Electric cars
Why not start using the electric cars in towns and cities, where you don't have a long commute. These cars are already available in the market, it makes no sense to keep using gas cars in these environments. It would help put a stop to pollution and cut oil consumption, these cars can be charged at night when the power consumption is less, and these cars are designed to meet or exceed the speed limits in a town. Right now your electric costs are the cheapest way to go, and by using solar and wind energy you could still cut these costs. These are things that can be done now, if we act in the correct way.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by RWC1972 on -
Where I live people are driving ATVs around town. Apparently it is legal.
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Permalink Reply by Hank Kelly on -
Two weeks ago I would have asked the same question posed by Mr. Duede....then I rented the documentary movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car?". Everything Mr Duede points out is true. What I find incredible is how underinformed, (myself included) the American public is in regards to alternate fuels. In a nutshell, this documentary exposes what at least to me was a fairly well kept secret. The electric car as produced by GM wasn't some little sub-Volkswagen size cartoon-looking kiddie car that you would expect to be driven by a Smurf. It was not unlike an Impala or Grad Prix in size and style. Early models had a restricted driving range, but then some oldfart who is also a genius developed a battery that greatly enhanced the range, perhaps with refinements to hundreds of miles. These jewels were FAST...no need to poke along like some semi-blind and dozing senior citizen. They were leased to a pilot-group of drivers for somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$500 a month. You simply plugged them in at nite at home to re-charge. These test drivers loved them. Maintenance was simple, the car and motor was simple. Many wanted to buy them. Of course the oil companies launched a huge propaganda campaign to discredit them. GM, over the objections of the drivers, repossessed the vehicles and for the most part shredded them. As for the super battery? Chevron Oil bought up the patent and the rights presumably to protect the oil industry from this new threat. GM also saw this vehicle as a drain on profits....no oil filter, air filter, fuel filter ad infinitum ad nauseum of replacement parts that they sell.
Imagine...you get in your car in the morning turn the key and hear a happy hum, flip off a few Hummer owners lined up at the pump smiling and beeping your horn all the way to work. No fumes, no greenhouse gas, and if the electric charge was generated by one of Mr Pickens windmills no pollution whatsoever. Not to change the subject, but this is relevant. I just heard that oil prices dropped substantially....This is in fact due to some "surplus inventory". What a great time to release the surplus inventory! Right after Bush gave his big offshore drilling pitch. In less than 24 hours you will see the oil price decline attributed to the president's words not to the hidden oil surplus. If you're sick of being manipulated and robbed by the government and the oil giants then let's get the facts and get ourselves a choice as to how we fuel our homes and vehicles.
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Permalink Reply by George Rowe on -
Hank don't be a conspiracy nut, the whole movie is a load of crap GM does not sale oil they sale cars the car was pretty good but you need one more thing some one to buy them. gas was still cheap and they were not. GM did not sell them it was a pilot program not enough people to buy them GM is in the business of making money it was a large drain on their capital so they scraped it.
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Permalink Reply by Debra Goldenberg on -
George, you have to open your eyes and your mind to the fact that GM and the oil companies have been conspiring from the start, to make themselves the Goliaths they are now. They are clearly not catering to their customers, who do want a cleaner more efficient car, and you can tell that by the fact that GM cars are not selling and the company is close to bankruptcy! They certainly aren't making money with their latest car models! The car industry has deluded the American people into believing they need the types of cars they are used to building. They are not adapting to very real changes in the amount of oil available from dwindling oil fields.
How can you say "not enough people buy them (electric cars)" when it was a pilot program and all cars they had were leased out, and all of these people wanted to keep those cars. Don't you think the company could have kept these customers and found many more across the country who would have been attracted to the benefits of the car, had they been informed through media and advertising?
Electric cars do not become obsolete like the current carbon engine cars do, and that would stifle the planned obsolescence business model that GM has always worked with.
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Permalink Reply by David on -
Is there anything that can be done for those of us on a budget? I was looking at the chevy volt and it looks like the cost will be $30,000-$40,000 on release. Are there other less expensive options?
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Permalink Reply by Ray Phillips on -
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Permalink Reply by American in the D.R. on -
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D93TNNQG0.htm
Some insite from some that have Electric cars.
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Permalink Reply by American in the D.R. on
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It just came up for me Larry. ?
But then it didn't. ??? OK, copy/paste.
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Permalink Reply by American in the D.R. on
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From: www.businessweek.com
Sparse plug-ins for electric cars spark creativity
By PHUONG LE
SEATTLE
Owning an electric vehicle requires more than global-cooling ambitions. It takes guile, planning, sharp vision, a silver tongue -- and a 50-foot extension cord.
Steve Bernheim knows accessible outlets like a firefighter knows hydrants. He has to -- his Corbin Sparrow runs only 25 miles on a charge.
"You do guerrilla charging where you locate these plugs," said Bernheim, an attorney who lives in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds. "I'm an expert at finding them."
While California has more than 500 public charging stations at parks, malls and grocery stores to serve electric vehicles that rolled out in the last decade, the network is still thin across the rest of the country, forcing drivers like Bernheim to get creative.
That may change as charging stations crop up in San Jose, Calif., Seattle and Portland, Ore. to serve early adopters and pave the way for a new breed of mass market plug-in cars.
"Every auto company in the world is developing all-electric or plug-in hybrids," said Zan Dubin Scott, a spokeswoman for Plug In America, a nonprofit advocacy group for electric car owners. "The utilities, municipalities and smart business people are seeing that this is the future."
The vast majority of electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home while they sleep, so most trips aren't a problem.
But drivers can now plug in -- reservations recommended -- at two park-and-ride lots in King County, which includes Seattle. The county plans to add sockets at three garages under construction.
"We want to make sure we're ahead of the curve in doing what we can to support the use of these vehicles," said Rochelle Ogershok, a county transportation spokeswoman.
In Oregon, Portland General Electric put five free charging stations in downtown Portland, Salem and suburban Lake Oswego and plans to add more.
At the end of the year, Coulomb Technologies plans to roll out five curbside charging stations in downtown San Jose that drivers can access through a prepaid plan. The company is working with entities in New York and Florida to do something similar there, president and founder Praveen Mandal said.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place is working with Renault SA to develop charging stations for electric cars in Israel and Denmark that would work on a paid subscription, said spokeswoman Julie Mullins.
In recent months, the smaller cities of Edmonds and Lacey invited drivers to plug in their electric vehicles at free public stations near city hall.
"We haven't seen much usage yet, but we wanted to put it out there," said Graeme Sackrison, mayor of Lacey, a town of 38,000 an hour south of Seattle. "You have to have the infrastructure in place so people feel comfortable using them."
Street-legal "neighborhood electric vehicles" that can travel up to 25 mph typically go about 35 to 40 miles on a single charge. Vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt that General Motors Corp. plans to sell in 2010 can travel about 40 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in.
Drivers like Bernheim, whose range is about 25 miles to a charge, has become adept at sweet-talking use of a 110-volt outlet if he needs to travel farther. Once he persuaded a fruit stand owner to let him plug in. He ended up buying $50 of produce there.
Bernheim says there are about 30 reliable sites in the Seattle area to plug in. Most are free, some require calling a fellow enthusiast ahead of time. Others charge the same as parking a gas-powered car -- $7 an hour at the downtown Seattle Public Library garage.
Jeff Smith, 51, a mechanical parts inspector, carries three extension cords of varying lengths when he drives his ZENN (Zero Emission, No Noise) two-seater.
At his home in a Seattle suburb, Smith has posted a sign "plug in vehicle parking only" outside his kitchen window and invites others to plug in. No one has taken him up on the offer yet.
When he wanted to go to a Little League game -- a round-trip that required an extra charge -- Smith cold-called restaurants to find one willing to let him plug in while dined there.
Eric Diesen, co-owner of the restaurant Acapulco Fresh, didn't mind. He'd let others do the same.
It didn't cost him much -- about a dime or so. "If it brought people in, we would do that again," he said. "And it's something we believe in."
Plug In America estimates there are several thousand freeway-capable, road-certified EVs, including both factory-built and conversions. Neighborhood electric vehicles may number in the tens of thousands.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 250 million vehicles on the road.
Driving an electric car can be a challenge when your roundtrip work commute is much longer than your car can travel. But Jason Henderson, 29, feels obligated to make it work.
"I saw 'Inconvenient Truth' and then realized that I needed to make a personal change to show others how easy it is to reduce our dependency on petroleum," Henderson said.
He bought a used Saturn with 100,000 miles and paid an expert $12,000 to convert it to all-electric. He estimates it has cost him about $252 in electricity to drive 9,000 miles in the past 18 months.
It's not hard to find places to plug in, but "there should absolutely be more spots," he said. "Everyone has power outlets, so it's just a matter of making them available."
Henderson now drives his car 15 miles from his Tacoma home, charges it at a friend's house and hops a vanpool another 35 miles to his office at Microsoft Corp.
He said he's just like a normal driver, "except my car has a much smaller carbon footprint and has a cheaper energy source."
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Permalink Reply by Ray Phillips on
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Interesting news about the electric Mini from BMW.
http://www.automotive-fleet.com/News/Story/2008/10/BMW-Tests-Fleet-...
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Permalink Reply by Ray Phillips on
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News from Audi. Although the car will not initially be offered in the US, enough interest in this country may make it feasible enough to bring it to our shores.
http://www.automotive-fleet.com/News/Story/2008/11/Audi-Preparing-E...
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