WI: Steam Cars Remain Competition for Ford etc?

Driftless

Donor
Excel Energy (large electricity generator for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Dakotas, Michigan, Colorado, and Texas)

In 2017, across our eight-state service area, 40 percent of our electricity came from carbon-free sources: wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric plants and nuclear plants. The rest is produced at thermal power plants where coal, natural gas, oil or biomass are used to heat water into steam to drive a turbine that produces electricity.

To be fair, they have been progressively shifting to increasing use of renewable source generation - especially wind turbines - Great Plains and all that...
 

kernals12

Banned
Excel Energy (large electricity generator for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Dakotas, Michigan, Colorado, and Texas)



To be fair, they have been progressively shifting to increasing use of renewable source generation - especially wind turbines - Great Plains and all that...
Okay, I may have been wrong. Mea Culpa.
 
At work.

Perhapse it's not just an application of selling/production points BUT also nitch (sp?) markets?

So.... with their high torque and lack of gear box... how would an 'Off road' 4X4 type of vehicle fair?

Also with their high torque and..... 'Rustic' fuel needs. How would certain farming industry vehicles?

Another point. How independent of dedicated ICE petrol/diesel fuel bowsers are our steam vehicles?

Steam Traction Engines were built locomotive sized from the 1880s till the ICE engined Tractors came on the scene in 1901.
Those early ICE were a lot less expensive, but still _large_
The Hart-Parr 17-30, that's 17 HP Drawbar, 30 HP Belt takeoff
It was a twin cylinder, hit or miss kerosene, and had a displacement of 1654 cubic inches. Yes, big slow moving pistons
Hart-Parr-Glass-Plate_3.jpg

The small tractors that cost under $1000 were not introduced till WWI.
After the War, IH and Ford had a price war, with Tractors under $400

Small Steam Traction Engines were not made in large number before that, and would not have been able to compete.
The Hart-Parr Factory was the first to introduce assembly line techniques, and thier pre war ICE Tractors cost a tenth of Steam.

The biggest problem with the early steam trucks, was the excess weight and without surfaced roads, just were not well for 'off road' operation.

That's very different in the UK, that had more surfaced(doesn't mean paved) roadways that would allow the heavy steam trucks like their Sentinel line

In the US at the time, think Russian style 'mud' season with dirt roads everywhere, and the surfacing(proper drained roadbeds with gravel ontop) was for the '20s.

In Wisconsin, you had the Badger Four Wheel Drive Company, that started with Touring Cars in 1908 and switched to trucks in 1910, and named FWD
Badger-FWD-Truck.jpg

And and offshoot, that became the Jeffery Quad
prochie_jeffery_quad_5.jpg

Both worked well in Farms, and also with Pershing in Mexico, and then in WWI.

Steam had a narrow window in the USA, and missed it for Farming and Trucks
 
I wonder what would have happened if Doble had built trucks instead of luxury cars? I do believe that there were some steam buses in Detroit at one time.
 
I wonder what would have happened if Doble had built trucks instead of luxury cars? I do believe that there were some steam buses in Detroit at one time.

The Doble Brothers were still pretty young as the window for Steam was closing.
Abner had latched onto the Steam being quiet and smooth operation, ideal for high end luxury cars, as well as the higher profit margins they would offer.

Really, would have needed a bit of Henry Ford's desire to help the Farmer in Abner's mindset to switch to 'powerful traction' from 'quiet and fast'.

With that belief, may have had some orders for steam trucks for WWI, and their engines might have been developed enough to get their engines in a different AFV than the Holt wheeled Steam Tank in the running for US Armor
 
Your 4 points don't really fix the problems you listed. No matter how much you automate steam engine construction, you aren't going to make them more efficient or lighter than an ICE.

It seems to me you're only looking at a few narrow aspects of the points raised, namely efficiency and weight of ICE versus ECE.

And the points made are less about overcoming engine efficiency issues, and more about improving the production and R&D practices to keep them updated, and their costs competitive with the likes of Ford. Combined with selling them on their own strengths - as pointed out - and ECE is at least in with a fighting chance.


Wow...just wow. I wasn't expecting feedback... so thanks for this.

Dumb question but everyone's saying that they're heavy on water, but I'm just wondering, was it specially treated water? Or could you just fill up at the nearest fire hydrant for instance?

I like @Peebothuhlu's 4x4/offroading proposal. But I agree with that Stanley needs to be more aggressive with their marketing and find a way to bring the production costs down.

The standardization of layout and making it more user friendly. But if the car's cheaper and more reliable than the competition, people will learn to adapt (I'm sure).

Now if only the Stanleys can ALSO be less lethargic about incorporating technological advances (electric starter, condensers and a 4-stroke engine etc) they SHOULD IMHO be set at least until WWII

I doubt the water needs any kind of special treatment to make it suitable, certainly no more than is needed to make it fit for drinking.

The condenser btw didn't eliminate the loss of water, but did help to reduce the rate substantially, allowing 500-1,000 miles between fill-ups IIRC. Done right, you can set it to coincide with refuels, so adding water pumps to service stations shouldn't be a serious stretch.

People could, but a simple & standardized layout will be a major plus here - and IMHO is one of the biggest reasons ICE took off - by making it possible for more to learn how to operate it quickly, effectively, and thus encourage sales of ECE.

And ECE is never 4-stroke. Only 2. Upstroke and Downstroke.


One more thing I'll add here, is that like others have pointed out, Steam is very good for heavy commercial vehicles - owing to their high torque-to-power ratio - so an industry based on ECE buses, tractors, HGVs and the likes? Perfectly viable IMO.
 
A double acting compound steam motor like the Doble and later Sentinel ones have power on all strokes. So where a four cylinder four stroke ICE will get 2000 power strokes at 1000 RPM the two cylinder Doble at 1000 RPM is getting 4000 power strokes!
 
My reckoning is that it's just simpler, safer (seriously, you're carrying an impromptu rocket/bomb if you don't maintain the boiler) and you get more juice from less stock from ICEs than you do steam, but my reckoning is if you had a mass manufacturer for Steam along with a sane layout and a simplified interface it might actually have some leg in the race. I still think it'd go bust around the WW2 period just due to ICEs allowing for simplicity of manufacture and having less resources to stock, but I think larger vehicles like commercial buses and trucks might get use out of Steam a good deal into the 1950s if done right due to their larger bodies allowing for larger and more potent steam engines.

Though why you lot are gunning for steampunk when you could just try and fix the Electric Cars to stay competitive is beyond me. It's like trying to get a trebuchet to keep pace with cannons.
 
My reckoning is that it's just simpler, safer (seriously, you're carrying an impromptu rocket/bomb if you don't maintain the boiler) and you get more juice from less stock from ICEs than you do steam, but my reckoning is if you had a mass manufacturer for Steam along with a sane layout and a simplified interface it might actually have some leg in the race. I still think it'd go bust around the WW2 period just due to ICEs allowing for simplicity of manufacture and having less resources to stock, but I think larger vehicles like commercial buses and trucks might get use out of Steam a good deal into the 1950s if done right due to their larger bodies allowing for larger and more potent steam engines.

Though why you lot are gunning for steampunk when you could just try and fix the Electric Cars to stay competitive is beyond me. It's like trying to get a trebuchet to keep pace with cannons.

Actually, when properly designed, the Boiler can be the safest part of an ECE. Namely with the use of overpressure valves and/or making the pipework the weakest link. I know that Stanley Steamers did the latter for sure.

And IIRC (I might be wrong about this one) once the US entered WWII, the only vehicles manufactured were for the Military. So what they'd select I suspect would end up deciding things for the first few years after.

For commercial vehicles, their weight (especially when fully laden) makes torque the key factor so that's the metric I'd think buyers would be watching for, where Steam has a huge advantage.

Electric Vehicles have one massive disadvantage, their low power density. Only recently has battery technology advanced enough to really make them a viable power source for anything other than inner-city use. AFAIK, even as late as the 1980's, Lead-Acid was really the best you could use.
 
Though why you lot are gunning for steampunk when you could just try and fix the Electric Cars to stay competitive is beyond me.

because Lead/Acid and Nickel-Iron were the best rechargeable cells, and were heavy for the Watt-hours stored. early examples used rheostats and/or changing the timing on the brushes to adjust power, so not efficient except when running flat out.
Then we get to the crude battery chargers.

Just too soon
 
You really can't. For this to work, the steamer would have to be ubiquitous & cheap before the T ever appeared, & have to demonstrate clear advantages. The drawbacks of steam, not least the interminable wait for it to start (& even 15sec or so with a flash boiler ain't chickenfeed), put steam at a serious disadvantage.
Dumb question but everyone's saying that they're heavy on water, but I'm just wondering, was it specially treated water? Or could you just fill up at the nearest fire hydrant for instance?
I wouldn't swear to this, but AIUI, you need distilled water, or you get all manner of crud buildup inside as things "percolate out".

As to advantages of steam, I'd add the fuel insensitivity: every kind of liquid fuel you can imagine, probably, plus wood & coal, coal slurry, "wood tar" (whatever the liquid left over after paper-making is called), sawdust, & ground corn stalks... Does that overcome the drawbacks? I have my doubts...
 
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