Your opinion on electric vehicles

[ahammer]

Remember the car was frist advertised as the more environmentally friendly horse.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Daithi

I didn't vote because their wasn't an option for "I don't know."

How toxic and bad for the environment are the batteries? How is the energy for the electricity produced? If it is primarily based on let's say coal plants then is this energy cleaner than petro burned in a modern cars engine? How does finding, recovering, and refining crude oil fit into this equation? I can make guesses, but the truth is that I don't have a clue.

It also occurs to me that the push for electric vehicles really might be about lessening the influence of oil producing regions such as the Middle East, Venezula, and Russia. Once again, I really don't know.

I don't trust what I'm told by the government; I don't trust big business; I don't trust the mainstream media; and I find environmental advocates are willing to turn a blind eye to facts when they don't agree with their preconceived agenda.

Follow the money...then follow the guns...

Oil is popular due to the paid for infrastructure. When the car first started out, the US was the biggest oil producer in the world, and gasoline was the biggest waste product from oil refining. The car used the "cheap waste product" and everybody was happy. Steam and electric cars had range limitations, but gasoline driven engines had no effective limitation. Even today, a group of hyperactive teenagers could take a car around the edge of the entire US (around 10,000 miles) stopping every 6-12 hours for 10 minutes to refuel, swap drivers, and attend to the call of nature. Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me, but you could do it. You couldn't hope to do that with any other technology. Like with the horse of the Old West, you're free to wander about to your heart's content.

With the road infrastructure, repair infrastructure, and refueling infrastructure in place, what is the incentive to change? Well...

Texas has run pretty much dry for oil, so we can't feed cheap oil to the rest of the US anymore. So oil is drilled for elsewhere in the world, and is often found in places with unsavory governments. This leads to all sort of geo-political problems, which keep getting more and more risky for the developed world. So if we can wean ourselves off of oil, so we can give various despots certain finger gestures, (followed with something stronger, if needed). That's one piece of the puzzle.

Another piece of the puzzle is the Eco-Simp piece. There is a steadily growing portion of society that abhors technology, (they may exclude the internet ) These people seem to really want to go back to the Stone Age. And the Car is their favorite target. "Get rid of the car. Get rid of the pollution. Make people walk like their ancestors." The new rallying cry is Global Warming. "Scrap the Car and Save the Planet." Or if you must have a car, make in run on some non-polluting technology (never mind that none of them are quite ready for prime time.) The fact that this would limit the mobility of people is either consider a trivial by-product, or a Good Thing, depending on the view of the person involved.

The two combined form a block to change the infrastructure to get away from the oil answer. This may or may not be a good thing, but in some circles it has become a religious thing (to a baldly practical viewpoint), with the usual decrying of alternate viewpoints as evil heretics.

Now the battery technology currently available is quite toxic, although future technology may be much less toxic. Anyways, it's not here yet, so it doesn't help today. But due to the "The World Is Coming To An End" rhetoric out there, any half-baked answer at any price is seen as the Answer, if only we can force it (at any cost, including unforeseen consequences - see US ethanol production, corn and world hunger) into common use.

Please feel free not to trust me. Nobody else does.....

(Ambrose Bierce definition of a cynic - A surly blackguard who insists upon seeing the world as it is rather than how it should be....)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by ahammer

Remember the car was frist advertised as the more environmentally friendly horse.

And they are! Ever clean up behind a horse....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

As for tow-behind battery trailers...

Since 80% of the cost of an electric car is batteries, that tow behind will probably cost 60% of the car itself... (and a prime target for theft.)

That 80% cost is based on present battery technology, which will certainly come down as batteries become more ubiquitous and more efficient; and the trailer can always be preset to work only with specific vehicles based on their VIN, removing most of the value from theft*. If you aren't worried about your car being stolen, similar theft deterrent tools should work for the trailer.

(*Hmm... it would probably be some sort of DRM system...)

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Take the small billets, lower them down into a dry salt mine 10,000 feet down, and recast them into a bigger billet. (That was going to be done in Nevada USA, but the anti nukes had a hissy fit.) Any civilization able to dig down to 10,000 feet to get at them will have the brains to know what to do with them.

Gamma ray are electromagnetic radiation, just like sunlight. Lead blocks them the same as a rock blocks sunlight....

Should use technology and brains then to harness geotherma.

Originally Posted by eumesmo

Beside nuclear, the only thing of real promise I have noticed lately was http://www.coolearthsolar.com/ .

I can't see a way around the building of huge energy storage facilities ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage ), which would enable nuclear reactors to constantly run at near maximum capacity at very little extra fuel expenditure, and make the use of the other energy alternatives, solar, tidal, wind, at all viable.

In Quebec we use hydro power and the government is installing wind generators. No coal, no oil.

[Cabe]

I think this chap has the right idea.

http://www.wimp.com/electriccars/

[Jill74]

hope this project will be implemented world wide as soon as possible. we need to save our resources for our future generations.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Jill74

hope this project will be implemented world wide as soon as possible. we need to save our resources for our future generations.

I listened to about half of this baloney before giving up in disgust. Never once did he say where he was going to get the energy to recharge these marvelous replaceable batteries for eight cents per mile. He just talked about his "clean" as opposed to every one else's "dirty" electrons.

Anybody got any bridges in Brooklyn for sale?

[yvanleterrible]

Project 'better place' has been in existence for quite a while. I don't think they can pull off the standards they need for any implementation.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

The trailer battery is the perfect thing. It could be picked up at a gas station anywhere and supplement the owmer's revenue loss by the lowering oil sales.

Why not make a fill-up station for your battery...

http://www.opgewekt.nu/wp-content/up...9/dsc04730.JPG

Which already exist by the way...

[Alexander Turcic]

Interesting subject. Coincidentally, I am somewhat involved in an electric car project, called Mindset. It's a serial plug-in hybrid, meaning it can, if required, use an economical combustion engine to charge the batteries (we call that "Range Extender").

Want to see the prototype of a hybrid car against a Porsche 911 Turbo? Check this out:

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

...
Want to see the prototype of a hybrid car against a Porsche 911 Turbo? Check this out:
...

By the gods! It's beautiful! That silver car, however...

Very interesting website, Alexander. (Extra kudos for the Monty Python reference ). I have a friend who is quite involved in the "electric" division of GM - he's always interesting to talk to about it.

Cheers,
Marc

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

By the gods! It's beautiful! That silver car, however...

Actually... I find them both a bit... Hmm... not to my taste. But I'd get that electric car just because it's an electric car!

(now, we need more power charging points and my favourite car as electric one and I'd buy one!)

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

As for tow-behind battery trailers...

Since 80% of the cost of an electric car is batteries, that tow behind will probably cost 60% of the car itself... (and a prime target for theft.)

I don't know whether to weep or cry ....


DRM Steve ! don't go there .... although ....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Okay, when I said DRM, I was being cute. But let's face it, physical equipment is easier to restrain, and its use limited to the owner (all it takes to protect most cars is a key)...