Electric Vehicles Cost effective

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Originally Posted By: ffracer
Originally Posted By: Max_Wander
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Max_Wander
... i still can't believe nuclear energy for electricity generation is ONLY used to simply HEAT WATER to pump turbines!! WOW man, are we backwards!!


If we want to replace the whole amount of oil the US consumes with nuclear energy at the current rate, we have to build and get online 700 or so additional nuclear power plants.


That's the thing though. Our current use of nuclear fission in our electricity generating plants is beyond shameful, and you're right about how many additional plants we'd need to build using that solution. I'm just furious about the fact that it does not have to be like this. Does anyone think that all space stations are solar powered? What about the nuclear power in space, does anyone really think they use nuclear fission to boil water and spin stupid steam turbines on a space station!?! And thats just about nuclear. We're all getting the shaft here, and it's just so big oil can survive! Thats why I can't stand it when people want to marginalize the obvious feasability of alternate propulsion vehicles. The EV-1 tragedy in itself really grinds my gears.

Ok, what's the solution????

The EV-1 is NOT a tragedy. It was an experiment.



How do you figure? Quite a few were produced and they scrapped a whole lot of them, for what good reason again?

Quote:
Only Hollywood gullible ("Who Killed the Electric Car" is so full of inaccuracies, it set back the electric car for years) types will believe that.


...or anyone with at least two braincells who are not afraid to use them. I never saw that movie BTW, I don't need movies to suggest what causes I should concern myself with. Real life offers enough of them.


Quote:


There's no consipracy for "Big Oil".


Right. They just happen to control every aspect of everyone's lives on the planet right now. Surely that all just sorta kinda happened by chance..... and the Rockefellers and Rothschilds all gained their sickening fortunes by hard-work and dedication....
LOL.gif
33.gif
uh huh...
 
I think it is very reasonable to expect GM and all other companies to crush the electric cars. After all it is losing money and wasn't ready for it. You need spare parts and techs that know how to work on high voltage. Training and parts for such a low volume car is going to kill the financial.

What really kills them is that they did not build the next one. They should have at least work on improving it or partner with another company to do it (i.e. Toyota on the HSD or battery).

But overall, the buyers aren't there to support 100k EV a year at even $20k.
 
Originally Posted By: bob_ninja

Actually no high tech devices are necessary to decrease peak period demand. A much simpler/effective method is price. Where I live they are already installing digital meters and variable rates.


A digital meter isn't a high-tech device? It's certainly more high-tech than a radio switch (which the local utility started deploying almost 30 years ago, and is probably cheaper than a digital meter).
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
I think it is very reasonable to expect GM and all other companies to crush the electric cars. After all it is losing money and wasn't ready for it. You need spare parts and techs that know how to work on high voltage. Training and parts for such a low volume car is going to kill the financial.

What really kills them is that they did not build the next one. They should have at least work on improving it or partner with another company to do it (i.e. Toyota on the HSD or battery).

But overall, the buyers aren't there to support 100k EV a year at even $20k.


What do you mean "not ready for it"? Who's not ready for it? Public opinion seems to be quite the contrary. I seriously doubt that 'lack of feasability' was ever why they dropped the project. Why spend, engineer, develop and build the product to production only to scrap them althogether. GM's visionaries just wanted to cash in on the logical progression of automobiling, but someone else said "nuh uh, now is not the time for it". 20yrs later and the diversions continue... we're still screwing around with exploding crude. Imagine if people used that same rationale that "no one knows electronic fuel injection systems yet and it would require a rennaissance of the automechanic world to make it feasable, so lets just not do it". Now, autos are so electronically integrated that your blinker can't work without an ECU. Of course the evolution from carbs to full CAN/VAGCOM/OBD integration was barely noticed by anyone, because it's ancillary to petroleum. Politics, I tell ya
 
The US should be the leaders in technology. We have been letting the Japanese kick our butts! First the small car and then Hybrid vehicles. Both were thought to have no market at their time. Now we play catch up.

Lets lead for a change like we used to, not follow.
 
As far as the EV1 it had a few issues:

It was only a 2 seater. For practicality you need a 4 seater at least.

It had limited range (Which the Volt concept would solve)

It was lease only

It was really suited for warm weather climates only

It used older battery technology that has been improved.
 
Originally Posted By: ZZman
The US should be the leaders in technology. We have been letting the Japanese kick our butts!
Since 1946
 
How are the feds gonna collect the road use taxes from EVs that everyone else pays? You KNOW they'll want that money!
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
How are the feds gonna collect the road use taxes from EVs that everyone else pays? You KNOW they'll want that money!


As we conserve more, the feds and state will "have to " increase the taxes on gasoline. When that starts to lag, they will institute a "mileage tax" based on miles traveled. Watch for mandatory gps', tamper free odometers, etc.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
How are the feds gonna collect the road use taxes from EVs that everyone else pays? You KNOW they'll want that money!


Smog check will record your mileage. So when you do a smog check every other year or sell your car, you will pay the tax!

For those who didn't have smog check, well, it is easy to require a meter that send back how many miles your car is at during charging. Or have charger certified to send back energy charged and be taxed from your home energy bill.
 
for safety reasons we will all have to install recharging stations for the vehicles. These station will of course just happen to report how much juice is going to your car. At first they will say it is to check how much cars are stressing the electrical grid. Then at some point they will start using the feature to tax the electricity used by the car.
 
The EV1 and Hondas and Toyotas and others' experimental cars are destroyed at the end of testing so they are not sued for selling a vehicle "fit for purpose".

Unlike other countries, it is not possible to sell prototype vehicles to the public in the USA without some type of liability issue, no matter what clauses are inserted into the contract of the lease.

BTW, Lithium-ion does not meet calendar life. which is 15 years. Anyone who has an older cell phone or laptop knows why. they degrade whether you them or not. they are also expensive.

If you have the solutions, you will be a billionaire. Siemens, GE, Hitachi, etc. are all chasing the money currently made by the oil companies and the car companies. Hyper competition. Still need a scientific solution.

This has the potential to reshape our economy, political issues, and environment, but we have to be realistic and work towards real solutions.
 
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
I already know what the solution will be. I've seen the future. It's called capacitance gel.



oh come on, be realistic... we're just not ready for the world outside of Ni-MH apparently....
LOL.gif
 
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
Sounds wayyyy too big brotherish.


So is driver license, mandatory liability insurance, safety inspection, etc. I wouldn't want my neighbor without them.
 
Didn't any of you see that bird - brain Lutz on 60 Minutes last Sunday? When Leslie asked him how much the Volt would cost he said OVER $40,000.00. I seriously doubt anyone reading this has this kind of cash for an econobox?? Its never goona happen and anyway, the grid could never take the load.
 
Tossing out some numbers
60 month loan at 7% interest
payments:
$30,000 = $594 per month, $7,128 per year
$40,000 = $792 per month, $9,504 per year

difference = $198 per month, $2,376 per year

$30k car gets 30 mph and the daily commute is 100 miles round trip 20 days a month
gas costs $3.70/gal
gas = $247 per month, $2,964 per year

Oil changes every 5,000 miles = 4.8 per year
at $30 per change = $12 per month, $144 per year

for simplicity, leave off air filter, fuel filter, coolant, other longer duration, low cost maintenance items unique to internal combustion engines.

Total cost of driving $30k gas vehicle:
$853 per month, $10,236 per year

breaking even, it leaves $61 per month, $732 per year to pay for electricity to charge your $40k electric vehicle.


I have no idea how much power these cars demand for charging and of course these numbers are a bit simplified because there are other cost of ownership items but I think it shows that even paying a significant premium for an EV the overall costs could be similar to a less expensive IC powered car.
 
They estimate charging costs at current rates at about .85 to 1.00.

The grid will take it because the roll out will be slow. It will take quite a while to get alot of vehicles on the road. Also most people will charge at night when prices are lower and demand is lower.

They say the Volt may start that high in cost but come down from there. They are shooting for around 30,000.

Have you seen the Volt? I wouldn't call it an econobox. It looks almost midsized to me.
 
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