CAN THIS TRANSMISSION REALLY DOUBLE YOUR CAR'S MILEAGE?

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The National Bureau of Standards, for instance, has evaluated the IST and found it to be "technically valid" enough to recommend it to ERDA for "appropriate government support". That referral becomes even more impressive when you know that the NBS has made this sort of recommendation for only 22 of the some 4,300 energy inventions it has looked into.

It is interesting, too, that Mr. William Hullgeneral manager of research and development for the U.S. Postal Service -has witnessed the operation of Vince's IST-Granada . . . and that, as a result, the Postal Service is interested in testing the transmission on an entire fleet of vehicles. Just as soon, that is, as the Energy Research and Development Administration runs an "independent" test on the unit.

Which is exactly where the plot begins to thicken.

Because, according to Vincent Carman, ERDA was notified about the development of the IST two years ago and, since then, has done little about the invention but "get in the way". Carman, in fact, claims that not only has ERDA not conducted those independent tests of his transmission yet ... but it didn't even acknowledge the transmission's existence for a full six months after receiving the National Bureau of Standards recommendation of the unit. And ERDA only admitted its knowledge of Vince's work then because of pressure applied by Senator Mark Hatfield and Congressman Robert Duncan.

At that, Carman still doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the "recognition" for his development that Hatfield and Duncan squeezed out of ERDA. The Energy Research and Development Administration's report consisted of a short one and a half pages which rejected Carman's unit as something that is too expensive, unable to achieve the fuel savings claimed for it, and unacceptable to the auto industry (MOTHER's emphasis).

What does this mean ... really? How can ERDA flatly pass such a judgment on an energy-saving transmission it has never even tested? Especially when others (including representatives of the National Bureau of Standards and the U.S. Postal Service) who have seen the unit demonstrated ... say that it does live up to its claims?

Vince Carman thinks ERDA wants to ignore his work—or worse, actually suppress it—because of the agency's commitment to another energy-efficient vehicle technology. ERDA has already spent at least $200,000 on a feasibility study of flywheel storage systems for vehicles and has earmarked three years of further development and $4.5 million to put a prototype on the road. The agency also shares a contract with the Department of Transportation (which, likewise, is interested in flywheel energy storage and has spent five years and $300,000 trying to convert a Ford Pinto to such a system) to supply flywheel vehicles to the city of New York.

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