Why is no one building a modern steam car?
They have great torque and can go quite fast.
In 1906 the Land Speed Record was broken by a Stanley steam car, piloted by Fred Marriott, which achieved 127 mph (204 km/h)
And you can fuel them with cheap propane! No gasoline taxes!
They are dangerous as fuck
In 1906 the Land Speed Record was broken by a Stanley steam car, piloted by Fred Marriott, which achieved 127 mph (204 km/h)
It got 15 mpg on Kerosone.
Surely a modern steam car could beat that easily.
Nobody has the money to build them and the government would probably outlaw them to protect the Big Three because >muh too big to fail.
1924 Doble Steam Car
sorry got that mixed up
This one got 15 mpg on kerosene
Maybe possible to make them safer with modern engineering?
Somebody build a steam powered Twingo please
This sounds far easier than it is. Speed records require all revs and power and the correct gear ratios, and steam engines are all torque and no revs. Even diesels suffer from the same issues despite being very similar to gasoline engines, and to this day the diesel motorcycle speed record is only 130 mph.
people cant maintain a car that tells you exactly whats wrong and when to change the oil, do you think they can take care of a high pressure steam system?
>spoiler: no, see rotaries
youtube.com
Modern digital sensors
They are inefficient since the carnot efficiency of a steam engine can not be as high as the one of a internal combustion engine.
That is basic thermodynamics...
The only benifit I can see is biofuel aka wood.
loving the quiet operation
quieter than a modern ICE
Even if it doesn't beat modern ICE, 15-20 mpg is not unreasonable and you can use all sorts of fuel, like propane
Except for the fact, that ICEs can run on propane as well...
ICE are loud
Steam is nice and quiet and gets 1000 lbft of Torque
>loud
Depends on silencer in exaust system
>muh torque
That´s why you have a gearbox...
You see all of those knobs? Can you confidently tune a carburetor? What if you missed a dial and instead of an off idle hesitation you explode.
Thats why no mo steam.
Why has nobody mentioned the fact that they run on fucking STEAM?
That's made from WATER.
Do you really want to have a 500 gallon water tank that needs to be refilled more often than your fuel tank?
They run on water and fuel...
cars have a literal text and picture display that tell them "OIL CHANGE DUE" and "LOW LEFT FRONT TIRE PRESSURE" and shit like that and they STILL cant fucking take care of their cars. now add a high pressure steam vessel in the mix that can explode and kill or burn the shit out of people in a small radius and you have a recipe for a bigger disaster than giving everyone flying cars.
My point being that they may get 15mpg on the kerosene, but it uses 10 gallons of water per mile.
Ok, I missunderstood your point.
Also condensers where a thing in later steam cars , wich reduced the required amouunt of water significantly.