Anyone remember the CitiCars aka CommutaCars?
Top speed, 30 MPH. Range, 40 miles.
Posted on 06/10/2008 11:29:06 AM PDT by Sneakyuser
To Southern Cal Freepers: Wanna See Some Electric Cars? (Vanity)
Yes, they've existed since the mid-1990s. My friends, two stars of the film "Who Killed the Electric Car," will show the entire movie, have a Q & A and show their own electric Toyota RAV 4, and other electric vehicles and motorcycles, at the Torrance Main Library, in Torrance, California this Saturday at 2:00 p.m. The event is Free.
They have been driving their RAV 4 for over six years that was designed in 1996 and can go 90 mph with a 150 mile range (the average person travels about 40 miles a day both ways). They currently pay the equivalent of 75 cents per gallon to charge and drive the car. (They actually don't have to pay that because the vehicle is charged via their home's solar panels.) They have over 60,000 miles on the vehicle and it's still running great.
See Pluginamerica.org for more info
What makes this strange is that GM and Toyota designed and produced the EV-1 (subject of the film) and the RAV 4 in the mid-1990s. They crushed the EV-1 (and other car makers crushed their electric fleets). The people behind Plug in America prevented Toyota from crushing the RAV 4 models, which they purchased. Now, GM and Toyota complain that they're having problems with "Battery issues" for their new Volt and Plug-in Prius models. Huh? After 15 years, with new battery technologies used in cell phones, laptops, powerful cordless tools, you have battery issues when both companies produced viable all-electric vehicles (not toys) fifteen years ago with OLDER batteries?
Cy - Sneakyuses.com
You know that movie doesn’t even rise to the level of schlocumentary, right? Other than that, I’m a big proponent of going electric, as well as a hyuge investment in Nuclear Electric technology. I’d take an electric car that had a 100 mile range. Thats all I need for 90% of what I do.
I looked into getting some solar panels. Cost installed was $36,000. How much did their car cost? How much does operating and maintaining the solar panels cost?
Not exactly the sort of thing an ordinary person can afford.
Anyone remember the CitiCars aka CommutaCars?
Top speed, 30 MPH. Range, 40 miles.
Seems like a lot of fuss to save $ .10 a mile
http://www.electroauto.com/info/cost.shtml
How much does it cost to charge the car?
Energy usage usually works out to about .4 kWh per mile for DC systems, and .174 - .288 kWh for the more efficient AC systems. You can multiply this by your electricity rate to get a cost per mile. For example, if you pay $0.13 per kilowatt hour (most people pay more then this), this works out to a little over a nickel a mile for DC and about half that for AC. For comparison, gas at $2.00 per gallon on an efficient 25 mpg car works out to almost $0.08 per mile
Propane electric hybrid please.
Try the 80s, the 1880s.
A History of Early Electric Cars
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/6111/electcar.htm
1905 Woods, 214a Brougham
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarselectrica.htm
Without supporting math, this claim is meaningless. How about expressing this in cost per mile driven, with comparison costs for hybrid and conventional vehicles based on known mpg ratings and fuel costs?
“You know that movie doesn’t even rise to the level of schlocumentary, right? Other than that, I’m a big proponent of going electric, as well as a hyuge investment in Nuclear Electric technology. I’d take an electric car that had a 100 mile range. Thats all I need for 90% of what I do.”
...me too!
Interesting as to how much they still looked like horse carriages.
Pst! there a 100 MPG carborator out there too...
This looks like a 1950’s t.v. on wheels, still a beautiful piece of work though.
Ya beat me. ;)
Yikes - did they have a trap door in front that you stuck your legs out of?
How many people expect their personal electronics rechargeable batteries to last a 10 year or more lifetime? I figure I get about two years out of laptop batteries before their life drops below what I consider acceptable and replace them for about $100. Look how many people complain about iPods not being replaceable (sorry Apple, you need to provide a battery door - I don't care how cute it is without a replaceable battery). Drills and such don't get a full recharge every day unless you're a contractor - in which case you replace your batteries every now and then.
People want their electric car batteries to last ten years, when they don't expect their gas engines' batteries to last more than three. Batteries just aren't that good.
60,000 miles / 150 miles = 400 full recharges. I don't know how much longer they should expect it to last.
Correction:
The event will be NEXT Saturday, June 21st.
More information here:
Sponsored by the Friends of the Torrance Library. For more information, call 310-618-5959 “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
Saturday, June 21, 2:00 p.m.
Website info: www.torrnet.com/Library/5504.htm
Sneakyuser
“And how much did it cost them to install their Solar panels?
I looked into getting some solar panels. Cost installed was $36,000. How much did their car cost? How much does operating and maintaining the solar panels cost?
Not exactly the sort of thing an ordinary person can afford”
There is a HUGE variety of choice for solar panels including ground-mounted types that need no roof mounting. You can apply for government rebates. This was the first question I asked when I met the Scotts.
If your climate has reasonable sunshine, solar panels can generally pay for themselves in about ten years (and they raise the value of the property). You save more if you also use them to charge and electric vehicle. Just add up the gas expense saved on a compact car (even a family’s second car) that drives 10,000 miles per year over say, seven years paying $4.00 plus per gallon of gas.
To the rest of you that are critical of electric vehicles:
The Scotts (my friends with the RAV 4) bought their car in a Toyota dealership. After nearly seven years, it is still running strong. There are plenty of other people that have had their Hybrid Priuses converted to all-electric mode (see Calcars.org) and others that convert standard gas vehicles to electric.
The Pluginamerica.org website Home page has a great article about the hydrogen fuel cell problems (the breakthroughs are always 15 years away) and problems with every other alternative fuel(ethanol, etc.).
Electric cars are the only “alternative” that use the existing “fuel” delivery system, have the fewest parts and are safe. Most importantly, many viable designs have been produced by the major manufacturers for over 15 years (and get crushed immediately after the state mandates expire. Mmmmm...I wonder why.)
Can electric vehicles replace long-haul truckers and big sedans now? No. But, they’re perfect for replacing most compact and sub-compact cars right now (operating off of US-produced electrical power from our own nuclear, coal, solar, hydro and wind power sources).
We still need oil for most of our transportation needs. And we should drill to the maximum (in my opinion) but, once you’ve driven an electric (I used to work at the Torrance Toyota campus and we were shuttled around in electric RAV 4s) you love the quiet, powerful acceleration and you won’t miss the noise, fluid leaks, etc.
Hope this helps.
Sneakyuser
The real problem with e-cars lies in what would happen when everyone comes home from work and plugs in their charger for the cars. At least here in CA, we have enough power-grid problems, thankyewverymuch. Unless and until we have a LOT more nuke plants online and the grid to support them, this aint gonna work. As it is now, we’re burning oil, coal, natgas, etc to make electricity. Inefficient at best, when we could burn a couple of those directly in the vehicle and avoid the inherent loss of energy due to conversion to electricity. Solar panels? fine.. IF they come down in price by about an order of magnitude. Don’t even start about “government assistance” to buy them.. it’s still MY money the “government” is handing back to me, so I’m paying it either way.
Good technology whose time has not yet arrived.
The peak load issue can be handled easily by charging significantly less for electricity from say 11 pm to 6 am. This gives people an incentive to plug their car into a timer that will charge it up during off-hours.
We don’t have enough reserve capacity to handle the entire US auto fleet right now. But then there’s no way the whole fleet can be switched to electric all that quickly anyway.
“The peak load issue can be handled easily by charging significantly less for electricity from say 11 pm to 6 am. This gives people an incentive to plug their car into a timer that will charge it up during off-hours.
We don’t have enough reserve capacity to handle the entire US auto fleet right now. But then there’s no way the whole fleet can be switched to electric all that quickly anyway”
I don’t know how it is where you are, but my meter can’t tell what time I’m using power. Even implementing some sort of off-peak charging scheme would be a tough problem. It’d be an interesting race to see how fast we could build more electric cars, versus the time it takes to add power plants, especially the nuclear ones we’d really need for this to be a going proposition. i’d bet car production would win.
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