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Automakers gearing up for electric cars
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram ^ | December 5, 2008 | Renee Schoof

Posted on 12/04/2008 11:56:23 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Now that automakers are all busy gearing up to make electric vehicles, consumers should be getting a choice of roomy, speedy, gasoline-free models that charge up at a standard 110-volt socket.

So when will those cars roll out of factories so plentifully that prices drop to what ordinary people can afford?

That was the question at the Electric Drive Transportation Association conference and exhibition in Washington this week, and on Capitol Hill as well, as the Big Three automakers made a pitch for aid. The recession, the credit crunch and the dominance of oil-driven transportation will make it difficult.

However, automakers see the future — more gas price spikes, diminishing oil resources, the need to cut carbon dioxide to prevent climate catastrophe. They also see an incoming president, Barack Obama, who as a senator co-sponsored a plan to give tax credits for electric vehicles and now calls for 1 million plug-in, hybrid, made-in-America cars that get up to 150 miles per gallon.

As part of their pitch to Congress, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors promised to push ahead with electric vehicles, even though they’re money-losers now. Ford this week, for the first time, announced details of what it has in the works for electric-drive vehicles, including a battery-electric van slated for commercial fleet use in 2010 and a battery-electric sedan in 2011.

Japan is going electric, too. Mitsubishi, for example, plans to launch its small iMiEV electric car next summer and test it in California, Europe and in New Zealand. Nissan plans a Real Car with a 100-mile range that it promises will meet all highway safety tests and offer all the hot gizmos such as GPS and heated seats.

(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: automakers; automobiles; bailout; bigthree; congress; economy; electriccars; electricity; electricvehicles; energy; hybridvehicles; obama
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To: element92
Do the math.
If you drove 40 miles and the battery and charger had a
70% efficiency between the charger (90%) and the electro chemical
efficiency of the battery (80%)it would take 40kw / 4 = 10Kw , 1800 (NFPA max
output of 120 Vac NEMA20R outlet)watts * .70
= 1260 watts. Therefore your trip would take 10Kw/1260 =
7.93 = 8 hours. This does not include cell equalization.
Add at least 1 hour for full charge and you have about
9 hours for your trip to work and home.

Now take a car like the Tesla. it has a range of 250
miles with a 56kwh battery.(downhill of course).
That gives 56000/250 4 miles per kwh.
it would take 46 hours to recharge. Even that is conservative. My guess is
about 52 hours or 2.2 days from a NEMA20R Outlet.

101 posted on 12/05/2008 11:09:40 AM PST by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: Darkwolf377

Actually and seriesly, what I really want, is for all various and sundry flippin goobermint agencies to leave me the &*$%)#! alone.


102 posted on 12/05/2008 11:13:32 AM PST by webschooner
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To: mvpel; Spktyr; irishjuggler

2004 Toyota Corolla LE 1.8 liter, manual transmission;
31-34 mpg city, 36-41 mpg highway.

But only when dad drives it.


103 posted on 12/05/2008 11:30:43 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: irishjuggler

No, what happened was the fuels started having Ethanol, as mandated by the government at about that time. This reduced the fuel economy by about 10-15%.


104 posted on 12/05/2008 12:08:36 PM PST by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Cronos
What’s wrong with issuing a challenge for better fuel efficiency? Do you want to go back to the 5/10 mpg cars of the 60s?

MYTH!

The Ford Falcon, in 1961, got about 30 miles per gallon.

105 posted on 12/05/2008 12:11:43 PM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Now that automakers are all busy gearing up to make electric vehicles, ...”

They can gear up all they want, I wont be buying one of these toasters.

Drill here and drill right damn now, or as far as I am concerned... we can go back to horses.


106 posted on 12/05/2008 12:30:32 PM PST by Gator113 ("Noli nothis permittere te terere.")
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To: mvpel
Put solar pannels on its roof and in the windows. Then take an old Delco alternator with at least 120 volts of output and weld it to a heavy metal pole. Build a beenie propeller and put it on the alternator and you'll be set. Think I am kidding? Heck, no there is a guy in the UK who runs an old yellow Bedford Van on electricity using just those items.

What can be conceived can be created! www.solarvan.co.uk/

107 posted on 12/05/2008 1:31:48 PM PST by cyberslave (The time has come to talk of many things.)
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To: thackney
So its really a hybrid?

Can you imagine someone driving into Manhattan or downtown LA or the Chicago Loop and pulling into a parking garage and asking for a spot where they could hook up their generator so they could regard their batteries to get home?

Ludicrous....more so than the rapper.

108 posted on 12/05/2008 1:47:31 PM PST by cyberslave (The time has come to talk of many things.)
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To: cyberslave
Besides, when you fill your tank w/gas, you know it's full, when you regard batteries you never really know, esp. when they get old.
109 posted on 12/05/2008 2:04:49 PM PST by norraad ("What light!">Blues Brothers)
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To: Sacajaweau
.......I have yet to hear the wattage and ANY estimate of cost of the charge...

If you figure the car's motor is around 60-100 horesepower, compared to an air conditioner at three horse power, you can well imagine that a charge is going to draw some serious amps.

110 posted on 12/05/2008 3:42:50 PM PST by GingisK
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To: cyberslave
So its really a hybrid?

Yes, kind of.

asking for a spot where they could hook up their generator so they could regard their batteries to get home?

No, the 1.4 liter gasoline engine in the car runs the generator to charge the batteries. You just drive. If the batteries are low, the engine starts and runs until the batteries have enough charge to shut the engine back down.

111 posted on 12/05/2008 3:52:13 PM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: verklaring; All

You said “of the cost of Iran”, did you mean “off the coast of Iran”?

I think it would be helpful to reestablish some of the original prairie habitat and have more free ranging bison, as they are a much more efficient and self-sufficient protein source. I hope that numbers of farmers/ranchers will cooperate to make that happen, opening up fence free corridors, joint ownership of herds, etc.

Regarding electricity production, I am looking forward to the day when cheap thin film solar sheets can be applied to roofing, and the electric companies not only accept electric input into the grid, but pay if you can feed them a surplus. I have two urban houses with large areas of gently sloped roofs facing south. Each roof is about 20 by 40 feet, and I only use about $40 per month in electricity, so it would only profit me to install solar if the electric company paid me for the surplus. Others in my neighborhood feel the same.


112 posted on 12/05/2008 5:52:42 PM PST by gleeaikin
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To: mvpel; All

“The Ford Falcon, in 1961.”

This reminds me of my excentric father. He had two Ford Falcons and an extra Falcon moter. He would recondition the spare motor by hand, while driving a Falcon about 50,000 miles, then he would hoist a tripod, remove the car’s motor and drop in the reconditioned motor. He got over 250,000 miles on one of the cars (actually it might have been 350,000 miles, it was at least 30 years ago) in New Jersey, and finally junked it because the running boards and other bottom areas were salt rotted. I wonder how many miles he could have gotten in Florida? :-)


113 posted on 12/05/2008 6:00:35 PM PST by gleeaikin
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To: cyberslave; thackney; All

“imagine...asking for a spot where they could...regard/recharge? their batteries to get home?”

If all electric cars become common for longer distance travel, I imagine that places like Wal-Mart and Home Depot will have paid charging stations. These could also be installed at the Interstate restaurant stops, and other popular chains like Applebys where travelers spend an hour or two to eat while on the road.


114 posted on 12/05/2008 6:07:41 PM PST by gleeaikin
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To: Cronos

Guess I should’ve Googled first. Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland and Australia lead the pack. U.S. as reported below has a heritage of freedom but a present reality of government tax and spending dominance. And that was before the current economic coup.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25018


115 posted on 12/05/2008 6:35:38 PM PST by gotribe (obama just sucks - your wealth away)
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To: ari-freedom

And big coal will be put out of business, a campaign promise from BHO. Electric rates will skyrocket - the Volt will enter the dustbin of history before leaving the showroom. Dumb bastards!


116 posted on 12/05/2008 9:49:02 PM PST by GregoryFul
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To: Cronos
Challenges are voluntary, Mandates aren't.

What's wrong is we live in America, not the Soviet Union.

You drive a Go Kart so the powerful Politicos can fly around in 757’s, like Pelosi wants to do.

The Free Market will fuel innovation, not proclamations from idiot Politicians without Engineering Degrees or Business Experience.

I prefer to be Governed, not Ruled.

117 posted on 12/06/2008 1:03:34 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (Democracy, two wolves and one sheep deciding what's for dinner.)
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To: thackney
Yes, and GMs Electro Motive Division accomplished this with Diesel locomotives back in the 1930s and 40s. However, my point still is that this vehicle is a hybrid (gasoline and electric) just like the Prius, etc. The only difference is when the gasoline engine kicks in.

In the case of the VOLT it will only be when the batteries get low, and in the case of the Prius, etc. it occurs when the car obtains a certain speed (20 - 30 mph).

The fact remains the VOLT is not a totally electric car. It is a hybrid with gasoline (powering an engine to charge a battery) and the electric motor running off the battery.

Some environmentalist did this a long time ago with a set of automobile batteries and a lawn mower engine.

118 posted on 12/06/2008 5:18:19 AM PST by cyberslave (The time has come to talk of many things.)
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To: gleeaikin
reminds me of my excentric father,

..just to be even more excentric...,

I found out by accident, using 200 mph NASCAR tape (really uber-good duct tape type tape) you can prevent rocker panel rot.

I caught it early, sprayed lots of rust converter paint in there, then covered it with really good synthetic tape, same color of car (white).

So far so good , 10 years and has'nt spread much.

I redo the spray/tape procedure every few years on a nice summer day.

I imagine as we become more and more like Cuba (running our beloved old cars forever), we'll develop lots of similar procedures.

119 posted on 12/06/2008 5:44:34 AM PST by norraad ("What light!">Blues Brothers)
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To: gleeaikin
That infrastructure does not now exist, and may never exist. Until it exists, electric cars don't stand a chance.

Look electric cars may have a future if the research from MIT involving the transmission of electricity directly to an appliance, which is what an electric car would become, through the air is viable.

This is what Nikola Tesla was attempting on Long Island with the financial backing of JP Morgan over 100 years ago.

The project was ended because no body wanted to give electricity away so cheaply, and there was money to be made by GE and Westinghouse in building transmission system and in utilities running them into your home.

Bottom line the electric vehicle has to get off the grid.

That means the guy in the UK with the solar van and solar Honda has the correct approach and GM is all wet with gasoline from the seven sisters.

Muckrackers of the early 20th century used to picture GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil all in bed together forcing Americans to buy their then relatively overpriced products.

120 posted on 12/06/2008 5:46:54 AM PST by cyberslave (The time has come to talk of many things.)
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