o boy...talk about reactionary. Those are some facts that I wrote...the car makers would admitt to them I am sure. And electric vehicles were rampant in the early 1900th century because they are simply superior and have quicker speed to due to very little lose of energy comparded to the internal combustion engine. And I am about as right wing as they come...so do us all a favor and take a chill pill, check out www.fhu.com for a great be still silent prayer and relax! Good God!
If they were so great ... where are they now... if they were Marketable.. they still be here.. but NO..
you may be right wing.. but you’re CRAZY!! or you know nothing of economics... as for your CHILL ...EFF YOU and your MASTER.
I’ve noticed that too around here - the witch hunt against any conservative who likes electric cars.
Personally, I don’t give a flying flip whether the power comes from solar, wind, coal, or nuclear. I care that it’s domestic. I want my vehicle to have 1/10th as many moving parts as it has today. I want it to have full torque from zero RPM. I want it to be quiet. And that is what electric is.
One thing you didn’t mention about the electric cars of the early 1900s: back then, gas was about the same price it is today (adjusted for inflation), but electricity was (adjusted for inflation) about $4 per kilowatt hour! So back then, gasoline cars were actually cheaper to run. But oil is getting more expensive while electricity gets cheaper. Even if Pelosi shoves Cap and Trade down our throats, electricity will still be cheaper than gasoline (especially if Cap and Trade hits gasoline, too). And as time goes on, gas prices will continue to rise, but we have enough coal and uranium to last us centuries.
There are a lot of dumb myths being expressed here, so I’ll break them down:
* One, for those who actually care, only half our power comes from coal. The next leading sources are nuclear, natural gas, and hydroelectric.
* Two, power plants are more efficient than electric cars, and they don’t emit their exhaust in your face.
* Three, the most popular electric motors don’t take any rare elements. These AC induction motors are made out of aluminum and/or copper. The inverters are made of electronics that use things like silicon and silicon carbide.
* Four, the batteries, too, don’t use anything rare or toxic. We’re not talking lead-acid or nickel-cadmium. We’re talking lithium iron phosphate or managanese lithium-ion batteries. Lithium salts cost, what, $2.50 a pound? And the other components are even cheaper.
* Five, the aforementioned batteries are, for all practical purposes, limited in charge rate only by A) how fast you can cool them down, and B) how fast you can supply the power. Aerovironment, a defense contractor, already makes an 800kW charger for the military. That thing could charge a fully loaded semi three times faster than it burns energy going down the highway, let alone a car or SUV. Smaller units, like the 250kW chargers, are about the size of a coke machine. You pair them up with a battery bank, so you don’t need a huge grid feed. Such units cost about $120k each (today), which sounds like a lot, until you look at the price of building a gas station from scratch, and consider that nobody needs to do anything more for them than occasional maintenance - no staffing, no deliveries, etc.
The real issue with electric cars is price. Not just the battery pack, but everything - most people don’t know that all the other stuff that goes into them is really expensive today, too. They’re just not mass produced - none of it.
Of course we’ll still need oil. Even the most starry-eyed optimists in the industry don’t think even new car sales will be more than 10-20% by 2020, let alone all the cars currently on the road. And even if everyone went electric, you still need oil for a lot of other things. But it’s key that we both increase our oil production and reduce our consumption at the same time. Otherwise, China and India are going to monopolize the market; their future demand makes our current consumption look like nothing by comparison.