What would the world be like if steam engines remained in cars? (tanks, America)

[Europeanflava]

Instead of internal combustion engines when starters became commonplace in cars.

[Ruth4Truth]

Ralph Nader always said that steam-powered cars would be the cheapest to build/sell, and the easiest and most environmentally-friendly to operate. He was a big advocate of that, at one time in his career. He said the reason they're not on the market is that the design would be so simple that there's not much margin for profit. No surcharges, and so forth.

[engineman]

Folks in the frozen north would have to worry about boilers and water tanks freezing.

It takes longer to fire up a steamer.

[Grandstander]

They would have to be burning something, wood, oil, coal, to heat the water to create the steam. Is that any better for the environment than burning gasoline?

How safe would such vehicles be in a crash compared to internal combustion cars? We're talking about a crash between two cars which already have fires going aboard.

[wpme]

Originally Posted by engineman

It takes longer to fire up a steamer.

Not really, there is flash boiler technology that only takes a couple minutes, do a youtube search for Jay Leno Doble, and that car was built a loooong time ago.

[Chango]

[censusdata]

Rednecks would be unable to make their trucks put out black smoke. Small town America would be totally different


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbAhfThNoco

[GregW]

Autos would have been much more expensive to fuel because the most efficient way to heat the working fluid of a heat engine is to burn the fuel in the working fluid without imposing anything between the flame and fluid like a boiler or tube wall. This why internal combustion engines are used in everything from lawn mowers to massive container ships as well as automobiles and aircraft.

[Retroit]

The Global Warming Alarmist would be blaming all the steam in the atmosphere.