Posted on 11/21/2011 11:19:27 AM PST by ColdOne
where is that $7,500 rebate coming from? It’s coming from all our grandkids and great-grandkids.
Meaning: Coal Power is cheap, even when stored in a battery.
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The cheapest energy on the planet is a coal fired ultra super critical boiler. If they ever do get thorium power plants going, thorim will beat uranium power but not coal for cost per kWh. But thorium will potentially beat coal for size, portability, and time between fuel up. We could end up with thorium powered trains and ships some day.
What’s holding back battery powered cars is the time to charge them, price of the battery, limited energy density, and size/weight of the battery. As you have just figured out on your own, electric is the way to go if they could just get the battery technology up to snuff.
Really good batteries will change the world more profoundly than the steam engine did.
Lots of mentions here for the Rabbit diesel, but the Geo Metro got 45-50 mpg, back in ‘91 and burned gas (more expensive, then). I know someone who drove Fiat 600s back in the ‘60s and they were pretty sweet on gas, too.
On top of that I have always had a fondness for diesel engines. I normally got around 50 mpg combined in my Rabbit and I just plain loved that car. I traded it in for a 5 Liter Capri Black Magic when I graduated from college.
THe reason I brought up the Metro was that I just bought three for $800, sold two to realtives and kept the third—all run, still, even if they look a little rough from sitting under some trees for a few years. With new batteries, hatch struts, fluids and tires, each ran about $800, road ready. I just got it to bomb around town on errands (actually, it was a package deal and I was trying to get two relatives into affordable cars without spending a mint so they could save for something bigger. God smiled on me when the third one ran—it wasn’t supposed to).
When I had my Rabbit in college my older brother also bought one, used and a bit rough looking. He then shipped out to Turkey so my Dad kept that Rabbit. I would go visit many weekends and we would pile our fishing gear into the older Rabbit and go salmon fishing 45 miles away on Lake Michigan.
A few cents for fuel and a few for wear and tear and I had some of the most memorable times with my Dad.
The reason the gasket blew was because the pivot bolt under the alternator was broken which caused misalignment of the belt. I had it into the dealer several times for that problem but they only replaced the top adjusting bolt (which would also break due to the added strain) but did not recognize that the cause was the broken pivot bolt underneath. :-((
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