who killed the electric car

[simon84]

Just saw Who Killed the Electric Car.
I thought it was a really great film.
It's an eye opening documentary about how a great car was introduced and then removed from the market in California.
I'd definitely recommend it.
Makes me want to see an electric tercel.
No more exhaust, no more engine noise, no more gas station stops!

[takza]

Not as long as the oil companies/military control energy and foreign policy?

Here is a crude example of what might have been?


http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-tr ... k-graph-2/


These figures are in millions. The source for energy R&D expenditures is from the National Council for Science and the Environment.

Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars.

“Accrued liabilities for U.S. federal employees’ and veterans’ benefits now total $4.5 trillion. Indeed, our debt for veterans’ health and disability payments has risen by $228 billion in the past year alone…The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the interest payments on the money borrowed to finance the Iraq war will total $264 billion to $308 billion.â€

[neonsport]

Many years ago, when we lived in Austin, there was a company there called Jet Industries that built electric Escorts. We had a tip that Ford was going to buy the company, and we were strongly encouraged to buy stock. My mother bought some, not a lot, and that was a good thing. A week later, 60 Minutes walked into their headquarters, and the fun was over. One of the exectives had cleaned out the corporate accounts, and the company folded. It was a shame, they had a good product.

About 5 or 6 years later, I went to a local Ford dealership to test drive a Mustang GT. They didn't have the color I wanted sitting on the lot, so we walked back into the storage lot to find one. there, sitting in the very back, was a line of Jet electric Escorts, window stickers still on display. I said something about them, annd the salesman was surprised I even knew what they were. He said he could get me a heck of a deal on one or all of them. I passed.

I still wish I'd at least asked what price I could get. At that point, all the batteries (and tires) would have needed replacement. Coupled with the fact that I'd have been buying the car with no possibility of technical support, and there was a strong possibility of a really good deal. I still wonder how long they sat back there before the dealership scrapped them.

[jetswim]

Here in Canada there are at least two companies that build electric vehicles but the government won't let them sell them here! The Ministry of Transportation keeps giving them the runaround in terms of approval for use on our roads so for now they are sold to Europe and Asia. Can't remember the names of the companies though. Utter B*llsh%t.....

[Petros]

There are very real technical and practical problems with electrics, mostly the cost of electricity vs. gasoline, gas is still a bargin in terms of cost per unit of useful energy. The only is battery life and cost. The even if you can live with a car with only a 50 mile range between 4 hour charges, the batteries are way to expensive vs. the life.

Gasoline cars are reliable, have long range and long life, safe and fairly clean. There are no electric cars ever offered that can match a typical gas powered car.

It was not a conspiracy, it was just that gasoline cars are still a lot better than what anyone has ever offered. Or they would be selling electric cars instead.

[Snax]

There are very real technical and practical problems with electrics, mostly the cost of electricity vs. gasoline, gas is still a bargin in terms of cost per unit of useful energy. The only is battery life and cost. The even if you can live with a car with only a 50 mile range between 4 hour charges, the batteries are way to expensive vs. the life.

Even home built electrics can travel 100 miles on plain old lead acid batteries. And fast charging stations could recharge them in well under 4 hours. Charging speed is only a matter of infrastructure and what the onboard chargers are built to handle. Thinking outside the box a bit, instead of refilling the battery, they could be exchanged for a precharged one more quickly than one can fill a gas tank.

Another issue is that Chevron holds the patent and refuses to market the technology for the one battery that has been able to do the job effectively since before the EV-1 was on the road. GM killed the EV-1 because Chevron stopped supplying batteries at a reasonable cost.

The nickel metal 'Ovonics' battery is a large format cell with half the weight and twice the energy storage density of lead-acid. It's not vapor-ware. It's viable. And you can't buy it now, but you could when the EV-1 was being produced. Chevron's patent however will run out in the middle of this next decade. By then, A123 Systems lithium cells hold strong promise to take over and surpass what the Ovonics cells can provide, cutting weight by 1/2 yet again. And no, they don't burst into flames like old lithium ion batteries when overloaded.

Gasoline cars are reliable, have long range and long life, safe and fairly clean. There are no electric cars ever offered that can match a typical gas powered car.

Electric cars are just as reliable, safe, and can be extremely clean. And when you say they can't match a typical gas car, you better qualify what you are talking about. Certainly range is currently limited by infrastructure, but performance can be mind bending. Google 'wrightspeed' for just one example of a car that is actually on the road and available to buyers with enough cash. Killacycle is another example of A123 battery potential.

It was not a conspiracy, it was just that gasoline cars are still a lot better than what anyone has ever offered. Or they would be selling electric cars instead.

Not a conspiracy? An oil company buys patent rights to the one available battery technology that could make electrics practical and viable for mass marketing right now and refuses to market the cells to anyone. Seems like a conspiracy to me.

The price of oil is arbitrarily set by OPEC and other vested interests, not based upon actual market supply. The oil companies have a vested interest in keeping us hooked on fossil fuels and will spare no cost to do so. All they have to do is keep fuel costs just below the price point which pushes people to electrics, and they will always have the market dominated unless governments take steps to prevent it.

[takza]

Not a conspiracy? An oil company buys patent rights to the one available battery technology that could make electrics practical and viable for mass marketing right now and refuses to market the cells to anyone. Seems like a conspiracy to me.

The price of oil is arbitrarily set by OPEC and other vested interests, not based upon actual market supply. The oil companies have a vested interest in keeping us hooked on fossil fuels and will spare no cost to do so. All they have to do is keep fuel costs just below the price point which pushes people to electrics, and they will always have the market dominated unless governments take steps to prevent it.

If they can pass the new CAFE standards and get Dummy in Charge to sign it...we'll eventually be surprised by all the patented tech various companies are hiding away.

Here is something you can do right now:

http://www.preignitioncc.com/befreetech/

Have a good laugh...but don't laugh too hard?

[Snax]

Heh heh. Apparently it doesn't come with a good shampoo to go with getting soaked.

[Don Jorgensen]

check these sites out
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20464296@N ... 7291/show/

http://www.zapworld.com/electric-vehicl ... obvio-828e

Hard to argue with reality.

Buy ZAP stock. You will feel better knowing you are doing this for America
don

[Mattel]

We covered this guy earlier but this was from a denver paper.

Dave Mustoe of Lakewood converted his 1985 Toyota Tercel station wagon, above, into a hybrid, which operates with both a gasoline engine and an electric motor. "Electricity, in my mind, will be the superior method of transportation," he says of alternative-powered vehicles. (Post / Jerry Cleveland)

unfortunately the newspaper article link is down




I think my tercel is the last gasoline car that I will buy. Perhaps diesel VW Golf or an Opel Astra or Peugeot 307 wagon or Citroen C4.

Whether you believe in Peak Oil or Global warming (or even the human influenced part of that) I just think we need to be as efficient as we can. I'd love to drive a WRX around a racetrack but at the same time I can't understand why I see all these taxi's idling in taxi ranks around the city chewing up juice that are not hybrids. I dig the prius - regenerative breaking has to be one of the best features around. This is obviously interim technology. I just wish Toyota put some Mojo into the design.

[simon84]

some great discussion here. Thanks to Snax for refuting the "there's no conspiracy" theory.
Another fact is that people really loved their electric cars while they had them, limitations or not.
That hybrid tercel is way cool.
I have been in a prius and it seemed pretty awesome.
I actually saw a prius taxi, in oil rich Calgary no less.

[jetswim]

In order for electric cars or any other Earth saving technology to flourish we (North Americans) would have to have a serious shift in our lifestyles and habits.
I mean our whole society has to change the way we consume resources.
Just think from the last 100 years how far we've come with technology compared to human history. I think human technology moves too fast without properly thinking things out and the end result is where we are now. Throw in human corruption and it gets even worse. To me modern society took a turn for the worse during the industrial revolution and the introduction of capitalism i.e.banks. my 2 cents....

[ARCHINSTL]

Something that seems to be treated quite lightly in discussions about oil dependence and consumption is lubricating oils - and I do not mean for automobiles.
The thing that simply made the Industrial Revolution possible is lubricating oil from petroleum; I am not dismissing steam or water or wind power or electricity - after all, they are dependent on lubricating oils.
Without this, "civilization as we know it" would not be possible. Long after a solution is found for transportation energy (including airplanes), we simply will have to have oil for machines; only so much can be recycled (ad infinitum?). Every alternative energy source depends on something rotating or sliding, whether in production or application and there must be lubrication.

While I have seen nothing in the popular media about this (or any trumpeting by any energy companies), I certainly hope someone is working on this.
Tom M.

[Don Jorgensen]

Both systhetic and plant based lubricants.

Check out these websites

http://www.super-lube.com/pdf/Catalog.pdf
http://www.epobio.net/plantoils.htm

I used to shoot a lot of SLR 35 mm photography. Every once in awhile the shutter mechanism would hang up. A pinky finger wipe across the outside of my nose provided enough lubricating material for me to apply and keep the Pentax clicking.
Don

[Snax]

Yeah, the next time I need assembly lube for a camshaft install, I'll just wipe it up and down the crack of my . .

Maybe not.

An electric powered vehicle needs far less lubricant than ICEs.

I'm not too concerned about that aspect. We'll see ridiculous fuel prices before that ever approaches being a significant issue.