Car Batteries Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Car Batteries. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.
Erma Bombeck
Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery -- it recharges by running.
Bill Watterson
Here’s another question I have. How come when it’s us, it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken, it’s an omelette? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen, that we passed chickens in goodness. Name 6 ways we’re better than chickens. See, nobody can do it! You know why? ‘Cause chickens are decent people. You don’t see chickens hanging around in drug gangs, do you? No, you don’t see a chicken strapping some guy into a chair and hooking up his nuts to a car battery, do you? When’s the last chicken you heard about come home from work and beat the shit out of his hen, huh? Doesn’t happen, ’cause chickens are decent people.
George Carlin
There should be a phone service that turns off your phone between midnight and six A.M. every night. And if you want to make a call, you have to pick up the phone and talk to an operator: Put me through to AAA. My car battery's dead. Yes, ma'am. Put me through to Pink Dot. I need vanilla Häagen-Dazs toute de suite! Yes, ma'am. Put me through to my ex-boyfriend... I'm sorry, ma'am, the operator would say. That would be a bad idea. Now you go to bed before you do anything stupid.
Kim Gruenenfelder (A Total Waste of Makeup (Charlize Edwards, #1))
We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery -- it recharges by running. You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by" absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.
Bill Watterson
No wonder the foreseen future depicted in sci-fi movies and literature where people were commuting in automatic flying vehicles and possessed a wealth of devices that would dispense with common day chores never became realized in our present world. Those advances had been and are still being halted in the name of money and power. Here we were still relying on dirty fossil fuels for energy more than a century after vehicles were invented, and archaic batteries for giving power to devices, which were just two examples Jeremy could think of off the top of his head. Greed and power kept humanity from advancing.
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
Gemma Davidson,” she answered, her voice as groggy as I felt. “Where are you?” I asked. “Who is this?” “Elvis.” “What time is it?” “Hammer time?” “Charley.” “Did you text me? Did your car break down?” “No and no. Why are you doing this to me?” She was funny. “Check your cell.” I heard a loud, sleepy sigh, some rustling of sheets, then, “It won’t come on.” “Not at all?” “No. What did you do to it?” “I ate it for breakfast. Check the battery compartment.” “Where the hell is that?” “Um, behind the battery door.” “Are you punking me?” I heard her fumbling with the phone. “Gem, if I was going to punk you, I wouldn't simply turn off your phone. I would pour honey in your hair while you slept. Or, you know, something like that.” “That was you?” she asked, appalled.
Darynda Jones (Third Grave Dead Ahead (Charley Davidson, #3))
The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished, sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
Environmentalists generally object to battery-powered devices and for good reason: batteries require mined minerals, employ manufacturing processes that leak toxins into local ecosystems and leave behind an even-worse trail of side effects upon disposal. Though when it comes to the largest mass-produced battery-powered gadget ever created—the electric car—environmentalists cannot jump from their seats fast enough to applaud it.
Ozzie Zehner (Green Illusions)
Also, we would accept donations in our name to Planned Parenthood, because the male Republicans who wish to dismantle it should have their testicles hooked up to a car battery. Maybe then they would understand what it feels like to be a woman in America.
T.J. Klune (How to Be a Movie Star (How to Be, #2))
The autopilot is a hands-free piece of electronic wizardry. It's not some brutal application of electricity like one of the Pubyok's car batteries...Think of its probing as a conversation with the mind, imagine it in a dance with identity. Yes, picture a pencil and eraser engaged in a beautiful dance across the page. The pencil's tip bursts with expression - squiggles, figures, words - filling the page, as the eraser measures, takes note, follows in the pencil's footsteps, leaving only blankness in its wake. The pencil's next seizure of scribbles is perhaps more intense and desperate, but shorter lived, and the eraser follows again. They continue in lockstep this way, the self and the state, coming closer to one another until finally the pencil and the eraser are almost one, moving in sympathy, the line disappearing even as it's laid down, the words unwritten before the letters are formed, and finally there is only white.
Adam Johnson (The Orphan Master's Son)
He emptied all his handheld video games and Josh’s remote control cars, and called his grandma to tell her that all he wanted for his birthday in November was AA batteries.
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
You've passed like three stores that sell batteries," she says. "We need to get one now in case it's too late on our way back." “You don’t need a battery. Your battery is fine,” I say. I avoid looking over at her but I can see her watching me, waiting for more explanation. I don’t immediately respond. I flick the blinker on and turn onto my grandparent’s street. When I pull into their driveway, I turn the car off and tell her the truth. What harm could it do at this point? “I unhooked your battery cable before you tried to leave today.” I don’t wait for her reaction as I get out of the car and slam the door. I’m not sure why I slam the car door. I’m not mad at her, I’m just frustrated. Frustrated that she doubts me after all this time. “You what!?” she yells. When she gets out of the car, she slams her door intentionally. I keep walking, shielding the wind and snow with my jacket until I reach the front door. She rushes after me. I almost walk inside without knocking but remember how it feels, so I knock. “I said I unhooked your battery cable. How else was I going to convince you to ride with me?” "That's real mature, Will.
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
My main concern was my teeth because they were in constant pain. Meth depletes the body of calcium, the vitamin essential to maintaining healthy teeth. It also includes acidic ingredients that can damage teeth. The ingredients include but are not limited to battery acid: Drano, over-the-counter cold medications like Sudafed, antifreeze, engine starter fluid, and brake fluid. Basically, pop the hood of your car and you can find the ingredients you need to cook meth. I’m no dentist, but I came to the conclusion that was the root of my tooth pain.
S.C. Sterling (Teenage Degenerate)
Okay, the point is this: Everything you think, everything you do, it all has to run off the battery. Like the accessories in a car.
Stephen King (The Stand)
You think I stole your car battery?” “I think you did something to my car, because it was working just fine up until now.
Suzanne Wright (The Favor)
My threshold for human contact had worn painfully thin. I felt like a car that had been running its lights too long on battery alone. I felt fresh out of charge, and as though I needed to plug in for days before I could have one more conversation with one more human being.
Catherine Ryan Hyde (Second Hand Heart)
That night, Park made a tape with the Joy Division song on it, over and over again. He emptied all his handheld video games and Josh's remote control cars, and called his grandma to tell her that all he wanted for his birthday in November was AA batteries.
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
Ladies, what in the world is wrong with men? I mean besides all the really obvious stuff. They think they have the handle on everything. And if a lady gets in behind the wheel of a sports car, they act all crazy, like we don't belong. Same thing with motorcycles. Let a gal cruise down the highway on her hog and you'd think she was Lady Godiva for all the stares that she gets. I got news for you, just because we don't...doesn't mean that we can't. Seriously, boys, you can be replaced by a few inches of rubber and a couple of D-cell batteries, so I wouldn't be too cocky.
T.W. Brown (That Ghoul Ava & The Queen of the Zombies (That Ghoul Ava #2))
Sometimes, I guess, an over-valent idea enters the mind as a problem, or imaginary problem. This is not so rare. You are getting ready for bed, late at night, and all of a sudden the idea comes into your mind that you did not shut off your car lights. You look out the window at your car-which is parked in your driveway in plain sight-and you can see that it shows no lights. But then you think: Maybe I left the lights on and they stayed on so long that they ran the battery down. So to be sure, I must go out and check. You put on your robe and go out, unlock the car door, get in and pull on the headlight switch. The lights come on. You turn them off, get out, lock up the car and return to the house. What has happened is that you have gone crazy; you have become psychotic. Because you have discounted the testimony of your senses; you could see out the window that the car lights were not on, yet you went out to check anyhow. This is the cardinal factor: you saw but you did not believe. Or, conversely, you did not see something but you believed it anyhow. Theoretically, you could travel between your bedroom and the car forever, trapped in an eternal closed loop of unlocking the car, trying the light switch, returning to the house-in this regard you herewith are a machine. You are no longer human.
Philip K. Dick (The Transmigration of Timothy Archer)
A typical 100-kilowatt-hour Tesla lithium-ion battery is built in China on a largely coal-powered grid. Such an energy- and carbonintensive manufacturing process releases 13,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution released by a conventional gasoline-powered car traveling 33,000 miles. That 33,000-miles figure assumes the Tesla is only recharged by 100 percent greentech-generated electricity.
Peter Zeihan (The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization)
Another highlight was when I got to drive a battery-operated Barbie Jeep. This made a huge impression on me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I loved it so much that it (unfortunately) influenced my taste in real cars when I finally got my driver's license more than 10 years later.
Naya Rivera (Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up)
She went again and bought this car, too, from an antique dealer. He almost gave it away, saying it will never run again. It has the old days’ engine, the kind you don’t find in this era. A change of engines and batteries, a new set of all-terrain-tires, some safety trackers, sensors, and, well, a whole list of other things with 300% luck to make it run again through the Junk Land—the land outside the cities where it’s only ruins and rubble. Needs hard work, yes. But Kusha instantly liked the color of its body, the moment she saw it—a sort of green with greyish tint, and a good load of rust.
Misba (The High Auction (Wisdom Revolution, #1))
There are enough ideas, images, symbols, and experiences in your head already to work with for a lifetime. It's a little like having a car with an unpredictable battery, though. Sometimes you get in and it starts right up. Other times, especially if it has been sitting idle for awhile, you turn the key and nothing happens.
Bert Dodson (Keys to Drawing)
Always, from the first time he went there to see Eros and the lights, that circus have a magnet for him, that circus represent life, that circus is the beginning and the ending of the world. Every time he go there, he have the same feeling like when he see it the first night, drink coca-cola, any time is guinness time, bovril and the fireworks, a million flashing lights, gay laughter, the wide doors of theatres, the huge posters, everready batteries, rich people going into tall hotels, people going to the theatre, people sitting and standing and walking and talking and laughing and buses and cars and Galahad Esquire, in all this, standing there in the big city, in London. Oh Lord.
Sam Selvon (The Lonely Londoners)
But you said you've never been shocked that many times in a row before.” I grin at him. “I bet we can make that happen again. It probably works like a car battery. We’ll have to try shocking you a few times in a row again.” He rolls over onto his back, puts his arms above his head and grins, his eyes sparkling. “I’m all yours gorgeous, make me yelp.
Michelle Abbott (In Chains (In Chains, #1))
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Mayank Tanwar
How long are you going to wait for this guy?” I’m thrown by his sudden shift. “Ah . . . I don’t know.” “Give me your keys.” “What?” “Give me your keys. I’m going to change your tire while we’re waiting.” I fish in my purse and come up with a handful of keys. “You’re going to—” “Stay in the car.” He grabs the keys and practically yanks them out of my fingers. Then he slams the door in my face. I watch him in the path of his headlights, mystified. He opens my trunk, and, moments later, emerges with the spare tire. He lays it beside the car, then pulls something else from the darkened space. I’ve never changed a tire, so I have no idea what he’s doing. His movements are quick and efficient, though. I shouldn’t be sitting here, just watching, but I can’t help myself. There’s something compelling about him. Dozens of cars have passed, but he was the only one to stop—and he’s helping me despite the fact that I’ve been less than kind to him all night. He gets down on the pavement—on the wet pavement, in the rain—and slides something under the car. A hand brushes wet hair off his face. I can’t sit here and watch him do this. He doesn’t look at me when I approach. “I told you to wait in the car.” “So you’re one of those guys? Thinks the ‘little woman’ should wait in the car?” “When the little woman doesn’t know her tires are bald and her battery could barely power a stopwatch?” He attaches a steel bar to . . . something . . . and starts twisting it. “Yeah. I am.” My pride flinches. “So what are you saying?” I ask, deadpan. “You don’t want my help?” His smile is rueful. “You’re kind of funny when you’re not so busy being judgmental.” “You’re lucky I’m not kicking you while you’re down there.” He loses the smile but keeps his eyes on whatever he’s doing. “Try it, sister.
Brigid Kemmerer (Letters to the Lost (Letters to the Lost, #1))
As for my own answers to any of this? I have none. I'm far more confused than before I first went. I've had no great epiphanies, no profound realisations, but since returning home I've resigned myself to this one thing: that, putting the economics and politics of it all aside - naive as that may be - what it all boils down to is individuals. It's a simple interaction between just two people: one, a person with opportunities and choices, and who could get a flight out tomorrow should they choose; the other, a person with few options - if any. If nothing else, it's a gesture. An attempt. Food and a tent for Toto. Burns dressing for Jose. A little operating theatre with car batteries and boiled instruments, where Roberto can ply his trade. Free HIV treatment for Elizabeth, who'll never be cured and will always live in a hut anyway, but who'll have a longer, healthier life because of it. And sometimes it's little more than a bed in which to die peacefully, attended to by family and health workers... but hey, that's no small thing in some parts. My head says it's futile. My heart knows differently.
Damien Brown (Band-Aid for a Broken Leg)
Isaac Asimov’s speculation—The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course—was completely reasonable, given the physics and the rate of technological improvement up until then. We really, really should have had atomic batteries by now. And guess what? Your iPhone would never need charging, and your Tesla would have a range of 3.5 million miles. It is a possibility.
J. Storrs Hall (Where Is My Flying Car?: A Memoir of Future Past)
Zits,” I said. “Z-I-T-S. Actually, I don’t think you even need electric bolts. You could just breathe on us.” I looked him in the eyes and smiled. “Seriously, dude, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?” “Shut up!” “No, really. Did you eat a diaper?” “Shut up!” he shouted. He squinted. “Do you know how much I enjoyed guarding your mother? I shocked her at least a dozen times just to watch her squeal.” “Yeah, well you could have just sat next to her and let her smell you. That would have been much worse. I’ve had hamsters with better hygiene.” “Enough! Don’t think I won’t electrocute you, Vey!” Taylor looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “It’s his Tourette’s, he can’t help it.” “I’m scared, Zits,” I said. “You know Hatch would have your head if you did. But here’s my promise: after I’m in charge, my first command is to make you my shoeshine boy. You’ll be following me around with a towel.” “You’ll never be in charge.” “No, that’s what Hatch said. You heard him. He wants my power. I’m not kidding, Zits. When Hatch was trying to get me to join you guys, he promised me that you would be my servant.” Zeus looked at me with a worried expression. After a moment he shouted, “Shut up! And stop calling me Zits!” “I don’t think I will. In fact, it’s going to be the first rule I make. I’m going to have everyone else call you that.” “I don’t care what Hatch says. I’m gonna fry you, Vey.” “Oooh, now I’m really shaking. You don’t have enough juice in you to light a flashlight.” “Michael!” Taylor shouted. “Stop it. He’s got a temper. I’ve seen it.” “You should listen to the cheerleader, Vey.” He stepped toward me. “You think you’re so cool. But you can’t shoot electricity like me, can you? You’re just a flesh-covered battery.” “And you’re a flesh-covered outhouse. You should tie a couple hundred of those car air fresheners around your neck.” “Last warning!” Zeus shouted. “I’m not kidding, Zits. There are porta-potties with better aromas. Would a little deodorant kill you? What was the last year you took a bath?
Richard Paul Evans (The Prisoner of Cell 25 (Michael Vey, #1))
Anyway, this is actually a big deal. I could use it to create all kinds of very cool products, like batteries that last forever, ships that can get into orbit without jet fuel, cars that don’t need engines, cars that fly…
Mitty Walters (Breaking Gravity)
Both the Roadster and the Model S also take advantage of what’s known as regenerative braking, which extends the life of the brakes. During stop-and-go situations, the Tesla will brake by kicking the motor into reverse via software and slowing down the wheels instead of using brake pads and friction to clamp them down. The Tesla motor generates electricity during this process and funnels it back to the batteries, which is why electric cars get better mileage in city traffic.
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
In one sense the cause of suicide is simple: overwhelming pain. This overwhelming pain, however, is the aggregate of thousands of pains. Any hurt that we have ever suffered, if it remains consciously or unconsciously lodged within us, can contribute to suicide. This may range from being an incest victim 50 years ago, to losing a job 10 years ago, to having a car battery stolen yesterday. The pains come from everywhere: ill-health, family, peers, school, work, community, caregivers. For each suicide there was a finite point at which this aggregate became too much. Although "The straw that broke the back," is frequently an accurate metaphor, no one pain is ever the cause of suicide. Suicidal pain is decomposable into thousands of pains, and nearly all of these pains are decomposable into painful constituents. Sexual abuse, job loss, and personal theft each have numerous painful constituents. The search for the single cause is a fundamentally wrongheaded approach to the understanding and prevention of suicide. It is inaccurate to say simply that pain causes suicide, since a level of pain that is lethal for one person may not be lethal for someone with greater resources. Similarly, deficiency in resources cannot be regarded as the cause of suicide, since two people may have equal resources and unequal pain. Our resources may also come from everywhere; even such trivial distractions as going to a movie can contribute to coping with suicidal pain.
David L. Conroy (Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain)
Take the lithium-ion batteries needed to power electric cars and store solar energy. Producing such batteries requires cobalt, cobalt that right now is being dug out of the ground by slaves in the Congo, including many children,70 some as young as four.
Megan Basham (Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda)
She was scared.” “It was dark.” “‘Oh, no—snakes!’” “One bit her.” “‘Ow! My leg!’” “She limped outside.” “Her neighbor came.” “‘What’s wrong?’” “‘Snakes are everywhere!’” “‘Are they poisonous?’” “‘Yes, and smelly!’” “‘Quick, my car!’” “‘You saved me!’” “‘Darn! Dead battery!
Andrew Clements (No Talking)
Gene Berdichevsky, one of the members of the solar-powered-car team, lit up the second he heard from Straubel. An undergraduate, Berdichevsky volunteered to quit school, work for free, and sweep the floors at Tesla if that’s what it took to get a job. The founders were impressed with his spirit and hired Berdichevsky after one meeting. This left Berdichevsky in the uncomfortable position of calling his Russian immigrant parents, a pair of nuclear submarine engineers, to tell them that he was giving up on Stanford to join an electric car start-up. As employee No. 7, he spent part of the workday in the Menlo Park office and the rest in Straubel’s living room designing three-dimensional models of the car’s powertrain on a computer and building battery pack prototypes in the garage. “Only now do I realize how insane it was,” Berdichevsky said.
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
Many operations involved intercepting and seizing someone traveling in a moving vehicle, often with bodyguards. The task force would surreptitiously attach a tracking beacon to the target’s car. Delta was already experimenting with technologies that used an electromagnetic pulse to shut a car’s battery down remotely. The unit also used a catapult net system that would ensnare car and driver alike. Once the car had been immobilized, operators would smash the window with a sledgehammer, pull their target through the window, and make off with him, shooting any bodyguards who posed a threat, while an outer security perimeter kept anyone who might interfere at bay. The operators had a name for these snatches: habeas grab-ass.
Sean Naylor (Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command)
A typical 100-kilowatt-hour Tesla lithium-ion battery is built in China on a largely coal-powered grid. Such an energy- and carbonintensive manufacturing process releases 13,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution released by a conventional gasoline-powered car traveling 33,000 miles. That 33,000-miles figure assumes the Tesla is only recharged by 100 percent greentech-generated electricity. More realistically? The American grid is powered by 40 percent natural gas and 19 percent coal. This more traditional electricity-generation profile extends the “carbon break-even” point of the Tesla out to 55,000 miles. If anything, this overstates how green-friendly an electric vehicle might be.
Peter Zeihan (The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization)
Cradled on the bed of that trailer was a small wooden dory. The boat’s profile was distinctive—an upturned prow that terminated in a sharp point, and a hull whose bottom was curved like the blade of a scimitar. Lashed to her decks were two sets of ten-foot oars hewn from straight-grained Oregon ash, and tucked into the footwell at the center of the boat lay a cable connecting a car battery to a pair of powerful search lamps, the kind of devices that jacklighters use when hunting deer in the dark. There was just enough light to make out her colors—a beryl-green hull and bright red gunwales. And if you looked closely, you could discern the black-and-gold lettering emblazoned along the right side of her bow that spelled her name: Emerald Mile.
Kevin Fedarko (The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon)
He never approves of anything I do,” Kusha says from the garage, hiding her frown. She gets all her old cars and tools from places you don’t want your daughters to visit. And Rashad Gaumont certainly doesn’t want her to visit Magic Mama, the not-enough-evolved, middle-aged man from the Old City. “He’s not a citizen! He lives in a bus! So what if he made it himself? So what if he teaches you about machines? Don’t meet him.” “Why?” Kusha used to ask Rashad, and she’d always get the same answer: “The unevolved kind brings chaos and wars.” Kusha didn’t listen. She went again and bought this car, too, from an antique dealer. He almost gave it away, saying it will never run again. It has the old days’ engine, the kind you don’t find in this era. A change of engines and batteries, a new set of all-terrain-tires, some safety trackers, sensors, and, well, a whole list of other things with 300% luck to make it run again through the Junk Land—the land outside the cities where it’s only ruins and rubble. Needs hard work, yes. But Kusha instantly liked the color of its body, the moment she saw it—a sort of green with greyish tint, and a good load of rust.
Misba (The High Auction (Wisdom Revolution, #1))
Facebook’s “Like” feature, some version of which now exists on every platform, is the equivalent of a car battery hooked up to that sociometer. It gives whoever controls the electric jolts tremendous power over our behavior. It’s not just that “likes” provide the social validation we spend so much of our energy pursuing; it’s that they offer it at an immediacy and scale heretofore unknown in the human experience. Off-line, explicit validation is relatively infrequent. Even rarer is hearing it announced publicly, which is the most powerful form of approval because it conveys our value to the broader community. When’s the last time fifty, sixty, seventy people publicly applauded you off-line? Maybe once every few years—if ever? On social media, it’s a normal morning. Further,
Max Fisher (The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World)
As they grow, wind and solar and EVs will need “big shovels” to meet their increasing call on mined minerals and land itself. It is estimated that an onshore wind turbine requires fifteen hundred tons of iron, twenty-five hundred tons of concrete, and forty-five tons of plastic. About half a million pounds of raw materials have to be mined and processed to make a battery for an electric car.
Daniel Yergin (The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations)
It's amazing how people define roles for themselves and put handcuffs on their experience and are constantly surprised by the things a roulette universe spins at them. Here am I, they say, a mere wholesale fishmonger, at the controls of a giant airliner because as it turns out all the crew had the Coronation Chicken. Who'd have thought it? Here am I, a housewife who merely went out this morning to bank the proceeds of the Playgroup Association's Car Boot Sale, on the run with one million in stolen cash and a rather handsome man from the Battery Chickens' Liberation Organization. Amazing! Here am I, a perfectly ordinary hockey player, suddenly realizing I'm the Son of God with five hundred devoted followers in a nice little commune in Empowerment, Southern California. Who'd have thought it?
Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)
After purchasing a CLS, Tesla’s engineers tore it apart. One team had reshaped the boxy, rectangular battery pack from the Roadster and made it flat. The engineers cut the floor out of the CLS and plopped in the pack. Next they put the electronics that tied the whole system together in the trunk. After that, they replaced the interior of the car to restore its fit and finish. Following three months of work, Tesla had in effect built an all-electric Mercedes CLS.
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
The electric car was simpler: a box of batteries, an electric motor, and a sliding lever or pedal to control the motor’s speed. Its problem, besides frequent and slow recharging, just as today, was its relatively low power: since batteries were heavy, higher power had to be traded for battery life. The electric was ideal for city driving, however, clean and quiet, the mechanical equivalent of a horse and buggy. But with little charging infrastructure outside the city, it was unsuited for pleasure driving or longer-distance travel.
Richard Rhodes (Energy: A Human History)
Modern economies will always be tied to massive material flows, whether those of ammonia-based fertilizers to feed the still-growing global population; plastics, steel, and cement needed for new tools, machines, structures, and infrastructures; or new inputs required to produce solar cells, wind turbines, electric cars, and storage batteries. And until all energies used to extract and process these materials come from renewable conversions, modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on the fossil fuels used in the production of these indispensable materials. No AI, no apps, and no electronic messages will change that.
Vaclav Smil (How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going)
Marjory Gengler (white American) to Mark Mathabane (black South African) in the late 1970s-- Marjory: Why don't blacks fight to change the system [apartheid] that so dehumanizes them? Mark's Response, from his memoirs: I told her [Marjory] about the sophistication of apartheid machinery, the battery of Draconian laws used to buttress it, the abject poverty in which a majority of blacks were sunk, leaving them with little energy and will to agitate for their rights. I told her about the indoctrination that took place in black schools under the guise of Bantu Education, the self-hatred that resulted from being constantly told that you are less than human and being treated that way. I told her of the anger and hatred pent-up inside millions of blacks, destroying their minds. I would have gone on to tell Marjory about the suffering of wives without husbands and children without fathers in impoverished tribal reserves, about the high infant mortality rate among blacks in a country that exported food, and which in 1987 gave the world its first heart transplant. I would have told them about the ragged black boys and girls of seven, eight and nine years who constantly left their homes because of hunger and a disintegrating family life and were making it on their own; by begging along the thoroughfares of Johannesburg; by sleeping in scrapped cars, gutters and in abandoned buildings; by bathing in the diseased Jukskei River; and by eating out of trash cans, sucking festering sores and stealing rotting produce from the Indian traders on First Avenue. I would have told her about how these orphans of the streets, some of them my friends--their physical, intellectual and emotional growth dwarfed and stunted--had grown up to become prostitutes, unwed mothers and tsotsis, littering the ghetto streets with illegitimate children and corpses. I would have told her all this, but I didn't; I feared she would not believe me; I feared upsetting her.
Mark Mathabane
A battery of laws that effectively criminalize homelessness is sweeping the nation, embraced by places like Orlando, Fla.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; and Manchester, N.H. By the end of 2014, 100 cities had made it a crime to sit on a sidewalk, a 43 percent increase over 2011, according to a survey of 187 major American cities by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. The number of cities that banned sleeping in cars jumped to 81 from 37 during that same period. The crackdown comes amid the gentrification that is transforming cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington and Honolulu, contributing to higher housing costs and increased homelessness.
Jessica Bruder (Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century)
Get a move on, Perico, and go ask him for the battery charger," and the apprentice hurried out, but everything was like a dream and what was the point of any of it: battery chargers, wrenches, mechanics, and he felt sorry for the terrified little boy because, he thought, all of us are dreaming and why punish kids and why fix cars and have crushes on nice boys and then get married and have children who also dream that they're alive, who have to suffer, go off to war or fight or give up hope all on account of mere dreams. He was simply drifting along now, like a boat without a crew swept along by shifting currents, and moving mechanically like those invalids who have lost almost all will and consciousness and yet allow themselves to be moved by the nurses and obey the instructions they are given with the obscure remains of that will and that consciousness without knowing why. The 493, he thought, I go as far as Chacarita and then I take the subway to Florida and then I walk from there to the hotel. So he got on the 493 and mechanically asked for a ticket, and for half an hour continued to see ghosts dreaming of things that kept them very busy; at the Florida stop he went out the exit on the Calle San Martin, walked along the Corrientes to Reconquista and from there headed for the Warszawa rooming house, Accommodations for Gentlemen, went up dirty, dilapidated stairs to the fourth floor, and threw himself on the wretched bed as though he had been wandering through labyrinths for centuries.
Ernesto Sabato
RENEWABLE ENERGY REVOLUTION: SOLAR + WIND + BATTERIES In addition to AI, we are on the cusp of another important technological revolution—renewable energy. Together, solar photovoltaic, wind power, and lithium-ion battery storage technologies will create the capability of replacing most if not all of our energy infrastructure with renewable clean energy. By 2041, much of the developed world and some developing countries will be primarily powered by solar and wind. The cost of solar energy dropped 82 percent from 2010 to 2020, while the cost of wind energy dropped 46 percent. Solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of electricity. In addition, lithium-ion battery storage cost has dropped 87 percent from 2010 to 2020. It will drop further thanks to the massive production of batteries for electrical vehicles. This rapid drop in the price of battery storage will make it possible to store the solar/wind energy from sunny and windy days for future use. Think tank RethinkX estimates that with a $2 trillion investment through 2030, the cost of energy in the United States will drop to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, less than one-quarter of today’s cost. By 2041, it should be even lower, as the prices of these three components continue to descend. What happens on days when a given area’s battery energy storage is full—will any generated energy left unused be wasted? RethinkX predicts that these circumstances will create a new class of energy called “super power” at essentially zero cost, usually during the sunniest or most windy days. With intelligent scheduling, this “super power” can be used for non-time-sensitive applications such as charging batteries of idle cars, water desalination and treatment, waste recycling, metal refining, carbon removal, blockchain consensus algorithms, AI drug discovery, and manufacturing activities whose costs are energy-driven. Such a system would not only dramatically decrease energy cost, but also power new applications and inventions that were previously too expensive to pursue. As the cost of energy plummets, the cost of water, materials, manufacturing, computation, and anything that has a major energy component will drop, too. The solar + wind + batteries approach to new energy will also be 100-percent clean energy. Switching to this form of energy can eliminate more than 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is by far the largest culprit of climate change.
Kai-Fu Lee (AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future)
A typical 100-kilowatt-hour Tesla lithium-ion battery is built in China on a largely coal-powered grid. Such an energy- and carbonintensive manufacturing process releases 13,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution released by a conventional gasoline-powered car traveling 33,000 miles. That 33,000-miles figure assumes the Tesla is only recharged by 100 percent greentech-generated electricity. More realistically? The American grid is powered by 40 percent natural gas and 19 percent coal. This more traditional electricity-generation profile extends the “carbon break-even” point of the Tesla out to 55,000 miles. If anything, this overstates how green-friendly an electric vehicle might be. Most cars—EVs included—are driven during the day. That means they charge at night, when solar-generated electricity cannot be part of the fuel mix.*
Peter Zeihan (The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization)
Is that what we do? We pitch our tents, do our little clown shows, and then take off up the road to the next town ahead? Leaving our science-fictional debris on the blasted dirt to poison the minds of future generations, like the alien litter in STALKER and ROADSIDE PICNIC. Flying cars rusting out like Saturn Five rockets propped up as roadkill talismans at Kennedy, leaking toxins into the soil. Jetpacks oozing fuel from cracks in their tanks and poisoning the grass. Three-ring moonbases crumbling in the solar wind. Birdshit on the time machines. Big fat rats scavenging broken packs of food capsules, Best Before Date of 1971. A Westinghouse Robot Smoking Companion, vintage of 1931, slumped up against a tree, tin fingers still twitching for a cigarette. Vines growing through a busted cyberspace deck. The shreds of inflatable furniture designed for the space hospitals of 1955. Lizards perched atop a weather control cannon. Atomic batteries mouldering inside the grips of laser pistols abandoned in the weeds.
Warren Ellis (CUNNING PLANS: Talks By Warren Ellis)
About the Phones Closing my car door, you always say - Watch for deer and text when you get home. I want to, I do, but I will forget. Time moves and I forget. - Look I am trying, I am, but it's not the kind of thing that trying solves. Once on the side of a highway, a cop told me about dragging a full grown buck out the windshield of a wrecked car all by himself. About the sounds it made, Like the devil learning what regret feels like. About the woman it kicked to death in the driver's seat. The phone call he had to make to her grown daughter after whose first question was, Did the deer survive? Different cop, different time, different highway. Said she keeps her phone on silent then spoke about securing the crime scene in that classroom in Blacksburg where one student shot all the others. Every single one of them had a cell phone, she said, and for hours after every single one rang and rang or vibrated across the floor in the same slow way that blood pools. No one was allowed to answer, no one, so instead the phones rang all night until batteries were empty, voicemails full of a thousand Call me when you get this so I know you're okays. Turns out time moves the way blood does. Batteries too. Runs out like a startled deer across a road. - Listen I am trying to find a way to tell you this. There are things that trying solves but this is not one of them.
Robert Wood Lynn (Mothman Apologia)
back. She knew she was lucky to have a job but she didn’t feel lucky. She felt depressed. Sad. Tired. And most of all, confused. She knew this was the week of Ruth Ann’s trial. There hadn’t been any press coverage yet, but she remembered the date. She had wanted to call Rick and wish him luck. In fact, she had picked up the phone several times and started to dial the number, but she just couldn’t go through with it. Not after all the things they had said to each other. She opened the back door to the office and stepped out into the night. The parking lot was barren except for her white Mustang, and the only sounds she heard were the passing of cars on Greensboro a few blocks up. She shut the door behind her, putting the key in the dead bolt and twisting it. “Kinda late for a pretty girl like you to be out.” Dawn turned to the sound of the voice, her stomach tightening into a knot. The lot was sparsely lit, and for a moment she didn’t see him. Then, standing by her Mustang, she saw a tall man dressed in khaki pants and a golf shirt. As he stepped toward her, she noticed that his hair was sandy blond and he had a patch of stubble on his face. “Can I help you?” Dawn asked, her voice shaky. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone but then remembered that the battery was dead. Damn, damn, damn. The man was in front of her now. He had continued to approach as if his appearance were completely natural.
Robert Bailey (The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake, #1))
There’s the potential that Tesla is setting itself up to capitalize on a situation like the one Apple found itself in when it first introduced the iPhone. Apple’s rivals spent the initial year after the iPhone’s release dismissing the product. Once it became clear Apple had a hit, the competitors had to catch up. Even with the device right in their hands, it took companies like HTC and Samsung years to produce anything comparable. Other once-great companies like Nokia and BlackBerry didn’t withstand the shock. If, and it’s a big if, Tesla’s Model 3 turned into a massive hit—the thing that everyone with enough money wanted because buying something else would just be paying for the past—then the rival automakers would be in a terrible bind. Most of the car companies dabbling in electric vehicles continue to buy bulky, off-the-shelf batteries rather than developing their own technology. No matter how much they wanted to respond to the Model 3, the automakers would need years to come up with a real challenger and even then they might not have a ready supply of batteries for their vehicles. “I think it is going to be a bit like that,” Musk said. “When will the first non-Tesla Gigafactory get built? Probably no sooner than six years from now. The big car companies are so derivative. They want to see it work somewhere else before they will approve the project and move forward. They’re probably more like seven years away. But I hope I’m wrong.” Musk
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
Time management also involves energy management. Sometimes the rationalization for procrastination is wrapped up in the form of the statement “I’m not up to this,” which reflects the fact you feel tired, stressed, or some other uncomfortable state. Consequently, you conclude that you do not have the requisite energy for a task, which is likely combined with a distorted justification for putting it off (e.g., “I have to be at my best or else I will be unable to do it.”). Similar to reframing time, it is helpful to respond to the “I’m not up to this” reaction by reframing energy. Thinking through the actual behavioral and energy requirements of a job challenges the initial and often distorted reasoning with a more realistic view. Remember, you only need “enough” energy to start the task. Consequently, being “too tired” to unload the dishwasher or put in a load of laundry can be reframed to see these tasks as requiring only a low level of energy and focus. This sort of reframing can be used to address automatic thoughts about energy on tasks that require a little more get-up-and-go. For example, it is common for people to be on the fence about exercising because of the thought “I’m too tired to exercise.” That assumption can be redirected to consider the energy required for the smaller steps involved in the “exercise script” that serve as the “launch sequence” for getting to the gym (e.g., “Are you too tired to stand up and get your workout clothes? Carry them to the car?” etc.). You can also ask yourself if you have ever seen people at the gym who are slumped over the exercise machines because they ran out of energy from trying to exert themselves when “too tired.” Instead, you can draw on past experience that you will end up feeling better and more energized after exercise; in fact, you will sleep better, be more rested, and have the positive outcome of keeping up with your exercise plan. If nothing else, going through this process rather than giving into the impulse to avoid makes it more likely that you will make a reasoned decision rather than an impulsive one about the task. A separate energy management issue relevant to keeping plans going is your ability to maintain energy (and thereby your effort) over longer courses of time. Managing ADHD is an endurance sport. It is said that good soccer players find their rest on the field in order to be able to play the full 90 minutes of a game. Similarly, you will have to manage your pace and exertion throughout the day. That is, the choreography of different tasks and obligations in your Daily Planner affects your energy. It is important to engage in self-care throughout your day, including adequate sleep, time for meals, and downtime and recreational activities in order to recharge your battery. Even when sequencing tasks at work, you can follow up a difficult task, such as working on a report, with more administrative tasks, such as responding to e-mails or phone calls that do not require as much mental energy or at least represent a shift to a different mode. Similarly, at home you may take care of various chores earlier in the evening and spend the remaining time relaxing. A useful reminder is that there are ways to make some chores more tolerable, if not enjoyable, by linking them with preferred activities for which you have more motivation. Folding laundry while watching television, or doing yard work or household chores while listening to music on an iPod are examples of coupling obligations with pleasurable activities. Moreover, these pleasant experiences combined with task completion will likely be rewarding and energizing.
J. Russell Ramsay (The Adult ADHD Tool Kit)
The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta. Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a role model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: * music * movies * microcode (software) * high-speed pizza delivery The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills." So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
The gleaming orange and silver express slid to a stop beside them. Tiger barged his way on board. Bond waited politely for two or three women to precede him. When he sat down beside Tiger, Tiger hissed angrily, "First lesson, Bondo-san! Do not make way for women. Push them, trample them down. Women have no priority in this country. You may be polite to very old men, but to no one else. Is that understood?" "Yes, master," said Bond sarcastically. "And do not make Western-style jokes while you are my pupil. We are engaged on a serious mission." "Oh, all right, Tiger," said Bond resignedly. "But damn it all..." Tiger held up a hand. "And that is another thing. No swearing, please. There are no swearwords in the Japanese language and the usage of bad language does not exist." "But good heavens, Tiger! No self-respecting man could get through the day without his battery of four-letter words to cope with the roughage of life and let off steam. If you're late for a vital appointment with your superiors, and you find that you've left all your papers at home, surely you say, well, Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie, if I may put it so as not to offend." "No," said Tiger. "I would say 'Shimata', which means 'I have made a mistake.'" "Nothing worse?" "There is nothing worse to say." "Well, supposing it was your driver's fault that the papers had been forgotten. Wouldn't you curse him backwards and sideways?" "If I wanted to get myself a new driver, I might conceivably call him 'bakyaro' which means a 'bloody fool', or even 'konchikisho' which means 'you animal'. But these are deadly insults and he would be within his rights to strike me. He would certainly get out of the car and walk away." "And those are the worst words in the Japanese language! What about your taboos? The Emperor, your ancestors, all these gods? Don't you ever wish them in hell, or worse?" "No. That would have no meaning." "Well then, dirty words. Sex words?" "There are two--'chimbo' which is masculine and 'monko' which is feminine. These are nothing but coarse anatomical descriptions. They have no meaning as swearing words. There are no such things in our language." "Well I'm...I mean, well I'm astonished. A violent people without a violent language! I must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you have nothing left but to commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut your girlfriend's head off when she annoys you." Tiger laughed. "We generally push them under trams or trains." "Well, for my money, you'd do much better to say 'You-------'," Bond fired off the hackneyed string, "and get it off your chest that way." "That is enough, Bondo-san," said Tiger patiently. "The subject is now closed. But you will kindly refrain both from using these words or looking them. Be calm, stoical, impassive. Do not show anger. Smile at misfortune. If you sprain your ankle, laugh.
Ian Fleming (You Only Live Twice (James Bond, #12))
I stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. He reached around us and shoved the door closed, spinning around and facing us toward the kitchen. “I was trying to make you breakfast.” It took a moment for his words and their meaning to sink in. I stared dumbfounded across the room and past the island. There was smoke billowing up from the stove and the window above the sink was wide open. Bowls and spoons littered the island and there was a carton of eggs sitting out. He was trying to cook. He was really bad at it. I started to laugh. The kind of laugh that shook my shoulders and bubbled up hysterically. My heart rate was still out of control, and I took in a few breaths between laughs to try and calm it down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him because the fire alarm was still going off. I had no doubt half the neighborhood was now awake from the sound. He didn’t bother to put me down, instead hauling me along with him, where he finally set me down, dragged a chair over near the alarm, and climbed up to remove the battery. The noise cut off and the kitchen fell silent. “Well, shit,” he said, staring at the battery in his hand. A giggle escaped me. “Does this always happen when you cook?” He shrugged. “The only time I ever cook is when it’s my turn at the station.” His forehead creased and a thoughtful look came over his face. “The guys are never around when it’s my night to cook. Now I know why.” He snagged a towel off the counter and began waving away the rest of the lingering smoke. I clicked on the vent fan above the stove. There was a pan with half a melted spatula, something that may or may not have once been eggs, and a muffin tin with half-burned, half-raw muffins (how was that even possible?). “Well, this looks…” My words faltered, trying to come up with something positive to say. “Completely inedible?” he finished. I grinned. “You did all this for me?” “I figured after a week of hospital food, you might like something good. Apparently you aren’t going to find that here.” I had the urge to hug him. I kept my feet planted where they were. “Thank you. No one’s ever ruined a pan for me before.” He grinned. “I have cereal. Even I can’t mess that up.” I watched as he pulled down a bowl and poured me some, adding milk. He looked so cute when he handed me the bowl that I lifted the spoon and took a bite. “Best cereal I ever had.” “Damn straight.” I carried it over to the counter and sat down. “After we eat, would you mind taking me to my car? I hope it’s still drivable.” “What about the keys?” “I have a security deposit box at the bank. I keep my spare there in case I ever need them.” “Pretty smart.” “I have a few good ideas now and then.” “Contrary to the way it looks, I do too.” “Thank you for trying to make me breakfast. And for the cereal.” He walked over to the stove and picked up the ruined pan. “You died with honor,” he said, giving it a mock salute. And then he threw the entire thing into the trashcan. I laughed. “You could have washed it, you know.” He made a face. “No. Then I might be tempted to use it again.
Cambria Hebert (Torch (Take It Off, #1))
Huff frowned, sipped the beer. He hated beer, truth be told. Tasted like pee on a car battery. But that was not a fact one shared in high school. Maybe a senior could say ‘I hate beer’ without looking like a kid asking for milk. He’d wait till graduation, never touch the stuff again.
Raymond St. Elmo (Letters from the Well in the Season of the Ghosts (Texas Pentagraph #3))
with Justice by Attrition. It’s not just that it catches up innocent people in its massive dragnet. It’s also that it applies disproportionate punishment to the guilty. How many upscale New Yorkers have ever been arrested for public drunkenness, for carrying a joint or a bottle of pain pills, for having a knife or a box cutter in a car? Police, if they wanted, could throw a net over the exit of any nightclub in Lower Manhattan on a weekend night and score a couple of dozen drug cases. Or they could crack down on the Wall Street guys in suits who sneak into doorways for late-night rub-and-tugs or park their Lexuses near the Battery for after-work blowjobs.
Matt Taibbi (The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap)
growth of both solar power and electric cars, there’s now a bigger need for better energy storage systems, resulting in a next generation of lithium-ion batteries with increased range, and, as an added bonus, enough power to lift flying cars.
Peter H. Diamandis (The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives)
A car without wheels is useless, A cellphone without a battery is useless, A life without Jesus is useless.
Sterry Ks
the ability to move from idea and invention to technologies and innovation and finally into the marketplace. This is not something that necessarily happens fast—energy is not software. After all, the lithium battery was invented in the middle 1970s but took more than three decades before beginning to power cars on the road. The modern solar photovoltaics and wind industries began in the early 1970s but did not begin to attain scale until after 2010. Yet the pace of innovation is accelerating, as is the focus, owing in part to the climate agenda and government support, in part to decisions by investors, in the part to the collaboration of different kinds of companies and innovators, and in part to the convergence of technologies and capabilities—from digital to new materials to artificial intelligence and machine learning to business models and more.
Daniel Yergin (The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations)
Electric vehicles will likely be scrapped if their very expensive battery fails out of warranty.
Steven Magee
As expected, Sio sat in the back as if he was the car battery.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (The First Woman)
2011, I led the Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Technology Review to develop strategies for government support of emerging clean energy technologies. In one town hall meeting, I faced advocates for four different vehicle technologies—internal combustion engines powered by biofuels, compressed natural gas, hydrogen-powered fuel cells, and battery-powered plug-ins. Each of them believed that their technology was the optimal vision for the future, and that all the government had to do was support the development of the appropriate fueling infrastructure. When I reminded them that the country could probably deploy no more than two new fueling technologies at scale, a squabble ensued. There are several reasons I believe that electricity will fuel the passenger vehicles of the future, but one of them is that the existing electrical grid is a good start on the fueling infrastructure. If a widespread transition to plug-in electric cars does come about, systems thinking will be even more important as the electrical and transportation systems would have to work together to accommodate charging millions of vehicles.
Steven E. Koonin (Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters)
the roughly $800 billion in available stimulus, we directed more than $90 billion toward clean energy initiatives across the country. Within a year, an Iowa Maytag plant I’d visited during the campaign that had been shuttered because of the recession was humming again, with workers producing state-of-the-art wind turbines. We funded construction of one of the world’s largest wind farms. We underwrote the development of new battery storage systems and primed the market for electric and hybrid trucks, buses, and cars. We financed programs to make buildings and businesses more energy efficient, and collaborated with Treasury to temporarily convert the existing federal clean energy tax credit into a direct-payments program. Within the Department of Energy, we used Recovery Act money to launch the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), a high-risk, high-reward research program modeled after DARPA, the famous Defense Department effort launched after Sputnik that helped develop not only advanced weapons systems like stealth technology but also an early iteration of the internet, automated voice activation, and GPS.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
Like many suburban homeowners, I like to kill and eat the wild animals that populate my backyard. To keep it sporting, I hunt naked, with my teeth and long, sharpened fingernails as my only weapons. I’ve feasted on squirrel, raccoon, vole, and numerous songbirds. But no matter how long I lay spread-eagle and motionless in the hot noonday sun, I have never been able to outwit and catch any of the plump and juicy rabbits that hop just outside my reach and then bolt for the woods when I leap forward with a blood-curdling shriek. I have chased them at a dead run through the yards of the many unoccupied homes that surround mine, but the pursuit always ends in frustration. But no more, thanks to Amazon. Every week, I order a fresh whole rabbit and affix it to a remote control car that is operated by one of my children. This way, I get the thrill of the hunt, and when the car’s batteries are exhausted, I can leap upon it, bury my teeth into the rabbit’s soft flesh, and perform my ritual victory dance right there in the Walgreens parking lot.
Amazon Reviewers (Did You Read That Review?: A Compilation of Amazon's Funniest Reviews)
airship smash,” replied the lad, somewhat proudly. “It’s an oxide of nickel battery, with steel and oxide of iron negative electrodes.” “What solution do you use, Tom?” asked Mr. Swift. “I didn’t get that far in questioning you before the crash came,” he added. “Well I have, in the experimental battery, a solution of potassium hydrate,” replied the lad, “but I think I’m going to change it, and add some lithium hydrate to it. I think that will make it stronger.” “Bless my watch chain!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.
Victor Appleton (Tom Swift #5: Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road)
About how far do you expect your car will go with one charging of the battery?” “Well, if I can make it do three hundred miles I’ll be satisfied, but I’m going to try for four hundred.” “What will you do when your battery runs out?” “Recharge it.” “Suppose you’re not near a charging station?” “Well, Dad, of course those are some of the details I’ve got to work out. I’m planning a register gauge now, that will give warning about fifty miles before the battery is run down. That will leave me a margin to work on. And I’m going to have it fixed so I can take current from any trolley line, as well as from a regular charging station. My battery will be capable of being recharged very quickly, or, in case of need, I can take out the old cells and put in new ones.
Victor Appleton (Tom Swift #5: Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road)
of climate change. What was needed was a massive nudge in the right direction. In the past, the stick of regulation and the rod of taxation were the methods that environmentalists believed could break the fossil fuel economy. But the Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t rely on such punitive tactics, because Manchin culled them from the bill. Instead, it imagined that the United States could become the global leader of a booming climate economy, if the government provided tax credits and subsidies, a lucrative set of incentives. There was a cost associated with the bill. By the Congressional Budget Office’s score, it offered $386 billion in tax credits to encourage the production of wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal plants, and battery storage. Tax credits would reduce the cost of electric vehicles so that they would become the car of choice for Middle America. But $386 billion was an estimate, not a price tag, since the legislation didn’t cap the amount of money available in tax credits. If utilities wanted to build more wind turbines or if demand for electric vehicles surged, the government would keep spending. When Credit Suisse studied the program, it estimated that so many businesses and consumers will avail themselves of the tax credits that the government could spend nearly $800 billion. If Credit Suisse is correct, then the tax credits will unleash $1.7 trillion in private sector spending on green technologies. Within six years, solar and wind energy produced by the US will be the cheapest in the world. Alternative energies will cross a threshold: it will become financially irresponsible not to use them. Even though Joe Biden played a negligible role in the final negotiations, the Inflation Reduction Act exudes his preferences. He romanticizes the idea of factories building stuff. It is a vision of the Goliath of American manufacturing, seemingly moribund, sprung back to life. At the same time that the legislation helps to stall climate change, it allows the United States to dominate the industries of the future. This was a bill that, in the end, climate activists and a broad swath of industry could love. Indeed, strikingly few business lobbies, other than finance and pharma, tried to stymie the bill in its final stages. It was a far cry from the death struggles over energy legislation in the Clinton and Obama administrations, when industry scuppered transformational legislation. The Inflation Reduction Act will allow the United States to prevent its own decline. And not just economic decline. Without such a meaningful program, the United States would have had no standing to prod other countries to respond more aggressively to climate change. It would have been a marginal player in shaping the response to the planet’s greatest challenge. The bill was an investment in moral authority.
Franklin Foer (The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future)
CHAPTER 1: My old car battery, dead as a turd, rode in the trunk of Dreema’s sedan. She’d told me to take it. I felt embarrassed to drive it, but I had no other way to pick up a new car battery.
Ed Lynskey (Traffic (P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery))
Why this motor has run an equivalent of two hundred miles on one charging of the battery! That’s much better than I expected. I thought if I got a hundred out of it I’d be doing well. Dad, I believe, after I improve my battery a bit, that I’ll have the very thing I want! I’ll install a set of them in a car, and it will go like the wind.
Victor Appleton (Tom Swift #5: Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road)
Easter. On this one day in the year, everybody went fishing. We often teamed up with cousins and other friends in the neighborhood. This day, my cousin Eli and I said we were going to the lake fishing, but instead, we went to Kmart. Going to town hardly ever happened. I didn’t even know how to get to Kmart, but Eli was a little older and knew the way. Regrettably, I stole money from my dad’s cash register to spend. We bought battery-operated watches, a toy car with a racetrack, and a camera − all forbidden by the church rules. While we were there, Dad came to town. We were so engrossed in our illicit activities and enjoying our freedom that we didn’t see him walk into Kmart, but he saw us. However, he didn’t say a word to us, neither did he show himself. We never knew he was there until later that evening. As we headed back to the community, we had so much fun with that camera. We took countless pictures and played with our toys and
Joe Keim (My People, the Amish: The True Story of an Amish Father and Son)
They claimed that a mountain bike, surfboard, and fifty-inch TV could lie flat inside—at the same time. Instead of storing the batteries in a giant box in the trunk, as they’d done with the Roadster, Straubel’s team imagined them in a shallow rectangular box beneath the floor. A motor, much smaller than the typical gas-powered engine, would be fitted between the back wheels. With the bulk of the drivetrain beneath the car instead of under the hood, it opened up a ton of interior room.
Tim Higgins (Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century)
The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
In May 1901, Edison formed the Edison Storage Battery Company. Edison had big plans for his new battery, which he thought could be used by trolley companies and others. To extend the viability of his invention into the countryside, Edison even proposed that small windmills be attached to electrical generators. Together, they would be used to recharge batteries in cars while homeowners were asleep in a manner that would be cheaper than gasoline.25 This model of decentralized household distributed energy plus electric car is being revisited today in the Honda House of the Future on the University of California, Davis, campus, again raising the prospect that we lost what could have been an opportunity to do things differently one hundred years ago.
Amy Myers Jaffe (Energy's Digital Future: Harnessing Innovation for American Resilience and National Security (Center on Global Energy Policy Series))
They were independent women – self-sufficient, autonomous. They could change their own light bulbs and the batteries in their smoke alarms, refill their own windscreen wash bottles in their cars, put out their own bins,
Fiona Collins (A Year of Being Single)
Chinese leaders plan to shift support for EVs by encouraging the installation of charging stations. According to the China EV Charging Infrastructure Promotion Association, China already had 1.174 million charging stations at the end of 2019, operated by eight new Chinese charging companies.19 China also has battery-swapping stations, where drivers can replace discharged batteries on certain brands of cars.
Amy Myers Jaffe (Energy's Digital Future: Harnessing Innovation for American Resilience and National Security (Center on Global Energy Policy Series))
For decades, Green activists have been attacking our sources of energy. Every single one has been demonized. Coal, which liberated mankind from the Malthusian trap, gave us manufacturing, railroads, and steamships; more than doubled our life expectancy; and saved almost all of us from having to be dirt farmers. Oil, which substantially replaced coal in the 20th century, made airplanes and the private automobile possible, along with the rest of the modern world. And, starting in the 1960s and ’70s, hydropower, nuclear fission, and even natural gas have come under the guns of the activists. The currently fashionable “renewables,” such as wind and solar power, have largely escaped the attacks. Battery-powered electric cars are the darlings of the Greens. But this is because they are simply not capable of providing anywhere near the energy or range that civilization depends on at a price it can afford. Should any of these, or other new forms of energy, prove actually usable on a large scale, they would be attacked just as viciously as fracking for natural gas, which cuts CO2 emissions in half, and nuclear power, which would eliminate them entirely.
J. Storrs Hall (Where Is My Flying Car?)
Harold was fascinated about how babies were made. Not the actual sex act. Meaning how easy and simple it was and how any two jerks could do it. He saw people who had made children and he knew they couldn't change the battery in a car or build a fence or would take 40 minutes to untangle a set of Christmas lights. He knew it was easier to make a baby than it was to make a cake.
Steven Wright (Harold)
In that vein, Counsel boldly asserts his method of using intense aerobic therapy, as a way of coping with Parkinson’s disease, by attempting to jump start and restore the electro-chemical life left in his remaining brain cells, can be likened to how he recharges the dying cells in a car battery.
Jerry Hurtubise J.D. (Parkinsonian Democracy - Special Edition: A Legal Fiction Advocating Diet and Exercise for Parkinson's)
It was only after Brax had dipped the motherfucker’s balls in water with a jumper attached to a car battery, that we had finally gotten more than crying and screaming. No, we’d gotten something I hadn’t expected. Information.
Lucy Smoke (Pretty Little Savage (Sick Boys, #1))
At a certain stage every single thing can be a sign. Halfway down the road a group of starlings flew up from a pile of discarded car batteries.
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)
In the car Marten was rattling on as if he had way too many batteries, so B.D. listened closely to the undercurrent of the radio on a golden oldies station and it was like hearing all of your used-up emotions.
Jim Harrison (Brown Dog)
The battery in my truck is dead. I'm parked out in the parking lot. I saw your car here and wondered if you would be able to help me,” I said softly, still not making eye-contact. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor. “Are you all right?” he asked gently. “Yes,” I said. And I was. Miraculously, I was. A small white square of fabric appeared under my nose. “A handkerchief! What are you, eighty-five?” “Humph! I'm twenty-two, as you well know. I just happened to be raised by a very proper, slightly old-fashioned, Englishwoman who taught me to carry a handkerchief. I'll bet you're glad she did.” I was. But I didn't admit it. The cloth felt satiny against my swollen eyes and tear-stung cheeks. It smelled heavenly . . . like pine and lavender and soap, and, suddenly, using his handkerchief felt incredibly intimate. I searched for something to say. “Is this the same woman who named you Darcy?” Wilson's laugh was a brief bark. “The very same.” “Can I keep this? I'll wash it and give it back. I'll even iron it, like your mom does.” The devil in me had to have her say. “Ah, Blue. There you are. I thought for a moment you'd been body snatched by an actual human girl – one who doesn't take great pleasure in taunting her history teacher.
Amy Harmon (A Different Blue)
The real challenge is getting into the damned thing, and I believe that's why so many would-be writers with great ideas never actually pick-up the pen or start tapping away at the keys. All too often, it's like trying to start a car on a cold day. At first the motor doesn't even crank, it only groans. But if you keep at it (and the battery doesn't die), the engine starts...runs rough...and then smooths out.
Stephen King
Batteries, Bug repellent, Belts, Bags , Barbecue equipment, Boots, Bath towels. Bikes, Bike rack. C - Cash and credit cards, Cell phones & chargers, Camera and film/memory cards, Coffee pot, Can opener, Cups, Cutlery, Computer, Clock, Cleaning utensils, Clothes and coats, Camping Guides, Condiments (salt, sugar, pepper). D - Dishes, Drainers, Disinfectant. F - First Aid kit, Fire Extinguishers G - Glasses, (drinking, reading, sun), Games. H -Herbs, Hair brushes, Headphones. K -Keys (house, RV, Lockers), Kindle & cable, Kitchen Gadgets. M - Medication. Money belts, Measuring implements, Maps, P - PERSONAL DOCUMENTS: Passports, Health Certificates, Insurance, Driving License, RV documents, Power adapters, Pens, Pets:
Catherine Dale (RV Living Secrets For Beginners. Useful DIY Hacks that Everyone Should Know!: (rving full time, rv living, how to live in a car, how to live in a car van ... camping secrets, rv camping tips, Book 1))
TOOLBOX   B - Bulbs, Batteries. D - Duct tape, Drills. E - Electrical tester. F - Fuses, Fan belt (spare). G - Glues (super, fabric, threadlock, multipurpose) H - Hammers. J - Jacks, Jumper leads. K - Knives (box and pocket). L - Level (spirit). M - Marker pen, Mallet. O - Oils (Engine and lubricating) P
Catherine Dale (RV Living Secrets For Beginners. Useful DIY Hacks that Everyone Should Know!: (rving full time, rv living, how to live in a car, how to live in a car van ... camping secrets, rv camping tips, Book 1))
are dozens of different devices, all shapes and sizes, but most are attached with a strong magnet. Depending on the model, the battery can last for weeks, or the device can even be hot-wired to the car’s electrical system.
John Grisham (The Racketeer)
didn't thank didn't wave goodbye didn't flutter the air with kisses a mound of gifts unwrapped bed unmade no appetite always elsewhere though it was raining elsewhere though strangers peopled the streets though we at home slaved and baked and wept and hung ornaments and perfumed the dark did he marvel did he thank was he grateful did he know was he human was he there always elsewhere: didn't thank didn't kiss toothbrush stiffened with unuse puppy whining in the hall car battery dead sweaters unraveled was that human? Went where?
Joyce Carol Oates
Chicago is in the Midwest, and yes, we’re probably way nicer than New Yorkers, but don’t get it twisted—we are still not making eye contact and saying hi to you while you measure out your buckwheat groats in the bulk section of the health food store. Lots of people are theoretically nice, but when you need them to jump your car’s dead battery they act like the text didn’t go through. And that’s fine. We big-city folk understand that “Call me if you need help moving next week” loosely translates to “BITCH, I DARE YOU.” But I might need a hand getting my firewood into the house, and it would be amazing to shout over the fence for Bill and his unironic cargo shorts to come over and give me one.
Samantha Irby (We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.)
just-concluded Paris Motor Show stood out for its dazzling concept and production cars, many of which are pointing to the future, low emission, electric or hybrid cars that are environmentally-friendly as well as fuel-savers that give more mileage than ever before. It also showcased exciting levels of French design and innovation. There was the Peugeot 208 Hybrid Air concept which Peugeot-Citroen has based on a standard 208 with an engine that uses compressed air instead of conventional battery power in a hybrid set-up. It works in the opposite way to electric hybrids by being best utilised with frequent use and regeneration. As regenerating the system takes just 10 seconds, it's also ideal for city
Anonymous
Il faut être certain qu’aucun fluide cérébral ne pénètre dans l’interface, d’où sortent une centaine de microfils connectés avec l’électrode implantée. Il faut ensuite s’assurer que l’interface communique en Wi-Fi avec une haute bande passante, car une quantité énorme d’informations doit être transmise vers l’extérieur. Pour cela, il faut des batteries durables, tant il est impensable de répéter souvent l’intervention chirurgicale pour en changer ; sur notre prototype, elles peuvent durer cinq ans. Ce dernier a pour l’heure la taille d’une boîte d’allumettes. Mais c’est aussi ce qui se fait de plus complexe au monde.
Anonymous
The good news is that advances in batteries, fuel cells, lightweight cars, and charging networks are making electric vehicles look more promising than ever before. To accelerate the economies of scale necessary for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, the government currently subsidizes the production and consumption of such cars. But in the absence of major technological improvements, these policies have proved insufficient. If policymakers took the politically unpopular step of taxing people for the carbon their cars emit, electric vehicles would capture a larger market share.
Anonymous
HERF stands for High Energy Radio Frequency, and it basically means a big, nasty pulse of raw radio energy. You can build a HERF gun that will tune the power from a standard car battery, focusing it into a pencil-beam of ugly brute force by means of a mini satellite dish and use it to kill a laptop at twenty paces. The whole thing'll cost you under $200 if you're smart about parts.
Anonymous
And transmogrification. Of all things.” “Oh bugger,” Clyde groans. Then he breaks into a run. “Trans what?” I say. “Why are we running?” “Battery!” Clyde is yelling. “He’s got a car battery!” “Move it!” Tabitha’s yell is an electronic screech in my ear. Transmogrifi-what?
Jonathan Wood (No Hero (Arthur Wallace, #1))
Batteries, too, have the potential to change the world—just as much as shale has, should the technology continue to improve. That’s because large-scale batteries, if used to store electricity for the grid, could unlock the potential of renewable power, which has been held back by its intermittent nature. Steve LeVine takes stock of the remarkable cost reductions and technological improvements in battery technology, driven in part by electric-car companies such as Tesla, and envisions what’s next.
Anonymous