2011 Car Of The Year???

[Greebo]

The amount of energy used to produce a car (mining, refining, transport, manufacturing etc.) is vastly more than the energy used to run it (petrol, electricity) for its lifetime. So you are being far kinder to the enviroment if you run your existing gas guzzling car until the wheels fall off it than if you swap it for a brand new eco car.

[CAP1]

China will not make a Li-Ion that goes into an mass produced electric car in a long long time.  China makes cheap batteries good for flashlights but far too unsafe for putting into vehicles.  Safe Lithium-based batteries take more complex processes and that's why Nissan isn't making their batteries there.

In Israel and Denmark they are rolling out battery swap stations that swap spent batteries with fresh ones, and it should work in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2011/0419/Better-Place-Turning-Israel-into-electric-car-country
http://www.fastcompany.com/1709616/better-place-teams-up-with-renault

check this link.
http://energy.sourceguides.com/businesses/byP/batP/batt/btora/bType/lion/byB/mfg/byGeo/byC/byC.shtml

 i'd like to see that setup..the swapout you mentioned..........but i'm also kinda doubtful it'll work here to be honest. they'd have to do major redesigns of the battery installs for one, to facilitate the swap.
 secondly, mining the materials for the batteries, the hazards of disposing of bad batteries, etc.

 unless they've changed significantly, i think the average lifespan of nimh, and lithium batteries are only 3 to 5 years, although i could be wrong on this one.

 when it comes down to it, electric isn't going to be the utopia that it's mad out to be. it would be nice if it were, but it can't.
 
 if they do continue this push though, it'll make me glad i'm looking at a backup generator for home though, as i don't wanna be caught without electricity when we start getting brown outs, and black outs around here.

 oh yea...and finally.......swapping the battery packs in a couple of minutes? after going 200 miles or less? still no go in my mind. even my v-8 dakota can go over 300 miles on a tank on the highway....well over.

 

[CAP1]

wasn't there a guy not too long ago that got like 400hp and 100mpg out of his mustang? I think he was using selective cylinders and a few other things but still, if true, that is quite impressive.

And lets not forget Mickey Thompson's Fiero

he was doing that for one of the automotive "x-prize" competitions.

 here's an older link....
http://www.thegreenmotorist.com/index.php/x-prize-fox-body-mustang-best-of-sema-2008/

i don't think this one was true though.

[ozrocker]

Since the sun is made from coal and is 500 miles from Earth. We could hook a giant turbine to
it and plug it in to the Space Station. Have it tethered to a super long 3 prong (grounded of course)
extension cord.

                                                                                            <S> Oz


Oh Brother

[sluggish]

"Best Of" lists are designed to sell periodicals.

[CAP1]

Since the sun is made from coal and is 500 miles from Earth. We could hook a giant turbine to
it and plug it in to the Space Station. Have it tethered to a super long 3 prong (grounded of course)
extension cord.

                                                                                            <S> Oz


Oh Brother

classic!!! 

[Sonicblu]

There is one thing that I find very funny about "electric" cars....do people realize even if all cars went electric and we stopped using gasoline, you will have to produce more power to charge everyones cars in the world, which is going to be just as much if not more emissions.

-BigBOBCH

Maybe not emissions directly but we can't get out more that we put in.

If we gasoline to generate the electricity then yes I would be way more emissions.  1hp = .75 Kw so it would be much more efficient to put it straight to the wheels via transmission. If you take a 1hp gasoline generator you get less than .75 kw. plus the loss in transmitting lines, plus loss in charging batteries plus loss powering electric motor. plus loss in any other components. Simple Simon says it is a loss.

However coal and natural gas are more efficient.,
Here is how the efficiency calculation plays out (thanks to Grose). Start with a natural gas power plant running at 60 percent efficiency. Figure that 7 percent of the power gets lost in transmission. So the power coming to a residential outlet is about 55% efficient.

Now figure that 95 percent of the electricity makes it into the lithium battery – overall efficiency drops to 53 percent.

The final piece of the calculation is the car’s electric motor, which runs 90 percent efficient. The overall efficiency of an electric car is therefore 48 percent.

The efficiency of an automobile running on gasoline is 25 percent. A significant difference!

Working in the favor of electric cars is an energy efficient engine

The efficiency of an electric car drops to 32 percent if it relies on energy coming from a less efficient coal-fired plant (only 40 percent efficient).

You would still have to plug in the numbers for energy differences in building the cars and maintenance over the life of the autos.

[RTHolmes]

 

[icepac]

The advantage of owning an electric car only applies to now.........before a substantial portion of the population starts plugging in and the power companies raise prices...........kind of like back in 1997 when you were first in town to get a cablemodem and didn't have any neighbors nearby using cable internet.

[dedalos]

i keep trying to tell my "green" friends this...and they always have some sort of answer. usually not a very good one though.

CAP, I tell you this as a friend.  Don;t ask that question.  It only shows how clueless, uninformed, and stubborn you can be.   It makes you look bad.

[themaj]

They can make cars out of electricity now? Good thing cause all the oil they were using to build them before was draining the earth dry. 

Seriously though, the emissions reduction would be a good thing.

[BoilerDown]

I don't know why people focus so hard on reduced emissions.  That's a positive side effect, not the reason we're doing this.  Also its not clear just how much of a benefit that will be.

The reason to go electric is to reduce our demand for foreign oil.  That's the big one. 

If we don't reduce our demand for oil, prices are only going to get worse and worse.  The price dips will be shallower and shorter, and the price hikes will be higher and higher and last longer, the further into the future we go.  No amount of drilling of domestic oil, based on how much domestic oil there is to be had, is going to change that.  People 20 years from now will look fondly upon the days of $3 gallons, and that's with adjusting for future inflation.

As for "oh this will make electricity prices go up"... sorry, that's a load of crap.  Might they go up?  Maybe a little, but there will be a LOT of downward pressure to make sure that they don't go up anywhere near the amount oil is most definitely going to go up.  Because its a lot easier to generate electricity than to find more oil.  There's a lot more competition to produce electricity, and its all domestic (or from Canada).  Electricity prices aren't going anywhere truth be told, even with a massive sudden rollout of electric cars, which isn't how its going to happen anyways.  It'll be a slow gradual transition, and many vehicles won't be suitable for electric power for quite some time.  The electric grid won't even notice.

[BoilerDown]

The advantage of owning an electric car only applies to now.........before a substantial portion of the population starts plugging in and the power companies raise prices...........kind of like back in 1997 when you were first in town to get a cablemodem and didn't have any neighbors nearby using cable internet.

That's one of the worst analogies you can mention.  High speed internet sucked back then.  Just straight up sucked.  And I paid twice as much for one quarter of the speed I'm getting now.  For either DSL or Cable Modem, not even going back to IDSN days.  Actually now that I think about it, your analogy does much more to disprove your point than to prove it.

[dedalos]

The reason to go electric is to reduce our demand for foreign oil.  That's the big one. 

I don;t think so.  Imagine being the only country or one of the very few countries that have oil.  Imagine a world where only the US has oil.  Absolute power over the planet right?  So, how do we get there?  Lock our wells down and use every one else s first would be one way.  But, you can;t say that you are doing that  or the world will stop selling to you so we call on reasons like protecting forests, fish, bears, elk etc.  The average guy buys it, some people moan about it, and yes it costs a lot of money.  But during the buying process, even though it is expensive, you gain some "friends" (no one wants to loose a good customer) and in the end, if it does come down to that, the US gains control of the planet.

Of coarse, it may never happen.  Oil may never run out or a better source of energy may be found.  But what if it does?  Its a good plan and it does not cost as much as we think.  Most of the money you pay at the pump stays in the US or some US controlled company and the rest in a world economy.  hard to sell things if the buyers are broke eh?  Also, replace the US with a league  of a few select nations and the plan makes more sense.

Personally, I could care less about being dependent on oil or not.  But I do care about what me and my kids are breathing every day. 

[CAP1]

CAP, I tell you this as a friend.  Don;t ask that question.  It only shows how clueless, uninformed, and stubborn you can be.   It makes you look bad.

i'm not sure what you mean by "don't ask that question".

and yes, i am stubborn....never said i wasn't.......possibly a little uninformed, but more than likely not as much as some think......and absolutely positively beyond a doubt, not clueless.