More $Trump memecoin

 The way a meme coin typically works is:

1. Someone achieves some notoriety for something, or exploits some notoriety they already have. They seek to monetize this notoriety.
2. They use one of any number of meme coin generators and choose a blockchain.
3. They generate a pot of, say, ten million coins, and release, say, four million onto the block chain with a LOT of fanfare and a lot of, basically, b.s. about building a community, adding value, etc. They keep the other six million coins. The reputable thing to do is to "lock up" most or all of the six million coins for some period. If they simply sell into the initial wave of buyers and walk away, this is known as a "rug pull" and, while it's considered unseemly at best and results in a ton of howling and shedding of crocodile tears, this is often what happens. See &Hawk for a good example.
4. As the lockup period's end approaches, the originators have to create some additional fanfare to drive the price up or back up.
5. The originators sell into the market at the increased price.
6. End of story - a bunch of people have a bunch of worthless meme coins, less money, and a sad story to tell. The originators have a bunch of money and can move on to the next scam event.

In essence, this is the story of the $Trump con coin. There is a lockup period end coming, the price of the coins has declined, so the Trump organization needs some razzle dazzle around the coins. So, to boost demand, Trump will be hosting an "intimate private dinner," for the top "220 Special $Trump Meme Coin Holders" (as shown on a "leader board,") that is, in order to have dinner with the President, you must have or purchase sufficient $Trump coins to be in the top 220 holders. For the top 25, there is a reception and White House tour. Clearly. a great way for the Trump organization to boost the price into which they sell their locked up coins, and a great way for Trump sycophants supporters to bribe him throw cash his way. Note that the coin rose some 60% in "value" after the dinner was announced.

In very small print, we see "This Tour is being arranged by Fight Fight Fight LLC. President Trump is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it." No, he needn't do so since the increase in value of the coins his organization holds will provide plenty of cash.

It's always been obvious that Trump is completely lacking in any moral compass or sense of right and wrong (at least where his own behavior is concerned, he's certainly willing to lash out at others). I wouldn't have thought, though, that he could continuously reach new depths of self-serving behavior.

As I quoted someone in my previous $Trump coin blog post, we voted for corruption, and Trump is delivering. As MAGAVoice constantly prattles on X, née Twitter, "Promises made, promises kept."

More on "epsilon" in the "Reciprocal Tariffs" equation

 

In the equation published by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative* (~\Delta\tau_{i}=\frac{x_{i}-m_{i}}{\varepsilon*\varphi*m_{i}}~), we see the Greek letter ~\varepsilon~, epsilon. This number is stated to be the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices. An economist would call this the "price elasticity of demand (PED)", a number which represents the rising and falling of demand with the falling and rising of prices.

The actual definition is that the PED at a given point on the supply and demand curve  is the percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price (~\frac{\%\Delta\text{Q}_{d}}{\%\Delta\text{P}}~).

Let's toss in some numbers and see what this means. Suppose that, at an existing aggregate price for widgets of $100,000,000.00 there are 1,000,000 widgets demanded. Next, suppose the PED is -4. Then ~\frac{\%\Delta\text{Q}_{d}}{\%\Delta\text{P}}=-4~. Then suppose, as a result of a price increase due to tariffs, the price of widgets increases by 10%. Arranging the equation above, ~\%\Delta\text{Q}_{d}=-4\%\Delta\text{P}=-40\%~. That is, a 10% increase in price will result in a 40% decrease in demand.

In thinking about whether this is reasonable, we need to consider the actual items being evaluated. For example, a Type 1 diabetic relies on insulin to stay alive, and hence must pay whatever the cost is for insulin. This is referred to as "demand being inelastic." On the other hand, it's likely that a significant increase in the price of, for example, iPhones will reduce demand, since new iPhones are not a necessity. This is referred to as "demand being elastic."

There are many considerations that go into PED. These include individual choices, availability of substitutes, the length of time a price increase has been in place (more time gives a greater time to search for substitutes), and others.

Whether it's stated as such or not, the "Reciprocal Tariffs" equation is intended specifically to reduce trade deficits. A larger ~\varepsilon~ in the equation will reduce the magnitude of the fraction and imply smaller tariffs, a smaller ~\varepsilon~ will do the opposite.

However, a "one size fits all" policy doesn't make a lot of sense. Some of our imports could, in theory, be replaced with domestic products (e.g., automobiles, microchips, etc.) while others could not (e.g., coffee, cobalt, bananas). Going back to Malaysia from my previous post, top U.S. imports are electrical and electronic equipment and machinery, nuclear reactors, and boilers. These items total about 71% of our imports and are among the categories that could, in principle, be produced domestically, though at considerably higher cost.

As examples, the PED for coffee in the U.S. is estimated to be 0.25 (quite inelastic, gotta have that caffeine!), that of fresh tomatoes is estimated to be 4.6 (very elastic). Note that economists typically utilize the absolute value of PED, that is, only showing its magnitude.

With this information, it's quite clear that, on top of the analysis of non-tariff trade barriers shown on the Trump Reciprocal Tariff chart and the rationalization on the U.S. Trade Representative's web page*, the numbers have little, if any, relation to the actual trade situation or to any deep analysis of price elasticity.

Ps: I guess I do have to thank Trump for getting me reengaged with blogging!

*As noted in my previous post, the page with the equation and the explanation has disappeared, or at least been moved to where I can't find it. If someone can find it and post a link in the comments, that would be great. Also as I alluded to, given all the mockery and derision the chart and the equation have engendered, I'd be embarrassed and ashamed as well.

Reciprocal Tariffs?

I'm wrapping my head around the equation stated by the Office of the President of the United States Trade Representative for calculating the so-called "Reciprocal Tariffs." * From that site, we see the following:~\Delta\tau_{i}=\frac{x_{i}-m_{i}}{\varepsilon*\varphi*m_{i}}~. We're told that ~\Delta\tau_{i}~ is the "change in the tariff rate"; ~x_{i}~ is "total exports to country i" (that is, U.S. exports); ~m_{i}~ is "total imports from country i" (that is, U.S. imports); ~\varepsilon~ is the "elasticity of imports with respect to import prices" (an economics concept measuring how much demand goes up or down when prices go down or up, but it can be ignored here because the next term cancels it out); and ~\varphi~ is the pass through from tariffs to import prices (this is the term that cancels out the elasticity term since the latter is stated to be 4 and the former is stated to be 0.25, thus totaling 1). Finally, since "we are a kind people," the derived number is divided by two to determine the final "reciprocal tariff."

Multiple sites characterize this as "trade deficit divided by total imports." It took me a moment to understand this, because trade deficit is imports minus exports, whereas the numerator of the fraction is exports minus imports, the negative of the deficit. But the site states that "~\varepsilon\lt0~," so the denominator is negative and, lo and behold, it all works out as described.

The chart above has three columns: Country (more on that later); "Tariffs Charged to the U.S.A. Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers"; and "U.S.A. Discounted Reciprocal Tariffs" (calculated as above). One might reasonably infer from these column labels that, for each country, an analysis was done of the tariffs on U.S. exports in place along with currency manipulation and trade barriers to determine the number, but no. The site linked above states that:

While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.

That is, in lieu of the above analysis, the fraction calculated in accordance with the equation above is used as a proxy. Note the "If." If my mother had wheels, she'd be a bus.

Now, with the background out of the way, let's stipulate that the general concept of there being a strong relationship between trade barriers imposed by countries receiving U.S. exports and the trade deficit with such countries as a fraction of U.S. imports from those countries is not completely irrational. In essence, this is a theory that trade is only fair with any given country if the balance of trade with that county is $0.00 and that "reciprocal tariffs" are the fair way to force this equilibration. I do not agree with this stipulation, but let's proceed nevertheless. Does the fraction calculated per the above reasonably capture this?

Let's start with an easy one. We'll take Malaysia as an example. In 2024, the U.S. imported $52.5B in goods from Malaysia and exported $27.7B in goods to Malaysia. Using the equation, the imputed "tariffs" would then be 47.2% and we "kindly" will only reciprocate with a 24% tariff. But Malaysia's population is 35.13 million, that of the U.S. is 340.1 million, almost 10 times as large. So, to "balance trade," each Malaysian would have to purchase ~\frac{340.1}{35.13}=\$9.68~ for every dollar of Malaysian goods purchased by Americans. Clearly, this makes zero sense.

Instead then, let's see how things change if we use per capita numbers. Then we have ~\frac{\$52.5\text{ Billion}}{340.1\text{ million}}=\$154~ dollars of U.S. imports per capita and ~\frac{\$27.7\text{ Billion}}{35.13\text{ million}}=\$788~ in Malaysian imports per capita (that is, U.S. exports). That is, each Malaysian (on average) imports $788 of U.S. goods per year, while each member of the U.S. population imports a measly $154 of Malaysian goods per year. What happens if we use the per capita numbers in the equation? Then we have ~\frac{154-788}{154}=-431\%~. Trump constantly rails about the U.S. being "ripped off" by our trading partners. But, using the silly logic described in the block quoted section, I have to ask "who's ripping off whom?"

Another aspect of the naive calculation as presented is the fact that, for example, the median annual household income in the U.S. (2023 figure) is $78,538. That of a Malaysian is $1,419. Is it reasonable to expect a Malaysian to purchase as much in U.S. goods as a U.S. resident purchases Malaysian goods? I don't think anyone could justify a "yes" answer (with the possible exception of Peter Navarro). But can we consider an adjustment to the equation to capture this as we did with the per capita trade quantities as above?

We could consider dividing the U.S. import number by the U.S. household income, that would yield imports per dollar of income. Similarly, we could divide Malaysia's import of U.S. goods by Malaysian household income. This would have even a more dramatic effect on the fraction. Taking both population and household income together would show that we're absolutely pillaging Malaysia!

There are other categories of countries and entities as well. Let's think about some countries with more in common with the U.S. If we consider the so-called "developed" countries, e.g., European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, etc. and normalize them all similarly, what do we see?

I ran the per capita numbers for these countries and the results were:

Note that, on a per capita basis, every country (or entity in the case of the EU) shows a negative number, with the exception of the EU. That is, each nominal resident of the foreign country purchases, on average, more U.S. goods than a nominal U.S. resident does of theirs. The EU's positive number is a bit higher than calculated by Trump, et al, on a per capita basis. The EU's population significantly exceeds ours. But again, who is ripping off whom?

Were I to go through and utilize household income, the results would be even more stark, but this post is already excessively long. But I do want to say a bit more about Peter Navarro. Navarro, who is now the Senior White House Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing in the Trump Administration is, at best, a fringe economist. Among other hilarities, in books and articles, he quotes "Harvard economist Ron Vara" in support of his policies. You'll note that Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro, and Navarro has conceded that Vara is purely fictional.

I want to cite a couple of sites. Matt Parker, of Stand Up Maths, explains the calculations and some of their faults and, finally, Coyote Blog expresses a viewpoint very much aligned with my own with respect to what I'll call the "philosophy of tariffs."

* Apparently, The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has decided that it's best not to try to explain the so-called "Reciprocal Tariffs." The equation and its purported explanation are no longer there, at least that I can find. I'd have been embarrassed too. 

Howard Lutnick and Econ 101

Our esteemed Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, stated in an interview on CBS that “You have to sort of understand how things work. When tariffs come into place, foreign goods may become a little more expensive, but domestic goods do not.”

Interesting. I’m no economist, but I have taken a couple of econ courses and read a bit. And, in studying the fundamental aspects of supply and demand, I encountered supply and demand curves. Searching the deep recesses of my memory and then scribbling on my phone, I produced the following:

Crude at best, but the point is valid. The solid lines represent price vs. quantity demanded and quantity supplied. They cross at a point referred to as the "equilibrium point," that is, the point at which the quantity demanded by buyers at that price matches the quantity willing to be supplied by producers. If the quantity demanded (the "demand curve") shifts to the right, the equilibrium price rises along with the quantity supplied.

Here, we're looking at domestic goods. Because the prices of imported goods are expected to rise significantly due to tariffs (Trump's claim that these will be paid by the exporting countries notwithstanding), demand for domestic goods can be expected to rise as buyers look for substitutes (another fairly basic concept from Econ 101). That is, the demand curve will shift to the right. This inevitably leads to increased production of domestic goods (which Trump, Lutnick, et al champion) but it does not do so without also increasing the price of those goods.

Now, Lutnick graduated from Haverford College in 1983 with a degree in economics. I don't imagine such a degree is conferred without learning about this concept. From that, we can infer a couple of things: 1) Lutnick is quite willing to lie; and 2) He likes his position as Secretary of Commerce. Saying Trump is incorrect while occupying a position he appointed is not a way to keep that position.

Clearly, there are vast complexities beyond the scope of this very simple analysis, but just because something is simple does not mean that it's wrong.

Just cut 'em loose, just send 'em packing!

 

So, co-Presidents Trump and Musk propose to eliminate at least $1T (one trillion U.S.D.) from the federal budget. Let's do some off the cuff estimating. For workplaces that have not undergone automation, it's often the case that, to first order, about half of the expenses are for employee compensation and half are for materials (could be hard goods, soft goods, software, etc.).

Using this heuristic, we'd eliminate $500B in employee compensation costs. Again, to first order, I'll estimate that each employee's compensation totals $100K. Thus, something like five million former government employees would be looking for work. It's very difficult to see where these five million would find such work. I suspect that the co-Presidents would say "we'll deport at least that many undocumented aliens, the former government employees can take the jobs left vacant by such departures, and our tariffs will result in a huge influx of manufacturing jobs being on-shored or reshored."

I have my doubts. It's an intriguing thought experiment, but I'm not so sure that the skill set of, say, a NOAA meteorologist or an air traffic controller adapts well to lawn maintenance, housing construction, or fruit harvesting. Could they learn to do such work? No doubt. Would it be an efficient use of the skill set that such people have spent years developing? No. And that's emphatically NOT to say that the skill sets of lawn maintenance, housing construction, or fruit harvesting are any less valuable (though in many cases, not so time consuming to acquire) as those of the terminated federal workers.

So, do we then provide unemployment benefits for such people? Can we deport undocumented aliens as fast as the co-Presidents can fire federal workers?We certainly do live in interesting times, I hope not to come to the attention of important people!

Pay to play

 

With some exceptions, I've mostly stayed away from politics. I do have a few "embarrassed to be a conservative" posts though, and it's time for another. While there are many aspects of Joe Biden's policies with which I disagreed, and several policies professed by Donald Trump with which I concur (though far from all), it's horrifying to me to see the "in your face" grift exemplified by the Trump meme coin ($Trump).

It's true that, to within epsilon, 100% of meme coins are worthless (other than in the sense of the "greater fool" exploit) and only benefit the initial promoters. And I've felt little sorrow for those who've lost money in, for example, the $Hawk coin promoted by the Hawk Tuah Girl. Yes, she and her team did the prototypical rug pull and buyers of the coin mostly just gave away their money to her and her team. But, what did they actually expect to happen? Come on...

But to see Trump, days away from swearing in as our 47th President, promote a meme coin where he is in control of the large majority (80%) of the coins and watch as his supporters purchase the coins is despicable. Trump and his supporters often speak of the machinations of the Deep State, wherein malign agents, embedded deep within the government, work in secret to undermine freedom and advance a New World Order agenda.

But Trump can't be bothered with working in the dark to promote himself and his personal enrichment, one might call Trump and his ilk the Shallow State. His self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment is out in front, for all to see.

And, not to be outdone, next came the $Melania coin from the First Lady. Both coins, initially and unsurprisingly, soared in value as the zealots rushed to funnel their money to their heroes. Prices have since fallen back somewhat, so some have already lost money. Now, it is true that you cannot take the number of coins held by the Trump group, multiply by the current posted value, and determine that Trump has made billions overnight through this obviously corrupt grift. Were he to dump all of his coins, the market would tank.

Nevertheless, he could sell them slowly into the market. My bet would be that, when some wild Trump event takes place, the value of the coins will rise and he'll make small sales into that market. But, as I type, the price of a Trump coin is $29.53. The total supply of coins is 1 billion, and Trump owns 80% of them. Keep in mind, they were created out of thin air, a few minutes of programming was all it took.

That's our President. As someone noted, we voted for corruption, and Trump is delivering.

Another Airplane Post

As anyone who's followed me at all knows, I'm passionate about aviation in general and about flying. I acquired my pilot certificate in 1981 and have been flying ever since. Until 2001, my flying was all in rental airplanes but that year, my former business partner and I purchased a Piper Saratoga, a six seat, single piston engine airplane. I've posted about that airplane before and, in 2006, I came to own it alone as my partner experienced a health issue that caused him to stop flying.

I flew N8409Y from 2001 through 2020, at which time I had a significant financial windfall. I sold the Saratoga and purchased a 1980 Cessna 441 Conquest II. This is a pressurized, twin engine turboprop airplane and easily flies to Colorado non-stop, and even to Chicago. One flight, with favorable winds, was from my base in Long Beach, CA to Orlando, FL non-stop! There is no need for supplemental oxygen (barring a loss of pressurization), and I flight plan for a cruise speed of 290 knots (about 333 m.p.h.).

N779CC has seats for 9 people, though it's not practical to fill them all due to weight limitations(just as it was not practical to put six people in the Saratoga).I loved the Saratoga and flew it as far as Illinois, Washington, Texas, and on many trips to Colorado, where my brother and his family live and where we have an office. To fly to Colorado or Texas, I'd need a fuel stop and, in many cases, would need to fly high enough so that I'd need supplemental oxygen since the Saratoga is not pressurized. Thus, I'd have a nasal canula with which to deal. I'd flight plan for a cruise speed of about 168 knots (about 193 m.p.h.).

All this capability comes at a price though. To start, the Conquest burns about 75 gallons of Jet A fuel per hour in cruise, vs. the Saratoga burning about 19 gallons per hour. Hangar space is about 2.5 times as costly for the larger airplane. Insurance is about three times as high, though part of that is due to my age. And the insurance requires documented recurrent training (which I'd do anyway). The requirement is one training session per year, but I do two, each at about $5,000 not counting travel, rental car, lodging, and incidentals. The Saratoga required an annual inspection that, on average, cost about $5,000. The Conquest requires multiple "phase inspections," some based the calendar, some on hours, and others on cycles (i.e., takeoffs, landings, pressurizations). A typical year costs about $40,000!

It's a ludicrously expensive pursuit, and I sometimes question whether it's something I should be doing, and there's no question that I'm blessed to be able to do so. And, on many occasions, I'm using it to fly to our offices in Sacramento, Concord, Boulder, and Tampa. But I've wanted to fly since, as a young child, I learned it was a thing people can do. I don't know what the future holds, as insurance underwriters are not happy about old(er) pilots in complex aircraft. But I'll keep flying and training as long as possible.

My foray into electric vehicles

Over the course of the 16 years that I've maintained this blog (sporadically at best in recent years), there have been a wide variety of cars that I've driven. Some have been very stingy with respect to fuel consumption (my Lexus CT200H is the best example) to fuel hogs (I just ended the lease on a Jeep Trackhawk). My early blogging was almost exclusively related to fuel consumption, both personally and generally. As the years have gone by, my topic space expanded well beyond vehicle fuel consumption and into energy in general and even into politics.

But, for this post, it's back to basics. I turned in the Trackhawk that I'd leased and purchased a battery electric vehicle, the Genesis GV60. The performance model I purchased features all-wheel drive, with 160kW (215 horsepower) to the front wheels and the same to the rear wheels for a total of 320 kW. It delivers 350 Nm (258 ft lbs) of torque to the front wheels and the same to the rear for a total of 700 Nm. Its 77.4 kWh battery pack makes it a heavy car for its size, with a curb weight of 4,890 pounds but in "sport' mode with the "boost" on, it will go from 0 to 60 mph in about 3.8 seconds, very similar to the 710 horsepower Trackhawk I turned in.

With a full charge, it's good for about 250 miles but, unlike an internal combustion engine, there's no fuel economy vs. speed curve with a peak. There's no "engine map." The vehicle "fuel economy," as far as I've been able to determine, is strictly a function of tire rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. Thus, freeway travel at, say, 75 m.p.h. is far less efficient than lower speeds in city driving.

I'm not getting what I expected, my most recent charge was 67.5404 kWh to drive 181 miles, or 2.68 miles/kWh. I expected something more on the order of 3.5 miles/kWh but the bulk of my driving has been on the freeway at around 80 m.p.h. Still though, I'm paying something like $0.17/kWh at the moment, so I'm spending around 6.34 cents per mile.

In comparing that to an internal combustion engine, it's probably unfair to compare it to my Trackhawk, which is a 710 horsepower beast in which I averaged something like 14.5 m.p.g. and which required 91 octane fuel. But if I consider a vehicle averaging 30 m.p.g. and 87 octane fuel with California 87 octane fuel around $4.49/gallon at the moment, the owner of that vehicle is spending 14.97 cents per mile, over twice what I'm paying. Further, I can utilize a perquisite to get free charges for three years!

I will say that I encounter the "range anxiety" often described for purchasers of battery EVs, and I approach trips that are outside of my commute with more forethought than previously, given that there's not a charging station on every corner. For example, I have a relative that lives in Ramona, CA. The round trip from my home to hers is about 202 miles. To make that trip with no concerns, I need to be close to fully charged and, without locating a charging station, I'd need to avoid side trips. And, as recommended, I generally limit my charging to 80% of full capacity. This limits me to 200 miles at best!

The car is heavy, the battery pack consists of 384 Lithium Ion Polymer cells with a nominal capacity of 77.4 kWh and a usable capacity of 74.0 kWh. As mentioned above, the curb weight of the car is 4,890 pounds. 

In an unusual move, parent Hyundai Motor Group opted to use an electronic architecture for the E-GMP platform that can operate at either 400 or 800 volts (but see below). That allows for “ultra-speed charging” when the latest, 350 kilowatt charger is plugged in — the battery pack going from 10 to 80% of capacity in 18 minutes.

In any case, I'm over 11,000 miles in the GV60 as I type this. When asked if I'm happy with the purchase, my answer is that I would not purchase this particular EV again. There are several reasons, but most are related to ergonomics and systems engineering, not the actual EV platform. However, even with respect to that, my suggestion would be to wait. Range seemingly goes up with each passing month, and many game-changing energy density developments are being touted. There will likely be no retrofit for current EVs!

And now Ford, GM, and Rivian are adopting (and adapting) their EVs to use the Tesla Superchargers, which pretty much assures that the Superchargers will become the national standard. My GV60 would need an adapter, and Hyundai is considering it.

All that said, I believe that the GV60 provides good value for its price and it's pretty clear that EVs are the coming thing. But I'll look elsewhere for my next EV a few years from now.

Inserted because it's a fantastic cover of a Dylan song and it's from Hendrix' album "Electric Ladyland."

The Fisker Ocean

I've published previously on the seeming futility of solar panels on the roofs of vehicles. But Fisker has announced the "Ocean" in various configurations. It's an SUV style vehicle with the "Fisker Ocean Extreme" boasting solar panels for the full length of the passenger cabin. The claim is that solar charging will produce 1,500 miles worth of charge, or even up to 2,000 miles. Let's investigate!

First, how much energy is needed to travel 1,500 miles in the Fisker? Unlike internal combustion engine powered vehicles, there's no curve with a peak in terms of energy mileage as a function of speed. For the IC vehicle going very slowly uses a lot of the energy from burning fuel to keep the engine turning over, and going very fast has a high drag penalty. The sweet spot differs for various models but might be in the range of 50 m.p.h.

For a battery electric vehicle, there's no such function. The faster you go, the worse your energy economy since it's only a matter of overcoming drag. So, in earlier data collection of my own driving, my overall block speed was on the order of 30 m.p.h. with a blend of city driving, freeway driving, and freeway driving in traffic. I'll use that number, but convert it to 13.41 meters/second.

We'll go to the naive drag equation, ~D=1/2 \rho C_dAv^2~ where D is drag force, ~\rho~ is air density (I'm using sea level, at altitude density would be lower and insolation would be slightly higher), ~C_d~ is the vehicle's drag coefficient, ~A~ is flat plate area, and ~v~ is speed. All are in SI base units. I can't find a drag coefficient spec for the Ocean, I'll go with 0.3. The vehicle's height is 1.631 meters, its width is 1.995 meters. Sea level atmospheric density is about ~1.225 kg/m^s~. Multiplying, we get ~D=0.595 (kg/m) v^2 Nt.~

The other drag factor is rolling resistance. This is, to first order, linearly dependent only on the vehicle's weight (NOT mass!). The curb weight is 2,250 kg force or 22,065 Nt. Add, say, 250 kg of people and luggage for a traveling weight of 2,500 kg force or 24,516 Nt. We'll use 0.014 as the coefficient of rolling resistance, resulting in a rolling resistance of 343 Nt. The result is a total drag of ~D=0.595 (kg/m) v^2+343 Nt~.

Next, power (work/time) is force times speed, so, at 13.41 meters/second, we need ~((0.595*13.41^2)+343)*13.41~ or 6,034 Watts or 8.09 horsepower. This is surprisingly small but, to first order, I'm confident that it's close. Call it 7 kW for our purposes.

Then, we'll assume the electric motor operates at 95% efficiency and that the drivetrain is 85% efficient, so we need 6,352 watts from whatever energy source we're utilizing. Now, 1,500 miles at 30 m.p.h. will take 50 hours or 180,000 seconds. And power times time is energy so the Ocean's solar panel will need to deliver 6,352 watts * 180,000 seconds, 1.14*10^9 joules, or 317 kWh. OK, can the panel on the Ocean's roof deliver 317 kWh in a year?

I'll estimate that the dimensions of the panel are 1.5 meters X 3 meters, or 4.5 m^2. In my Southern California area, the average solar insolation is about 5 kWh/(day*meter^2). This has to be reduced because the panel on the Ocean sits horizontally rather than following the sun. We'll use 50%, so if the Ocean sits outside in the sun all day, we might average 11.25 kWh delivered to the panels. Next, we'll estimate that the panels are 18% efficient, so about 739 kWh ~(11.25*0.18*365)~ are delivered to either the motor or the battery pack over the course of a year. And here, we're assuming that either the car is in motion and the panels are delivering energy to the motor or that there is capacity in the battery pack to accept the energy.

Now, speeds above 30 m.p.h. will hurt more than those below will help due to the dependence of drag on the square of speed (refer to plot at right). And this doesn't account for use of accessories, losses due to climbing hills (not all the gravitational potential energy is regained on the downhill), and stopping and starting (even regenerative braking doesn't recapture all of the kinetic energy). It doesn't include being blocked by buildings and trees, and many other factors. And Minnesota, New York, and other Northern states don't receive the insolation of Southern California. That said, I can't say that the claim is irresponsibly exaggerated so, using the Mythbusters' scale, I'll call it plausible.

How "Real" is the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Yes, it's been a long time. No excuses. But, here we go. No one will dispute that the arrival of Covid-19 has disrupted almost every facet of life in every corner of the world. And yet, just as in almost every aspect of life in the United States these days, Covid-19 has become a political battlefield. As would be expected, the right considers that mask mandates, vaccine mandates, quarantines, lockdowns, and other measures imposed by various governments at all levels are an infringement on freedom, and useless at best and counterproductive at worst. And the left characterizes the right as conspiratorial, intransigent, destructive to society and more. They consider that the measures railed against by the right are common sense, effective measures and that compliance with such measures is necessary for the greater societal good, albeit with serious negative collateral damage.

I'm not an epidemiologist, virologist, statistician, doctor of any type, or public health expert (whatever that may mean). But it seemed to me that it should be possible to, at least, determine if a real thing has happened. In trying to understand the data that's available, one can find numbers for cases, infections, death rates, deaths attributed to Covid-19, positivity rate and many others. However, the one number in which I have at least some confidence is the simple number of deaths. Death certificates are a binary data point - someone died or did not.

I use the Human Mortality Database, a database that is updated weekly and has all cause deaths for 38 countries, separated into age groups. One can download the current data in spreadsheet form. The U.S. data goes back to 2015 and is sourced from the CDC. I started downloading this data most weeks over the last couple of years. In the beginning, I only wanted to see if there was a noticeable increase in overall ("all-cause") deaths. Below is a chart of this data from the beginning of the database through the first week of 2022 (the data is a few weeks behind as reports are gathered). Note that it is NOT zero scaled.

The abscissa is the number of weeks since the beginning of data (2015) through week one of 2022. The ordinate is the total number of deaths for each week in the United States. You'll note some interesting points. Among them is the very clear annual periodicity. Also, midway in the chart, you can see the evidence of the very bad flu season in the winter of 2017 - 2018. Finally, the very high numbers at the right end of the chart begin, when one would expect the numbers to begin falling in accordance with the periodicity in the spring of 2020, to climb in fairly spectacular fashion.

The next chart shows each year as its own set of points, though I didn't include all years as the chart is already busy enough. I included 2017 through 2022. Again, the ordinate is not zero scaled.

It's easy to see that there the data is very consistent by year for 2017, 2018, and 2019 (though the 2017 - 2018 flu season is clearly visible). The various "waves" (initial wave in the spring of 2020, the summer wave of that year, the Delta variant wave, and the Omicron variant wave) are also clearly visible.

That led me to think that it would be easy to estimate what people refer to as "excess deaths" attributable to the pandemic. Now, as an aside, I recognize that many excess deaths were not directly due to Covid-19 infections. There have been deaths due to people not getting diagnosis or treatment for heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, etc. due to lockdowns or lack of hospital facilities. There have been suicides and drug overdoses due to depression and idle time. There have been deaths that are likely attributable to vaccinations. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that automobile fatalities rose due to much less traffic on freeways and consequent higher speeds leading to more severe accidents. Nevertheless, it's clear that the pandemic has greatly increased the number of deaths beyond what would have previously been expected.

I took an extremely naive approach. It's clear that, even if nothing else changes, there will be more deaths as population increases. So, for each week, I took the mid-year population for each of the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019 and multiplied the deaths for that week and year by the ratio between that number and the equivalent number in 2020, 2021, and 2022. I then subtracted the mean of the adjusted deaths for the week in 2017, 2018, and 2019 from the 2020, 2021, and 2022 deaths for that week number. I estimated the result to be the number of excess deaths in that week for that year. I then totalled the numbers for each year, resulting in the following:

Year	Excess deaths
2020	504,562
2021	571,400
2022	8,946

Based on this, admittedly rather superficial, analysis, it's reasonable to estimate that on the order of 1,085,000 people have died beyond what would have been expected prior to the pandemic. This number compares quite well with other estimates I've seen of Covid-19 deaths.

I'll make another post with some breakdowns by age but, suffice it to say for now, that the numbers are very heavily skewed toward the highest age groups. So, in terms of lost years of life, the numbers above overstate the situation. Nevertheless, even as recently as the first week of this year, we're still significantly above the adjusted mean of more normal years. If we think that the very old and infirm were already not far from their demise and thus, the pandemic, in a sense, culled the herd, we'd expect a time to come post-pandemic when the total deaths drop noticeably below the adjusted mean for more normal years. I see no sign of that at this time.

The Celera 500L

Image credit: Otto Aviation

As anyone who's spent any time reading my publications knows, I'm a pilot and have been involved (non-commercially) in aviation for over 40 years. As such, I keep track of developments in the field. Thus, I was fascinated by the news of the Celera 500L by Otto Aviation. The performance claims made for the airplane are spectacular, to say the least.

Otto claims that the aircraft has a range of 4,500 miles (statue rather than nautical as far as I can tell) at a speed of 460 m.p.h. (again, statute m.p.h., not knots, as far as I can tell). It's stated that the Celera 500L does so while burning "8 times lower fuel consumption" and "5-7 times reduction in operating cost." For those who don't follow general aviation (that is, all aviation other than air carriers and military), the claimed speed is well above the speeds of high end turboprop business aircraft and not far below those of business jets. For example, the King Air B360ER turboprop achieves 349 m.p.h. in high-speed cruise, the Cessna Latitude business jet has a maximum speed of 512 m.p.h. But the range of the King Air is 3,092 miles and that of the Longitude is 3,105 miles. Otto claims that the Celera 500L achieves 18 - 25 miles per gallon fuel economy. What might be considered a comparable small jet, the Embraer Phenom 300E will get, perhaps, 5 miles per gallon. 

Otto states that the Celera 500L achieves these spectacular specifications due to a design for laminar flow over both the wings and the fuselage. Laminar flow is a fluid flow state wherein there is minimal mixing between layers and the flow is "smooth" rather than turbulent. It is a flow regime that minimizes drag, and all (well, most) aircraft designers seek to maximize laminar flow. It is a well-known phenomenon and no aeronautical engineer looks at Celera's web site or the many web sites and YouTube channels featuring the Celera 500L and slaps him or herself on the forehead and says "laminar flow, why didn't I think of that?"

Image credit: RED Aircraft

 The engine for the Celera 500L is the "RED A03" by RED Aircraft, GmbH. This is a compression ignition (i.e., diesel) engine. The engine is stated to be a V12 configuration with each six cylinder side operating independently. It's also stated to be all-aluminum in construction. Per RED's website, the engine is approved by both the FAA and EASA (the European Union Aviation Safety Agency). While diesel engines are typically very efficient due to the high compression ratio required for combustion of the fuel-air mixture, they are also typically heavy as a consequence of the strength required due to that high compression ratio. I'm not aware of any other all-aluminum compression engines.

As can be seen in the photo above, the aircraft is a "pusher" configuration, the propeller is behind the aircraft and pushes the airplane rather than the standard configuration wherein the propeller(s) pulls the airplane. This configuration has the advantage of letting the wings "see" a flow undisturbed by prop wash. Of course, the propeller is composed of airfoils as well, and they now see air disturbed by the wings and the fuselage, though not nearly so much as the propeller causes, especially given the laminar flow claim. It's also the case that the propeller is more subject to damage from ice shed from the wings in icing conditions and, at the altitudes stated in Otto Aviation's material, icing is certainly possible.

With all of that said, what is the likelihood that Otto Aviation can live up to their claims for the Celera 500L? It's difficult to do a thorough analysis given that nearly 100% of the numbers given consist only of those claims. The only hard data I could find is the takeoff power of the engine. They do claim that drag has been reduced by approximately 59% in comparison to similar sized aircraft. What can we infer from this?

With thanks to "Simplex11" at aviation stack exchange for the approach, we'll use the "59% lower drag" claim along with figures for my airplane, a Cessa 441. My airplane cruises at about 345 m.p.h., using 450 horsepower per side in cruise, or a total of 900 horsepower. The Celera 500L cruises at 460 m.p.h. and a drag of 0.41 ("59% less") times that of a typical aircraft.

We then have that ~D1=\frac{1}{2}C_{D1}\rho S_{D1}V_{D1}^{2}~ and ~D2=\frac{1}{2}C_{D2}\rho S_{D2}V_{D2}^{2}~, where ~D1~ is the total drag on the Celera 500L and D2 is the total drag on the C441. The Cs, Ss, and Vs are the drag coefficients, reference areas, and velocities of the Celera 500L and the C441 respectively, and ~\rho~ is air density. We can then combine these to get ~\frac{D1}{D2}=0.41(\frac{V1}{V2})^{2}~. Then, we know that power is speed times force, so we have ~P1=D1V1~ and ~P2=D1V2~ and so ~\frac{P1}{P2}=0.41(\frac{V1}{V2})^{3}~. Plugging in numbers, we can calculate that the Celera 500L needs something like 875 horsepower* to achieve the claimed speed. These numbers are, of course, approximate, but note that the maximum continuous power of the RED A03 is 460. And, as a reminder, this assumes that the "59% reduction in drag" is true.

What about fuel economy? Otto claims "18 - 25 m.p.g." (again, as above, I assume statute miles). The fuel economy can be calculated from the speed, power, and energy density of Jet-A fuel. Should the hordes demand that I show my work, I'll show the calculations but, having already produced an equation dense post, I'll just give results. And, as above, these are approximations based on sparse information. If the power requirement calculated above is correct, the Celera 500L would achieve something like 11.5 m.p.g. If, on the other hand, the speed of 460 m.p.h. can be achieved with the 460 maximum continuous power of the RED A03 engine then a figure of about 21.8 m.p.g. could be achieved. But, as I indicate above, it does not seem plausible to travel at 460 m.p.h. with less than 875 horsepower. And, yet again, all of this is contingent on the Celera 500L achieving the claimed 59% drag reduction. Time will likely tell.

Further questions are raised by Otto's claim that "The Celera 500L has a glide ratio of 22:1 (typical GA aircraft of similar size have a glide ratio of < 9:1)." While I can't question the 22:1, the "<9:1" claim is absolutely false. My airplane has a glide ratio of 14.8:1. Many business aircraft do better. Possibly such airplanes as the Cessna 172 Skyhawk (a four seat, fixed gear airplane with wing struts) may have glide ratios in the range mentioned by Otto, but no light jets or turboprops do. When falsehoods are stated as facts on web sites, I have to question all of the information to be found there.

And finally, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Otto Aviation's claims for the performance specifications of the Celera 500L are, without a doubt, extraordinary and I've seen no evidence, let alone extraordinary evidence.

Otto Aviation has completed their A round of financing. They anticipate B round financing in 2021 and 2022, during which they plan to begin FAA certification. In 2023 to 2025, their web site calls for C round financing and the beginning of manufacturing and first commercial deliveries. Based on my strong skepticism, I'm not a participant in Otto's financing!

*It should be noted that Simplex11's calculations are slightly different and yield a larger power requirement for the Celera 500L.

More on Eviation Alice

Image credit: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

I published a post on the "Alice," a fully electrically powered airplane being designed and built by the Israeli Company "Eviation." The Alice is being promoted as a "9+2" airplane, that is, two pilots flying nine passengers. It is claimed that the airplane will have a range of 650 miles at a speed of 260 knots. Cape Air had made a "double digit" (actual quantity not stated that I can find) order (the "launch order") for the Alice. I expressed considerable skepticism, particularly with respect to the battery pack and to the claimed range.

Image credit: Eviation

The latest news is that two more airlines have placed orders for the Alice, bringing the total ordered to over 150. So three airlines have made substantial orders and several well-known OEM vendors (Honeywell, Bendix, Siemens, Hartzell) are providing equipment for the airplane. Is my skepticism unwarranted?

In my previous post, because the parameters needed for a direct calculation were not given anywhere that I could find, I got my estimate for the range by comparing the energy stated for the battery pack in the Alice to the energy in the Jet A fuel in a Pilatus PC-12. The number I came up with was 258 miles, far short of the claimed 650 and likely a deal breaker for the orders. Can I derail a multi-million dollar endeavor by back of the envelope calculations on an obscure blog?

There are two factors contributing to my vagueness on the range calculations: actual energy available in the battery pack; and the drag force on the airplane in flight. A rudimentary dimensional analysis show that the range is directly proportional to energy available and inversely proportional to drag, that is, ~R\propto\frac{E}{F_{d}}~, where R is range, E is total energy available, and F_d is the drag force. This, of course, makes intuitive sense but, at the moment, I don't know the proportionality constant.

Eviation claims a capacity of 900 kWh in the battery pack, though it's not at all clear how this can be accomplished. Eviation states that they use Li-Ion chemistry and also make a claim for a proprietary aluminum-air chemistry. I don't see how the aluminum-air chemistry can be feasible in an airplane, but who knows? Per the Wikipedia page for the Alice, the aluminum-air battery will be used on a later evolution of the Alice.

But, for Li-Ion chemistry, the current state of the art is about 260 watt hours/kilogram. At this energy density, 900 kWh would require 3,460 kg, or a bit under 7,630 pounds. At a maximum takeoff weight of 6,350 kg, this leaves 2,890 kg or 6,371 pounds for airframe, power plants, passengers, pilots, and baggage. Again, I don't have any data on the weights of the airframe and power plants. And, in my effort to be generous, the 260 watt hours/kilogram doesn't include the pack.

As to drag, I found a site that stated that the "L/D" (lift to drag) ratio of the Alice to be 24. This is likely to be the maximum L/d. Now, in cruise flight, lift is equal to weight. We'll assume a full load, giving a weight of 6,350 kg or 62,230 Nt. With a L/D ratio of at a maximum of 24, drag would be at least 2,593 Nt. Clearly, this is generous to Alice but we'll use it. Now, drag=thrust in straight and level flight, so we're looking at a thrust delivered by the propeller of 2,593 Nt. And P=F*V where P is power, F is force (thrust) and V is speed. So we have P=2,593 Nt * 134 m/s (260 knots converted to meters/second) = 346,817 watts or 347 kilowatts required in cruise.

Now, a constant speed propeller may be about 90% efficient, so the electric motors must deliver 347/.9 = 385 kilowatts. We have 900 kilowatt hours available so that's 900 kWh/385 kW = 2.34 hours. IFR (instrument flight rules) flight requires a minimum 45 minute (0.75 hour) reserve (we'll hold it to the minimum though I doubt a procedures manual for an air carrier operator would do so, and my policy is to never fly into my last hour of fuel) so we now have 1.59 hours or an hour and 35 minutes of battery capacity for cruise. Note: the specifications page for the Alice has been updated since my earlier post and gives some numbers that aren't too far off of mine, but I'm sticking with mine because they're derived from Eviation's performance claims.

I'm ignoring climb and this is generous because more power is used in climb (though that may not be the case for an electric airplane) and is at a slower speed (in all airplanes). So we can cruise at 260 knots for an hour and 35 minutes for a range estimate of 413 nautical miles or 475 statute miles. And, given the minimal reserve and ignoring climbing at low speed, this is generous.

I will agree that my rough calculations result in a range estimate higher than that I got using the Pilatus comparison, but it's significantly less than the 650 miles claimed by Eviation (I can't determine whether this is nautical or statute miles).

And this might be practical for a flight from, say, John Wayne Airport in Orange County to Las Vegas McCarran International, a distance of 226 (statute) miles, or Kennedy to Dulles, a distance of 228 (statute) miles. You wouldn't want to fly it to Reagan Airport because flight to

or from Reagan requires an air marshall and now you've lost 11% of your paying passenger capacity. There are many such city pairs. At right are 300 statute mile radius circles centered on New York City, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles. Such city pairs  as NYC - Philadelphia, Chicago - Detroit, Houston - Dallas, and Los Angeles - Las Vegas seem to be feasible.

And the economics seem favorable. 900 kWh of electricity probably would cost something on the order of $100, and a crew of two might be $100/hour. Maintenance on electric motors is much less demanding than on turbine or piston internal combustion engines.

So, taking everything into consideration, and if the data that's been provided so far is accurate, I think there may be a role for such an airplane.

Am I safe to break in?

I saw a commercial for the Google Home Speaker in which the spokesperson was touting the speaker's ability to scare off burglars by playing the sound of a barking dog. I realize there are multiple systems out there to achieve this but that's not my point. I started thinking about this in terms of Bayesian inference. If I'm a burglar and, during an attempted intrusion, I hear the sound of a vicious dog, what's the likelihood that there's actually a dog ready to attack?


This is analogous to the archetypal example of Bayesian inference wherein the likelihood of actual breast cancer is evaluated in light of a positive mammogram ("test"). The "test" in this case would be listening for the sound of a barking dog prior to breaking into a home. A true positive would be hearing a barking dog when there is such a dog (analogous to a positive mammogram and actual breast cancer). A false positive would be hearing a barking dog when none exists, i.e., when the Home Speaker sounds a dog alarm but there is no dog.

In order to come up with an estimate of my safety when breaking in should I hear a barking dog, I need to have an estimate for:

• The fraction of homes have appropriate (i.e., big and scary) dogs (analogous to how many women have breast cancer).
• The fraction of homes have a barking dog sound generator (analogous to a false positive).
• The fraction of the time that, if there is a big, scary dog in the house, it will bark and I will hear it (analogous to a true positive).

I'll estimate that 40% (0.4 fraction) of homes have a dog, and 30% of those are of a size that would deter me. I'll estimate that 2% (0.02 fraction) of homes have a dog sound generator. I'll estimate that 90% (0.9 fraction) that I case a home with an appropriate dog, that dog will bark and I will hear it.

In the table below, I've shown that 12% of homes have a big (barking) dog, and 88% do not. When I hear a big, scary dog, I'm in the "Test pos" row. The 0.108 entry is the 0.12 fraction of homes with a big, scary dog * the 0.9 fraction that the dog will bark and I will hear it. The 0.0176 entry is the 0.88 fraction of homes with no big, scary dog * the 0.02 fraction of homes with a barking dog sound generator.

	Actual big dog	No actual big dog
	0.12	0.88
Test pos (heard barking big dog)	0.108	0.0176
Test neg (didn't hear barking big dog)	0.012	0.8624

Now, the probability of a true positive (I hear a big, scary dog and there's actually one in the house) is the number of true positives divided by the total number of positives, or 0.108/(0.108+0.0176)=0.8599 or about 86%. Of course, this number will vary, depending on the actual values for the needed parameters but I think that this is in the ballpark.

Moral of the story: If I'm intending to burgle a house and I hear a big, scary dog, I'd best move on.