The technology of tomorrow
How cold is too cold for a 48
volt Club Car golf cart?
I would say somewhere below
the freezing point. We had some sunshine today that managed to melt one
of the back tires loose, but the other is still frozen in place.
If we really needed it I
think a bit of leverage from the spud bar with someone else driving would
be enough to free it up. Of course an even easier solution is to wait
till tomorrow.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Interesting that it gets stuck. With those wide tires I'd have expected it to roll over the snow pretty well. Or does the cold effect the batteries too much?
Here the snow is periodically melting and freezing which makes cycling (my main mode of transport around town) unswept roads feel like wading through glue. But at least my bike runs fine at -10 °C! (as long as I keep stoking the ol' engine, that is
). With al the snow we've had so far this winter, I'm so glad I bought a trike.
So what your golf cart needs is some more ground clearance? Maybe get a lift kit or some bigger wheels and build yourself a monster golf cart?
The clear solution!
...or I could just refrain from bottoming out. Or put it on the list to fill in the ruts.
Elevation does amazing things to climate --- I was very surprised when I went to school 9 hours north that the weather was, if anything, a bit warmer.
That said, you visited during one of the coldest and snowiest Decembers anyone remembers! I was so impressed that you survived!
The current solar cycle is running as much as 50% behind on predictions. This means less sun spots, but also less solar irradiation. We could be heading for a new Dalton minimum, or even a new Maunder minimum.
It looks like we'll be having cooler summers and colder winters for a while, at least partially offsetting the effects of global warming.
Fortunately, the holocene doesn't seem to be ending just yet.
There are however many things that affect climate, both locally and globally. If a really big volcanic eruption were to occur in the time that the sun's activity remains low, we could be heading for a repeat of the year without summer. Although I think that the world would be much better equipped now to deal with it.
However, as Niels Bohr said; "predictions are difficult, especially about the future".
The term "Ice Age" is overused. See "last glacial maximum" for what a real ice age means, with e.g. the US covered by the Laurentide ice sheet.
There has been an ice age (I forget which) where the sea level was about 120 m (400 feet) lower than today because of how much water was locked in ice resting on land! Considering that about 3/4 of our planet is covered in water, the amount of water involved is beyond imagining.
I've read that in some places the land level is still rising, reacting to the thaw of several miles(!) worth of ice sheet since the start of the current interglacial.