you guys will LOVE this video

whenever engine's running - battery's charging, this is even true for regular cars

What I want to know is, why do all these hybrids cars have to be shaped all funny and LOOK like hybrid cars? I'd rather have a bit less aerodynamic car than some ugly ass tree hugging looking shit. Just make it look like a regular fucking car for christs sake.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh Very funny picture.

It's true that charging a 100% electric off the grid still burns whatever fuel is being burned or used to give you grid power. But it has been studied, and it is better than burning gasoline in everyones engine. Less expensive too.

All this politician bullshit about drilling right off the coast of California and Florida and Alaska, plus throwing the Clean Air and Clean Water acts out the window so that Big Coal can be as dirty as it was in 1908 simply does NOTHING for people who aren't in those industries, or who profit from them! Such as the politicians costituents and parties who cream their pants everytime they get a few more billion of our dollars.

The politicians just KILLED subsidy money for Solar and Wind and Geothermal, while keeping the billions of annual dollars going to Oil and Coal. Bet that didnt make many peoples newscasts last week, even though it's an election year where national energy policy is a huge issue. Yet it still barely registered in the news.. Why?

After all if they want to say that our market economy drives all this stuff, then stop giving BILLIONS to Oil and Coal while giving NOTHING to Solar, Wind and Geothermal energies. Cheating old bastards. They know they'll be dead of old age so they dont give a fuck about their children's future. Horrible obscene people.

rant mode off :winkwink:

Sweet, thanx for that

Zomzz Eeewwwww But They Are So Ugliezzz

50 mpg Highway
 

I didn't realize that cars got 50 mpg all the way back in 1977 (neat!), but over a decade ago, I had a Geo Metro, which got 45 mpg street / 50 mpg highway. I remember when the hybrid craze started, and people were going crazy over cars that got less than 40 mpg, and I couldn't help but have a recurring "WTF???" creep into my head. I miss my little egg-shaped car! The thing I liked about it most was that I could park it anywhere, and, when I lived in Santa Barbara, I went to the gas station maybe twice per month. Now I have a scooter, which gets 96 mpg, but is decidedly less practical for grocery shopping and trips to Home Depot.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/...074a1c.jpg?v=0
This is the Chevy Volt, BTW

You can convert a regular car to electric for 55K

http://www.acpropulsion.com/ebox/pricing.htm

a corvette gets better millage then my acura tl 2005

That's the problem with all this stuff. All people care about is image. If they think it's more energy efficient and saving the environment, they don't care about actual facts. Same goes for biodiesel fuels. They don't look at the fact that most are worse for our environment than oil. People only care about a glossy headline that says we're running cars on corn. No one gives a shit how.

The fact we don't have better cars is an embarassment to our civilization. I just watched NASA land a fucking piece of metal on a planet 35 million miles away, then powered it using the sun to dig for water. Yet we can't find a way to add 20 MPG on to a standard car.

All I can say is that I'm happy that these car companies are going out of business. Fuck them for being so far behind the times.

I deal with the same thing when going up to my cabin. I think it's just that your body gets used to the clean air. I would spend two weeks up in the country and come back to Chicago and my eyes and nose would be a mess for a week while adjusting.

Cars are going to change.

There is no way around it.

Hybrids are no BS, they will get better and better, have patience.

I remember my dad buying a VW diesel that was supposed to get 50 MPG, he insisted he got that kind of mileage. He let me use it to drive to TX once. Maybe got 40-45.

Or do nothing and save the $55K for other things - to recover that cost would require driving something like 300,000 miles over the lifetime of the car.

On a related topic, I own FuelReport.com - nice domain, and gotten some high $xxx offers, but most folks I mention it to say develop it ... perhaps it's a good time, since emotions regarding fuel prices / the environment are running high with many people wanting to learn more about alternatives; willing to spend a bundle on ways to save fuel.

Ron

Biodiesel is still a hyrdocarbon fuel. All biofuels are. You're putting out less emissions, but you're still putting them out there. Just delaying the inevitable. Hydrogen will be the future of convenient energy. I think the future will be a combination of nuclear, renewable energy and hydrogen. Hydrogen needs to be produced using renewable energy, or it's pointless.

My granny had a mid 90s Honda CRX that got 55MPG +.

I'm happy with my Hybrid Highlander. Plenty of room and I'm getting over 30 MPG because I really only drive around town and not much on the highway.

Not to mention if we were to somehow switch overnight to every car on the planet using biofuels instead of gasoline, we'd require 6 times the amount of land currently being used for agriculture world wide. Doesn't leave much room for food production.

Solar simply takes over 20 years to BREAK EVEN ON, NOT GAINING ANYTHING

Guys you keep saying smoke stacks yet a huge portion of our electricity is NUCLEAR. I live a good 50 miles from a nuclear plant and odds are most you do. Unless you're getting raped with inflated california prices electricity is CHEAP. Even running A/C 24/7 last month here my power bill was $50 and I have my quad core on 24/7 and my core 2 also always on. I frequently fall asleep with my projector on which is my primary TV. When I'm on my desktop it had 2 22" LCD's and a few fans keeping the system cool.

BIODIESEL:
You say it competes with food supply BUT the way homebrew works is you get the grease WASTE from like chinese food places and add chemicals and BOOM you end up with diesel fuel for under $1/gallon which is what the guy was referencing. THIS is the way to go if you want to send a FU to the oil companies. The mass produced "bio diesel" isn't much cheaper at the PUMPS than real diesel is.

GAS MILEAGE:
EPA changed their testing just a few years ago, notice the prius went from like 60MPG down to 50? new EPA testing whacked everybody down to more realistic driving conditions. The fact remains though hybrids don't benefit MUCH from freeway driving but if you know how to drive going downhill and staying the same speed you charge the battery and then you eat it up climbing the hill so yes even freeway usage you'll see charge/use

FUEL used in cars
Todays fuels simply run WAY cleaner than the fuels available around 1980. Diesel was really dirty and so was the gas but it sure could drive long distances.

POWER:
all of those cars getting great mileage also have like 50HP engines. Even my civic hybrid has over 100HP, I wouldn't mind dropping even more of the power to get 70MPG.

Check out this VW. It is also visually unappealing, but more importantly, it gets about 235MPG (supposedly).
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/laugh-at-high-g.html
http://blog.wired.com/cars/images/20...oncept01_2.jpg

Every solar installation is different, and every state has different rebates and tax breaks. In NY state with a full decked out system designed to get an average (3bd, 2bath) home off the grid, you get 45% of the upfront costs back. So a system like that is going to run you around $30k. To heat and cool that around here, it's going to run probably $300 to $400 a month. This isn't some municipally owned utility here, it's not cheap like yours (which is amazingly low!). Thats something like a 10yr break even if you really went for it.

It's just trading that set price for the amount you'd pay out over the period it takes to break even. So for someone like you, it might not make economic sense. After that though, it's no cost but light maintenance and maybe a battery now and then. When you consider breaking even, you shouldnt neglect to consider the time afterwards when you're beyond zero and paying down any number of other potential debts instead of paying a utility company.

If someone a year ago had been able to sell you 10,000 gallons of gas at last years price, it'd be crazy not to have done it right? I see it that way with solar/wind/geothermal for homes. Just seems to make all kinds of sense for a lot of people. It's just tough to be able to drop such a wad of cash up front. But it is a smart investment.

That might make some sense BUT factor in that you'll be paying interest on that $30k. Do it as what home improvement type loans/ second mortage? 6% interest, 6% tax

trust me I'm a huge fan of alternatives to using up more oil. I drive a civic hybrid and have put over 40k miles on it in under 1 year so I do drive more than the "average" person does. I do the math on everything and just a month or so back I did the math on solar power. IF my state would pay for half of it I'd still take over 15 years just to reach the break even point so I'm just not going to bother until they refine the panels greatly. This technology still has a LONG ways to go. Just like all of us earlier hybrid drivers are paying a premium and later the parts will just drop in price. Solar panels are a good 10-15years away from being something worth using and by then the tech should have increased efficiency and greatly reduced cost so you should be able to get the same results for well less than 25% of the cost. BUT solar power is one of the great government coverups that they just don't want you to know about/use. If the government got behind it 10 years ago we'd have those cheap highly efficient panels a LONG time ago.

Ah well, if you finance it with interest, then sure thats all dependant on the rate.

It's a bit harder to calculate exactly how much you'll be paying down since the utility can increase fairly often. My utlility recently announced a avg. $11/month increase in natural gas costs which they want effective April 2009. Part of the actual press release states that part of the increase is to give shareholders a better return! What pricks! :)

Over 20 yrs or so, you would need to adjust your break even date at least 20 times I'd guess, and all of them in your favor.

I have to say I totally agree with this post. Perhaps in the next 10 years we will find something like this but in the next couple of years I don't think so

There's a new law in British Columbia that mandates all new taxis in Vancouver and one other major urban area must be hybrids.

natural gas prices have skyrocketed the past year so in situations like you said where you convert your hot water and heating to solar then yes it helps quite a bit faster than just electricity. Due to our low electric cost and jacked up natural gas price I bought some effecient electric heaters for the main rooms of my house and only used central for part of the heating. With gas going up far faster than electric you'll find more and more people switching to electric ovens and hot water heaters.

We seriously need more nuclear power plants. We haven't built any new ones in what like 30 years? That tech has certainly been moving along since then...