Tesla Musings

I am continually amazed with the man Nikola Tesla. His mind was a fertile soil for constructive imagination that had root in our reality. One of the harder things to discern is that his dreams were not like ours, fleeting and forgotten. Instead they would become a world unto him and he would find pleasure and comfort among them. They would be his continuous assurance of things to come as he grounded them into a substance we could see. His was such as there was little distinction of the things of his mind and the inventions we behold, to him they were the same.

"My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the available theoretical and practical data. The carrying out into practice of a crude idea as is being generally done is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money and time." Nikola Tesla from Tesla's Autobiography

It was in this that he desperately tried to bring us into the light of potentiality of a world which would free us from distance through the arts of telematics, be it sound, light, work, art, text, automatons, it was clearly conceived and lacked only the time to place it before the unbelieving peers of his time.

Today we know of our drone planes that are capable of being out of site, yet watching and able to deliver incredible forces in times of war. Tesla also saw them. Having displayed a boat that could be steered and lights caused to flash at will, he looked ahead and declared;

The next logical improvement was its application to automatic mechanisms beyond the limits of vision and at great distance from the center of control, and I have ever since advocated their employment as instruments of warfare in preference to guns. The importance of this now seems to be recognized, if I am to judge from casual announcements thru the press of achievements which are said to be extraordinary but contain no merit of novelty, whatever. In an imperfect manner it is practicable, with the existing wireless plants, to launch an aeroplane, have it follow a certain approximate course, and perform some operation at a distance of many hundreds of miles. A machine of this kind can also be mechanically controlled in several ways and I have no doubt that it may prove of some usefulness in war. But there are, to my best knowledge, no instrumentalities in existence today with which such an object could be accomplished in a precise manner. I have devoted years of study to this matter and have evolved means, making such and greater wonders easily realizable. Nikola Tesla

The only thing he lacked was time and the resources to bring it about.
I am convinced, as he was, that our unbelieving world is still not ready. Today, many of us can see the potentials, lacking the technologies to create them. Tesla saw the technologies, yet struggled to help us see their potentials.

I hope that some day we can put aside our differences, live in the truth that we are all part of an incredible creation, of which we each affect the other. We cannot isolate ourselves, but must embrace each other and lift one another up. It is only in putting the needs of other before our own that we can hope to see the future glory for man, and even as glorious as that is, it is just a shadow of what God has planned for those who love Him.

Batteries

Batteries are the largest obstacle hindering Electric Vehicles. Until we have Teslas' Witricitiy, we will have to develop power storage, including batteries. Battery's have not been in demand apart from our laptops and cell phones, and with those we are mostly content. EV's in the wings is causing a surge in battery development and manufacturing worldwide. One game changing feature will be fast charging. MIT recently anounced that they have run computer models that show iron phosphate can make fast charging of lithium ion batteries a reality.

John Miller says "The new batteries would store nearly 10 times as much energy as an ultracapacitor of the same size. The combination of small size and extreme power could make the batteries particularly useful for race cars", he says. (Starting this year, new Formula One racing rules will allow race cars to store energy from braking to deliver very brief jolts of acceleration.

I believe that if applied to current Hybrids, could greatly improve regen braking, which is where Hybrids gain miles for city driving.

Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This battery is good for acceleration, but not as much for long range. "A real breakthrough . . . would be a new positive electrode material with quantum-leap performance specs" in energy storage, Dahn says.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22280/

My First Post

I felt since the blog was started, maybe I should begin... I have put together a little sporadic news letter with clips from articles in the past. I hope to post some of them once I figure out how all this works. But the main thing is to let people know that the Electric car is coming .

I plan to convert some cars to EV's very soon, and plan to work with the Leopard on the interim to familiarize myself with the construction and controls.

So you might ask, "Why Electric?"
Well, it all started with an article in a trade mag about the Tesla Roadster a couple of years back. The Tesla was named for Nichola Tesla who gave us our current A/C power system and the A/C motor. I will write more in the future, but for now, know that without the vision of Tesla, the world we know would not exist. Imagine no radio or TV, dc power instead of ac. Literally all the technology we use today was built on Teslas' foundational work. You could call him the man who gave us the 20th Century.

So it is not without wonder the Tesla Roadster comes into being. An all electric sports car that can do over 125 mph and 0-60 in less than 4 seconds, and 250 miles per charge!
http://www.teslamotors.com/

I started thinking, that sounds pretty viable to me. And begin a journey into the rabbit hole of alternative energy. Another key for me was the movie, "Who Killed The Electric Car."
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/
The movie is about the zero emission mandate of California that resulted in 5 years of EV production by major manufactures, GM leading with the EV1, a sport car with snappy performance and some say over 100 miles per charge. The mandate was finally killed when suit was threatened by the auto manufactures and the federal government. GM destroyed all but a few of the cars, other manufacturers yielded to public pressure and allowed some to be purchased by the public like the Toyota Rav4 EV and the Ford Ranger EV. For the most part the EV slipped back into obscurity, but many now believed the electric was possible and was the answer to many of the problems we face in todays world.

It is safe to say what could be is directly related to the vision of a few and their willingness to bring it about. Tesla himself is considered the 'father' of free and alternative energy. His vision not only gave us today, but saw tomorrow. Many things keep us from going forward into an incredible new world.

One example that could change the world, again is Witricity. Imagine a world without wires? Transportation without fuel powered vehicles?

Nikola Tesla 1904

As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.
.................
The ideal solution of the problem of transportation will be arrived at only when the complete annihilation of distance in the transmission of power in large amounts shall have become a commercial reality. That day we shall invade the domain of the bird. When the vexing problem of aerial navigation, which has defied his attempts for ages, is solved, man will advance with giant strides.
.................
That electrical energy can be economically transmitted without wires to any terrestrial distance, I have unmistakably established in numerous observations, experiments and measurements, qualitative and quantitative. These have demonstrated that is practicable to distribute power from a central plant in unlimited amounts, with a loss not exceeding a small fraction of one per cent, in the transmission, even to the greatest distance, twelve thousand miles — to the opposite end of the globe.

Tesla said he could build the system 100 years ago and while construction the first transmitter that would provide conviction had begun at Wardenclyffe in New York, he was de-funded due to war, economics, and loss of vision. The following link is a good overview of transmitter project.
http://www.damninteresting.com/index.php?s=WArdenclyffe

The following link will provide quotes from Tesla. One will find incredible vision and a prophetic view into the future through the science of high voltage high frequency electricity.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

As I get a handle on the possibilities of blogging, I hope to give you a look into tomorrow. And also what is possible today. And the lowly EV is soon to make a huge impact in the next few years. This is an exciting time in the history of man.

God give us the wisdom to embrace your future, without which we will surely fail.

The Lectric Leopard

Here it is, the Lectric Leopard. This vehicle is from the 1980's believe it or not and was a manufactured vehicle here in the United States using the body of a Renault.

He Knows Now

I set this blog up for Mike. It has been a link on my blog for a while. He knows about his blog now, and is excited about using it. :)
I'm looking forward to seeing what he posts. :)