Who Killed the Electric Car?

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/708/708800p1.html ^ | 5/15/06

[BlueSky194]

In 1996 a number of EV-1 electric cars began appearing on California's highways. The General Motors-produced vehicle was fast, ran quietly, produced no polluting exhaust and it ran without gasoline and then, suddenly, it was gone.

The documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, from producer Dean Devlin and filmmaker Chris Paine, chronicles the life and mysterious death of the groundbreaking vehicle, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. Filmmakers make the case that the death of the EV-1 was, in fact, a murder. They claim to show that production of the revolutionary car was halted due to pressure from industries that would be harmed by the proliferation of electric car technology.

Who Killed the Electric Car?, a 2006 selection at the Tribeca and Sundance film festivals, interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to solve the complex mystery.

Who Killed the Electric Car?, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens in New York and L.A. on June 28 and will further expand this summer. It's been rated PG for "brief mild language."

[LibertarianInExile]

Why bother with the steam engine if you're going to use electrics to power its boiler? Why not just use an electric engine to begin with, especially since electric heating elements are so energy intensive?

[the OlLine Rebel]

Simple resistance heating is exactly that - simple. I don't think it should require alot of amperage or such, though I'm no electrical engineer (and of course it depends on exactly what is needed in the total design).

These electric cars are quite complex and complex electronics is expensive in itself. The mere fact they now need lots of acid batteries is complex simply from the sheer volume of it.

Steam is extremely powerful. If 1 could harness how to heat it on a small scale in an instant, it would probably be overall superior to just electric; in power specifically vastly superior.

[CFC__VRWC]

IIRC, the EV-1 cost at least $10,000 more than the gasoline model it was based on, required all new batteries at around 100,000 miles at a cost of $6,000-$7,000, and had a range of about 100 miles on a single charge, after which it required a 3-4 hour charge cycle. Who would want a car like that?

[tcrlaf]

They may be all over the place, but you haven't gotten to battery replacement phase yet.....

[50sDad]

They may be all over the place, but you haven't gotten to battery replacement phase yet.....

You mean there may be a hidden Pandora's Box of enviro woes over recycling the batteries?

[SmoothTalker]

The electric car died because most people like to have the freedom to actually go on a long trip. Most days of the week an electric car would be fine. Most days it would be cheaper. But who wants to own a car that they can't take on a vacation, or to a far away sales conference? Few people.

[Yankee]

Pick up and read anything about the changeover from steam to diesel on railroads and in ships and you will realize why steam vehicles aren't practical, especially for individuals.

They are enormously labor intensive.

Maintaining a boiler is not something done easily, quickly or inexpensively.

Reciprocating parts (pistons, rods, cranks valve gear) must handle great forces and are not easily kept clean or sufficiently lubricated to prevent wear.

Boiler water of the quality needed to steam properly and prevent corrosion and fouling of the system is not readily available nationwide. Railroads had extensive water treatment facilities and in some cases transported boiler water hundreds of miles to provide fill points along their routes.

Finally, thermal (read fuel) efficiency of steam locomotives (that being what I'm most familiar with) was approx. 6% at the coupler on the latest and most advanced models, versus 20+% on the earliest diesel-electrics, to provide a contemporaneous comparison.

I am a rail fan and absolutely love steam, but there is no economical way that they could compete with the more efficient diesel-electric.

[Old Student]

"I am a rail fan and absolutely love steam, but there is no economical way that they could compete with the more efficient diesel-electric."

IIRC, the same (or very similar) arguments have been made for every type of power generation and transmission system we've developed over the past several hundred years. With sufficient investment in solving those problems, we can do so. This isn't to say that it will be easy, or cheap to do, but it can be done. Once upon a time, gasoline engines were literally impossible. Then merely difficult. They were huge, inefficient, and dangerous. The same was true of steam engines, but development stopped on them shortly after gasoline (and diesel) engines became readily available and cheaper to operate. We have better alloys and things like teflon now, that might make it easier, for example. Purifying water is a lot easier now than it was a hundred years ago, so it is quite possible that someone will figure out how to do so for steamers. It should also be possible to figure out ways to recover most of the steam, and recondense it for reuse. That would save quite a lot of money, too, eventually. The factors that steam depends on, vs. diesel-electric (or gasoline), are economic. Change the economics and steam might well look much better. Perhaps even if it is a little less efficient, if it is more cost-effective and/or less polluting.