Posted on 04/27/2009 8:53:21 AM PDT by doc30
A proposal to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars in Norway from 2015 could help spur struggling carmakers to shift to greener models, Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said on Saturday.
"This is much more realistic than people think when they first hear about this proposal," she told Reuters, defending a plan by her Socialist Left Party to outlaw sales of cars that run solely on fossil fuels in six years' time.
"The financial crisis also means that a lot of those car producers that now have big problems ... know that they have to develop their technology because we also have to solve the climate criss when this financial crisis is over," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at windsorstar.com ...
HEY!!!!! My wife resembles that remark (I hope she doesn’t read this).
Does anyone know who owns the donkey and buggy whip monopoly in Norway?
What percentage of all cars in the US operate where it gets below -55? 1%? 5?
I would love a cold weather super car, with someone else doing all the R&D!
Norway, that sits atop the North Sea Oil fields?
Invest in Norwegian hay futures.”
How about Alaska Dog sleds and dog breeders???
“..her Socialist Left Party..”
Just a coincidence? I think not.
That's MOST of the nation, on a typical brisk winter day. If you're going to work early, in the dark, your batteries are going to have to run your wipers, lights, all electronics and diagnostics, turn your electrically driven wheels, run the heater, the defrosters, and probably a few things I'm not thinking of.
To greatly simpify the argument...if you can't see your office from your house, you're in a spot of trouble, on a cold winter morning.
It's not much different in Texas or Arizona in the summer either, if you want your car's AC to be running flat out for you, on the way to or from home.
Thank you for the information.
Would you say that battery powered cars will never be viable in cold weather?
I lived in rural Illiois where ther were lots of converted LP gas pickups, but gasoline was so cheap that it was not a worth it (early ‘90s).
Consider the Chevy Volt - about to go on sale this year, or next. That's supposed to have cutting edge set of either NiCad or Lithium Ion batteries, [can't recall exactly right now] so one of the best weight to energy density ratios available. Far better ratio than even the most high-tech lead/acid batteries. It's still too expensive to sell, so it's apparently a "lease only" vehicle.
And it's only rated for about 40 miles per fully charged battery bank...which is an OPTIMUM rating. What's the range in Minneapolis or Detroit on a day when their winter temperature is "average"? If the heater in the car is on during your commute, I bet it's no more than 12-15 miles, and single digits wouldn't surprise me.
So who wants to take this car on an emergency run from Fargo to Minot, ND, with a hard blizzard threatening to move in?
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