable from good Chinese products, and not worth the money!) But now, thanks to a (or another) gas crisis, global warming, and the general high price of frikkin' everything... maybe scooters are finally due to get the respect, and sales, that they deserve. Sure, a biker will probably say, "Get a real bike!" but everyone else will give you an approving nod and a smile. Unfortunately, comprehensive scooter info is few and far between in the U.S. This typical link is clearly helpful but biased towards the webmaster's preferred brand. Even using the web requires some digging past brand-specific sites and "My Cool Vespa" personal pages. There are few dealers out there, compared to motorcycle or auto dealers... so getting reliable info is harder. (Maybe I should create a good scooter site...) And there's so much confusion about what constitutes a scooter—is it that step-through motorcycle, that motor-and-pedal contraption, that 3mph kiddies' toy, that motorized cart my grandmother gets around on, or the skateboard with handlebars?—that people using the word can get confronted with half a dozen dissimilar vehicles. Maybe we should start using the term "minicycle" to define these bikes, and set them apart from the other stuff? Compact bikes? Econobikes? Sikes? Personally, I believe in the power of proper naming to encourage marketing, and I think renaming scooters would improve their American marketability a thousandfold, not to mention setting them apart from the above list of vehicles. Look what creative naming did to the Sport Utiity Vehicle—aka the Truck. Let's see: Single Transport Vehicle (STV)?—Light Utility Vehicle (LUV=love)?—Light Motor Cycle (LMC)? Light Cycle (heck, that doesn't need an acronym)! Better get somebody in marketing busy on that. Still, scooters—ahem, light cycles—are worth looking into... you might find that owning one could be the greatest thing you can do for yourself. Seriously. Go look. 
Addendum 5.22.06: I had a chance to test drive the Silverwing this weekend, and was very impressed! Quiet, peppy, comfortable, quiet, well-equipped, practical (at an average of 50MPG), and beautiful besides. It proved to accelerate faster than my 750 cruiser, and it handled highway speeds wonderfully. Best of all, I feel like I'm on a modern vehicle, not a motorcycle with design and style cues from the 1950s. Every American single commuter ought to be looking at these! Maybe they will, when they start seeing more of them on the open roads... sales of "maxi-scooters," as the Silverwing and their ilk are referred, are still small in the U.S., and the bikes aren't making the showing that city scooters are making yet. If and when I buy one, I may be a pioneer, setting the example for others to follow... familiar territory, actually, since I've been evalgelicizing motorcycle commuting for years. |
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05.05.2K6: RFIDs secure? Not by a long shot | ||
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Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags are the latest buzz product to get the attention of industries seeking to improve product tracking, speed transactions, secure valuable physical, electronic and intellectual property, and protect data. They are still considered prototype commodities, but they are already being used in car keys, smart locks and speedpass cards, and tested in store checkout systems, inventory and tracking tasks, and personal IDs. The idea is: It's encrypted electronic transmissions, so it must be secure. Well, it's not. Moderately skilled hackers have been making money lately, actively demonstrating how insecure RFID systems are. A recent article in Wired described: A person carrying a laptop in a library demonstrating how he can wipe the data on library books designed to allow book tracking and usage; a college group showing how they reconfigured a speedpass system to give them free gas; another hacker that tapped into the signals from a door-entry card, and used it to gain unauthorized access to corporate offices and millions of dollars worth of physical and intellectual assets; and a hacker that tapped into an RFID chip embedded into a person's arm, a system that some see as the future of personal ID systems. Many of them are doing it for kicks... or for commission... or even for notoriety. But sooner or later, people will start doing it to lie, cheat and steal. And companies, knowing about these vulnerabilities, still do not seem particularly inclined to take secure measures. Many of the RFID chips can be "locked" with due dilligence... but companies just don't seem to want to make the effort. Some chips are incapable of being locked, but as they sell at a fraction of the cost of lockable chips, corporations are simply taking the cheap road, and taking their chances. Make no mistake: RFIDs can be very, very secure. It's simply up to the programmers to take the appropriate steps in the first place. But it seems no one will willingly take those steps. The result is an RFID chip that is no better for security than handing out xerox copies of your photo ID, social security number and fingerprints to complete strangers. All of this means we can expect an incredibly messy, lossy, stupid rollout for RFID technology, if the players involved don't get their acts together. Because there's nothing more damaging to a potentially useful and powerful technology, than to make stupid mistakes at the beginning, and turn public opinion violently against it. |
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05.04.2K6: The Scuderi engine: It begins anew | ||
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I just came across a (dare I say it? Yes, I dare!) revolutionary new twist on the internal combustion engine: The Scuderi Split-Cycle Engine, devised by the Scuderi Group, LLC. What makes it revolutionary? Put simply: By splitting the four strokes of the standard I.C. engine between two cylinders, both cylinders can be better designed to make its two strokes more efficient. So one cylinder compresses the gas-fuel mixture, then squirts it into the second cylinder to ignite it. Scuderi estimates that this will result in an engine efficiency of 40% (as opposed to 33% in present engines), a toxic emmissions reduction of 80%, and a net usage of only about half the fuel (yes, that's doubling your miles per gallon). The Scuderi engine has already become the hit of Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit, where it was officially declared the most visited stand. The technology has been verified by an independent lab, and the Dept of Defense just gave Scuderi a $1.2 million grant to develop it further. Clearly here's an idea that has Potential, with a capital "P". It's also an idea that—and I hate to say this—shouldn't have taken so long to get here. The Scuderi engine doesn't represent a recent breakthrough of technology or exotic materials... it's a new and innovative redesign of the existing components of the I.C. engine. And that makes me wonder: Why didn't anyone think of this during the 1970s oil crisis? My answer to myself, of course, is: Somebody probably did. Don't get me wrong. I'm not challenging Scuderi's patents on the design. I'm not claiming that they stole this idea from anyone else. And plenty of ideas, once finally broached, seem so intuitively obvious that you can't understand why they weren't developed years ago. But I would be amazed to discover that no one thought of this. During the 70s, technology magazines and newspapers were chocked full of "revolutionary" engine designs, innovations in energy technology, and improved vehicle designs. But somehow, none of those ideas ever made it to market. The Chevy Suburban did. And since then, the only innovations we've heard about in auto technology have been about subwoofers and roof-mounted DVD players. At the same time, efficiency advocates and environmentalists were fighting to make vehicles more accountable for the emissions they produced, and numerous plans were on the table to curb gas usage as well as pollutants. Again, the gas savings measures simply faded away. And we watched average fleet mpg ratings actually drop. So, when it comes to auto technology and its link to the oil industry, I'm a big-time conspiracist. I've heard too many stories about the "bought and buried" 100+mpg carburator, etc, etc, to not believe that the oil and auto industries have done more to slow down our increased energy efficiency than to advance it over the past 30 years. And so, I see this idea... and I can't help but think that somewhere there's a closed-down lab, and a guy living comfortably on a healthy buyout pension, thinking to himself: "I can't believe it's taken them this long to figure it out..." But all of a sudden, everyone's freaking about gas prices, we're approaching elections, the President's approval rating is at a historic low, and the White House, the Oil industry, and the auto industry find themselves in the same circle of wagons, waiting for the Indians to ride down and tear 'em all a new one. Lucky Scuderi... they couldn't have picked a more positive time to present a new engine technology to the world. Well... maybe 1972 would have been better... Anyway, original idea or not, all we can hope for is that this engine design doesn't suddenly, mysteriously, cease to be, or get strangely bogged down in 20 more years of R&D... |
