Big News in the World of Electric Cars!

well the issue is this. If its "plugged" into a wall socket to charge overnight, youre still burning coal to generate electricity. ( much of the country's electricity is coal based)

Sure Hydro electric, Wind, solar, geothermic if practiced, would make this a moot point. but they arent to the extent that would make the pure electric car feasible as a alternative to gasoline. when they are electric cars wll be amazing.

Though as a DOP, i drive HUNDREDS of miles a week. i went to virginia for a shoot a few months ago. it would be impractical for me to drive 200 miles, stop, charge the car for 4 hours the n drive another 200 miles.... ( assuming someone will let me plug in to their grid....)

We have a ways to go as far as infrastucture.

Right now, the gas electric hybrid is the best we've got, and you can afford one. there needs to be a seachange in the thinking of the auto industry. Much like the incadesant bulb manufacturers consortium on ending the manufacture of tungsten filament bulbs, the car industry has to say, no more pure gas engines.... or at least, only 20% of the fleet will be pure gas engines. If the manufacturers dont give you a choice, there isnt much we can do about it is there.... Trust me people will be happier when they spend 200$ less per month on gas, and suddenly there are jobs titles like, electric motor technical specialist needed at car dealerships, and repair shops.... If youshift an industry, you dont lose jobs you just create new ones.
 
I actually know someone that bought a hybrid and in the long run it cost them more money.

Instead of one engine you are running 2 engines at the same time, so not only do hybrids cost more vs gas only cars but you are paying for more maintenance on 2 engines. Also I dont like how the structure of the engines work, like how you use both gas and electric at the same time or they constantly flip/flop back and forth.

What I would love to see in a hybrid is a choice of gas or electric only. That way if you are making long trips you can change to gas and if you are doing short ones you can change to electric.

Actually when I first heard about hybrids i thought this was how they were set up.
 
Internal Combustion Engines Have an average efficiency of around 20%, an EV has around 90%, so yes Zander is quite correct.

Of course the orginal source may come from power generated from fossil burning to charge the EV, however, it is easier to control pollution of one large power station then to control millions of cars pumping out pollution. Most modern power stations are a lot greener than before (flue gas post cleanup, "clean coal") and no to mention that not all powerstations are fossil based.
 
after_effects said:
Instead of one engine you are running 2 engines at the same time, so not only do hybrids cost more vs gas only cars but you are paying for more maintenance on 2 engines. Also I dont like how the structure of the engines work, like how you use both gas and electric at the same time or they constantly flip/flop back and forth.
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Well the thing is, an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) has literally hundreds of mechanical parts, and it is complex, an EV "engine" one the other hand is no more complex than your desk fan, its one electric motor, some control circuits and thats it,

However with a hybrid, there is added complexity because you have to marry two technologies and then have it switch between the two thus creating a machine more complicated than an ICE, but that doesn't mean an EV is a complicated "engine".
 
Hydro electric, Wind, solar, geothermic all combined at current technology levels would still only provide a fraction of what the U.S. needs for power.

oilcomparison.gif
 
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Everyone is forgetting the point. We have coal, nucular, oil power plants because people work at these and we set up our electrical systems like this.

If i could single handedly change things I would have every town in North America have its own wind or solar powering station and just run off of that. No point in trafficing electricity across the state.

What i do think is funny, is how our nucular station wanted to be more "earth friendly" so they put up ONE wind generator. The people that i personally know there all make six figures, so why would anyone in their right mind want to change that?

Same with people making combustion engines. Dont you think they want it to go as long as possible? If i was looking at retirement in 10-20 years, I sure would.
 
after_effects said:
Same with people making combustion engines. Dont you think they want it to go as long as possible? If i was looking at retirement in 10-20 years, I sure would.
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No.

If someone made a car that got 100mpg and didn't look like an airplane, they would make a TON of money.

Auto manufacturers don't drill, refine or make oil or gas. They sell cars. Period.
 
Mcgee,

From your comment it sounded a lot like oil companies are not related to car manufacturers at all.

Also try being a father and working at the motors is the only source of income and people are already getting laid off left and right, and tell me you are going to support new companies to come and make electric cars.

I dont think so buddy.
 
mcgeedigital said:
No.
Auto manufacturers don't drill, refine or make oil or gas. They sell cars. Period.
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But as long as oil markets are available thats what the auto manufactures will make.

You make that which will sell, and what sells depends on the context where you are selling and who you are selling too, say you wanted to sell combs, natually you would not target bold men/women as your target market!

But selling "cars" in only part of the profit making cake, just like inkjet printers, profit is not made on the printers, its made on the consumable like ink cartrigdes.

Same with car manufacturers, they have massive secondary markets, associated with cars, all these markets combine together and actually run off each other, in fact EV's are economically not sound, they are nearly maintainance free, have very few parts, and will have very few secondary markets associated with them.

mcgeedigital said:
If someone made a car that got 100mpg and didn't look like an airplane, they would make a TON of money.
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Its the exact opposite, making big cars = big profits, making small efficient cars = nearly zero profits.

The fact is engineers have demonstrated greater than 100MPG cars, its not the technology, its ecomonics.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/3374271.html?page=1

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/14775
 
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mcgeedigital said:
If someone made a car that got 100mpg and didn't look like an airplane, they would make a TON of money.
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You can get 109mpg out of a Prius if you drive it using the pulse 'n' glide technique. Some guys ran a test and were able to run an entire tankful through at 109mpg.
 
after_effects said:
Mcgee,

From your comment it sounded a lot like oil companies are not related to car manufacturers at all.

Also try being a father and working at the motors is the only source of income and people are already getting laid off left and right, and tell me you are going to support new companies to come and make electric cars.

I dont think so buddy.
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When people are tired of filling up their SUVs (and they ARE), they will clamor for more fuel efficient vehicles, manufacturers will make them, and people will buy them.

If that happens to be EV or hybrids, the MARKET will be the one who decides it.

But to decalre that EVs are the ultimate solution without acknowledging that the coal-fired plants are what provide that electricity shows that some aren't seeing the whole picture. It isn't a zero-sum equation.

And to say that there is a cabal of some sort between car manufacturers and "big oil" requires too much tin foil for MY head.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Auto manufacturers don't drill, refine or make oil or gas. They sell cars. Period.
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unless of course you invest in oil. think about it. most oil is used for transportation. the lower the gas mileage, the more oil people will need. the more oil people need, the more valuable it becomes. the more valuable it becomes, the more your investment is worth.

combustion engines need more upkeep than electric engines. that means they'll be making money off of repairs.

automakers will keep dangling the carrot and make the electric car no more economical than gas cars. haven't you heard the chevy volt will cost $40,000? they'll do that to maintain their profit margins. gas or electric, they'll still make their money off of us.
 
mcgeedigital said:
If that happens to be EV or hybrids, the MARKET will be the one who decides it.
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You clearly have not read the previous articles, there are two components:

(1) End user requirements

(2) Net profits from product

Sure the "Market" may demand more fuel efficient cars, BUT the return on profits on making small cars is very small when compared to making big profits on SUVs, why would a company want to make LESS profit? and EVs would make the least profits.

mcgeedigital said:
But to decalre that EVs are the ultimate solution without acknowledging that the coal-fired plants are what provide that electricity shows that some aren't seeing the whole picture. It isn't a zero-sum equation.
Click to expand...

And nobody is saying that EVs are the ultimate solution, infact people do acknowledge the source of the EV, but here are facts that can not be avioded:

(1) An Internal Combustion(ICE) Engine is only 20% efficient, EVs are 90% efficient
(2) An ICE can not change its fuel source, it has to use fossil based fuel
(3) Not ALL powerstations are fossil fueled.
(4) Fossil fueled powerstations are MUCH MUCH cleaner then before, a lot of technology has been invested into this, eg post cleanup etc
(5) If we where to add EV energy loads onto the current infastructure AND remove all ICEs, the NET energy requirements would be Negative (i.e. less energy)
than current energy requirements, i.e. overall pollutiontants would be reduced.

mcgeedigital said:
And to say that there is a cabal of some sort between car manufacturers and "big oil" requires too much tin foil for MY head.
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No one is saying they are teaming up or any other weird conspiracy, BUT most of the world is based on a oil Infastructure, and as long as that remains, auto makers will continue to make ICEs.

What remains a fact is that they complement each other, thats all.
 
I remember in 1997 when people were saying we would all be driving electric in 5 years. It is now 11 years later and we are still not driving them. Do people want electric? Yes. Do we have the technology? Yes. Do the oil and car manufacturers control what we drive? Yes.

Electric cars arnt new and we wont be driving them until a miracle happens.
 
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