A modern, commercial application for the steam car

My dear fellow steam enthusiasts!

I am piecing together a project which will commercially produce a modern takeoff on steam cars for a niche (yet lucrative) market.

My expertise is marketing/business-development, and unfortunately my engineering/design skills aren't up for the task. Any steam-oriented engineers/industrial designers out here looking for a challenge with a side-benefit of profit (or vice versa )?

Feel free to either reply or PM me,
Omer

Hi Omer,

I probably have a different perspective on this matter than other Forum participants, or SACA members, for that matter. Actually, this is one of the reasons I keep using to explain why someone, anyone, other than me should be club president! So far, no suckers....er takers....have gone for the bait.

Unlike most steam automobile enthusiasts, I actually work in the automotive industry (off the top of my head, I only know of one other). I also spent 23 years in the navy and naval reserve as a Machinists' Mate who specialized in steam ship propulsion. Besides this, I have a BS in Business Administration and can at least look at the business case semi-objectively.

Here's one of the problems. Over the years a lot of people have talked about manufacturing steam automobiles. Manufacturing, as a business, is nothing like building a car as a hobby; I would go so far as to say that most of the knowledge is non-transferrable. A hobbyist wants to make something work whereas an automotive engineer automatically assumes that the vast majority of his output will operate reasonably well on the first try -- he's working with well-established technology and is improving upon it rather than trying to rewrite it from scratch. Designing a production vehicle is far more complex, which is why you typically see large teams of designers and large prototype shops ... simply designing a camshaft that is acceptable and competitive in the modern environment is a specialist task. There are crankshaft teams engaged in different aspects such as forging, metallurgy, rough machining, precision grinding (just try making those crank pins at exactly the right diameter --- then you have to make sure it is at exactly the right angle, distance from the center of the mains and axial position along the crank), fillet rolling and metal microstructure, polishing/microsizing, heat treat, balance. If you get one of these steps wrong, it can throw off all the others. Beyond that, you need to run extensive testing to make sure that all the bearings maintain a proper oil film at all speeds and loads. Antique or hobbyist cars have to run until they need repair, manufactured automobiles need to run past the warranty date --- actually, well past because you will lose customers rapidly if cars start failing right after the warranty expires.

Another problem is that, to date, no one has ever prepared a business plan that seems to make any sense ... at least not in the ways I was taught when working on my degree. The underlying assumption for every proposed steam car company is "People love steam, of course we'll sell a bunch of them". This is hardly the same thing as an in-depth market research. Technical guys love to think that product development begins with some technically minded person coming up with an idea. I'll admit that happens but market research has to come right after having an idea. All products fill some kind of need among customers, you generate sales by filling a specific need better than your competitors. Not all needs are objective, some may be purely subjective (such as looks or brand loyalty to the same make as grandpa owned). However, it isn't enough to say that someone will buy your car; you need to know how many probable customers you can attract. For the most part, customers don't care if a car is steam powered, they want a vehicle that possesses a specific array of attributes and they will buy whatever best fills their specific wants. Right off the bat, a new company will lose a large amount of sales simply because they are new ... who wants to spend a great deal of money on an enterprise of unknown background? Beyond that, all kinds of parameters come into play such as styling, vehicle type,carrying capacity, appearance, safety ratings, fuel economy, emissions, purchase cost, operating expenses, reliability, durability and so on. Just to pull numbers out of the air, you might manage to sell 80,000 cars at a sticker price of $45,000 but only 8,000 at $65,000. This points out that your marketing survey needs to take into account how various vehicle attributes, including price, affect sales. This is all vital because there are different ways to build cars that require different amounts of capital, labor and material costs. A hand built car will be much more expensive regarding labor and materials but requires a relatively tiny capital investment (millions instead of billions of dollars). The designer needs to know what target price the car has to be built for in order to be profitable and he needs to know how many are required to be built as production volume strongly influences design. All of this is going to annoy a lot of steam hobbyists as they automatically want to build what interests them whereas customer preferences and the cost/volume ratio are what drives actual design.

Automobile manufacturing ain't cheap. I work in powertrain (engine and transmission development) and our dynamometer facility is worth more than $1 billion...admittedly we are a big car company and I think we have the biggest and most expensive such facility on earth. But, even one dyno cell isn't cheap if you get one that is fully instrumented and capable of evaluating environmental conditions. I will admit that there are a number of small companies hand building custom cars and doing so profitably....but they typically have one thing in common; they buy as much of their powertrain off the shelf as possible. A modern engine factory costs about $1 billion to set up. You might be able to put together a shop capable of building a limited number of steam powerplants (say, 1000 a year) to production quality for perhaps $50 million. This is why so many hand built sports cars have engines that look suspiciously like the General Motors LS series crate engine. An LS-9 engine going for $26,000 out the door is positively cheap compared to the alternative and the quality is undoubtedly higher simply because it gets easier to reproduce parts accurately as production volume rises. A steam car company, by simple definition, is going to have to build most of their powertrain themselves and trust to subcontractors for most of the components. Trust me when I say this, the vast majority of recalls involving mass produced cars comes from components supplied by sub contractors.

Another thing to consider is governmental regulations. Are you going to comply with environmental and safety laws? Just how many cars will you crash into walls and submit for testing before you put them on the market? Regulations are all-encompassing and reach the level of specifying lighting, fuel tanks and electrical connectors (and, naturally, these laws vary from country to country). I spent a month assembling preproduction cars for testing in various countries ... although the cars were mechanically identical we had to put in entirely different lighting, wiring harnesses, glass and so on. Simply identifying the requirements for your target market is going to be a challenge and these requirements need to be factored into your early design process and cost evaluation.

I could go on but I'll just leave with one last thought. The auto industry is not logical. Yesterday an article came out stating that Tesla has a higher market value than the Ford Motor Company. Last year Tesla built about 80,000 vehicles and Ford built about 2,500,000. Tesla has never shown a profit and they keep seeking investors to expand their product portfolio .. Ford is making good profits and funding their expansion and modernization from retained earnings. Tesla has only a fraction of Ford's capital plant, they certainly don't have factories around the world nor anything like the same degree of engineering laboratories and their test track capability is severely limited by comparison. Yet, somehow, the sum total of Tesla stock is going for more than that of Ford....when in actuality there is nothing vaguely supporting this in the actual financial statements. It's all a matter of perceptions and faith contrary to any rational evidence. Leaping into car manufacturing is definitely a leap of faith...even Elon Musk has stated he wouldn't have done it if he'd had any idea how hard it is. It turns out building rockets is easy and cars are difficult....

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the elaborate reply! While I'm not in the automobile industry, I was well aware of most of the obstacles you have pointed out (recalls being a result of subcontractor parts - super-insightful!).

The potential in my project lies mostly (or currently, more accurate - solely) on the intended target market. I will sell uniquely configured steam cars to eager buyers whose priorities dictate accepting the disadvantages of steam-based transportation for a few major benefits. Since I don't have a protected design yet, I unfortunately can't go into too many specifics, but as far as market survey, it falls within the following parameters: Millions of consumers; Current market offers mostly similar products, practically all inherently limited in the solution they provide; Practically all cost significantly more than the projected cost of the steam car.

I do apologize for the mystery. I will obviously go into deeper details with anybody interested in getting involved, and hopefully will have a design I could share with all of you as soon as possible.

Mr. H, I continue to admire your business acumen, your mechanical acumen, your steam acumen, your tenacity, and your writing ability. You are a signal asset to the organization.

Kelly

Two obstacles to overcome:

1: Poor fuel economy. To design and build an external combustion steamplant with efficiency even close to that of a Diesel engine is nearly impossible. This could be traded for cleaner air standards. Proper burn is near zero emissions.

2: Water used to create steam that would be present in the plant freezes below 32 degrees F. This could possibly be remedied with a system that uses a well insulated storage tank, whereby the system is emptied in to the reservoir which could have electric heaters to keep it above 32 degrees over time. Then the system be refilled at start up. Complex system.

I think there is a very small niche market for a modern steam powered car and possibly a steam/xxxx hybrid, but it won't appeal to the masses. Whatever schemes one comes up with to deal with the obstacles above, the facts remain, it will be slow starting, underpowered, wasteful (fossil fuels) and fraught with technical problems/end user support issues. A steam boiler is essentially a distillery and it's a very dirty process as evidenced by the sediment that cooks out of even city tap water which causes many problems with the plant itself if not blown down frequently - at least daily. Some people won't even change their oil every 5000 miles now Do something daily and risk being burned while doing it? nahh.

People have spent many millions of dollars dealing with the condensing - can't use oil- lack of lubrication steam engine/plant problem and to date no one has come up with a workable solution.

My GM truck has 63k miles on it and many of those are hard miles pulling my 8000 pound steamboat and it has never had anything done to it. Nothing but oil changes. Still on the original tires, had the brakes checked recently during an oil change to which they asked me how I was stopping, because they still looked like new. It's been flawless, not one hint of trouble. This is what people expect and are getting nowadays. Real tough competitors for an upstart.

-Ron

Hey Ron,

Thanks for the feedback

I am well aware of the 2 issues you raise, and yet I can demonstrably isolate a group of a few million individuals who would be interested in steam cars for attributes which are considered marginal/redundant by the general population.

To further clarify: the steam car I will build & sell will not appeal to the average driver and I have no illusions whatsoever about competing with conventional combustion-engine/electric cars. I hope this statement will help you understand that I am not hunting some technology breakthrough that will make steam power instantly superior to current cars in all aspects. I realize that the partial information I provide is counterproductive at this point. Again - I hope to be able to share specific details with you all soon.

Kelly,

Awww....thanks! You made me blush!

Ron,

Your points are well taken. Actually, I think they are more onerous than you stated. The best efficiency I have seen reported for an automotive steam engine was that built by Dutcher and it never quite reached the efficiency of a normal gasoline engine ... and that was over 30 years ago so it's fallen behind in that time. The engine never ran on the roads and I've never been able to get a hold of dyno test data; it's hard to tell if that efficiency was sustainable at normal operating speeds or was representative of a corner of the envelope.

Steamers were considered cleaner, but the SE-101 and SE-124 trials showed that the cleanliness was much less competitive when you included emissions given off while the burner was coming up to heat.. cold burners really polluted. Their test Doble did come up to pressure in 90 seconds but heating the piping and engine so that you could run it without hydro-locking took some extra minutes. And that was back around 1970, cars are vastly cleaner now. I think you'd need a post mix vaporizing burner and, even then, you'd need some kind of clean preheater such as the electric element used in the French-Coats and Endurance steamers so as to ensure a vaporizing light off. The other problem is that greenhouse gasses were never before considered emissions. Carbon dioxide output is going to be proportional to fuel consumption. If your MPG is lower than an ICE, you are going to put out more greenhouse gas. Whatever one's opinion about CO2 and global warming, it's definitely a regulatory issue that influences production. The EPA can put a kibosh on one's business in a big way, just ask VW. The only way around this is to burn biofuels so that the gas given off is cancelled out by the photosynthesis in the crops grown to provide more fuel. That is only going to convince regulators if you can guarantee your owners will only burn biofuel (lots of luck with that). Even then, you don't gain much over an ICE unless using solid bio fuel. My car and truck will both burn E-85 and I've known people to experimentally try pure alcohol (with, if anything, subjectively better performance). Diesels can run off vegetable oils. Unless burning wood chips or used newspaper, the steamer can't do anything an ICE can't do to reduce greenhouse gasses and, with the lower efficiency, probably can't really match them either.

Regards,

Ken

Quote: "I can demonstrably isolate a group of a few million individuals who would be interested in steam cars"

That's great and I wish you good fortune with your project. You've definitely found the right group to help with it. Myself excluded, there are some very knowledgeable steamfolk that participate in this forum.

Ken, More good points you have made. The carbon emissions is a definite consideration.

Quote: "Unless burning wood chips or used newspaper, the steamer can't do anything an ICE can't do"

Another check in the ICE column: Wood and coal gasification? Tony G's son (sharp guy) runs his Ranger pickup on woodchips. He said he can go around 17 miles on a 5 gallon bucket of chips. Far better than any wood fired steamer can do by comparison. On a VFT boiler it would take more wood than that just to get up to operating pressure.

Greenhouse /global warming. I grew up listening to the news warn us how we would probably be out of oil by 1995 and definitely out by 2000 and an ice age was coming. I survived all of that plus Y2K and the Mayan doomsday of 2012.

-Ron

I can't argue about the commercial possibilities of steam cars. I would be really astonished if they could compete with modern IC powered cars except for a group of hobbyists like the members here. I only need to look at the Cyclone story to see the development issues and the real resources that are needed to turn an idea into practice.

I don't necessarily agree about your observation that Tesla's valuation is unrealistic, though. Read this analysis for the reasoning. If Tesla really turns out to be the Apple of the auto industry, Ford and other car manufacturers might be looking at a much less promising future. The stock market value, especially in tech, is a measure of expected future value.

Lohring Miller

IronChief Wrote:
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> You've definitely found the right group
> to help with it. Myself excluded, there are some
> very knowledgeable steamfolk that participate in
> this forum.

I'm glad to learn that

I can't see any possibility of selling a production steam automobile in the US at this point in time. Yes, there is a small market for the Likamobile, and there may be a small market for something like it, perhaps a Stanley EX kit car. Unless there is a very low cost fuel source, the cost of fuel would be prohibitive, except to the hobbyist. You should read about the Steam Vehicle Corporation. They proved that the era of the steam car had passed, and lost a fortune proving it!

Good Luck!
Steve

Thanks Steve

The target market is, of course, not steam enthusiasts (steam was never offered to them, as far as I could research).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2017 03:47PM by SteamHead.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2017 05:14PM by Peter Brow.

Your jokes are always welcome, Peter

And while I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as you all in steam mechanics - if history has taught us anything, it is that the answer to an old problem is usually found in plain view.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2017 08:07AM by SteamHead.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2017 05:13PM by Peter Brow.

On the other hand, discussions of politics is one of the frowned upon areas in this forum. Our goal is to avoid heated argument over things non-steam related. Please edit out the references to politicians in your previous posts or it will become necessary to remove the posts. Sorry to come on strong but the moment you make an exception things start on the downhill slope.

Ken

The model boat racing world I'm involved in can give a picture of the evolution of various power plants. In the beginning there was only steam. Steam powered tether boats gradually improved to today's 130 mph speeds. Only a tiny fraternity of steam enthusiasts are involved these days. Internal combustion engines took over, especially when radio control started to dominate. Controllable, high power steam engines haven't been developed in model engine sizes.

Low cost, industrial style, gasoline fueled engines are replacing the glow ignition, model airplane style engines used in the past, especially in the larger size boats. Smaller power plants are mostly electric these days. Low cost, high capacity batteries are the reason. The fastest model boat now goes 180 mph. These model speed records have been held by electric boats for nearly a decade.

Batteries are improving to the point where electrics are getting respectable speeds even in full size boats. Mike Bontoft and I set the world electric boat speed record in 2008 that still stands. Batteries, motors, and speed controls have improved a lot since then. Cars are a lot less demanding application.

Lohring Miller

In the US, The electric car will be gone when the taxpayer funded subsidies are. Billions of Govt dollars have been spent on this program and it will go by the wayside just like every other electric car has. Around 1900 there were several Baker, Detroit, Singer etc, Edison even electrified an 1899 Locomobile, the public didn't want them. Tesla is at over 5 billion in subsidies, not including the state subsidies and discounts. The fires, the short life of the batteries of which the range decreases dramatically over a relatively short period of time 500-1000 cycles, the high replacement cost, the time in which it takes to recharge - fast charging reduces battery life even more. When the Govt snaps the checkbook closed and these manufacturers have to truly compete and turn a profit with an all-electric offering, it ain't gonna be good. The Govt should not be meddling in free markets. If it's better, people will buy it and the mfr will make a profit, if it isn't, they won't.

-Ron



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2017 12:24PM by IronChief.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2017 05:12PM by Peter Brow.

I think you have to operate one first before any decision is made yes it may a vintage car but you get the idea there are many aspects in operating one and many could be automated,but it requires a knowledge base that most people would have to acquire steam traction world has kinda done what you want to do with limited sales

I am not planning to start production before I have a functional prototype, if that's what you're saying jjtjr

Steam traction did the same thing built a prototype then went into production they sold a total of 50 I have one of the 50 . They made some changes as time went by. That was in 2007. After driving the car since 2010. I had made more changes as things started to brake. Now it's 2017 an I still had to improve the design as mileage was on the car.this is say it's not doable, from my experience it will require a R&D team for design and testing which will require capital,and a sales projection to cover the R&D cost. I find most guys that have steam cars have a great deal of mechical skills coupled with machining ability. It would be interesting to see how many would be sold and what would be the sale price. Doble tried to do it in the 20 & 30 and I believe only 50 were built.

I think the mistake modern day steam car designers make, is putting too many experiments in to one project rather than starting off with a group of known proven component designs. Not really bench testing anything and hoping it all works once assembled in to a plant. Experimental burner with experimental boiler and experimental engine and a not very well thought out control system, it turns in to something unfixable.

Mr Steamhead hasn't given us much to go on, Climate, available fuel types, terrain, level of sophistication of these obviously isolated prospective customers. If I were going to pursue a modern steam car, the design would start off with an Ofeldt boiler (proven design, they work well, been around forever, many in use, light, small footprint for the output), Aircraft aluminum chassis, carbon graphite body, light wheels, Piston valve compound engine with aluminum finned cylinders. Route the exhaust gases Trevethickian from the boiler over the cylinders to keep the heat up (small steam engines out in the breeze are better condensers than expanders), Primary and secondary large area condensing systems for warm weather and maintaining continual low pressure or vacuum on the LP, two or three speed transmission to keep the engine in ultimate RPM range, devise a workable oil separator(they exist). Use a Linux based PC with interface to control: Regulated continual feedwater, cutoff, Regulated burner, condenser fans, fuel pressure, regulated cylinder heat, etc.

-Ron

IronChief Wrote:
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> Mr Steamhead hasn't given us much to go on,
> Climate, available fuel types, terrain, level of
> sophistication of these obviously isolated
> prospective customers.

Mr Steamhead is my father, please call me Omer ;-)

And of course your questions are valid - I will share the necessary details in private (for the time being).

All of the guesses about the market for a medium-production steam car are guesses. There's little point in projecting until we see the actual result of someone moving ahead to apply money, design, and business acumen. History has relentlessly enforced a 0.0% success rate for such ventures - I hope you win. I would be delighted if there are tens of thousands of people willing to buy an operating steam car, built in quantity, with a usable parts and service network. I'd probably be one of them.

Kelly Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's little point in projecting until we see the actual
> result of someone moving ahead to apply money,
> design, and business acumen.

You are obviously right, Kelly. I hope you all understand I'm not trying to tease anyone..
As this is clearly the most knowledgeable steam forum online - I will present my plan here as soon as I can protect it.

Dear Steamhead: The place to start is to look at all of the most recent modern steam projects. These were all done during that flurry of clean air activity in the early 1970's and the engineering was very good. Engineering development was limited, however, because most of these were government funded and very short development times were allowed. Several of the responders have offered their opinions--very well-educated ones--on commercial feasibility, and i am sure that this is valuable information. However, our responsibility is to assist with knowledge of technology and experience. You, or anyone interested in steam power, are invited to visit my collection and library. I have two Besler vehicle engines, some Williams, and the SES car on loan. Cyclone has done a great deal of work on materials, all valuable information. We, who have studied steam development history, have seen much time and money wasted because of too much optimism combined with not enough research. We, in the steam fraternity, would all like to prevent one more disappointment. Whether a modern steam vehicle is a commercial possibility is not the issue. The issue is to make a good practical working vehicle while working with a very complex power system. Tom Kimmel

Wow Tom, inspiring words!

I have of course visited your site, and admire your extensive experience. Learning from others' past mistakes is a valuable habit and I hope to employ it to the maximum, so your references are priceless, thanks

Hi Omer,
I'm interested in helping you out. You are welcome to call me at 607-215-2866 (cell number). I prefer you call during my drive to-form work, weekdays 5:30 - 6:30 PM or weekday mornings 7:00 AM. I love your energy and positive attitude with Steam. I think there is a great future for Steam, still some new concepts that can be applied to Steam Engines with synergy to home heating and power generation.

Everyone who has responded in this series is very experienced in steam. I see you visited Tom Kimmel's web site, a great place for seeing information about steam. I revisit there often. Also visit England steam site, I think that is well done at [www.steamcar.net] . Are you or planning on becoming a member of Steam Automobile Club of America (SACA)? If not, I highly recommend you pay the dues and join. Tom hosts typically 2 meetings out at his shop in western Michigan with the next meeting coming in September. Many people talk about there trial and tribulations along with insight to how they might accomplish revisions to get their projects working. I find it very interesting and make it a point to attend each year. I like to provide a talk (or 2) during the meeting and offer information that I intend to be helpful. I would like to visit with you at this meeting?

My sincere attempt is to promote person's steam projects and help where I can. Again, you are welcome to call me to discuss your project albeit it sounds like a commercial venture and the first few phone calls will be free of charge. We can cover royalty and hourly fee along with NDA (to protect my IP) agreements during these calls.

Hope this is helpful...

Kind regards,
Rick Heinig

Thanks for reaching out Rick! I'll call you soon