Trixie

We loved the movie, too.

In our hippyesque town, there are lots of electric cars, hybrids, and jerryrigged-to-be-electrics. Seeing them around does make you want to have one too; if they were more visible and more people knew you can customize your own car or an old car to be electric I think there would be more demand for them (which is why they want to keep them invisible and only offer bizarre halfbreeds and retarded alternatives like hydrogen).

My grandpa was definitely not a "treehugger", but he had a gas station in the fifties and sixties and went to the conventions and stuff and always lamented the craziness of the conspiracy to keep fuel-efficiency in the toilet so the big oilmen could make more money. It's not a secret or some bizarre imagining of lefties.

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RawAlex

Sorry, all good arguments, but they fail the stink test.

Current hybrid batteries aren't high power - in the case of Toyota they can run the car for a short while, in the case of Saturn, not at all (they just assist and restart the car from a stop). The best pure electric cars that would be actually sellable right now are still running max at about 100 miles per charge.

Batteries by their nature has issues with cold, with time... newer batteries may have less of a memory issue, but they do lose peak power over time (thus why they have to be replaced sooner or later, they don't live forever). Replacing a battery pack in a Toyota Hybrid is a fairly pricey deal, from what I hear.

Most importantly: Where the heck do you think the electricity comes from? Many states make their electricity by burning coal, natural gas, or even oil, which is then sent down the wires. it is incredibly inefficient to distribute power to cars in this manner, as much of the power is lost as the power goes over the grid.

Then there is the subject of availability of "spare" electricity. Already California (and many other states) are in the shit, maxing out their available supplies. What do you think would happen if a million EV cars suddenly got plugged in a 6PM for a recharge? The power grid would melt.

When you look at the overall start to finish about putting pure electric cars on the road, you realize that they are very, very ineffecient.

sinclair

As for as documentary's go it was pretty lame. Dont get me wrong great subject matter but they could have told the whole story in about 40 minutes. not a very tight edit at all.

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crockett

I understand where you are coming from, I could have swore I saw 300 miles range for the EV1 with newer batteries. The deal is, if more money was put into research then range and life expectancy would go up. Also as more and more cars started using the batteries the prices would come down because there would be more profit in it. So that's just a simple supply and demand thing.

So those are all things that would eventually be dealt with. As far as the distance issue someone posted a link to a car made by GM that will do 600+ miles but it's a mix of technology. Not just electric, so that's likely the future.

The power grid issues would be dealt with over time as more and more people started using them. So it's not like just all of the sudden a million EV cars would just show up out of the blue.

In regards to the coal burning power plants that is a problem, but with stricter rules and regulations they could be cleaner and eventually replaced with cleaner alternatives.

The thing I wonder about, is which would put out more pollution.. a million cars of current technology or the power plants used to charge a million EV cars.

Anyway these are all things that could be solved if we actually wanted too. However their is no support from the govt to make it happen. I always find it sad that there is always money going to big oil and gas companies to subsidize them but almost nothing is given to advance things like solar and wind power.

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RawAlex

The auto industry already produces literally tens of millions of batteries every year (every car has one). The cost of higher performance batteries has more to do with the cost of the materials and the work required in the process to make them. Scaling that up has already improved that fairly far (see laptop batteries) but without a major, major improvement in the amount of energy stored per square inch, combined with the cost of that square inch, things won't move. There has not been any serious level breakthrus in batteries in quite a while.

Electric power (especially from coal or natural gas) is a real problem. The conversion process at the generating plant is often pretty high (you can run constantly at the best performance levels), but it is often defeated by the distribution "pumping" losses. The number (according to wikipedia) is 7.4%. Combine that with the losses in storage (batteries don't retain a full charge, it fades away over time, and some of the energy applied isn't retained), losses in conversion to motion (what gets lost in running an electric motor setup), etc.

The true advantages in an electric car comes from an area like I am in (Quebec) that has huge hydroelectric projects and the potential for many more - that is converting a natural process (water falling down) into electricit. It is pretty much a renewable resource. That is when electric cars start to look good.

Yes, the oils companies have huge vested interests and very well paid people to make sure things stay the status quo. With rising gas prices, it is getting closer and close to making many alternate energy sources and techniques viable. At $100 a barrel for oil, many alternatives become not only cleaner but infact more economical.

Until that happens, hybrid is the best way to save a little bit of the planet

Jace

so, in an ideal world we would be using solar energy to charge our electric cars

spanky part 2

Yeah their current business plan seems to be working so well. You are a fucking tool. If gm would have had the balls to stay with it, we wouldn't even be talking about toyota prius at this point. American car companies are getting what they deserve. They have absolutely no forward thinking at all.

notabook

In Bizarro world, yes.

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