Tramp Steamer Cruise Range?

[former user]

did not know where to post this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car

wonder if anyone was aware of that one?

steam cars used until 1950?

was quite surprised myself....

[Westfalia Chris]

Yes, but apart from being a locomotive nerd, a ship geek and an aircraft aficionado, I´m also nuts for old cars. X-D

It is, however, less known that the technology was also used for passenger cars. Steam lorries are pretty much a "staple" of Pulp gaming (probably since most of us saw "Who stole our Dinosaur?" once in their life), but it´s hard to wrap your head around passenger cars running on steam. Coincidentally, I saw an actual steam car this May at Bochum´s Zeche Hannover steam fair. Lovely piece, and as much passenger space as conventional cars.

If you follow the above reasoning, as long as there was no network of fuel stations, and gasoline motor tech was not as advanced as steam (read, not as efficient), the steam engine was a viable alternative. Especially with lorries, since it took some decades for the lorry diesel and gas engines to become really powerful.

[Cory]

Keep in mind many of those early steam vehicles, especially the smaller passenger cars, used kerosene to heat their steam.

[former user]

yes of course they did not carry coal around  (-;
and I also ackowledged that the first automobile over 200 km/h was a steam powered one 
but after the spread of electricity around 1920, petrol must have become very cheap

so basically the fact that today we drive cars with internal combustion engines powered by petrol has to do with (at least it seems to me):
kerosene for lighting being replaced by electricity
mass production of cars invented by oldsmibile and perfected by ford
and this allthough the gear box problem was solved only much later

I wonder how things would have developed if Tesla and Edison would have teamed up