http://www.teamman.ca/2012/03/the-electric-fence/

i forwarded that article to the congress, they have all the answers

That is a terribly written article in that it fails in what it sets out in the introductory paragraph. At best, it is a history/evaluation of PURE electric vehicles, not hybrids, as it says.

I am on my second Toyota Prius. I have never had to plug it in. I have no range problems (~400 - 450 miles). I have never had to replace a battery. I have no charging/refueling problems. It wasn't cost-prohibitive at all.

The article tosses out nuclear power in an awful hurry considering we just approved the permits for new nuclear power plant construction for the first time in decades. (and, btw, why is it citing 3-mile island? I can think of much better and more recent examples if you did want to bash nuclear)

The article also fails to do any analysis on the opposing side, the status quo. It spends the latter half of the article (once you get past the history) bashing why electric (and supposedly hybrid, but not) won't work or is too costly. But it doesn't answer the fundamental questions of whether continued status quo will or won't work or for how long or at what risk.

But more than anything, I am annoyed at the claim that it addresses hybrids and then the complete failure to do so, lumping them in with plug-ins.

STEP 1) Design a car that is solar+wind+electric powered.
STEP 2) ??????????
STEP 3) PROFIT!
STEP 4) BUY OUT YOUR PRIVATE MILITARY MARKET!

interesting

PriusMBR?

Did you own a prius for 8 years 100k miles?

Electric cars and hybrids are a stopgap untill hydrogen powered cars are financially and logistically feasible. It is as simple as that.

Think of electric, hybrid, and hydrogen cars this way. You know what the car did for the horse? No longer was it a needed tool that we ran into the ground, now horses are reserved for fun, hobby, and other uses. The car saved and redefined the horse.

Now apply that logic to the gas powered performance car. These hybrids, and ultimately hydrogen powered cars will save the petrolhead and prolong the performance based internal combustion.


That's my opinion on the matter anyways and no I did not read the article.

Prius is the wrong way round, electric cars should be electric powered with batteries with a commutable range (charge at work etc) with a built in petrol engine to charge the batteries when doing an extended journey. Look up the Fisker.

Steeps - yeah, I like the Fisker cars and I even considered investing in their last round last Fall. But I am a bit concerned that they are out for yet another round now and way behind schedule. They were supposed to IPO in February and instead they are running another investor round. This is not their first slip.

The solar powered roof is pretty neat, although it doesn't actually add much and most people who can afford the Karma won't park it outside often. ;)

That article is pretty silly regarding nuclear power.

There aren`t good options for emerging nations for baseline power production other than nuclear power stations.

I bought a Prius 2 years ago, at $4 a gallon it is almost like a free car compared to my old 20 MPG car, especially when you look at resale value. never mind that 45+ mpg's no plug in and the newer ones are easily over 50MPG. I really can't understand any reason to ever buy an old guzzler again, and sure the hell can't see why I would want to go buy a car that needs an extension cord either, especially the ones that will only drive you locally. Why in the world has it taken so long for this technology to not be incorporated in almost all vehicles?

You know how much pollution the mining, refining, and shipping of the batteries in your Prius creates? Probably more than my truck has in it's 170,000 miles.

we're spending the money trying to convince the lardasses to get off the couch so that the vehicles don't have to haul around a few extra hundred pounds of stored body fat.

mrford: It is absolutely true that if the choice is between buying a new car (of any sort, Prius included) or continuing to run an old car, the old car will win on total environmental impact.

Unfortunately, older cars are more frequently plagued with other problems that inconvenience owners if they aren't self-serve auto mechanics.

But comparing a new Prius to a new Truck the difference wouldn't be all that big. The Nickel is a difference for the Prius but the Prius will typically weigh less than a Truck and will have the more efficient engine. The Nickel is also recyclable.

When we got our second Prius, we didn't send the first one to a car compactor, we traded it in at the dealer and they sold it to a new owner on their used lot. So the total life of that Prius will be much longer. I have been in a lot of Prius taxis lately and they certainly rack up the miles.

I drive a Jeep Wrangler, lifted and goes off-road rather often. I get 12mpg.

Also have a Datsun 280z, also a straight 6 that makes similar power to my Jeep. It gets like 25-28mpg.

Also, that's a stupid perspective on the electric car. Go buy a Tesla Model S.

not entirely sure that i want to dump $200k into a house just so i can have the proper facilities to charge it with.

Why do you have to spend $200k on a house? Learn to buy a cheaper house.

thats ok for the difference in price of gas to go 170K miles I'll have my 2nd prius bought for free.

think i'll just stick with my unicycle and leave the house available for people who actually need it.

There are houses cheaper than $200,000?

This article is silly; it is all just "blah blah blah I don't like electric vehicles"

Where are the numbers? Where are the quantitative arguments?



Also, mrford, hydrogen vehicles are basically just electric vehicles that use hydrogen to store energy instead of batteries; having worked on the hydrogen storage problem as my masters thesis, I'm leaning towards batteries simply as they seem to be able to solve the energy density combined with operating temperature that is required much more readily than hydrogen storage has been able to; that's not to say it can't be done with H2, but so far batteries are (unfortunately, imho) kicking the pants off hydrogen...





I'd have to say that article didn't really say anything about electric cars other than:

1) electric cars now aren't like electric cars in the 1890-1920's (so?)

2) he's worried about the power grid.


However, I'd say that 2 is not warranted; in fact the analyses that I read for my thesis suggested the opposite; if you have "smart" electric vehicles that recharge from the grid based on grid load (ie make them recharge at night mostly) you could really balance out the daily sinusoid that is the current power consumption in the US&etc; having to ramp up and down power plants is immensely inefficient; it would allow us to use a higher percentage of our "baseline" power from sources that CAN'T be turned down at night, like nuclear; also, why dismiss nuclear? It's got to happen to some degree no matter what some people may think. Also, dismissing solar isn't good either; solar isn't a silver bullet to solve our electric problems to be sure, but it can put out a hell of a lot of power if you put them all over in places like new mexico, nevada, arizona, utah... and they're not THAT hard to put in place, easier than nuclear anyway.


To say that the solution is just to keep using gasoline as we approach (or are on?) peak oil is nuts.

I worked on a project last term at university, that evaluated the ecological balance of electric cars, aka not only look at the use of gas/electricity but also at energetic production costs. e.g. with the current state of tech, you have to exchange the batteries far more often than a normal motor.

We did almost all the comparisons with german data, though, and in germany we're way back on hybrid cars, but on the other hand, we already have a pretty decent part of regenerative energy production.
As a result, as long as the production of electricity doesn't move away from coal, pure electric cars cause about the same exhaust as cars with a slightly better than average gas efficiency(in germany; sorry, but in the us most cars are still an atrocity in fuel efficiency)
nuclear energy isn't the solution for the future either, though, because of long-term disposal of the rods

Long-term, I firmly believe that regenerative energies are the way to go as energy source, but we're still far away from that. And as long as it doesn't happen, pure electric cars are not the solution for the environment.
The have a few pros, like the "smart grid" application, that qz already mentioned and not having smog in the cities. But effective at this moment, if you changed all cars to electric cars, not much would change, apart from the need to build tons of power plants.

Urgh, this got a little confusing, but I don't really have the time at the moment, to order my thoughts for this posts ^^

eletric and hydrogen cars are much more about peak oil than environmental fluff.