Let's say, for arguments sake that they came out with an electric car tomorrow that weighed, cost and performed the same as a regular car. For argument's sake we'll pretend that it would have the same range and power as a normal car.
Would you buy one? How about a sports car?
Here in Quebec the hydroelectricity is so cheap that for a daily driver it wouldn't be much of a contest. I'd probably pay 10$ a month to power that thing up.
Yes. i would.
My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"
They don't weigh cost or perform the same.... What's the point of debating what ifs.
Either way I wouldn't own one, I like road trips. Unless were gonna pretend you can stop at any gas station and hook up to the car for a couple minutes to fill up the electricity to.
Obviously,
IF they performed/cost similarly to a gas powered car than I would buy one.
BUT they don't, hence I don't want one.
[ o ][][][][][][][][ o ] coach built xj ( o \[][][][][][][]/ o ) hid wj
No. For the same reason I wouldnt drive a hybrid, I am not a hippy.
How would you modify or work on an electric car without killing yourself on extremely high voltage?
if you could get 12 hours of travel out of a charge, then yes.
Electric cars are crud. Unless the government taxes those earning more that 200k per year to subsidize them like they do "green" power sources, then they aren't a good value.
..
“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart
The question assumes so much as to make itself pointless.
Battery technology has a long way to advance before any of those cars will be practical. What is needed is a light weight, high capacity unit with a form factor that's easily accessible and swappable, and with a single standardized design that all auto manufacturers can agree on. Then, if you're out on the road, and running low on power, you could just pull into the nearest gas/recharge/whatever station, swap a depleted battery for a charged one, and be on your way. Its the only sensible solution, really.
This will never happen. Not in my lifetime anyway. Even though a certain firm is building an experimental infrastructure resembling this concept, its all prohibitively expensive. And there's no way all car companies would adopt an open standard for something as essential as a vehicle's power plant; who could then individually brag about their superior engineering?
Sure, I'd consider one for a daily driver, but by the time practical, desirable electric cars are developed, they will be obsolete. We'll all have jet-packs and teleporters by then.
Id like to have the EV1
2004 Cavalier. Razzi. (Sold)
1998 Corvette. Some mods.
1992 Typhoon. Lots of mods.
1994 Civic VX 44MPG
I want a Volt as it would fit my everday needs perfectly.
I love EV1s. We tried to get one but they wouldn't let us take it. So I took it in picture form instead lol:
For the general public, pending the cost of the vehicle, I think electric vehicles would be very useful. I'm not too excited that the Volt goes 80 miles less on a charge than an EV1 but most daily commutes are not going to be any further than that. You could go for a long time without having to gas up a vehicle. For the long trips you could just use a regular car (or hybrid).
I admit that I love my gasoline powered car, but if I had to make the switch I wouldn't regret it.
--------------------------------------------
1990 Pontiac Sunbird //
1995 Beretta Base
Short answer: No.
Long Answer: NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I just couldn't give up the marvel that is the internal combustion engine.
2010 Honda Fit LX
I'd like to try it in our Eastern Quebec's -35 degrees winters first. After I will awnser.
Id drive one for sure
__________________________________________________________________
Where I work:
HP
What I take for Memory and Focus:
Focus Fast
EV1s were very nice and moderately portable, I'd buy one.
I would gladly buy an electric car even limited with current marketable technology, as long as I had another car available to me for long trips.
I wish there were a reasonable option for my wifes needs. She drives a very short distance to get to mass transit.
I hope that we come to have the fuel cell to extend the range of electric cars.
Anyway, my answer to your hypothetical is , Yes.
TheSundownFire wrote:No. For the same reason I wouldnt drive a hybrid, I am not a hippy.
How would you modify or work on an electric car without killing yourself on extremely high voltage?
screw the hippy, imagine never buying gas again? works for me. as for modifying, there are guys out there now drag racing battery powered cars and running in the 10 second range in the 1/4 mile. so yes you can modify them.
id buy one in a heartbeat, i live close to work so i could drive to work and home and golf and store etc etc etc and never have to fill up. even if the range was only 40 miles. for a second car it would be great. i'd save a few thousand dollars every year.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:This are the only ones I would drive.
And I don't care for the Tesla roadster, especially now that Mercedes owns 20% of it. Hopefully on the next Model S, Benz won't have a hand on it.
Oh I forgot to mention there was reason I am now using Natural Gas for my water heater and stove, yep my electricity bill dropped and gas bill is very low. Heh, if it was steep to power energy efficient appliances, I can't imagine the cost to recharge a car 8+ hours.
Now if you have renewable energy in you back yard, then I see it making sense.
It's already proven that it's cheaper, by far, to drive an electric car as apposed to fuel. Factor in the mainttenance and repair costs, electric win's by far on value per mile. Brushless motors can run for decades without any mainteneace. Since most of our driving in north america is in gridlock much of time, our electric cars wouldn't even using power as apposed to sitting there burning fule to keep things spinning. Itr's likely that the start and stopping of todays hybrids will likely cayse a large increase in maintenance.
Heating the interior of that car would be an efficiency issue in a cold climate. For sure. But your comparison to cooking isn't quite relevant in this case. At least as an issue aon it's own.
Craig Lewis wrote:Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:This are the only ones I would drive.
And I don't care for the Tesla roadster, especially now that Mercedes owns 20% of it. Hopefully on the next Model S, Benz won't have a hand on it.
Oh I forgot to mention there was reason I am now using Natural Gas for my water heater and stove, yep my electricity bill dropped and gas bill is very low. Heh, if it was steep to power energy efficient appliances, I can't imagine the cost to recharge a car 8+ hours.
Now if you have renewable energy in you back yard, then I see it making sense.
It's already proven that it's cheaper, by far, to drive an electric car as apposed to fuel. Factor in the mainttenance and repair costs, electric win's by far on value per mile. Brushless motors can run for decades without any mainteneace. Since most of our driving in north america is in gridlock much of time, our electric cars wouldn't even using power as apposed to sitting there burning fule to keep things spinning. Itr's likely that the start and stopping of todays hybrids will likely cayse a large increase in maintenance.
Heating the interior of that car would be an efficiency issue in a cold climate. For sure. But your comparison to cooking isn't quite relevant in this case. At least as an issue aon it's own.
Not my fault you couldn't comprehend the comparison.
>>>For Sale? Clicky!<<<
-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
Apparently you don't understand. Your example is irrelevant when discussing transportation..
Creating heat from electricity is one of the few ineficient uses for electricity. Unless you are using magnets for braking. Hey hey, we get to save on brakes if we change to electric vehicles. MOre savings.
Creating motion with electricity is very efficient. Go look for yourself. As I mentioned before, its already a fact..
Did you know that natural gas can be used in fuel cell technology. Just as easily as Hydrogen? Hmm.
MAybe we should at least be saving the easily portable fuels for things that need to be portable..
sndsgood wrote:TheSundownFire wrote:No. For the same reason I wouldnt drive a hybrid, I am not a hippy.
How would you modify or work on an electric car without killing yourself on extremely high voltage?
screw the hippy, imagine never buying gas again? works for me. as for modifying, there are guys out there now drag racing battery powered cars and running in the 10 second range in the 1/4 mile. so yes you can modify them.
id buy one in a heartbeat, i live close to work so i could drive to work and home and golf and store etc etc etc and never have to fill up. even if the range was only 40 miles. for a second car it would be great. i'd save a few thousand dollars every year.
Arent' those electric 1/4 mile cars completely filled with batteries? Like every available space in the car is taken up with them? I remember seeing a documentary on History channel about drag racing and a small portion of it was on "different" vehicles. The team had to use a large vehicle because they said anything smaller wouldn't hold enough abatteries for it to be competetive.
I would own an electric car in the scenario this thread presents. HOWEVER, more than anything I will miss working on my own car, as well as modding them..
Since personal image is so tied up in our transportation, rationale seems to lose to vanity. Most people buy cars far and above their requirements. I suggest that most sports car drivers rarely use the petential of their car, if ever. Most personal truck drivers rarely tow or haul anything other than their own ass. Hummer drivers...lol. Anyway, most of our wasted energy is used up in style but still mundane tasks in life. Apparently, it`s still `cool`to insist on the most wasteful, but capable device.
Might I suggest that we simply stop the insanity. Here in my suburb, 4 times a day, a procession of minivans travel to and from the local elementary school a five minute walk away. On the way to school, home for lunch, back to school, and end of class. These minivans run for ten minutes or so each time. Likely contributing to the lower manifold gasket failures through incomplete heating and cooling cycles. Most of that time is used idling while at least one child is placed in their safety receptacles. Since the mothers insist on this rediculous ritual, can we not accept that there are perfect sollutions both economically and environmentally appropriate that simply need to be made available to the public or even encouraged somehow. Some of these vans actually never wear the rust off the rotors,but they can travel 600km non stop at 100km/hr. I am more discusted by this traditional north american practice in more affluent areas where the same parades persist day after day, year after year but with $100,000+, 6000lb+, 400hp+ beasts.
Does every electric vehicle need to match the cabpabilities or it's smokey counterpart?
I comment on electric drag racing as an example of modding and performance potential. Most of the real drag cars in my area would make terrible street cars too. Battery size depends on how much money you have or how much time you have to assemble battery packs. Electric motors can even be placed inside a wheel. If you remove the engine and all it's suporting features(gas tank, tranny, driveline....), there's lots of room. Anyway, I don't see why electric vehicles can't be modded. Most modding is bling anyway.
As far as safety, I expect one could be burned by electricity as easily as the local fellows burned allve removing a gas tank. Tesla did some spectacualr presentations to illustrate how electricity can be safe. Afterall, we are litterally surrounded by electrical current and magnetism in fantastic proportions.
I don't want to give up my gas fueled car. I wish those that could fulfill their requirements with current electric vehicle technology could or would do so. It would leave more fuel for those of us who play with our cars.
I'm not going to spoon feed it to you. But, plug in your electric vehicle and then tell me how fast your electric meter will turn.
Creating motion uses a high amount of energy. From a dead stop and accelerate to a certain speed consumes lots of energy. Maintaining a certain set speed eats energy no matter how low the Cds are. Low Cd only reduces the effort for momentum not erases the energy consumption to do so.
IMO CNG is a great "right now" resource to power vehicles, it's a shame we don't adopt and embrace it more.
>>>For Sale? Clicky!<<<
-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
