Nothing in the grandparent comment invites your first rant. Except maybe I do happen to think that the Volt is the best compromise between price, range on batteries, and ability to drive long distances., but that doesn't exhibit any of the confusion about batteries vs fuel that you seemed to think you were responding to.
I imagine the people clicking the down facing triangle were responding to your unnecessary and out of place tone, not out of Tesla exuberance.
The free piston engine that is essentially a linear electric power generator in the OP is interesting and maybe promising for practice. And such a car with a battery for capturing energy from braking, operating accessories without the engine, and some extra power for a few seconds could be fine. Fine. I like it. Good OP.
You wrote:
> Nothing in the grandparent comment invites your first rant.
Wrong. From the OP I was responding to:
> Electrically driven cars are the future. But until we have cheap, 1000-mile batteries, we still need range-extending fossil-fuel engines.
This quote is the "rant" -- the writer hates "fossil-fuel engines" and is dreaming of "1000 mile batteries" presumably to be charged from the electric grid. Wacko nonsense. Smoking funny stuff nonsense.
Uh, just where would the energy to charge a "1000 mile battery" come from? Sure, now, heavily from the electric grid from fossil fuels. Wind, solar? Nope, not for the grid because those sources will need to store electric energy, and that's too darned expensive.
Some people just HATE a 15 gallon tank of gasoline or Diesel and just dream of "1000 mile batteries" and threaten to increase my costs of car travel and seriously weaken the US, and I don't like attacks on either me or the US.
This wacko, 'green worship' with humans and carbon as 'evil', etc. is going too darned far. I don't care about people worshiping the moon, but this wacko stuff is trying to hurt my car transportation, and I don't like it.
They also don't actually say the words you have put in quotation marks, or anything especially dreamy about electric cars. Maybe they said it somewhere else?
(I suppose 'less carbon' could be characterized as dreamy, but electric miles are often cheaper to operate, so I guess I don't like that characterization)
Anyway, I don't mind if you agree with me about whether the comment invites your response or not, I just wanted you to consider that maybe the people who inspired your second rant did understand your comment and downvoted for other reasons.
Jason Cammisa, "No crankshaft, no problem: Toyota's free piston engine is brilliant: Gas piston engine fundamentals haven't changed in 134 years—until now.", 'Road and Track',
June 30, 2014.
and the third paragraph starts with just what I quoted,
exactly, again, yet again, one more time, exactly,
precisely, every character right in place:
> Electrically driven cars are the future. But until we have cheap, 1000-mile batteries, we still need range-extending fossil-fuel engines.
Again, the work by Toyota looks good, and the article is somewhat interesting, but apparently the author wanted to insert a line to please the greenies so put in his "1000-mile batteries" and his swipe "fossil-fuel". Apparently with a little more encouragement he could have put in some words about evil humans and filthy CO2 and the dangers of 'global warming', rising sea levels, massive deaths of wildlife, the melting of Greenland, and 'climate change', that is, each tornado, hurricane, flood, drought, snow storm, especially hot/cold day, week, season, etc. I'm SICK of nearly constantly being beaten over the head for no good reason by this non-stop propaganda of total incompetent, made-up, hysterical, guilt-ridden, dysfunctional, destructive, dangerous nonsense.
This propaganda is trying to build a political consensus to get on my back and into my wallet and seriously hurt the US, and I don't like it.
I don't know who or what is paying for or pushing this propaganda, but I'm pushing back at it.
They also don't actually say the words you have put in quotation marks,
Okay, I guess I misunderstood that your comment that was posted as a child of a comment was not actually a response to that post (I would guess that most other people made the same error...). Or are we supposed to tease out what part of the invective is directed at the parent comment and what part is directed at the overall story?
I didn't know the 'hierarchical' norm of implied references and, instead, thought that all the posts were about or at least in the context of the OP unless carefully stated otherwise.
I think if you are going to post a rant about the linked article, it's pretty appropriate to post it at top level, or at least as a reply to a comment with a lot of context.
I also think it would be more useful to post a thoughtful, persuasive comment (as opposed to saying 15 gallons multiple times), but that's a different issue.
Anyway, this whole sub thread is sort of unfortunate (in that we both wasted time and any unfortunate bystanders wasted their time too). Oh well.
I don't recall just why I posted just where I did in the tree, and I'm not going to waste any more time to look.
The 15 gallons thing is because I'm pissed at this greenie stuff and need to pound and pound on the rock solid, dirt simple, overwhelmingly important fact that the whole greenie thing is trying to beat a 15 gallon tank and has essentially no chance of doing so and, thus, is really dumb and much of why I'm pissed. I continue to be attacked here because of 15 gallons, and that shows again, yet again, once again, over again that even something as simple as a 15 gallon tank is unacceptable to the greenies so devoted they are to their irrational religion. The greenies can go worship the moon and I won't care, but they are a threat to my car and to the strength of the US, and I'm pissed, as nearly everyone in the US should be. This greenie stuff is wacko.
Yeah, I understand not wasting any more time on this thread.
You aren't getting attacked because you said 15 gallons though, people are down voting your posts because they don't add much to the conversation. You're imagining some motivated contingent of people voting against your posts because they speak the truth about the article, but really, your first post was down voted because it was somewhat obnoxious.
I mean, are you commenting here because it is a convenient place to propagandize, or are you commenting here because some decent and interesting conversations take place? If it's the latter, then you have a reason to make a better effort than making sure that your views get equal time propaganda. I realize that sounds preachy, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to better put it.
I imagine the people clicking the down facing triangle were responding to your unnecessary and out of place tone, not out of Tesla exuberance.