What Will Power Our Vehicles?
Page 19
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
WHAT does the future hold in connection with the motive power of commercial vehicles? Until this war the vast majority had petrol engines, but amongst the heavier types the oil engine was making considerable headway; in fact, in the higher tonnages and for the larger passenger models, it was becoming pre-eminent. The prospects of employing fuels alternative to petrol and oil had faded into insignificance. For years no steam vehicle had been produced. Battery-electric models were few and comparatively expensive, although various schemes were put forward to develop them to the point where they would become more popular with operators. Efforts had been made to encourage the employment of gas producers, of which there were numerous makers, but few machines in this country utilized solid fuel in this way.
In the municipal passenger-transport sphere and in London, a fair number of road vehicles, in the form of trolleybuses, were drawing their electric power from overhead wires.
Little Progress With Gas Fuels During the war there has' been only one real attempt to employ an alternative fuel. This was in connection with producer gas, but this, after a considerable amount of activity and heartburning, has virtually ceased to receive official backing. In the early years of the war there also appeared to be a likelihood that an increasing number of vehicles would be driven by coal-gas, but the shortage in this fuel soon led to a policy of restriction rather than of expansion.
It seems, therefore, that in the future weshall still have to rely mainly upon petrol and oil fuel, although there are certain possibilities in the direttion of the use of compressed methane and coal-gas in cylinders.
We look forward, also, to a considerable increase in the employment of electric vehicles, when the manufacturers can get down to a fairly large production of thoroughly well-designed models of light weight and large battery capacity, which will give a higher speed, better hill-climbing and greater radius of action at—and this is a most important point—a reasonable price. There still exist hundreds of steam enthusiasts, but we have yet to learn of the manufacturer who would be prwared again to venture into this field. One or two have included steam in the programmes of their 'experimental departments, and have even gone so far as to try out i.e. engines converted to use steam. It seems regrettable, however, that very soon after fine neWT models of steam wagons were placed upon the market their production ceased. Yet they showed up splendidly on heavy work. It may be that if designed to embody the latest lighter materials, and if encouraged by legislation and less-stringent taxation, they would once more become popular.
Possibilities of Wireless Power Pick-up Now we come to a new method of transmitting electric power to road vehicles, which has for long been the dream of inventors. This is the picking 'up of the power without any intermediary contacts. Information concerning this has kindly been sent to us by " Soviet War News,' and we shall be publishing, in a subsequent issue, further details of the experiments made.
The first demonstration was held on June 16, 1943, at a Moscow factory. The vehicle concerned was a small car in which the petrol engine had been replaced by an electric motor. A receiving spiral was mounted on the roof, and a rectifier transformed the hi. current into the direct type needed by the motor. A power line of copper wire stretched 13 ft. above the roadway. It carried a 100-amp. current with a frequency of 100,000 herz. A little later the overhead power line was replaced by an underground cable, and tests made to ascertain the best frequency. Various types of rectifier were also experimented with.
In the early part of 1944, vehicles propelled in this way, without any mechanical contact, were employed in the same factory. Such vehicles may also carry batteries, which will allow them to make trips of a mile or two away from thepower " mains," the batteries being recharged when the vehicle returns to the vicinity of these.
Whilst the new method of transport is intended primarily for public passenger carrying and the conveyance of heavy freight, it does not preclude the prospect of using much smaller types, such as the private car, but, naturally, all vehicles powered in this way would be restricted to routes where the transmission lines, either overhead or underground, Were situated, or close to them.
We Must Have Better Road Signs IN the old coaching days many of the road signs with which we have to contend to-day no doubt proved quite satisfactory, and anyone tempted to be facetious might well add that some of them were those originally provided. The average sign one meets with is far too small and many are unreadable, even at close range. So long 'as the onus rests with local authorities, so long shall we have to put up with the existing system ; but we contend that the proper" signing" of the highways is far from a parochial matter.
It is, indeed, a national one, and we feel that no one in the industry would object to some part of the vast sum which is passed on to the Exchequer each year by road users being devoted to the complete reorganization of the present system of sign-posting.
To a driver unfamiliar with the route from, say, London to the North, such a journey could prove to be a nightmare, whereas, having noted down the principal towns through which he hat to pass, he should be able to " hit the trail " without so much as .a doubt in his mind.
What are needed are large, easily read signs which, at all road junctions at least, should be illuminated. It should not be necessary to pul/ up alongside a sign in order to read it, but be readable on approach, so that no time is lost.
Another feature which would be appreciated is the "labelling " of towns, so that a driver may know what town he is approaching. It would not be too much"to ask that such a sign he made to span the highway. adequate illumination being provided.
The general public has little conception of the enormous extent of the long-distance road traffic which, in normal times, is travelling north, south, east and west, during the hours of darkness, with perishable goods which it is able to purchase within a matter of hours of their despatch: It is these drivers, in particular, who need all the help that proper road` signing can give. It is almost safe to say that if they did not know, from long experience, almost every bend in the road, the market-garden and farm produce that is, in normal times, delivered to the minute, would, at the least, be extremely irregular in arrival at the distribution centres.
The Incidence of Motor Taxation
A WRITER to the" Financial Times," referring to motor taxation, says that whilst the R.A.C. formula cramps design and puts a premium on the long-stroke engine, taxation on cylinder capacity would have another disadvantageous effect, as it would transfer the premium to fastrunning engines, as against slow ones. He considers that the only correct tax is one on fuel, which would stimulate economy but leave design free. What is more interesting from our point of view, however, is that he castigates the haulage and passenger-carrying concerns, the vehicles of which are always on the road, -as being interested in " passing the buck" to car owners, whose vehicles, according to him, are comparatively seldom on the highway. He points out that it is not for him to say whether this discrimination is in the ultimate interest of "the trade," but it is inimical to the small man and, consequently, to those companies which sell him his cars.
The writer does not, however, mention that, even now, whilst all cointnercial vehicles (with a few minor exceptions) pay heavily on seating capacity or unladen weight, they have to produce further huge sums, representing the present taxation on fuel, both petrol and oil ; thus the more they are on the road, the more they pay. Incidentally, Mr. G. W. Lucas, president of the M.T.A., stated on September 29 that, even in respect of building homes, a'tax of, say, 9d. upon every gallon of petrol, plus a tax upon the weight of the vehicles, would increase the cost of every brick, bag of cement, yard of ballast, sheet of steel, or other material transported by road to building sites.