Who Killed The Electric Car?

[lokuputha]

apperantly an electric motor is much more effecient than any gasoline hybrid engine out there...
and the modern battery technology as of 2003 allowed for electric cars to travel up to 200+miles with every charge...which would require plugging in the car to a normal 120V wall outlet

yet by 2003, the auto companies literally crushed their electric car program with the onset of the oil-company-backed Hydrogen fuel cell program....

"there was no demand for [electric cars]"-GM

quick facts about electric motors:

-max torque at 0rpm...
-current car applications could yield around 500hp @ 6250rpm, 420 ft-lbs @ 0rpm (yes u read that right, ZERO rpm), with 82% effeciency, all with a 150lb motor
-almost zero maintenance
-forget H22 accord...im getting a Rasertech Symetron swap

Dyno Video<::::::::::::::


Who Killed The Electric Car?


Click to Watch Video<::::::::::::::

here r some wicked electric cars that are considerably viable in today's markets:

Venturi Fetish www.venturi.fr mmm...je t'aime



Tesla Roadster www.teslamotors.com wicked

[KillerCam282]

From what I understand, in the 70's the electric prototypes were out. A major car manufacturer bought the copyright and sealed it in their vault. If memory serves me right, the program I watched said it was GM.

Edit: I didn't watch your link yet, so I might be wrong.

[lokuputha]

From what I understand, in the 70's the electric prototypes were out. A major car manufacturer bought the copyright and sealed it in their vault. If memory serves me right, the program I watched said it was GM.

funny u should mention that...b/c Texaco recently bought the battery company that supplied most of the NiMH electric automobile batteries....

anyone know about the early electric tram buses of America?

In the early 20th century, National City Lines, which was a partnership of General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California purchased many electric tram networks across the country to dismantle them and replace them with GM buses. The partnership was convicted for this conspiracy, but the ruling was overturned in a higher court.-Wikipedia

[palinix]

There's no doubt that electric motors have great potential.

Introduction of such technology in modern day automobiles would prove to be nothing but a loss to oil companies. Sure, we are depleting the earths limited resources, but most oil companies probably couldn't care less.

Though I have no real evidence about GM's involvement, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a part to play in this as well. Whilst other car companies on the world market are striving for cleaner, more efficient operation of their products, GM seems to be set on another route... think the Hummer and several other cars they have come out with.

[KillerCam282]

funny u should mention that...b/c Texaco recently bought the battery company that supplied most of the NiMH electric automobile batteries....

anyone know about the early electric tram buses of America?

In the early 20th century, National City Lines, which was a partnership of General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California purchased many electric tram networks across the country to dismantle them and replace them with GM buses. The partnership was convicted for this conspiracy, but the ruling was overturned in a higher court.-Wikipedia

This sounds feasible. I can't say I remember hearing about this incident in particular. However, the program I watched pretty much sold the fact that GM destroyed anything electrical that can move anything that weighed more than a ton.

[owequitit]

1) Wikepedia is user editable, therefore information on there is not set in stone.

2) Have you looked at the cost of modern battery technology? It ain't cheap.

Look how much a new battery for your cell phone is... those are usually lithium ion which is one of the more advanced battery designs.

Multiply that by several hundred or thousand and you will see the cost.

3) GM lost TONS of money on each and every EV1 built. They recalled them and destroyed them, because it was going to cost too much to provide parts for a small fleet of electric vehicles that had already cost more to build than what they made.

It doesn't take a genious to figure out the downside of that equation.

4) Honda and Toyota have sold almost every single hybrid they have made for a loss. Why? Because they think the intermediate step is through gas electric hybrid until the electrical technology reaches a point where it is self sustaining. They are hoping that eventually gas electric hybrids will be self sustaining as well.

In the meantime, they hydrogen fuel cell is closer to production than a feasible electric vehicle.

5) Think about how pissed off you would be if you had to charge your electric car every 200 miles. Now I am assuming there is a little * by that claim. Maximum range figures are usually published with an electrical drive only discharge.

What happens when we need the electric heat, headlights, indicators etc?

Range drops significantly.

The math is very easy. Every battery has an amp hour rating. That is how many amps it can provide for one hour.

I don't know what the figures are for those cars, but someone does.

If you take the amp hour rating, and divide it by your electrical draw in amps, it will tell you quickly how long your battery will last.

For example. A 30AMP hour battery. It will supply 30 amps for 1 hour, or 15 amps for 2 hours, or 10 amps for 3 hours etc etc.

Since things like lightbulbs and heaters draw a lot of current, you could expect much shorter range.

The EV1 is a good example. Fully charged without using ANY accessories, you could get maybe 120 miles on perfectly flat ground.

As soon as you added lights, heater, windshield wipers etc, that quickly became less than 20 miles.

That is a different story isn't it?

Then, you get the privledge of plugging your car into a charger for hours on end just so you can drive home. If it is extremely cold or hot, the charging and battery efficiencies drop dramatically, resulting in poor charging or discharging.

Plus, who is going to provide the charging station?

Are you going to have to leave your car at a specified charging location?

What if that charging location is 1/2 a mile or more from where you work?

Or do we mandate a charging station for every man, woman and child? I am sure that would be cheap.

Of course, then we put the charging station manufacturer and the electricity company in the same driver's seat that you accuse the oil companies of being in because now you are dependent on their supply (you already are).

Not to mention the fact that most of our electricity comes from the burning of fossil fuels anyway (whose contribution to global warming is STILL questionable), so really we aren't doing anything but making ourselves feel better.

Instead of looking at the death of the electric car as a conspiracy, why not look at the actual technology to see why it hasn't caught on?

If you do, you will see that there really isn't a conspiracy as much as there is a failure of technology.

Maybe, being smart businessmen, the oil companies are buying battery companies and alternative fuel companies so that they can survive when oil is dead and gone.

You can see this phenomenon with tobacco companies. They are being forced to diversify because it is becoming quite obvious that tobacco use is on the decline...

Rather than just up and go out of business because they don't want to look bad, they have an obligation to keep their company healthy. If that means buying other companies, then that is what they do.

Blaming oil companies for the failure of technolgy involves simple minded people that don't want to face the reality that there isn't a cure all solution to any problem. Everything has upsides and downsides.

With every electric car designed thus far, the downsides far outweight the upsides.

If Ed Begley Jr, is that concerned about the environment, he can hop on his pair of Nikes and walk his ass to the Schwinn store.

[steelbluesleepR]

1) Wikepedia...store.

(i didnt want to quote the entire thing)
RIGHT ON! ive been trying to explain this to some people at my college for a while now.

[lokuputha]

1) Wikepedia is user editable, therefore information on there is not set in stone.

tru that is, yet I've seen these claims elsewhere...its just google happens to recall them first in most searches.

2) Have you looked at the cost of modern battery technology? It ain't cheap.

Look how much a new battery for your cell phone is... those are usually lithium ion which is one of the more advanced battery designs.

Multiply that by several hundred or thousand and you will see the cost.

yes, the cost of battery technology today is very high, yet the technology is very high as well, with enough industry support the batteries could be cheaper...read blue ray players.

3) GM lost TONS of money on each and every EV1 built. They recalled them and destroyed them, because it was going to cost too much to provide parts for a small fleet of electric vehicles that had already cost more to build than what they made.

It doesn't take a genious to figure out the downside of that equation.

unfortunately, it seemed that GM was lacking a bunch of geniuses in their EV1 promotions champaign. When the car was available for sale, GM advertised the EV1 with little enthusiasm...in fact a lot of GM's reports I have read from "back in the day" regarding the EV1 was more concerning its limitations than with its potential...its was almost as if they were rationing the cars...antimarketing...weird

4) Honda and Toyota have sold almost every single hybrid they have made for a loss. Why? Because they think the intermediate step is through gas electric hybrid until the electrical technology reaches a point where it is self sustaining. They are hoping that eventually gas electric hybrids will be self sustaining as well.

In the meantime, they hydrogen fuel cell is closer to production than a feasible electric vehicle.

apperantly, non of the car companies ever sold an electric vehicle...they were only allowed for fixed period leases...thus the entire public protest when all the EV's were taken away in opposition to customers' requests to purchase them.

5) Think about how pissed off you would be if you had to charge your electric car every 200 miles. Now I am assuming there is a little * by that claim. Maximum range figures are usually published with an electrical drive only discharge.

yeah I can see what you mean, but ask many people that live above the snowbelt and they plug in their car every day in the winter (block heater)

a lot of the EV's were able to be plugged into a regular 120V outlet at home, but I guess multi-billion dollar car companies forgot to incorporate that into their marketing champaigns .

What happens when we need the electric heat, headlights, indicators etc?

Range drops significantly.

The math is very easy. Every battery has an amp hour rating. That is how many amps it can provide for one hour.

I don't know what the figures are for those cars, but someone does.

If you take the amp hour rating, and divide it by your electrical draw in amps, it will tell you quickly how long your battery will last.

For example. A 30AMP hour battery. It will supply 30 amps for 1 hour, or 15 amps for 2 hours, or 10 amps for 3 hours etc etc.

Since things like lightbulbs and heaters draw a lot of current, you could expect much shorter range.

The EV1 is a good example. Fully charged without using ANY accessories, you could get maybe 120 miles on perfectly flat ground.

As soon as you added lights, heater, windshield wipers etc, that quickly became less than 20 miles.

That is a different story isn't it?

yeah tru, the auxiliaries will suck up a lot of juice

according to early CARB research, the average consumer would travel 29.something miles everyday....okay lets say thats 50 miles...thats should leave enough of a buffer to cover auxiliary consumption. The EV's are not for everyone, just the approximately 50% or so of drivers that only need it as the proverbial grocery getter or as a daily drive to work and back. Yeah, this will be hopeless in urban sprawl situations.

Then, you get the privledge of plugging your car into a charger for hours on end just so you can drive home. If it is extremely cold or hot, the charging and battery efficiencies drop dramatically, resulting in poor charging or discharging.

Plus, who is going to provide the charging station?

Are you going to have to leave your car at a specified charging location?

What if that charging location is 1/2 a mile or more from where you work?

Or do we mandate a charging station for every man, woman and child? I am sure that would be cheap.

Of course, then we put the charging station manufacturer and the electricity company in the same driver's seat that you accuse the oil companies of being in because now you are dependent on their supply (you already are).

yes, colder weather will definitely hinder the performance...I wonder how they would cure that? Most of those cars, including the EV1 could be charged at home and at work with retrofitted transformers...or so i've read.

Yeah, the electricity would have to come from some sort of burnt fossil fuel, since we havn't really excelled at exploiting many renewable energy sources; so either way the fossil fuel companies can get their cake...yet, I know of several places, one is the Electric Trains system in Calgary, Alberta, Canada that is completely run by wind energy from a nearby wind generation initiative.

Instead of looking at the death of the electric car as a conspiracy, why not look at the actual technology to see why it hasn't caught on?

If you do, you will see that there really isn't a conspiracy as much as there is a failure of technology.

Maybe, being smart businessmen, the oil companies are buying battery companies and alternative fuel companies so that they can survive when oil is dead and gone.

You can see this phenomenon with tobacco companies. They are being forced to diversify because it is becoming quite obvious that tobacco use is on the decline...

Rather than just up and go out of business because they don't want to look bad, they have an obligation to keep their company healthy. If that means buying other companies, then that is what they do.

Blaming oil companies for the failure of technolgy involves simple minded people that don't want to face the reality that there isn't a cure all solution to any problem. Everything has upsides and downsides.

With every electric car designed thus far, the downsides far outweight the upsides.

it was definitely a failure in technological advances...or a failure in promoting or enforcing it. CARB forced the catalytic converter, if Im not wrong, and now every car has to have one; the seat belt; the airbag. True it may not be such a romanticized conspiracy, yet it conveniently seems so.

I wouldn't want to blame the oil industry, in fact I commend them. They deserve due credit for developing the incredibly strong oil industry it is today.

Blame may be a harsh word, the above documentary rather states the many aspects that were behind the demise of an electric car revolution.

With every electric car designed thus far, the downsides far outweight the upsides.

well, one of the 1st rules of economics is that there are trade offs...with gasoline cars, we get the 100 years of development and sound with pollution and maintenance.

with electric cars we will get the torque, effeciency and design flexibility with young technology, price, and the sound of a sewing machine.

personally I hate pollution and maintenance.

If Ed Begley Jr, is that concerned about the environment, he can hop on his pair of Nikes and walk his ass to the Schwinn store.

...don't give him any ideas.


conclusion:...

-the govn't has to take a stand, otherwise there is no reason for companies to waste money on new technologies.

-people have to consciously question their car purchases as to negative environmental effects...but this can be a tall order...I mean, I say this...but then I turn around and put on a free flowing less effective catalytic converter, and drive a 16 yr old car that has not the cleanest of emissions.

mass perception can be difficult to change...

[owequitit]

tru that is, yet I've seen these claims elsewhere...its just google happens to recall them first in most searches.

The internet is also a user editable format. Just because it is online doesn't make it gospel. In fact, if you were doing a serious project at a university, MOST internet sources would be discredited.

yes, the cost of battery technology today is very high, yet the technology is very high as well, with enough industry support the batteries could be cheaper...read blue ray players.

All technology can be cheaper to an extent. That has been proven. The question isn't can it be cheaper, it is can it be cheaper enough to be feasible?

The laws of economics will dicatate that your price will fall to a point as qty produced increases. However, it will asymptotically reach a given value, which means increasing production by the next 1,000 units will NOT result in the same price drop as the last 1,000 units did.

Even hybrids that are not solely dependent on electrical batter power typically have THOUSANDS of cells. If each cell is $50 bucks each, what are we looking at?

I can guarantee the cost of the technology is somewhere near the flat or declining part of the curve. There are millions upon millions of the types of cells they need in production.

Barring some unforseen advance in technology that makes production cheaper, you are still looking at a lot of money.

unfortunately, it seemed that GM was lacking a bunch of geniuses in their EV1 promotions champaign. When the car was available for sale, GM advertised the EV1 with little enthusiasm...in fact a lot of GM's reports I have read from "back in the day" regarding the EV1 was more concerning its limitations than with its potential...its was almost as if they were rationing the cars...antimarketing...weird

1)Nobody accused GM of having intelligent people during that time period, in fact if they had, they wouldn't be in half the trouble they are now.

BUT...

2) The original intention of the EV1 was as a real world laboratory. Honda's FCX fuel cell vehicle is another good example.

It wasn't originally intended to be around permanently, which you stated, so we are clear on that.

3)Here is what people are neglecting about GM pulling them against "consumer" demand.

A car company is required to keep parts available for 30 years from the date of manufacture, as long as that vehicle is still on the road. In the case of a controlled experiment like the EV1, it is fairly easy to remove them from the market.

4) So, GM lost money designing the car, GM lost money building the car, and now we have an elitist group of people that wants them to lose money providing parts for the car.

GM would have had to put a lot of the parts back into production in order to maintain them, because they built just enough stuff for a short period of time (i.e. the amount of time they left them on the market).

Those cars cost GM somewhere around $200,000 each to build if I remember correctly. They leased them for $20,000. They weren't losing a little bit of money, they were losing MILLIONS. And it would have been far greater had they kept them on the street...unless of course Ed Begley wanted to pay $150,000 a year to maintain that car.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't just rev up a factory and start spitting out parts.

5)GM has neither the time nor the resources to piss away on something that is a losing proposition all the way around like the EV1 was.

To have an effective marketing campaign, they would have had to advertise the true cost of owning and operating the car, to make it worth both the consumer, and GM's while. If they don't both benefit, the car isn't going to stick around. Period.

Of the people who are so gung ho about about the EV, how many would have been able to afford $200,000K to purchase (especially back then when that was quite a bit larger than the cost of an average house) and then spend an additional god-knows-what in maintenance costs every year.

Sorry, but gas engines require maintenance as do technologically elaborate electric vehicles with moving parts. You aren't going to get away from that.

apperantly, non of the car companies ever sold an electric vehicle...they were only allowed for fixed period leases...thus the entire public protest when all the EV's were taken away in opposition to customers' requests to purchase them.

The were leased for fixed periods because the car companies knew they were going to lose small fortunes on them and that is the best way to minimize their losses. Car companies understand that without R&D there is no advancement of technology. To some extent they are willing to try and put the technology out there and see how it does. But they don't want to lose more than they have to either.

Honda does it all the time. The Insight, The FCX, ATTS, VTEC. They were all proven in a lab, but they needed real world experience to see how they would do because you can't generate every condition in a lab.

yeah I can see what you mean, but ask many people that live above the snowbelt and they plug in their car every day in the winter (block heater)

That is apples and oranges. They plug a block heater into a wall socket to keep the engine warm enough to start. Maybe their car battery too.

However, they don't have to sit and wait for their car to be done being pluged in to use it. They can unplug it and drive it whenever they want.

With an EV you can't. Also, what are you going to do, heat the batteries AND charge them? That isn't going to be cheaper than a block heater...

a lot of the EV's were able to be plugged into a regular 120V outlet at home, but I guess multi-billion dollar car companies forgot to incorporate that into their marketing champaigns .

Yes they were. Did you do any research on the charge time in a 120V outlet?

Try marketing that.

yeah tru, the auxiliaries will suck up a lot of juice

The will KILL the juice. 120 miles to 20. That is an 80% decrease in mileage.

If the average person drives 29 miles to work, how are they going to get that last 9 miles?

according to early CARB research, the average consumer would travel 29.something miles everyday....okay lets say thats 50 miles...thats should leave enough of a buffer to cover auxiliary consumption. The EV's are not for everyone, just the approximately 50% or so of drivers that only need it as the proverbial grocery getter or as a daily drive to work and back. Yeah, this will be hopeless in urban sprawl situations.

You are making up arbitrary numbers and saying "that should be good enough." How do you know you can get those arbitrary numbers? What data do you have to back up your claim of 50 miles?

How do you figure that covers auxilliary consumption? What are your numbers based on? Wishfull thinking?

Accessory use on the EV1 didn't take less than 50% of the available power it took 80%. Your numbers would leave us with a range of 10 miles or so...

GM didn't use the best batteries (lead acid is what was used), but most other batteries will see the same kind of issues. There are no magical batteries. There never will be.

yes, colder weather will definitely hinder the performance...I wonder how they would cure that? Most of those cars, including the EV1 could be charged at home and at work with retrofitted transformers...or so i've read.

Did you ever research the cost of those transformers? That is what I was referring to with the charging statement. How are you going to implement them? How are you going to pay for them? How are you going to determine equal distribution?

Yeah, the electricity would have to come from some sort of burnt fossil fuel, since we havn't really excelled at exploiting many renewable energy sources; so either way the fossil fuel companies can get their cake...yet, I know of several places, one is the Electric Trains system in Calgary, Alberta, Canada that is completely run by wind energy from a nearby wind generation initiative.

If you are burning fossil fuel to make electricity, to charge your car, to save the environment, what's the point?

Until that underlying fact changes, all other arguments are moot points. When you get to the point where the majority of electricity is provided by wind power, THEN you can feasibly discuss that.

We have to burn more energy worth of fossil fuel than what you will get into or out of your car. (the laws of thermodynamics state that we will lose energy every time we convert it because no process is 100% efficient).

So essentially, if you have to actually use the car, you will get 20 miles out of an amount of fossil fuel that probably would have gotten you farther had you just pumped it into your gas tank.

Seems sort of self defeating to me. The pollution is still there. The energy is still used. You have merely changed the location of where.

Now to find out exactly how much fuel you would use to produce that electricity, would require a lot of local legwork and math, but it could be done. You would have to take into account the % generated using what methods in your grid etc, but all in all on a grand scales (which is what you are looking to implement) the above will hold true.

I can bet you that it wouldn't be enough to offset the cost increase of using an EV though.

THAT is why we are still using oil. For the amount of cost vs energy extracted, it can't be beat YET.

If you have endless supplies of money to spend on incremental gains, go for it. I don't.

[owequitit]

it was definitely a failure in technological advances...or a failure in promoting or enforcing it. CARB forced the catalytic converter, if Im not wrong, and now every car has to have one; the seat belt; the airbag. True it may not be such a romanticized conspiracy, yet it conveniently seems so.

It was COMPLETELY a failure of technology. Until an EV provides better range with less energy usage for less cost, it IS NOT a superior technology. PERIOD. It costs more, it doesn't go as far, it is more inconvenient, and ultimately it relies on fossil fuel for a large % of its charge.

I see a lot of failure, and not a lot of technology...

I wouldn't want to blame the oil industry, in fact I commend them. They deserve due credit for developing the incredibly strong oil industry it is today.

Blame may be a harsh word, the above documentary rather states the many aspects that were behind the demise of an electric car revolution.

You are buying propoganda hook line and sinker. They may have talked about the many aspects, but they refuse to put the correct proportion of blame on the true failure. The technology.

Had you removed all those hurdles, would the EV have succeeded? No. It offers less for more. It is a really nice feel good idea, but in reality, it is a failure as of this point in time.

well, one of the 1st rules of economics is that there are trade offs...with gasoline cars, we get the 100 years of development and sound with pollution and maintenance.

with electric cars we will get the torque, effeciency and design flexibility with young technology, price, and the sound of a sewing machine.

With a gasoline car, you get more than 20 miles to the tank in the winter time, you don't have to wait 12-24 hours for it to charge on a 120V wall socket, you can go faster without dramatically increasing your energy usage, you can haul more payload without killing your range etc. So to say there are no upsides to a gas powered car is ridiculous.

personally I hate pollution and maintenance.

If you hate pollution, why would you want to employ a process that on a grand scale could create more of it?

Maintenance is a non issue, that is why I drive Hondas. Also, you are unrealistic if you think there will be no maintenance on an EV. EVERYTHING mechanical will require maintenance and periodic repairs.

conclusion:...

-the govn't has to take a stand, otherwise there is no reason for companies to waste money on new technologies.

Legislation isn't going to make technologies feasible. It is going to force us to spend a lot of money trying to prove they aren't, but it isn't going to magically change the outcome. This is the problem I have with backwards legislation. You will spend billions or trillions of dollars mandating something that may not EVER become feasible.

What then?

ABS and airbags are a good example. The technology was developed BEFORE the law requireing them was passes. They went into production BEFORE the law requiring them was passed. They were proven to be effective and feasible BEFORE the law requiring them was passed. It was the same with the catalytic converter.

I am sorry but I disagree. You are clearly fairly liberal in your views of how thw world works.

Did legislation force Wal-Mart to decrease the average price of consumer goods?

Did legislation require Boeing to design a new airliner that is 20% more fuel efficient than anything else in the sky?

Did legislation require people to start recycling on a large scale?

Did legislation require the creationg and implementation of new medical advances, battery technologies and other things that make life both cleaner and more enjoyable?

The answer to all of the above is NO. The market's demand for goods and services did.

What is this I speak of? Supply and demand. The fact of the matter is that if the EV was a feasible technology, it would have already been mass marketed, produced and sold.

Why? Because someone could have made a large number of dollars doing it.

Why haven't they? Because it is beneficial and feasible for so few people that it isn't worth the cost.

You can't really use it in the snow belt. You can't really use it in the tropics or deserts. You can't really use it if you are going more than 50-100 miles. You can't really use it if you don't have a readily convenient and realistic way to charge it. You can't really use it if you want to haul loads (they are by virtue small due to current requirements).

Then assuming you could fall into all those categories, how many of the people that fit in that category could afford to spend the kind of money they are going to cost? Have you seen the expected price of the Tesla Roadster?

So now you are passing a law forcing people to build a technology that benefits maybe several thousand people per year, and of course you are using tax money to do it.

Wow...

We criticize Republicans all the time for robbing the poor to feed the rich...hmmm what does this look like to you?

Just because legislation works in some cases does NOT mean that it works in all.

We can pass laws until we are blue in the face. Essentially what you are doing with every law is removing a free choice. By removing free choice, you are removing the ability to innovate.

And in many cases you are doing it on a half baked proposition that may have more downsides than up. The Kyoto Protocal comes readily to mind.

-people have to consciously question their car purchases as to negative environmental effects...but this can be a tall order...I mean, I say this...but then I turn around and put on a free flowing less effective catalytic converter, and drive a 16 yr old car that has not the cleanest of emissions.

mass perception can be difficult to change...

I don't have to conciously question the effectiveness of my decision. Why? because I have thought the process all the way through to its conclusion.

I am not blinded by the hippy feel good butterflies that come with thinking I am saving the world because I am oblivious to 90% of reality.

We can save that for Hollywood. They need something to do in between rehab stints...

Gas powered cars are not the ultimate solution. However, until something comes along that is proven to be better BEFORE we force it down people's throats, then it is the best we have.

You can argue conspiracy, and politics you want. The fact of the matter is that the technology failed. Until it actually benefits the masses, one would be silly to expect it to be welcomed by the masses.

For every "apsect" I am told about, I can think of 2 or 3 major underlying reasons that are far more important.

The hydrogen fuel cell is the most feasible and promising up and coming technology in a long time, which is why the emphasis has switched in that direction. Even in its infancy it is already soundly outperforming the EV.

We still have some of the electricity issues that plague the electric car (using petro to make it), but it doesn't actually require a lot of energy comparitively speaking, and we get quite a bit out.

As far as "renewable energy" this is most likely going to be proven as a fallacy. At least to a large degree. Look at the laws of thermodynamics, and you will see why.

Let me know if you want me to post them, so that everyone is clear.

Here is an unrelated question that I have though...nobody has answered it yet.

1)Most of our promising technologies produce water vapor as a by product.

2)We are concerned about global warming.

3)Water vapor is 4x stronger as a greenhouse gas than CO2. It also outnumbers CO2 in the atmosphere almost 400:1.

QUESTION) How is producing more water vapor going to help global warming?

[AccordWarrior]

Hydrogen does has its advantages, but the flamability concerns as well as a lack of a network for the fuel is going to be it's initial downfall. Until they figure out a way to best minimize the risks of the gas...which I've done my research on and is doable, but you really have to overbuild the fuel cell for safety reasons, is going to be limited at best IMO.

The public remembers the Hindenberg and how that was linked to Hydrogen.

If anything I say biodiesel (which is what I'm going my senior capstone project on) is the wave of the future.

The problem with strictly electric cars lie just as much in the bodystyle as the car itsself.

This isn't the first time a new technology was given to consumers and then taken back and crushed. The 1961 Chrysler Turbine car was another great example.

[HenRoc]

Anyone watch that show on the DC channel 'Future Cars'?

I saw that theres a french scientist who built and air powered car.

I cant remember the name of the scientist though, but it looked wicked.

[owequitit]

Hydrogen does has its advantages, but the flamability concerns as well as a lack of a network for the fuel is going to be it's initial downfall. Until they figure out a way to best minimize the risks of the gas...which I've done my research on and is doable, but you really have to overbuild the fuel cell for safety reasons, is going to be limited at best IMO.

The public remembers the Hindenberg and how that was linked to Hydrogen.

If anything I say biodiesel (which is what I'm going my senior capstone project on) is the wave of the future.

The problem with strictly electric cars lie just as much in the bodystyle as the car itsself.

This isn't the first time a new technology was given to consumers and then taken back and crushed. The 1961 Chrysler Turbine car was another great example.

Yes I didn't go into storage or distribution. They have worked past a few of those obstacles, but ultimately you are right.

Nobody wants to be near a hydrogen line when it goes up, and if they are crisscrossing the country, where do you go?

I think that is why they are trying to focus on the local production of hydrogen. We will see how it goes though.

But it still has more promise than the pure EV.

As far as the Chrysler turbine car, I have a soft spot for those simply because I have a soft spot for anything that has a turbine!!!!

They definitely had some issues. Like a range of about 100miles, and exhaust that would melt your loafers.

Performance was OK, although it could easily be beaten by the V8's of the time.

Turbine engines are very good at what they do, but outside of that, they aren't as flexible.

They have a high specific fuel consumption, and produce a lot of power for their weight and size. They are also terribly expensive.

They don't like to change RPMs like a recip does. And they aren't fuel efficient when they do.

That is why you find them on jets. They do best at high altitudes and constant speeds, and to offset the fuel burn, we have to carry a lot of stuff.

A 737-700 burns about 6,000lbs of fuel per hour in cruise. Jet fuel is approximately 7lbs per gallon, so that translates into about 860 gallons per hour in normal cruise. At takeoff, they can burn approximately twice that amount.

Divide the airspeed by the fuel consumption and you get .5 miles to the gallon.

You can clearly see the specific fuel consumption...

Imagine if your car got that!

But see, that isn't the whole picture. A relatively efficient car typically burns about 2.5-3 gallons per hour (based on a stock CB7).

Now if you take the fuel burn and work it out per person per gallon, your CB7 gives you .6 gallons per person per hour.

If you work out a fully loaded 737-700 you get about 6 gallons per person per hour.

That is roughly 10X the fuel burn per person!

What if I told you it was more fuel efficient to fly?

It seems complex, but here is where it pays off.

If we took one person accross country in a car that gets 30MPG, and we put their clone on an airplane, who spends less fuel getting to where they are going?

A 3,000 mile flight in a 737 is about 6 hours, so the guy flying uses the equivalent of 36 gallons to get 3,000 miles (6 gallons per hour x 6 hours).

The guy driving the car is getting 10X fuel mileage, but he is going to burn 100 gallons of gas to travel the same distance (3000 miles/30MPG).

The airplane turns its high fuel burn into a high speed, which results in less total fuel burn over time.

The airplane is basically a large car pool...

The fact that Jet A is quite a bit cheaper than regular unleaded helps a lot too.

That is how Southwest Airlines can get you from Phoenix to Orlando for $99 one way, when there is no way you could make the same trip in a car and spend less. The fuel alone costs you more. AND they make a profit doing it.

So, realistically, by burning more gas, you are actually saving gas. That is why it is important to understand the WHOLE picture, and how all of the little variables inter-relate to each other.

[owequitit]

Anyone watch that show on the DC channel 'Future Cars'?

I saw that theres a french scientist who built and air powered car.

I cant remember the name of the scientist though, but it looked wicked.

I wish I had cable!

I am not opposed to new technologies, but in most cases new technologies fail because they over promise and under deliver.

If they could eliminate our dependence on oil, I would be ecstatic. It IS going to run out eventually.

If we use less, obviously it will last longer.

But whatever this magical technology is has to ACTUALLY deliver.

How did the air powered car work?

[lokuputha]

QUESTION) How is producing more water vapor going to help global warming?

owequitit u make some really good points...my posts have seemed a little tree hugger and could possibly be a little more rational, but is so easy to jump on the wagon


yes, water vapor is definitely a major cause of global warming...its won't deter global warming at all, especially if every car in the world takes on the new hydrogen technologies which produce more water

....now if we can only run an engine with existing water as a means of propulsion and returns water as a by product...i dream.

How did the air powered car work?

found it: http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html

pretty interesting, somehow they are able to make the engine work for a longer period....

"The MDI con-rod system allows the piston to be held at Top Dead Centre for 70º of the cycle."

"When there is no combustion, there is no pollution. The vehicle's driving range is close to twice that of the most advanced electric cars (from 200 to 300 km or 8 hours of circulation) This is exactly what the urban market needs where, as previously mentioned, 80% of the drivers move less than 60Km. a day."