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I disagree with you. It does have to do with oil but not directly. What it has to do is with oil and the currency used to buy it around the world. Iraq has decided to use Euros in 2000 instead of using US dollars.

To put it as simple as possible : When Iraq started using Euros as the base currency for oil it affected the Dollar negatively and the euro positively. It's all about offer and demand in the market of currency.

If the Euro becomes the currency of choice for OPEC it depreciates the US dollar substantially because there is less demand for it.

Bush and his oil/money hungry warmongers do not care because they know they will continue to have as much access as before to the oil in Iraq. Event if the UN takes control over that oil what is important to them is to keep US dollars as THE currency.

So I guess I do agree with you that Bush and co don't want the oil (cause they know they'll get it no matter what). What they care about is currency used for oil exchange.

and this war isnt about oil .. is it?

Of course not.

It's not really about the oil, it's about "OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard".

I came across an interesting article about yet another motivation for the war. If you are like me in believing that Bush is destroying years of foreign relations that we will have to start from scratch to rebuild once he finally gets kicked out of office, read the last two pages of this article - it paints a relatively positive picture of how the US will have to abandon its arrogant unilateral foreign policies and become a respectful and democratic member of international society again.

Want a solution to the problem? It's called a plug-in hybrid. It runs about 20-40 miles on a charge, then kicks in an ICE to provide power after that. Result: most of the small "grocery getter" trips are done pure EV, but you can still fill up at any gas station if you go out of range.

The major auto manufacturers aren't doing this yet, but some colleges are.

This is all really old news -- months and months. Those interested in this stuff should read EV World.

Has anyone checked out the Ford Model U?
Article
Pictures

To prove my point, I found some more photos of the thing. Especially notices the seats.

From the Detroit Auto Show
http://www.corral.net/photopost/showgallery.php?ca t=539&thumb=1

and From this story

http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_2.jpg
http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_1.jpg

To prove my point, I found some more photos of the thing. Especially notices the seats.

From the Detroit Auto Show
http://www.corral.net/photopost/showgallery.php?ca t=539&thumb=1

and From this story

http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_2.jpg
http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_1.jpg

To prove my point, I found some more photos of the thing. Especially notices the seats.

From the Detroit Auto Show
http://www.corral.net/photopost/showgallery.php?ca t=539&thumb=1

and From this story

http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_2.jpg
http://www.evworld.com/images/ford_modelu_1.jpg

There is a paper describing the cost of distribution in a 3 part series at evworld.com that concluded this week.

http://www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm? storyid=471

Yes the claims are crap about hydrogen being the savior of the environment.

don't remember which news channels it was on, but there were a few (at least two that I recall) stories on the car in the past few days.

March 10 Story about the car

limited driving range

poor acceleration

costlier maintenance

weaker car

If there were a market there, or even one that could be easily developed, the major car manufacturers would have pounced on it (esp. those that are desperate for growth).

Second, from the perspective of short-term profitablity, it may make sense for car makers to avoid selling EVs even though there is a market for them, since, by selling EVs, they are competing against their own (profitable) product line. On the assumption that someone who does not buy an EV will by an IC car, the most profitable thing to do is not sell EVs until forced to do so by regulation or competition. This does not even require an active conspiracy, just a small enough number of car makers, each doing what maximizes short-term profits. The American car makers have been doing the very minimum to conform to California law, and give every appearance of sabotaging their own efforts, to create the false impression that there is no demand. The Japanese manufacturers, rather than whining, are selling the cars. Does this remind anyone of the 1980s?

What we have instead is a handful of companies that have made pretty damn impressive efforts...but they are all ultimate failures because there are not enough buyers.

The real problem is that because the anti-nuke lobby has made it uneconomical to run nuclear power plants, we currently get almost all our power from coal and gas burning plants. These guys are not very efficient at making electricity, a least not compared to the super efficient engines in the hybrids.

Not saying you are wrong, but this goes against my understanding, and common sense as well. Basically, if all the electricity generation is centralized, one gets economies of scale, such that the costs of very advanced heat->energy conversion techniques and pollution reduction techniques can be amortized over the entire user base.

I poked on google and found an article which suggests that while fuel cell based vehicles are more efficient than the current generation of central power plants, that is not true for fossil fuel based vehicles including hybrids. To quote:

Even taking into account 7-8% transmission line losses, centrally generated power is nearly twice as efficient as a gasoline internal combustion engine, and their emissions are more easily monitored and controlled, as well.

So essentially pure EV, implented on today's central power plants, would be an improvement.

-- p

Here are photos
I took at an Alternative Fueled Vehicle show in Cocoa, Florida earlier this year. There are shots of a 2002 Prius, 2002 Insight, 2003 Civic Hybrid, a CNG Ford Crown Vic, GEMCar, Think!, a CNG Ford F150, Electric RAV4, and several misc vehicles.

You might also be interested in the EVWorld web site which has plenty of news and a free EV related newsletter.

Enjoy!

Just a note ahead of time. Some of the cars listed below are only available in certain parts of California and are only available in relatively low numbers.

Pure Electric:

2002 The Nissan Altra EV (pilot?)
2002 Ford Thi!nk City
2002 Toyota Rav4-EV
2002 Lido Motors Lido
2002 Ford Ranger EV (fleet only?)
2002 Nissan HyperMini (pilot only?)
Selectria Force (out of production?)

Hybrids:

2003 Honda Civic Hybrid
2002 Honda Insight
2002 Toyota Prius

Web Sites of Interest:

EV World
US DoE Alternative Fuel Car Buying Guide (many listed)
US DoE Alternative Fuel Vehicle Listing (many listed)
California ZEV Buyers Guide

And another option to extend range and for more fun is an electric bicycle. (And for another site Electric Bikes Northwest). The battery is used to provide an extra bost on hills or at stop lights while carying heavy loads.

I'm gearing up to convert an gasoline powered car to run on ethanol. I plan to make my own fuel, too. But that might be more of a project than you're up for.

You might also consider leasing something for a few years until the first crop of fuel cell vehicles becomes available. Things are moving very quickly now. Peugeot may have something ready for market by 2005.

The new hybrid Civic is like a 4-door Insight. I believe the main difference in the drivetrain is that it uses a 4 cylinder motor instead of a 3. It has a CVT transmission, and I assume a manual too. You can read more about it at www.evworld.com.

If it is, then the information you want is

range : 30 to 60 miles
top speed : 60mph officially. This user got 80mph
acceleration : "a bit poor" or surprisingly brisk
cost : $15000
cell type : 13 Optima sealed, lead acid cell batteries

If it is, then the information you want is

range : 30 to 60 miles
top speed : 60mph officially. This user got 80mph
acceleration : "a bit poor" or surprisingly brisk
cost : $15000
cell type : 13 Optima sealed, lead acid cell batteries

Believe it or not, those "evil" SUVs are relatively clean compared to motorcycles. Yes, that's right. If you want to emit less pollution, a LOT less, get rid of your Honda motorcycle and get into an Explorer. Admittedly, SUVs will still output more carbon dioxide, but I'd rather have more inert gas than more pollution.

Believe it or not, those "evil" SUVs are relatively clean compared to motorcycles. Yes, that's right. If you want to emit less pollution, a LOT less, get rid of your Honda motorcycle and get into an Explorer. Admittedly, SUVs will still output more carbon dioxide, but I'd rather have more inert gas than more pollution.

Believe it or not, those "evil" SUVs are relatively clean compared to motorcycles. Yes, that's right. If you want to emit less pollution, a LOT less, get rid of your Honda motorcycle and get into an Explorer. Admittedly, SUVs will still output more carbon dioxide, but I'd rather have more inert gas than more pollution.

EVWorld.com has the two-part story and interview with the plane's builder here (1) and here (2).

EVWorld.com has the two-part story and interview with the plane's builder here (1) and here (2).

EVWorld.com has the two-part story and interview with the plane's builder here (1) and here (2).

hydrogen fuel cells are better than batteries because of the rate they can deliver energy. It's difficult to make an electric car that can make a decent top speed.

Not necessarily true. Some batteries do a great job at dumping current really fast. Electric cars have pretty good pickup. I have heard a lot of complaints about them, but speed isn't one of them.

Here's a link where someone talks about how peppy the EV1 is. Even if he's exaggerating, the thing clearly isn't a slug.

Solar panels are a possible solution, but lots of cars end up in parking garages(especially in the larger cities where space is a premium). As such, solar panels won't help much.

If you think 50-60 miles round trip is a lot, then you're problably living in a small city. When I lived in Corpus Christi(south Texas) I would balk at the idea of driving 30 miles(round trip) to go do something. Now that I live in Houston, a 60 mile(round trip) is a routine occurance. Of course it helps that we now have a 70MPH speed limit in Texas :)

Another source (EV World) suggest counterrotating cylinders will have "less angular momentum". Correct me if I'm wrong (and provide calculations) but doesn't that mean "less energy"? As I read it, they're just moving the mechanical problem to the flywheel body and axle, but if you store enough energy in the darn thing, you'll still wreck the car if you turn too fast :-).

I suspect gimbals will be an inescapable complication for real world mobile systems, if the high-RPM route is taken.

I think that because of the battery weights, the older bigger styles of cars may be better targets for diesel-electric hybrids. You have to haul a lot of battery with the current technologies.

Check out the US Army HumVee project here and a little more information here. Several minutes of dedicated web searching should turn up more informative links, but hear's the gist I remember from news stories:

• The original point was to reduce IR and noise signals, in particular to not have a good IR signal for a missile to home in on (but don't those electric motors get really hot ? anyway . . .)
• The batteries in the bed of the vehicle provided some protection from large anti-vehicle landmines (this might be wrong, I'm remembering it, it wasn't in the linked stories above)
• It could climb a steeper grade due to the weight of batteries lowering the center of mass
• Better fuel mileage
• better acceleration (I was surprised to learn that most electric motors can accelerate a car pretty well, if the car isn't loaded down with batteries to give it a decent range)
• smaller payload due to all that battery weight

I have wondered what kind of diesel generator they have. I wonder if you could do better than a piston engine with a small turbine whose rotors or blades were permanent magnents forming the armature of a high-speed generator.

Anyway, I would not mind having an econoline van with this type of setup on a smaller scale.

First of all let me say, to the few people who know what they are talking about, and posted correct information, thank you, and this obviously doesn't apply to you. For the rest of you:

I am amazed and sickened to realize how ignorant and myopic most of these posts are. I have been reading slashdot for a couple of years and researching electric vehicles off and on for about eight years. I never would have guessed that the usually intelligent, forward thinking, able to see through the BS- crowd here at slashdot would be so uneducated and unwilling to see the benefits of electric vehicles.

The idea that an EV is a greater environmental threat than any internal combustion engine (ICE) is ABSURD.

Yes, the electricity comes from plants, many of which burn coal, but those power plants burn cleaner and more efficiently than almost any ICE vehicle on the road. Think of it in terms of mass production- you can make thousands of ________ for a lot less than you can make one _______. And the same goes for kilowatts. The boiler in the power plant is always at OPTIMUM temperature, and the turbines are always spinning at OPTIMUM speed. Also, when you build a power plant in some wide open space it's easy to tack on another acre or 100 acres if you want, to install scrubbers to keep emissions in check.

For those of you who think that burning coal is so much dirtier than burning gasoline- where exactly do you think gasoline comes from? It comes from a filthy black sludge that is ostensibly liquid coal. And it has to go through extensive processing (i.e. refining) to become the "clean burning" gasoline. Do you really think that drilling hundreds of feet into the earth, pumping out sludge, using ocean freighters the size of a college and then 40 ton semi trucks to transport it to a refinery, then the refining process, and then more 40 ton trucks to get the fuel to a gas station so you can drive over there and pump it into your car, and spill some on the ground.... do you really think that's easier, cheaper, and more efficient than plugging your car into the wall at night?

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with pollution isn't just the AMOUNT of pollutants, it's the pollution DENSITY. Using electricity from a one power plant out in the middle of nowhere to power hundreds of vehicles within a few hundred square miles is obviously going to distribute the environmental load more evenly, and the planet can process it more efficiently.

Worried about batteries as a source of pollution? Read this article. If you're to busy/lazy to read it- it addresses that specific issue, and the punchline is: batteries are better than fossil fuels.

For those of you that think electric drag racing serves no purpose- It does. With the exception of a few things that come from aerospace programs and crash testing facilities, almost every significant advancement in automotive technology has come from racing. In this case, efficiency, range, and performance are universal. Electricity obeys Ohm's Law, and that simple equation dictates that anything we learn about how to make a car go fast in a quarter mile can be directly applied to making a car go 100 miles, it just wont go as fast for that long.

"Electrical transmission has terrible efficiency, about 91% loss of energy in transmission. You're only getting 9% of an already poor energy conversion from fossil fuels, which is 3 times that of electric transmission. "

This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. That means that for 626 KWH of power that of energy that I used last month, the power plant had to make 6329 KWH. Times how many homes in a city? And how many businesses? Ohm's law is V=IR and power P=VI. Anyone who doubts that the person who posted this is wrong, please do some math. If the transmission system dissipated 91% of the energy, we'd have glowing wires running from pole to pole all over the country. Until they burst into flames.

"I haven't heard of any major advances in battery technology in years. Yes, new electronics is helping, but power density and cost are as unfavourable now as they were ten years ago."

Then you aren't paying attention. Check out evercel. They have a new Nickel-Zink battery with almost double the energy density of current lead acid technology. And this article talks about how the expense of Li-Ion batteries is based solely on it's incredible performance and politics; not on cost of materials or production. Li-Ion is better in every way than any battery currently available and will eventually be cheaper than all of them. The technology to make EVs viable is here today, you just can't get your hands on it because the people in the oil industry and people in the automotive industry are protecting their present interests.

"You have to wonder how long these motors last. That smoke you see coming out the back? No... it's not just the tires. :)

Uhmm, yes, Beavis, I think that was just the tires. Furthermore, and electric motor will survive a drag racing environment for orders of magnitude longer than an ICE engine.

"It's not about speed ...it's endurance. When I can jump into an electric car and drive from Akron to Detroit non-stop, heater, defroster, wipers, headlights and stereo all going full-blast, I'll take electric cars seriously. Until then they just don't cut the mustard.

Sorry, eco-geeks. But pound for pound, gasoline rules over batteries. I'd love to see a leap in technology that changes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why not both? Check out the tzero built by ,ac propulsion. It has a 100 mile range (longer than the EV 1 built by GM) and is faster than a Ferrari (and Porsche, and Corvette, and everything else).

There are a lot of things that an EV wont be able to do for a long time. Like a cruise ship. But for MOST people, MOST OF THE TIME, an EV is a cleaner, quieter, cheaper (by far, on a daily basis) solution than an ICE powered car.

On the other hand there are lots of things that an ICE vehicle could never do that an EV can do. A good example of that is this hybrid electric hummer (which is discussed in more detail here) that can be operated off of it's battery pack and run in almost complete silence to sneak up on the enemy. And it outperforms it's ICE counterpart in EVERY other area (yes, even range) as shown in the graph on this page.

Normally when I read or hear about people dismissing electric vehicles, I let it pass, because most people don't have the technical knowledge to understand all of the energy conversion arguments and do the math (literally and figuratively). But I couldn't do that in this case because there are a lot of people from all over the world who consider slashdot to be a meeting ground for intelligent people, and a source of good information. Slashdotters aren't stupid, but some of you are ignorant about this stuff. Please educate yourselves before you spout fallacies. EVs have enough perceived and political problems to overcome without intelligent people propagating incorrect information about them.

Thank you.

First of all let me say, to the few people who know what they are talking about, and posted correct information, thank you, and this obviously doesn't apply to you. For the rest of you:

I am amazed and sickened to realize how ignorant and myopic most of these posts are. I have been reading slashdot for a couple of years and researching electric vehicles off and on for about eight years. I never would have guessed that the usually intelligent, forward thinking, able to see through the BS- crowd here at slashdot would be so uneducated and unwilling to see the benefits of electric vehicles.

The idea that an EV is a greater environmental threat than any internal combustion engine (ICE) is ABSURD.

Yes, the electricity comes from plants, many of which burn coal, but those power plants burn cleaner and more efficiently than almost any ICE vehicle on the road. Think of it in terms of mass production- you can make thousands of ________ for a lot less than you can make one _______. And the same goes for kilowatts. The boiler in the power plant is always at OPTIMUM temperature, and the turbines are always spinning at OPTIMUM speed. Also, when you build a power plant in some wide open space it's easy to tack on another acre or 100 acres if you want, to install scrubbers to keep emissions in check.

For those of you who think that burning coal is so much dirtier than burning gasoline- where exactly do you think gasoline comes from? It comes from a filthy black sludge that is ostensibly liquid coal. And it has to go through extensive processing (i.e. refining) to become the "clean burning" gasoline. Do you really think that drilling hundreds of feet into the earth, pumping out sludge, using ocean freighters the size of a college and then 40 ton semi trucks to transport it to a refinery, then the refining process, and then more 40 ton trucks to get the fuel to a gas station so you can drive over there and pump it into your car, and spill some on the ground.... do you really think that's easier, cheaper, and more efficient than plugging your car into the wall at night?

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with pollution isn't just the AMOUNT of pollutants, it's the pollution DENSITY. Using electricity from a one power plant out in the middle of nowhere to power hundreds of vehicles within a few hundred square miles is obviously going to distribute the environmental load more evenly, and the planet can process it more efficiently.

Worried about batteries as a source of pollution? Read this article. If you're to busy/lazy to read it- it addresses that specific issue, and the punchline is: batteries are better than fossil fuels.

For those of you that think electric drag racing serves no purpose- It does. With the exception of a few things that come from aerospace programs and crash testing facilities, almost every significant advancement in automotive technology has come from racing. In this case, efficiency, range, and performance are universal. Electricity obeys Ohm's Law, and that simple equation dictates that anything we learn about how to make a car go fast in a quarter mile can be directly applied to making a car go 100 miles, it just wont go as fast for that long.

"Electrical transmission has terrible efficiency, about 91% loss of energy in transmission. You're only getting 9% of an already poor energy conversion from fossil fuels, which is 3 times that of electric transmission. "

This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. That means that for 626 KWH of power that of energy that I used last month, the power plant had to make 6329 KWH. Times how many homes in a city? And how many businesses? Ohm's law is V=IR and power P=VI. Anyone who doubts that the person who posted this is wrong, please do some math. If the transmission system dissipated 91% of the energy, we'd have glowing wires running from pole to pole all over the country. Until they burst into flames.

"I haven't heard of any major advances in battery technology in years. Yes, new electronics is helping, but power density and cost are as unfavourable now as they were ten years ago."

Then you aren't paying attention. Check out evercel. They have a new Nickel-Zink battery with almost double the energy density of current lead acid technology. And this article talks about how the expense of Li-Ion batteries is based solely on it's incredible performance and politics; not on cost of materials or production. Li-Ion is better in every way than any battery currently available and will eventually be cheaper than all of them. The technology to make EVs viable is here today, you just can't get your hands on it because the people in the oil industry and people in the automotive industry are protecting their present interests.

"You have to wonder how long these motors last. That smoke you see coming out the back? No... it's not just the tires. :)

Uhmm, yes, Beavis, I think that was just the tires. Furthermore, and electric motor will survive a drag racing environment for orders of magnitude longer than an ICE engine.

"It's not about speed ...it's endurance. When I can jump into an electric car and drive from Akron to Detroit non-stop, heater, defroster, wipers, headlights and stereo all going full-blast, I'll take electric cars seriously. Until then they just don't cut the mustard.

Sorry, eco-geeks. But pound for pound, gasoline rules over batteries. I'd love to see a leap in technology that changes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why not both? Check out the tzero built by ,ac propulsion. It has a 100 mile range (longer than the EV 1 built by GM) and is faster than a Ferrari (and Porsche, and Corvette, and everything else).

There are a lot of things that an EV wont be able to do for a long time. Like a cruise ship. But for MOST people, MOST OF THE TIME, an EV is a cleaner, quieter, cheaper (by far, on a daily basis) solution than an ICE powered car.

On the other hand there are lots of things that an ICE vehicle could never do that an EV can do. A good example of that is this hybrid electric hummer (which is discussed in more detail here) that can be operated off of it's battery pack and run in almost complete silence to sneak up on the enemy. And it outperforms it's ICE counterpart in EVERY other area (yes, even range) as shown in the graph on this page.

Normally when I read or hear about people dismissing electric vehicles, I let it pass, because most people don't have the technical knowledge to understand all of the energy conversion arguments and do the math (literally and figuratively). But I couldn't do that in this case because there are a lot of people from all over the world who consider slashdot to be a meeting ground for intelligent people, and a source of good information. Slashdotters aren't stupid, but some of you are ignorant about this stuff. Please educate yourselves before you spout fallacies. EVs have enough perceived and political problems to overcome without intelligent people propagating incorrect information about them.

Thank you.

First of all let me say, to the few people who know what they are talking about, and posted correct information, thank you, and this obviously doesn't apply to you. For the rest of you:

I am amazed and sickened to realize how ignorant and myopic most of these posts are. I have been reading slashdot for a couple of years and researching electric vehicles off and on for about eight years. I never would have guessed that the usually intelligent, forward thinking, able to see through the BS- crowd here at slashdot would be so uneducated and unwilling to see the benefits of electric vehicles.

The idea that an EV is a greater environmental threat than any internal combustion engine (ICE) is ABSURD.

Yes, the electricity comes from plants, many of which burn coal, but those power plants burn cleaner and more efficiently than almost any ICE vehicle on the road. Think of it in terms of mass production- you can make thousands of ________ for a lot less than you can make one _______. And the same goes for kilowatts. The boiler in the power plant is always at OPTIMUM temperature, and the turbines are always spinning at OPTIMUM speed. Also, when you build a power plant in some wide open space it's easy to tack on another acre or 100 acres if you want, to install scrubbers to keep emissions in check.

For those of you who think that burning coal is so much dirtier than burning gasoline- where exactly do you think gasoline comes from? It comes from a filthy black sludge that is ostensibly liquid coal. And it has to go through extensive processing (i.e. refining) to become the "clean burning" gasoline. Do you really think that drilling hundreds of feet into the earth, pumping out sludge, using ocean freighters the size of a college and then 40 ton semi trucks to transport it to a refinery, then the refining process, and then more 40 ton trucks to get the fuel to a gas station so you can drive over there and pump it into your car, and spill some on the ground.... do you really think that's easier, cheaper, and more efficient than plugging your car into the wall at night?

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with pollution isn't just the AMOUNT of pollutants, it's the pollution DENSITY. Using electricity from a one power plant out in the middle of nowhere to power hundreds of vehicles within a few hundred square miles is obviously going to distribute the environmental load more evenly, and the planet can process it more efficiently.

Worried about batteries as a source of pollution? Read this article. If you're to busy/lazy to read it- it addresses that specific issue, and the punchline is: batteries are better than fossil fuels.

For those of you that think electric drag racing serves no purpose- It does. With the exception of a few things that come from aerospace programs and crash testing facilities, almost every significant advancement in automotive technology has come from racing. In this case, efficiency, range, and performance are universal. Electricity obeys Ohm's Law, and that simple equation dictates that anything we learn about how to make a car go fast in a quarter mile can be directly applied to making a car go 100 miles, it just wont go as fast for that long.

"Electrical transmission has terrible efficiency, about 91% loss of energy in transmission. You're only getting 9% of an already poor energy conversion from fossil fuels, which is 3 times that of electric transmission. "

This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. That means that for 626 KWH of power that of energy that I used last month, the power plant had to make 6329 KWH. Times how many homes in a city? And how many businesses? Ohm's law is V=IR and power P=VI. Anyone who doubts that the person who posted this is wrong, please do some math. If the transmission system dissipated 91% of the energy, we'd have glowing wires running from pole to pole all over the country. Until they burst into flames.

"I haven't heard of any major advances in battery technology in years. Yes, new electronics is helping, but power density and cost are as unfavourable now as they were ten years ago."

Then you aren't paying attention. Check out evercel. They have a new Nickel-Zink battery with almost double the energy density of current lead acid technology. And this article talks about how the expense of Li-Ion batteries is based solely on it's incredible performance and politics; not on cost of materials or production. Li-Ion is better in every way than any battery currently available and will eventually be cheaper than all of them. The technology to make EVs viable is here today, you just can't get your hands on it because the people in the oil industry and people in the automotive industry are protecting their present interests.

"You have to wonder how long these motors last. That smoke you see coming out the back? No... it's not just the tires. :)

Uhmm, yes, Beavis, I think that was just the tires. Furthermore, and electric motor will survive a drag racing environment for orders of magnitude longer than an ICE engine.

"It's not about speed ...it's endurance. When I can jump into an electric car and drive from Akron to Detroit non-stop, heater, defroster, wipers, headlights and stereo all going full-blast, I'll take electric cars seriously. Until then they just don't cut the mustard.

Sorry, eco-geeks. But pound for pound, gasoline rules over batteries. I'd love to see a leap in technology that changes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why not both? Check out the tzero built by ,ac propulsion. It has a 100 mile range (longer than the EV 1 built by GM) and is faster than a Ferrari (and Porsche, and Corvette, and everything else).

There are a lot of things that an EV wont be able to do for a long time. Like a cruise ship. But for MOST people, MOST OF THE TIME, an EV is a cleaner, quieter, cheaper (by far, on a daily basis) solution than an ICE powered car.

On the other hand there are lots of things that an ICE vehicle could never do that an EV can do. A good example of that is this hybrid electric hummer (which is discussed in more detail here) that can be operated off of it's battery pack and run in almost complete silence to sneak up on the enemy. And it outperforms it's ICE counterpart in EVERY other area (yes, even range) as shown in the graph on this page.

Normally when I read or hear about people dismissing electric vehicles, I let it pass, because most people don't have the technical knowledge to understand all of the energy conversion arguments and do the math (literally and figuratively). But I couldn't do that in this case because there are a lot of people from all over the world who consider slashdot to be a meeting ground for intelligent people, and a source of good information. Slashdotters aren't stupid, but some of you are ignorant about this stuff. Please educate yourselves before you spout fallacies. EVs have enough perceived and political problems to overcome without intelligent people propagating incorrect information about them.

Thank you.

First of all let me say, to the few people who know what they are talking about, and posted correct information, thank you, and this obviously doesn't apply to you. For the rest of you:

I am amazed and sickened to realize how ignorant and myopic most of these posts are. I have been reading slashdot for a couple of years and researching electric vehicles off and on for about eight years. I never would have guessed that the usually intelligent, forward thinking, able to see through the BS- crowd here at slashdot would be so uneducated and unwilling to see the benefits of electric vehicles.

The idea that an EV is a greater environmental threat than any internal combustion engine (ICE) is ABSURD.

Yes, the electricity comes from plants, many of which burn coal, but those power plants burn cleaner and more efficiently than almost any ICE vehicle on the road. Think of it in terms of mass production- you can make thousands of ________ for a lot less than you can make one _______. And the same goes for kilowatts. The boiler in the power plant is always at OPTIMUM temperature, and the turbines are always spinning at OPTIMUM speed. Also, when you build a power plant in some wide open space it's easy to tack on another acre or 100 acres if you want, to install scrubbers to keep emissions in check.

For those of you who think that burning coal is so much dirtier than burning gasoline- where exactly do you think gasoline comes from? It comes from a filthy black sludge that is ostensibly liquid coal. And it has to go through extensive processing (i.e. refining) to become the "clean burning" gasoline. Do you really think that drilling hundreds of feet into the earth, pumping out sludge, using ocean freighters the size of a college and then 40 ton semi trucks to transport it to a refinery, then the refining process, and then more 40 ton trucks to get the fuel to a gas station so you can drive over there and pump it into your car, and spill some on the ground.... do you really think that's easier, cheaper, and more efficient than plugging your car into the wall at night?

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with pollution isn't just the AMOUNT of pollutants, it's the pollution DENSITY. Using electricity from a one power plant out in the middle of nowhere to power hundreds of vehicles within a few hundred square miles is obviously going to distribute the environmental load more evenly, and the planet can process it more efficiently.

Worried about batteries as a source of pollution? Read this article. If you're to busy/lazy to read it- it addresses that specific issue, and the punchline is: batteries are better than fossil fuels.

For those of you that think electric drag racing serves no purpose- It does. With the exception of a few things that come from aerospace programs and crash testing facilities, almost every significant advancement in automotive technology has come from racing. In this case, efficiency, range, and performance are universal. Electricity obeys Ohm's Law, and that simple equation dictates that anything we learn about how to make a car go fast in a quarter mile can be directly applied to making a car go 100 miles, it just wont go as fast for that long.

"Electrical transmission has terrible efficiency, about 91% loss of energy in transmission. You're only getting 9% of an already poor energy conversion from fossil fuels, which is 3 times that of electric transmission. "

This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. That means that for 626 KWH of power that of energy that I used last month, the power plant had to make 6329 KWH. Times how many homes in a city? And how many businesses? Ohm's law is V=IR and power P=VI. Anyone who doubts that the person who posted this is wrong, please do some math. If the transmission system dissipated 91% of the energy, we'd have glowing wires running from pole to pole all over the country. Until they burst into flames.

"I haven't heard of any major advances in battery technology in years. Yes, new electronics is helping, but power density and cost are as unfavourable now as they were ten years ago."

Then you aren't paying attention. Check out evercel. They have a new Nickel-Zink battery with almost double the energy density of current lead acid technology. And this article talks about how the expense of Li-Ion batteries is based solely on it's incredible performance and politics; not on cost of materials or production. Li-Ion is better in every way than any battery currently available and will eventually be cheaper than all of them. The technology to make EVs viable is here today, you just can't get your hands on it because the people in the oil industry and people in the automotive industry are protecting their present interests.

"You have to wonder how long these motors last. That smoke you see coming out the back? No... it's not just the tires. :)

Uhmm, yes, Beavis, I think that was just the tires. Furthermore, and electric motor will survive a drag racing environment for orders of magnitude longer than an ICE engine.

"It's not about speed ...it's endurance. When I can jump into an electric car and drive from Akron to Detroit non-stop, heater, defroster, wipers, headlights and stereo all going full-blast, I'll take electric cars seriously. Until then they just don't cut the mustard.

Sorry, eco-geeks. But pound for pound, gasoline rules over batteries. I'd love to see a leap in technology that changes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why not both? Check out the tzero built by ,ac propulsion. It has a 100 mile range (longer than the EV 1 built by GM) and is faster than a Ferrari (and Porsche, and Corvette, and everything else).

There are a lot of things that an EV wont be able to do for a long time. Like a cruise ship. But for MOST people, MOST OF THE TIME, an EV is a cleaner, quieter, cheaper (by far, on a daily basis) solution than an ICE powered car.

On the other hand there are lots of things that an ICE vehicle could never do that an EV can do. A good example of that is this hybrid electric hummer (which is discussed in more detail here) that can be operated off of it's battery pack and run in almost complete silence to sneak up on the enemy. And it outperforms it's ICE counterpart in EVERY other area (yes, even range) as shown in the graph on this page.

Normally when I read or hear about people dismissing electric vehicles, I let it pass, because most people don't have the technical knowledge to understand all of the energy conversion arguments and do the math (literally and figuratively). But I couldn't do that in this case because there are a lot of people from all over the world who consider slashdot to be a meeting ground for intelligent people, and a source of good information. Slashdotters aren't stupid, but some of you are ignorant about this stuff. Please educate yourselves before you spout fallacies. EVs have enough perceived and political problems to overcome without intelligent people propagating incorrect information about them.

Thank you.