<shudder> Say it ain't so! Mebbe I should start stockpiling engines for
the future. :-)
Despite attempts by Car manufacturers and oil companies to bury the things,
they will start coming out in droves soon enough. The pathetic entry by GM
(The EV-1) demonstrates either a direct attempt to kill the electric car
market or just shear incompetance on GM's part. When a High School auto-shop
can produce a better vehicle from "over the counter" components for less than
the original cost of the car they were modifing (an old Porsche 914), it shows
how seriously lacking the major carmakers are in commitment.
>(Uh oh, I feel another flame war coming...) ;-)
Only if you indulge in it... I don't...
> First of all, let me admit right off the bat that I know next to nothing
> about electric cars.
Okay, now that you've qualified the second comment here:
> Second, I think electric cars suck. :-)
> The engines may be powerful, but the batteries required are so heavy
>that they more than overwhelm any extra power. I'm not familiar with the
>diesel generator concept you mentioned above; maybe they've solved this
>problem. I assume the above car has no batteries? On a related note,
>recharging the batteries seems like a huge hassle. Where I live, I'd be
>surprised if there was a gas station with electric charging capabilities
>within 300 miles. (Again, maybe that diesel generator solves the problem?)
This is a common misconception. Serious amounts of Battery power are only
required in 100% electric vehicles. The reality is that 100% electric
vehicles will not be practical until the new generation of batteries becomes
inexpensive. Until then, hybrid vehicles will be the ultimate solution. By
using very small IC engines that just turn generators, you can burn less fuel
more efficiently.
When you are sitting in traffic or at a stop light, what is your engine
doing? It's burning fuel at an idle or in any case: siginificantly more fuel
than is required to move the vehicle. Hybrid cars only turn their IC engines
on when the two or three batteries it has requires charging, it then shuts
off. This makes them vastly more efficient than straight IC engines. It's
not even a contest.
> The biggest problem with electric cars as I see it is the cost. I
>don't want to spend $100,000 on a vehicle with the power of a Honda
>Civic. A huge monkey-wrench is the government and their stupid manadates.
>They're trying to force these vehicles on the public rather than allowing
>technology to run its course. They should just sit back and let it
>happen. Personally, I'm glad Chrysler decided not to produce it. From
>what I can see, there is a lot more research to be done on this subject.
Well since you qualified your qualifications already, I'm not sure how much
weight I can give your opinion here. I feel the government (for once) is
trying to break the stranglehold the Oil and Car companies have on the
American Automobile. The technology exists, and has for over 4 years to
produce cheap, high efficiency cars. Most people are being spoon-fed a load
of BS by the Oil/Car conglomerate. They believe that we "aren't quite ready
yet" for efficient vehicles. If you really want to know the truth, dig into
the internet. Visit sites on electric cars by M.I.T., Stanford, Berkley, Cal
Poly Pomona & San Luis Obispo, Cal Tech, and dozens of other colleges (yes,
and even High Schools). Visit sites on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology.
The Federal Government has several sites on Electric Mandates and Hydrogen
research, and why they are forcing the issue. The Government has no secret
here, they are starting to see through the smoke screen tossed up by the oil
companies. Ever wonder why gas is so cheap now? Is it really that they've
found "new" oil reserves or is it that research organizations announced a year
ago that they can make the equivalent "gallon of gas" in hydrogen for $1.60.
Estimated mass production facilities can lower that number to $1.10 with
current technology: using free energy (These could be low federal estimates
and I don't trust the numbers yet either, but they do make sense.)
> Finally, a couple of completely irrational reasons. :-) The whir
>of electric motors or the lope of a big cam through a free flowing
>exhaust? No contest. Also, a small part of me is against buying an
>electric car just to spite the enviro-nazis. ;-) (Hey, I said they
>were irrational!) :-)
I'm not an enviro-nut, tree-hugger, or anything else. I'm just tired of the
snowball job we are getting on cars/energy. For many years we could have had
clean, cheap cars yet we still rely on old tech. The greatest tool in the
history of humanity is what you are reading on right now. It has advanced
technology so fast that we can't even keep up any more, yet we still burn
oil/coal and other fossile fuels to power our world. This is absolute BS,
anyone that tries to tell me that we haven't advanced one bit in the fields of
energy has either an ulterior motive or hasn't read up on the field. If we
even spent a fraction of the cost of a couple of offshore drilling rigs on
renewable energy sources, the advances would boggle our minds. All it takes
is commitment, maybe like the one that sent American's to the moon, and
suddenly our world would be forever changed. No more Catalytic converters,
low preformance engine designs to satisfy some silly environmental
regulations, instead we all get high preformance motors driving efficient
mechanisms.
Shaun H.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:10:58 EDT