Down here in Belgium a new law is prepared to make it impossible to put a new or used car on your name that is powered by fuel after 2030.Only electric powered cars will be allowed .Wow !
How about the fact that you already own it? Are they not allowing gasoline powered vehicles on the road, PERIOD? Are they going to stop selling fuel? They tried something like this in New Jersey about 30 years ago where they went around picking up vehicles that were over a few years old right off the street. That didn't get too far. A friend of mine lost an Oldsmobile Rallye 350 that way. You need to contact your local representative and take action regarding this. >:( >:( >:( Keep us posted .....
Bobby
Quote from: DBDB
Down here in Belgium a new law is prepared to make it impossible to put a new or used car on your name that is powered by fuel after 2030.Only electric powered cars will be allowed .Wow !
I don't know how you are supposed to be able to make a 500 mile trip (extremely common here).
But here when they stopped making really big cars, people just started driving trucks. Bruce Roe
Quote from: DBDB on November 26, 2016, 02:21:37 PM
Down here in Belgium a new law is prepared to make it impossible to put a new or used car on your name that is powered by fuel after 2030.Only electric powered cars will be allowed .Wow !
When you say the law is "prepared", does that mean it has actually been passed?
thank god the nutty buddy liberals got stopped in the good old usa in our last election
This is the sort of reasons we (UK) voted to leave the mental institution they call Brussels.
You know this same type of tripe has been "announced" for the last several decades. They're going to take my (you fill in the blank) away. Let's see, how many solely electrical vehicles are currently being manufactured that are priced at anything like the Fiat 500, a common EU vehicle? How many electrical charging stations are currently in operation in Belgium? HMMMM seems we have a disconnect there. It never failes to amaze me at how easily we are scared that something is about to be taken away from us and how vocal we get at immedeiately finding the blame with whoever it is we choose to blame for just about all the things in our life that have been lost. Cigarettes, no seat belts, safety glass, air bags, you go on.
Cool it.
Greg Surfas
Quote from: 49er on November 26, 2016, 02:37:25 PM
In addition. We have a second amendment here. I think they would be risking an armed insurrection here in the states or some kind of fate like Mussolini suffered.......
Don't forget that the Second Amendment is just that, an Amendment, and anything that can be amended, can be amended over and over.
Bruce. >:D
Quote from: The Tassie Devil(le) on November 26, 2016, 05:02:08 PM
Don't forget that the Second Amendment is just that, an Amendment, and anything that can be amended, can be amended over and over.
Bruce. >:D
http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1696190/tasmanias-registered-firearm-numbers-grow/
I read that you guys are in the process of "amending" !!!
Ciao,
Mario caimotto
Well to be correct : One of our political parties ( the catholic party) had their congress today and this was one of their points on their program .You can imagine that i am not going to vote for them for sure .
This was not on the program from Europe but only for Belgium at this moment .
Not in Tasmania, which is what the article is referring to.
Moderators,
I find some posts in this thread highly offensive. Political discussions are against the rules, correct?
"You know this same type of tripe has been "announced" for the last several decades. They're going to take my (you fill in the blank) away. Let's see, how many solely electrical vehicles are currently being manufactured that are priced at anything like the Fiat 500, a common EU vehicle? How many electrical charging stations are currently in operation in Belgium? HMMMM seems we have a disconnect there. It never failes to amaze me at how easily we are scared that something is about to be taken away from us and how vocal we get at immedeiately finding the blame with whoever it is we choose to blame for just about all the things in our life that have been lost. Cigarettes, no seat belts, safety glass, air bags, you go on.
Cool it.
Greg Surfas"
CASE CLOSED
Unless this thread returns to a discussion of cars, it will be locked and deleted.
Jim
I love driving my '66 Convertible. Put another 20 miles on it today. Turned over to 59,000 yesterday. Love driving it.
I have been hearing "The end is near" ever since they stopped selling leaded fuel in 1975 or so.
People love driving their cars and the hobby and the lobby are huge. People also like selling gasoline and oil so I don't think we need to worry about this in our lifetime.
My 2 cents...
Brian
Brian,
"The end was near" in the 30's when they thought they were running out of oil for gasoline, and decided to add tetra ethyl leazd to the gasoline so that it could be a "temporary" fuel while the decided what would replace it.
Greg Surfas
No reason to panic.
Let's see what the future holds for electric cars and for that matter self driving cars. It may be great by 2030. Frankly almost all traffic jams are human error, and with self driving cars we will be saying, remember when there were traffic jams. Except for a step back in the 1980's cars have generally gotten better, and it is likely in the future this will continue. generally these types of things are phased in anyway, not OK tomorrow no more such and such, 100% to zero in a day.
There may be kits to make your classic electrically powered - you never know. Granted it would not be efficient, but probably would function reasonably well. I know probably takes ten times the power to move a 1976 Cadillac at 60mph than a Prieus (spelling?), but with future advance batteries and automotive electric motors it may be practical albeit more expensive. I would probably convert mine over, but in 2030, I will 80 years old and may just go with the flow.
The end is not near, and the future looks bright - enjoy the day!
Human error is responsible for many problems, that I see every day. The self driving car might
be better than some of the drivers on the road today, but it has already killed one of its
proponents. I am not ready to accept it as the equal of my own 1.5 million mile experience,
keeping alive with great diligence, gobs of experience, and a good share of luck. At this stage
software has killed many other people in other situations, though the originators are trying to
avoid the blame.
For 2 centuries batteries have been under development. Lately a lot of things have been catching
fire due to the latest battery, only incremently better than past units. Something revolutionary
MIGHT be developed, but I won't be holding my breath. Bruce Roe
One of the problems to work out with self-driving cars is if there is an accident who is responsible? Say it is a single car accident with a stationary object, or an accident between two self-driving cars?
Would the owner of the car be responsible or the manufacturer? The legal aspects need to be worked out before the self-driving cars are allowed on the road.
Had a conversion not to long ago on the ham radio with a gentlemen that knew very much about the "artificial intelligence" idea of self driving cars, and he said it would be impossible for a computer to react to every potential move a human could make driving an automobile.
Quote from: bcroe on November 27, 2016, 02:07:23 PM
The self driving car might
be better than some of the drivers on the road today, but it has already killed one of its
proponents. Bruce Roe
Anyone seen 2001 space odyssey?
But to keep this on topic of Cadillac's, I am not worrying about the end. I don't want to think about it, and they say that there are roughly 200+/- years of fossil fuel left. So it won't be a problem in my lifetime. By the time fossil fuel are gone, they will have been bound to come up with "something". By the year 2030 I will be 31, and my Coupe Deville will be 58 years old... Think I'll be able to go down to the autoparts store and get some r134a in 2030? nope.
-Gavin
2030 is almost here, and progress lately seems exponential. No one really knows for sure what the future holds. However, there has to be over 50 million (have no idea, could even be 100 million) gasoline cars on the road in America right now. If average value is say 5k, that means over 250 billion dollars of automotive assets, not mentions the fuel infrastructure, commercial applications and etc. all devoted to fossil fuel. We will have a lot of warning before fossil fuels are phased out due to the enormous economic impact, which is probably well past a trillion dollars unquestionably.
This is a non-issue for now, fossil fuel is here for a while and we will receive much advance notice.
The electric cars will be on the rise I'm sure though. Since they are fast accelerating the only obstacle is range and recharging. I like the Chevy Volt technology because it has the gas back up engine. This is probably more in our future. 98% of all my daily driving is less than 100 miles (understand Volt only goes 40 miles on charge, but will get to be more soon), and with a home charger it would be fine. Then for trips that exceed battery range, gas engine back up kicks in. Cadillac will probably be a big player in this once the market starts becoming more friendly. I rode in their electric two door coupe - just too small for me, but would be a decent city car probably.
Understand that self driving cars have legal issues and further developmental issues. A lot happens in technology in 5 years, let alone 14. With America's monumental legal resources, I'm sure that obstacle will be cured.
Certainly people will always die in car accidents. I think there would be less deaths with self driving cars than human driving cars. The human skill of the drivers reading this forum are probably better than self driving cars, however there are so many poor drivers that cause accidents. I remember one time during the Father/Daughter dance at the high school when 300 Fathers (all probably mid 40's- mid 50's healthy, smart, and etc.) got in the their cars at the same time and exited the parking lot - it was so smooth and organized, almost got out as fast as if I was the only car there - this reminds me of how self driving cars might work. All it takes in this example is a few distracted, poor, or unconfident drivers and the parking lot is jammed up for hours. To protect myself from stupid drivers, I just drive larger vehicles, avoid known traffic congested areas and probably would do the same in a self driving car.
Moderators,
I find all posts in this thread highly non-offensive. Political discussions about car issues should be in the rules.
It's been coming, because they're running out of things of significance to reduce/control and the population continues to grow and we still wage wars etc that destroy massive resources. Politicians don't get elected for solving problems, they get elected making feel good promises that can't be kept so the status quo prevails.
Simple thermodynamics. A sad truth about some of these "environmental" activists; they don't think for themselves. Where is that electricity coming from? What's the emissions and waste from producing it? Coal, nuclear, and natural gas are the still front runners for 2030... No one has predicted anything accurately that far out either. Less efficient conversion, so more net emissions or waste. When there's more energy used, more net emissions. Smoke and mirrors, not solving the problem of too many people and how much they use/emit.
If everyone uses solar, no one has analyzed that impact on the climate or weather, it's just assumed to be good. A big part of the solar gain goes to heat the earth and produce oxygen through photosynthesis, so if you use a portion of it for work, some of the thermal gain/oxygen is lost. You can't grow trees/vegetation under a solar panel. So you just might need that green house gas after all. That's the problem when people think they know everything because they agree with the herd - want to change the world. Green and clean ignores reality of resources required for it. It's the total that counts, not how. How much energy is wasted on electricity for social media/iphones?
When you agree without thinking or analyzing/calculating, it's not helping. Oh, we'll just go to Mars or some other world, mine the asteroids, and all our people problems will be solve. Yeah, right. You have to solve the people problems before you pollute the galaxies.
Regardless of the gas quality/emissions, auto exhaust is coming out at no less than ~300F and does not account for the radiant heat of the catalytical convertor. So if a couple million cars are sitting in a traffic jams for hours, how much heat is sent to the atmosphere? I've calculated it can be as much as up to one degree locally but it's not known. What's the carbon foot print of that? CAFE stds means nothing at idle, sitting in traffic. If you in an electric, it'll "shut off" if not moving but you'll still draw for heat/radio, controls, etc. But what's the differential impact, nearly impossible to know.
We have already made cars so clean you can't end it by running in your closed garage.
Enough already, there are many other pollution sources, largely of an industrial nature, which
have avoided the attention they deserve. And just why people will live with perpetual traffic
jams confounds me.
There is enough uranium "down under" to outlast the human race; I just hope we always remain
on good terms with the Aussies. We did save them from invasion in 42, at no small cost to us.
MUCH work remains to be done, to make Nuke power truly safe and clean. I run enough solar
for all my heat and electricity (picture). But it only works every hour and every season, because
I trade energy back and forth with the Nuke down the road. I still buy gasoline for the 77 in the pic.
Electricity is wonderful, but you can't put it in a tank and carry it around. Whoever figures out a
practical way to convert electricity to a gasoline equivalent will be the richest person ever. Any
portable electric uses batteries, big stuff uses big batteries, with big cost and pollution issues.
Bruce Roe
Yikes,
If you are lucky enough to see a funnel cloud way off in the distance, do you get your umbrella and lawn chair out and watch it get closer. Or, do you head for shelter - in whatever form that takes.
Fore seen is fore warned, and fore armed.
2030 is just around the corner as far as I'm concerned, and going ostrich and putting my head in the sand - or I'll be dead by then - doesn't solve the problem (even if it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek).
I want to enjoy driving my classic cars (as GM meant them to be) - as apparently do we all in this CLUB - and have them unmolested by electric upgrades for my grand kids and their's thereafter.
Things that happen in Europe are not stopped as they were once thought to have been by the Atlantic.
Perhaps there is or will be a Classic Prius Forum/Club - but not one I want to be a part of.
Give me GAS fueled Cadillacs, or give me .........
Have fun, while we can,
Steve B.
Quote from: Scot Minesinger on November 27, 2016, 12:47:32 PM
Frankly almost all traffic jams are human error, and with self driving cars we will be saying, remember when there were traffic jams.
When arrival rate exceeds throughput, queueing will occur--guaranteed--even with self driving cars, though I agree it will (eventually) be better than it is now, especially with merging.
wbdeford,
When merging input exceeds capacity, before queueing, there will be all the cars communicating in self driving working in advance to avoid a delay. On a crowded highway with merging, miles before the merge cars will be starting to space themselves on the right to allow for merging, cars will be merging left, and they will all fit in. When you are riding in your self driving car on the highway, it will move to the left for no apparent reason on its own, so that cars on the right can merge in. No more idiots passing on the right at a merge location causing mergers to jam on brakes, no more slow pokes in left lane, no more inconsistent drivers on highway - some driving 10mph over speed limit, others driving 10 mph under speed limit. It will be a huge improvement.
Cars will be able to anticipate and drive alternate routes all to optimize traffic flow in ways a human could never duplicate. At stop lights, one car goes off and then 10 seconds later another follows, sometimes when it is 12 cars back you don't even make the light because of this. In self driving, there might not even be any lights, and if there were all the cars would make the green. Think of all the cars communicating together, all knowing and sharing their predetermined routes and driving in harmony to optimize everyone's commute. Then are so many possibilities!
Quote from: bcroe on November 28, 2016, 11:42:46 AM
We have already made cars so clean you can't end it by running in your closed garage.
Bruce Roe
That's the reason why old car owners are smarter than the Average Bear ;)...........
Bobby
Hello all,
This is such an interesting thread that I hope the moderators do not delete it. As much as I enjoy discussing the intricacies of the torsion rod inside my Sedan DeVille's Saginaw power steering gear box, I also enjoy reading about and discussing issues related more broadly to our hobby. The science, economics, and social policy implications of subjects such as the one mentioned by the original poster make for lively discussion, and deserve our consideration as automotive enthusiasts in general, and Cadillac lovers in particular.
Last month, a trade agreement between the EU and Canada was almost torpedoed by the French-speaking citizens of Belgium (Belgium has two linguistic groups - French and Dutch). Cooler heads prevailed and the agreement was ratified by the EU and Canada. The point made by the original poster, that a Belgian political party meeting approved a platform plank that included the elimination of gasoline powered automobiles, and that this is a harbinger of the future, serves to illustrate two things. One, some people, like Henny Penny/Chicken Little, will always claim the sky is falling (and I mean no disrespect to the original poster), and two, society is forever living in a time of change. Some change is local, and some change is global.
It took Cadillac less than 12 years to go from the first synchromesh transmission to the first automatic transmission. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. The automatic transmission made driving simple. Walking is simpler. If A is a great distance from B, which would you rather do - drive or walk?
If you review the engineering history of Cadillac, you will find many instances of models that incorporated transitional features. Today, I would suggest that automotive engineering design is still transitioning. What the ultimate future of the automobile will be remains to be seen. Unfortunately, vested interests today make it more difficult to transition to a long-term sustainable future.
When Edwin Drake discovered oil 50 miles from Lake Erie, 16 feet under his feet, no one shed a tear for the whaling industry whose oil illuminated millions of homes in America. Twenty five years later, millions of homes in America were illuminated by Kerosene. The fuel of tomorrow's cars may not be gasoline, but the clout of the petroleum industry almost certainly assures that gasoline will be around for a while - for better or worse.
Electric and self- driving cars may represent transitional technologies. Personally, I think batteries are the wrong way to go. Batteries rely on extractive processes, and I have not seen any large scale proposals for dealing with the mountains of batteries that will be created by Elon Musk's world's largest battery factory in Nevada. I do see a future for self-driving cars in mass transit. The Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas at Austin has over 2500 research reports on transportation issues such as this one:
http://library.ctr.utexas.edu/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?q=KGNhdGFsb2cuY2F0ZWdvcnk6ImN0ciByZXNlYXJjaCIp&ctID=OWE3NjYzNTktYzJmNC00ZTAwLThmMjItYzhmNzNiYTFmNzdh&rID=MjY5Njg=&qcf=&ph=VHJ1ZQ==&bckToL=VHJ1ZQ==&
so at least someone is looking at some of the issues.
I do think that solar energy and hydrogen gas are the energy sources of the future. This is as close as we can probably get to the "energy of the stars" - nuclear fusion - without nuclear fusion. I respectfully disagree with fishnjim's argument:
"If everyone uses solar, no one has analyzed that impact on the climate or weather, it's just assumed to be good. A big part of the solar gain goes to heat the earth and produce oxygen through photosynthesis, so if you use a portion of it for work, some of the thermal gain/oxygen is lost. You can't grow trees/vegetation under a solar panel."
Energy is never lost. It changes form. Photosynthetic production of oxygen can only be lost through deforestation. Given the same amount of vegetation, the same amount of oxygen will be produced regardless of the amount of solar energy that is used for other purposes. As a process, photosynthesis is not strictly a function of heat. Photosynthesis occurs in a wide range of temperatures. The optimal temperature range for photosynthesis is between about 50 and 70 degrees F. If the entire planet maintained a temperature of 60 degrees F., the planet would get the maximum amount of oxygen from its stock of vegetation. You could grow vegetation under a solar panel using a full spectrum light suspended from the underside of the panel, powered by the Sun.
Converting our Cadillacs to use an electric motor would be relatively expensive. While diesel-electric locomotives have been around for almost 70 years, and are very efficient per ton-mile, they still utilize a fossil fuel. Current hybrid and electric cars do the same. They utilize a fossil fuel to generate electricity (although some electricity is generated via braking, this is not enough to consider). I do agree with fishnjim that natural gas, coal, and nuclear sources are good bets for a transition phase. I also think that it is possible to resolve the environmental issues with natural gas, coal, and nuclear, but it will take more money than adopting a hydrogen future. I hope to live long enough to have my '67 Sedan DeVille powered by hydrogen. It might even pass the authenticity test at a Grand National - that is how little change is required to switch an internal combustion engine from gasoline to hydrogen.
Years ago, I joined the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research on a dinosaur excavation near Devil's Tower in Wyoming. I happened to dig up a tree limb (in addition to dinosaur fossils). While the limb had been petrified long ago, and had lost all its carbon content, it did make me think about the storage and release of the Sun's energy. I think the future lies in the direction of a sustainable, utilizable, affordable, non-polluting energy source, that can power our cars as well as our world.
Respectfully submitted,
Christopher Winter
To illuminate the area under a solar panel with artificial sunlight would take 5 or more panels to generate
the energy; this does not compute. Hydrogen has been looked at, but not tamed. Its very dangerous,
and so far there isn't a practical source. I would say that compressed natural gas into a fuel cell has a
much better chance. Bruce Roe
I worked on Inertial Confinement Fusion 35 years ago. I worked for a company that was owned by a guy who worked on The Manhattan Project and the Bell Labs team that invented the LASER.
Fusion Reactors that are fueled by waste from fission reactors will be on the grid at some point, electric power will be generated to produce hydrogen fuel.
There is still enough fossil fuels to power civilization for hundreds of years.
I would hold off on a battery conversion and wait for a hydrogen fuel cell conversion.
Of course, I will be long gone by that time but that is the future.
I am glad I will not be around for what happens to civilization when transportation is considered a human right and it is completely and utterly controlled by the government using a cartel of quasi-governmental organizations such as Google/Apple who will direct even the most miniscule detail of your existence.
It is inevitable. technology will be promoted and we will serve robot masters.
You will see this evolve out of regulations like those described here.
If you think the poster above was kidding. He was not. Many years ago, NJ tried to outlaw collector cars. It failed, not because hobbyists objected, but because auto parts and service organizations lobbied against it.
Not so many years ago 'Cash For Clunkers" was born. It was voluntary. It will not be voluntary next time.
Girls and Boys
The doom and gloom of our hobby ending is ridiculous.
Humans invented the wheel, rode horses and......elevated to the top by driving a LaSalle!
Well all,
It came to pass that there have been a number of off-topic responses that required removing from this discussion.
Please keep all responses to the subject in question, and please don't stray off the topic of Cadillac's and LaSalle's, which is what this Forum is all about.
Thanks,
Bruce Reynolds,
Forum Administrator.
Quote from: Caddyholic on November 28, 2016, 09:48:07 AM
Moderators,
I find all posts in this thread highly non-offensive. Political discussions about car issues should be in the rules.
Where is the "LIKE" button??
I think if anything were going to impact our hobby it might be that there are fewer and fewer young people getting involved in collecting. I think this is due in part to the fact that it is too technical to 'turn wrenches' anymore. For me anyway, I became interested as a kid (I'm 52, so some may consider me a kid now....) turing wrenches, working on an old jeep with a couple of great mechanics that would let me hang around. One was named Phil and he worked at Kuehle's Texaco in Dallas. The other was named Nelson Wright and he had his own shop and focused primarily on the collectors in the area and he was a collector himself. Had it not been for these guys I would never have had any interest. So, bring a kid to your next meeting!!!
John,
Agree, not enough young people getting into the hobby. The population is moving away from manual labor such as working on cars in general. When I was a kid everybody cut their own lawn, now few in my area cut their own lawn. In my neighborhood I am the youngest (age 56) chain saw operator (not for a living), the other two chain saw operators are 77 and 80 years old. However there are glimmers of hope, it was not to hard to convince one of my friends who is 28, that riding around in a 1970 Caddy with a/c and all the comforts is much nicer than a 1970 Chevell for dinner out with his girl friend. Keep trying to get the younger generation into it.