ANOTHER electric car -- BUT ......

[rshayes]

If the payback period is longer than the useful life, then there is no gain to photovoltaic cells from an energy point of view.

Even if the payback is positive, it has to be great enough that it can be implemented without tieing up large amounts of energy for long periods of time. The rate of energy production is also a limit. If large amounts of electrical energy are needed to build a car or photovoltaic cells to charge the car, then that energy will either have to be diverted from other uses or new power plants built.

There is also an economic problem. At $100,000 each, most people will be unable to buy such a car. Unless there is a large oversupply of llithium, then large scale production of electric cars is likely to force the price higher even higher than that.

[ringo47stars]

Okay so I agree that sounds nice , an electric car that goes from 0 to 60 that fast , but on lithium batteries. Did any one ever here of nickel metal hydride batteries getting recalled. The ones used for Dell computers being recalled are lithium. It makes me think there is a problem with using nickel metal hydride but I dont see anything posted anywhere.

[jollyrgr]

For my entire life more or less I've been told that fossil fuels will run out. In fact my grade school teachers told us that our class will not be able to drive cars as the world was running out of fuel. Once the price go up, plenty of fuel.

This same story has happened over and over again. The oil companies are getting rich with this scam. If fossil fuel is so hard to come by, convert to biofuels. It is a form of "solar power". It is 100% renewable. I posted a while back about how the whiners are upset about how it will take four gallons of water to get one gallon of fuel. But water is not "lost"; it is turned into vapor and returns as rain. The gallon of water that makes up the fuel is burned; the HC chain is broken when combined with oxygen. The result CO2 and H2O. Water is a byproduct of burning fuel! This vapor then returns as rain and snow.

I don't see electric cars as the solution. I don't see hydrogen as the solution. E85 is just short of a drop in replacement for gasoline. The same type of cars we have today can still be built with the same engine designs and run on plant waste.

[Smoke_Maker]

jollyrgr,

You are right about E85 and biofuels but your grade school teacher is also right, we are running out of fuel. For me, it's not about the here and now but it's about the future of my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids. I wonder what they will be using for fuel? Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, but then again maybe something else will come along in the next 3 to 4 hundred years when my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkid needs to cook dinner.

I see electric cars and hydrogen as part of the solution, it will not solve all of our energy problems this year but (I think) over the next couple hundred years you will see less oil wells and more solar, hydrogen, and wind energy. This move to alternative renewable energy won't make the oil company go bankrupt, they will just change the there business plan from oil to E85, solar and hydrogen, and my bet is that my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids will be bitchin about how there are getting ripped off by the company producing the energy of the future.

The company I work for is building a solar powered hydrogen refueling station for our fleet, they got a grant from the government (thanks you, Mr. Bush) "a blind chicken picks up a kernel every how and then".

Question the internal combustion engine.

[hlreed]

The electric car is inevitable. It is the only appliance left that is not electric.
The history is clear. It is an accident of history that cars run on internal combustion engines now. It was good roads, touring, power and the electric starter that geve them the edge. IF the gas car builders had not discovered electricity, we would be driving electric cars now. Every gas car carries with it a little electrical power system.

Since little old ladies would not give up their electrics, they hung on to them from 1900 to 1940 and the cars became stodgy, fancy epensive and slow. Tesla Motors recongnised that and that is why they chose a sports car to start with.

We start by having the electric car carry a little gas engine to charge the battery. Then we gradually get rid of it. Pretty soon we are electric without even realizing it.

[Chris Smith]

The only temporary cure for now is the hybrid electric car.

We waste way too much gas pushing around junk steel for nothing but a gallon of milk or the morning commute, and its either hybrid cars or the tiny gas cars that don’t weigh anything at all.

Any thing that pushes the milage to 50 mpg and beyond will stave off the looming gas crisis, buts its not a cure, just a temporary fix.

[jollyrgr]

You are right about E85 and biofuels but your grade school teacher is also right, we are running out of fuel. For me, it's not about the here and now but it's about the future of my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids. I wonder what they will be using for fuel?

Maybe I should have explained that this grade school teacher thing was during the "fuel crisis" of the 1970's. I can sort of recall my dad being concerned about getting enough gas to drive to work. Strange thing is after a while there was plenty of gas; as soon as the price went up. Now I hear praises of $2.70 prices for gas. It would appear the speculators and "wall street" types as well as oil companies enjoy this. If we had a strong president that said "Here is an executive order. We will build E85 plants and start the conversion to its use. Any new car sold in the US after 2009 WILL run on E85. The conversion will be done by 2015." Hell if they can get enough technology to build a ship to take men to the moon in less than ten years they could get E85 plants running in less time. It is not a matter of developing new technology (the knowledge is there) it is just a need of overcoming tree huggers and big oil that does not want to give up their golden goose.

I feel strongly that E85 will work if given the proper attention. True it takes about 1.5 gallons of ethanol to equal the energy of one gallon of gasoline. But how many gallons of crude does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? Just under two.

My thought is the great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids will have about as many of the things as we have from the people that we are the great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids of. In other words they won't have IC based cars, the TV we have, the computers we have, and so on. Fifty years ago families might own one TV (19" black and white) and could get maybe five channels. Twenty years ago a 27" color TV (maybe two or three 19") and 57 channels. Now a 62" set is the main one, 32" in the kids room, and close to 200 channels.

Cars? How about one car per family in the 1950's. Now maybe four cars in a family. While some may think this is a waste, I think it is great. Why not have better things than those of the past. At one time it made sense to have the milk man deliver milk to the home. Now why not pick the milk up ourselves?

Other examples include all the modern things we have. At one point homes were heated by a fireplace. Then by a coal burning central heating system. (Possibly some of you remember such a system being in your homes?) Now a central gas/propane fired system is common. In the midwest at least a furnace is needed and a home is not sold without one. I believe it is to the point where a central AC should not be an option but a mandate.

Just this weekend I helped my parents change from a traditional phone plan to a one rate plan. No more fears of making a long distant phone call. Back when I was a kid they were afraid of the "phone police" getting them for having extra phones. Now they have choices. It took government action to break up the phone company. Possibly we would need a simliar action for big oil. Likely with the current administration, this will never happen.

If a switch were made to E85 I see it as a farming boom in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Huge areas of land going unused in Mexico could be used for farming with more jobs south of the border.

Wind farms will never make it. While low "yield" they were going to make one by me. I would have welcomed it. Where they wanted to put the wind farm there is next to nothing. I know; I live close to where they wanted to put it. A few corn and soy bean farms maybe. One high school, one middle school. About the only business is an apple orchard. The area still has dirt and gravel roads there. But the company was not given permits to build thus the project is now dead.

Something HAS to be done. The infrastructure does not exist to change to a hydrogen based society. The electric grid is not in place to handle plug in cars. (Recall the power outages this past summer and short range of plug-in "GRID" cars.) Ethanol is a step in the right direction. Possibly a hybrid is another step; time will tell. But my guess is in 2015 we will see another jump to $5 or $7 a gallon and things will go on as they do now. The jump to $3 did not stifle driving; it only caused changes in other areas.

[Smoke_Maker]

What helped in the demise of the electric car in the early 1900's was energy density, in today's batteries and gasoline it takes about 600 pounds of lead acid batteries to equal one gallon of gasoline. The numbers weren't that good back in the early days but with the invention of the radiator and the ability of carrying enough fuel with you to make the round trip, gasoline sounds like the way to go back then.

What would we be talking about if the big 3 automakers had put as much R&D money into battery technology instead of ICE (internal combustions engines).

Do you want to have some fun? go into a big 3 dealership and tell the salesman you want to buy a new car but you need a car that gets over 50MPG in the city, watch them squirm.

Don't go to a Japanese or German dealership and try this unless you ARE looking for a new car.

The united states make up 5% of the worlds population and we use 25% of the worlds energy.
http://www.infinitepower.org/pdf/FactSh ... s%20use%22

[Smoke_Maker]

How about a E85 Hybrid vehicle.

E85 sure would put a dent in our crude oil usage, but until we cut the amount of energy we use were still in trouble, I don't think there is enough acreage to put a big dent in it with the way we use fuel (or should that be the way we waste fuel).

Here is what other people are paying for gasoline

Scotland, £1/litre = $7.15/US Gallon
Electricity (renewable) = 8p/kWh = $0.15/kWh

England:-
95 pence / litre = $1.72 / litre or $6.51 / US Gallon
Electricity:- Peak rate 15 Cents/KWh, Low rate 6.5 Cents / KWh
All at $1.81 = £1

Australians
1,42euros/litre = $2,39AU/litre = US$1.82/litre, x 4.2 = $7.64US/Gal

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Gas: CAN$1.14/litre = US$3.86/USGallon
Residential Electricity = CAN5.654¢/KWH = US5.07¢/KWH
(I got this off the EV list and have not checked the accuracy of the info)


I think we will see $7 a gallon way before 2015.

[Chris Smith]

The main problem here is like the tobacco companies, lie to your face and tell you different story.

No one here is really trying to come up with the alternative.

One oil company claimed they were putting back all their profits into research and alternative fuels, while only investing 10 million bucks back into research while they let their old boss’s retire with a 400 million dollar severance package. Pee in your ear and claim its raining.

Lies get us to DC, and no where else.

Remember the Tobacco executives in front of congress, Nicotine is not addictive?

And no one went to jail?

And pigs can fly?

Methanol will help us along immensely as long as the politicians stay out of it and we bring back what always worked, Regulation and control. [forget the present residents all together]

Hybrids and technology and the 50 mile per gallon car will stave off the crisis for at least another hundred years, as well as the “plug it in electric carsâ€