Electric Vehicles, in favor of? or disapprove?

[Cory]

Absolutely not, if it only went 60 km on a charge.

You could buy a cheap compact car for ~$20,000 and spend $30,000 on it's gas for the next ~10+ years

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

This GM documentary video from c. 1969 has some pretty interesting descriptions of all sorts of alternative power sources under consideration at the time. You'll notice that some of these designs have been in continuous development for the last 40 years, and still aren't ready for prime time.

Wow! isn't that interesting?, wonder what the gas price was back then in 1969?

One thing for sure is once it goes above $1.50/litre towards $2.00/litre which will be soon at the rate oil is rising our lives will change big time, we will all be driving scooters, I'd go get that class M upgrade now to you're licence. It's not just how high but how fast the prices are rising, wages just can't keep up.

I just got rid of my big 8 cyl truck and got a 2.8L chev colorado and my fuel bill is 50% less but once we are at $1.50 or higher it will once again be unaffordable and I use the vehicle for business.

I'd say we are ina full blown state of emergency when it comes to energy costs in north america and even all the so-called experts have been wrong and know have no clue what they are talking about as even they admit we are in uncharted waters.

One only has to look at this victoria day long weekend, I have worked in news doe 12 years and sure the weather is a bit cool this weekend but honestly I have never seen this few cars on the road and boats on the water, I still have a hard time believing it's the holiday weekend.

People are obviously just using the car for whats really necessary.

I was at the OPP safety blitz on the 400 all day Friday and the cops with 30 years on the force where telling me they have never seen anything like this....even in pouring rain there was more traffic than this weekend.

My only question is how bad is it going to get? if gas/oil is staying this high during a recession what will it rise to once our economy picks up again?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

My only question is how bad is it going to get? if gas/oil is staying this high during a recession what will it rise to once our economy picks up again?

It's not just the Western economy that will dictate the price of gas in the future, it's the entire world economy. India and China - both with over a billion people each - are surging out of third world status, and that means millions and millions of more cars on their roads.

Unless there is a miraculous discovery of an enormous (and I mean like Saudi Arabia huge) oil reserve, the supply of oil just won't be able to keep up with the demand to get the price of gas cheap again. And even if we did find such a huge reserve, the environmental implications of adding all that carbon dioxide to the atmosphere certainly wouldn't help the global warming situation.

The solution(s) for the twenty-first century certainly won't be as easy as the "just drill more wells!" philosophy of the twentieth.

[Generalx5]

Electrical energy is clean and produces no carbon dioxide, yes the power plants may be using coal, but if the automobile company devoted money into solar and wind energy to undo the carbon dioxide production at another power plant, would this be fair to say that the energy on these vehicles are from a clean source?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

I'd say we are ina full blown state of emergency when it comes to energy costs in north america

Which Europe has coped with for how many years now, with their high taxes?

Back on topic, our electricity went out unexpectedly this week for about 12 hours. Yesterday and last night thousands in SE Mich lost power due to high winds. How are you going to charge your car when the electricity grid fails?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Generalx5

Im just courious....since, electric vehicles have been showing up, but didnt sell very nicely. Some say that they were made to look bad so they dont sell well. Others say that the oil industry puressures the car manufactures to halt research on electrics...

I am thinking that with the current cost of gas, $4.00/gal in Chicago suburbs, the oil industry would be losing their hold on car production. I might look into an electric car for work. There are a lot of factors to consider since I live in a cold climate and have a 50 mile round trip to work. I think we are all going to have to look into alternative vehicles very soon.

[acdcfan259]

I'm in favor of pushing the technology forward and going forward with electric cars. But with how they operate right now, they're not worth it.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I'm not terribly confident in the near future of hybrid technology either. GM next year will be releasing a hybrid (wait for it.....) Yukon. I mean seriously, what are they thinking? It costs like another $15,000+ over a regular Yukon, has a gigantic 6L engine still, and only gets another 5mpg. The point is?

(Full disclosure: I now work for the GMC dealership whose vehicles are linked below.)

Actually, the Yukon Hybrid is available right now; there were two on our lot when I left on Friday. Further, the EPA figures show the hybrid getting 21 city/22 highway, while a standard Yukon gets 14/19. That's an appreciable swing.

Also, since the $15,000 figure seemed high, I dug a little deeper. There's one at work for $53,955, while a Yukon with roughly similar equipment is $45,981--that's a gap of roughly $8,000.

Now, does my CR-V get better mileage than a Yukon Hybrid? In most cases, yes. Will a Yukon Hybrid haul more cargo than my CR-V? Absolutely. If I had an appreciable need for a full-size SUV, I'd consider it. Since I don't have a need for a full-size SUV, I'm content just photographing it.

As for the original topic, 60 km is not enough range for my needs. (My present daily round-trip commute is closer to 45 or 50 miles, about 50% more than this EV can put out.) $50,000 is also priced out of my reach, especially when the Chevy Volt is currently targeted to hit around $30,000 when it goes on sale in 2010 and the Prius starts around $21,100. I'd pass.

[kramarczyk]

60 km/ charge = 37.5 mi/charge... Nope, it won't do round trip to the shop. And even if it did, the charge time would probably get me during build season.

Of course, there could be an upside to the forced time at home...

[Gdeaver]

When looking at all electric vehicles, most tend to not look at the over all system. If you include the losses at the power plant, electric transmission, and charging losses, electric vehicles are not very attractive from an over all perspective. Their environmental impact is very good at the localized level, but their over all environmental impact is not as attractive.
The internal combustion engine is the prime mover of our society. Hybrids try to increase the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine has terrible thermal efficiency. BMW has developed a 2 stage sterling engine add on that greatly improves the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Now if you could rap up a sterling, hybrid into a small light weight cost effective package you might have something. Yes the future engineers have plenty of problems to solve. The impending energy and enviromental crisis makes the mission of FIRST all that more important.

[thefro526]

The only way the vehicle described in the original post would be effective is if it were used for city or local driving only. And even if that was all of the driving you did you'd still need to be bringing in a decent bit of money to afford it. In reality the range isn't bad for most of my family and friends that drive if they were to get one but, the price would alienate a lot of people.

Something else that needs to be factored in is recharge time. I own a 91 Nissan 240sx and it takes about 3 or 4 minutes to fill it's 15 gallon tank. Considering most cars have between a 12-20 gallon tank their refill time should be less than 5 minutes on average. Your electric car would take substantially longer to my knowledge. If you could find a way to charge the battery fully in less than maybe 10 minutes it would become practical. But to my knowledge most electric cars take a few hours or more to fully recharge.

If you had a short range car like the one described that could be recharged quickly <10 minutes then some people who drive less than ~40 miles to work everyday could use them and charge the car at work or at a recharge station. But if you were to have a car with a 200 mile + range you could get away with having a longer recharge time. I know a lot of electric car owners let their cars "sleep" or plug them in to charge at night.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

I'd say we are ina full blown state of emergency when it comes to energy costs in north america and even all the so-called experts have been wrong and know have no clue what they are talking about as even they admit we are in uncharted waters.

I saw a story on the CBS news last night where they speculated how the future would be with rising gas prices. How we could have a world where travel becomes far too expensive to drive or fly cross country. Where NASCAR can no longer afford to operate and where people will move back to the cites to save on travel expenses.
That people would have to give up what they do today because it costs too much to live that way. It made me think of what it would be like for FIRST. It would cost way too much for certain teams to travel and the championships would simply be out of the question. It certainly would change my travel schedule to numerous events.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

When looking at all electric vehicles, most tend to not look at the over all system. If you include the losses at the power plant, electric transmission, and charging losses, electric vehicles are not very attractive from an over all perspective. Their environmental impact is very good at the localized level, but their over all environmental impact is not as attractive.

Perhaps not, but we can make electricity that uses fewer non-renewable resources than 87 octane does (consider solar, hydroelectric, and wind). If we lose X percent of electricity from a solar farm due to losses in the system, I can live with that--as they once sang on Broadway, the sun'll come out tomorrow. If we lose Y percent of oil, we're out that amount for a few million years.

With time, the systems that get electricity to the outlet will be optimized when it's cheaper for the producers of power to do so than just to generate more raw electricity. What that magic number is will vary from area to area and by method of production.

[Generalx5]

Actually, Im wrong in the first post, the 60Km range is actually from the onboard backup battery system that isnt interchangable, this battery is the one that you actually plug in to charge at night. The main batteries are actually individual modules that you can exchange at power stations.

The theory is that instead of having gas stations, there will be a charge station, batteries stored on charging racks ready to go. You may just one day pull into a charging station and exchange a battery or two in about two minuts and be on your way. Ofcourse there will be ways to make these batteries safe, and fraud proof. These are public batteries and will be constantly replaced by the Manufacture. Well assuming that the life of the tipical battery is 2100 charges(is really way more but kept low to provide a minimum kilowatt output), and each battery is just under lets say $1800at the time of introduction to the market. You would be paying something like a dollar per charge for each battery module, the extra money would be associated to the cost of the battery and energy cost for charging. The vehicle range is dependant on Load and how many battery modules the vehicle can carry. So It seems that this is a better solution than filling tanks full for at costs much higher/litre.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Generalx5

Actually, Im wrong in the first post, the 60Km range is actually from the onboard backup battery system that isnt interchangable, this battery is the one that you actually plug in to charge at night. The main batteries are actually individual modules that you can exchange at power stations.

The theory is that instead of having gas stations, there will be a charge station, batteries stored on charging racks ready to go. You may just one day pull into a charging station and exchange a battery or two in about two minuts and be on your way. Ofcourse there will be ways to make these batteries safe, and fraud proof. These are public batteries and will be constantly replaced by the Manufacture. Well assuming that the life of the tipical battery is 2100 charges(is really way more but kept low to provide a minimum kilowatt output), and each battery is just under lets say $1800at the time of introduction to the market. You would be paying something like a dollar per charge for each battery module, the extra money would be associated to the cost of the battery and energy cost for charging. The vehicle range is dependant on Load and how many battery modules the vehicle can carry. So It seems that this is a better solution than filling tanks full for at costs much higher/litre.

Unless these swappable batteries have far greater range, I still wouldn't be sold. Sure, I can extend my range to make a jaunt down to Florida, but I would be stopping nearly ten times as often. While I enjoy a good stretch break as much as the next guy, stopping every half-hour or so is excessive.

Further, the gas station issue is a paradox. Consumers won't buy the car unless the batteries are readily (and I mean readily) available, but gas stations won't stock the batteries unless there's a solid business case for them (which generally implies a measure of demand from consumers).