Electric Cars....Gov't Plans????
I've been hearing so much about electirc cars having so many problems getting to the public....Well mybe they arn't a good idea. Remember the blackouts of the summer of "95 in Callie? Well can you imagine having millions of cars plugged into the current every night in every state??? There would not just be blackouts, there would be no power left. Like every house in the USA running 12 air conditioners at night. Unless everybody in the United States of America went GREEN and installed their own SOLAR POWER ROOFTOP on thier house this idea would not be SOUND. ITs sounds really good on paper, but its would definatly change the prices the power company could charge, and some of the poor people who can't afford the power to flush thier toliets and run their water NOW, would be out in the cold FREEZING, when a change over like this orrcurred. I'm not saying it is not a good idea, but really folks its not in everyones budget to put up solar panels on thier house, to power their car. Also, from what I've been reading, it is not possible to put the panels on the car. There IS NOT enough room on a car roof to give the car enough power for more then the little old lady who goes to church and the grocery store every week. You need One square meter to get 4.5 KWHTS of solar energy. So math wizzes you figure out just how big the car would have to be to go anywhere, especailly in L. A. where the most pollution is, and the worst commute 2 hrs (I believe I've read), and the solar car only would drive for 2 hrs. NO WAY TO GET HOME PEOPLE!!!! HYbrids are a better bet, but the gas still kicks in on the current ones if you go over 35 mph. Nobody drives 35 mph except in a school zone (and only if a cop is parked right there)"gig" Anyway, we need to go fast!!! Isn't that why they upped the speed limit???? So mybe the solar cars are the answer to the speed change. We run out of Gas and declare the speed limit 34 mph, and nobody can break the speed limit anymore because the car only goes that fast. "gig"
~MYBE IT's TRUE ~ Maybee Sinclair
P.S. Just found out about a Home DEpo program to use solar power. Sounds like a way for the electric company to still be in control of the power. YOu buy the solar components and Home Depo intalls them and the power company buys the exess power from you. Good deal for the people who install the panels but then, the power company can still charge the same price to everybody else. This is currently only available in Callifornia, I'm infering from the info on BP Petroleums website.
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Right. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough plants to supply the additional electricity required for millions to be charging their cars every night. Not just that... the power grid itself would not be able to handle all that juice. Electric cars, on a large scale, require two things: lots of cheap electricity, and an infrastructure which can support constant charging.
Just the same, hydrogen fuel cells are also not currently feasible in large numbers. Since hydrogen doesn't really occur in a pure state (i.e. hydrogen atoms are bonded to other atoms), large amounts of energy would be required to separate the hydrogen, and then transfer it to a fueling station. Until energy can be produced in great quantites, for little expense, to support this process, hydrogen will be expensive and inefficient. Plus.... if you really want that hydrogen to be "clean," it must be processed using energy from a power plant that does not burn coal, oil or natural gas. So when we have lots and lots of nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermic plants running nationwide, and energy is pletiful and cheap, hydrogen fuel cells and electric cars will be viable, clean and efficent alternatives. Until then, we must rely on other fuel sources.
Which doesn't mean that gas has to be dirty or expensive. Biodiesel is cleaner than regular diesel and comes from renewable sources, as does ethyl alcohol (ethanol). Or, we could use coal to make synthetic gasoline, a trick used by the Germans in WW2. Hybrid technology is also rapidly improving; while current hybrids are not as economical as they are touted to be, I recall recently hearing that Toyota was bragging that their next Prius will get 97 mpg. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but hybrid technology is certainly getting better with every generation of new cars. Diesel engines, too, are fare more efficent that gas engines. Unfortunately, diesel cars are uncommon in the US; as far as I know, only VW makes a diesel car. A large chunk of Europeans drive diesels, and VW, BMW and GM all make cleaner, quieter, more powerful and more efficent diesel engines than Americans would expect. Hopefully, these companies will give diesel cars another shot in the US.
Anyway, if I am incorrect in anything I've said, I apologize and hope someone corrects me!
Didn't we used to have quite a lot of Diesal engines in the US. Well at least there seemed to be in MI in 1996. The great belching machienes that spewed out toxic chokeing pollution. Unless they have improved the filters and just in general overhualed thoose machienes they are not likly to bring thosse back. They were not pleasant to be next to at a traffic light. Especially in summer when the car windows were down. OF course that was a long time ago and I could be remembering wrong.
One Step at a time...While I agree, we are currently in between a rock and a hard place with gas prices at almost $4/gallon! in southern California and elictric cars being somewhat impractical, the hybrids do seem to be a viable option. I belive that the even after exceeding 35mph, both the gas and electric motor can run simotaneously depending on circumstance. And while the hybrids with the best gas milage (on the market: 60mpg) don't go so fast, why are we in a big rush anyways? Speeding and flooring only use up more gas. Maybe we should take into consideration that we have the power to increase our own gas milage (minimally, but still...). I use to get about 27mpg until I stopped flooring my car and going 85mph, and now I get near 33, and I have a civic. Big difference when you add it up over time. Anyway, I don't think we are going to find something fast, cheap, and good, but we may find something that is any two of the three...and we should keep an open mind about it.
Shame on you glycin. Really 85? Isn't the speed limit 70mph.
Anyway, with every eletric car getting recalled it will take a lot of time to get better gas mileage.
Has anyone thought that maybe the war is making it so using less gasoline would be a bad thing for Iran's economy? If we use and need to buy less gasoling it would just mean that china would get the extra. So until plans are in place for America to benefit from China getting the oil and gas, which it need in ever increasing amounts because they do not have land to build wind generators or solar generators. And they seem to be building up and up. But anyway, till we can benefit from other countries gettig more gas I can practically gureente there won't be electric cars. America needs the gas "system" in place if there is major warfare again. Just so we have enough of it in the country. They would have to convert the tanks and planes (think F-15) to other power, and expensive and huge operation. Not to mention that they are not doing this at all. I think, if I'm wrong please give your source and a web page if possible because I'm sure a lot of people would like to know.......:)
~Maybee Sinclair~
Maybe its true, maybe its not.
Well, I don't know about this electric car thing, but maybe they should do what they did back in the 70s when they were low on gas; lower the speed limits. You use less gas going at a slower speed and you have less wrecks. It may not work in the big cities such as ATL and CA because of the rush hour traffic trying to get to work, but it could work in the smaller cities.
Also, I heard if you have a stick, they have better gas mileage. I don't know, I have one and compared to my blazer it is better on gas, but it's also a smaller car.
My sister has a disel VW and it doesn't spew all the smog out like someone else has stated, but it's also a 2004, so that may be the reason. My dream car is a BMW, so if they have disel cars, I may just have one imported from Germany.
I wanted to get a hybrid because it was supposed to be better for the earth, but those cars are ugly!!!
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. ~Booker T. Washington
Proposal sounds cool, but yea, we should stick to cars with oil. Our energy resources would really be ruined if we had electric cars.
1. Diesel is in fact quite clean burning (we had diesel submarines before nuclear ones b/c the fuel could be burned without producing so much waste that the air on board would become toxic. It just smells really bad.
2. If everybody speeds now (and I do my part) then you risk mass revolt if you lower the speed limit. Oh, by the way: it's supposed to be 25 in school zones. At least in my state.
3. Electric cars, even hybrids to some degree, aren't for use right now. They're ideas for when the gas runs out. So long as we have a cheap and available fuel there is no point in building less effective and more expensive cars. The only reason we even have hybrids now is because Japan figured out that they'd own the market if they got them out before American companies developed good ones. They even sold the early hybrids for less than it cost to build them, just so they could establish a market for them. Now they're the hot new thing and only Japan has the tech to make 'em. Brilliant.
4. $4/gallon? Ha. Hahahahaha. Check Europe, my friend. This is LOW. Just more than we're used to.
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle