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GM Pulls Plug on Electric Car
davebo writes "General Motors' EV1, the all-electric dynamo of a car, has been pulled from the market. You can read the letter GM sent out to current EV1 drivers here. When the EV1 came out, the chairman of GM said it would
"define the GM of the future". Guess he'd like to take that back now . . ." With Ford also cancelling their electric vehicle program, looks like hybrids are it for the next few years.
"Electric cars will define the GM of the future... but later."
When the EV1 came out, the chairman of GM said it would "define the GM of the future"
So what he's saying is the future of GM is to pull out of the market
Jason
ProfQuotes
Electric cars are silly in the first place. Seriously, doesn't anyone realise that the power plants that make the electricity probably spew more pollutants into the air than the cars that burn fossil fuels? As clean as cars are now, I'd be willing to bet that's true.
What were they expecting? This is like walking into a country as well-gridded as ours and saying, ok, let's try this new type of electricity! But it needs completely new power plants to do it, and it is less convenient. People will look at you like you're crazy.
Electronic cars - even ones you have to plug in every few hundred miles - may have their day, someday. But not yet. Not while oil is so cheap. Cost of gas + Convenience of being about to fuel up anywhere at any time = Lower cost, for most people, all things considered (remember, price is but one factor) than driving an electric car.
I want to know why only 1000 were made. They spent a billion on a program and only sent it out to a wishlist? Or did they withhold it from the market because the infrastructure didn't exist?
When the time is right, both the cars and the infrastructure will change as needed. The time is not right.
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
Not that I believe you modded me anyway.
(1) Power plants can be made more efficient and non-polluting, since they don't have the size/weight/cost constraints of a car.
(2) Properly designed electric cars store energy back into the battery when you apply the brakes. In theory, assuming no friction in the engine or with air, that would create zero-cost travel. In practice, there is friction, but that's all you're paying for.
It is called a PC. I drive to work everyday with it.
If you and your boss trust you enough to let you stay home x/5 days a week, then you cut your commuting polluting by x * 20%.
I also get to sleep with the woman in my home office - my wife.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
I think it makes sense, It would be nice for the world to switch over to electric cars in a year, but in reality, it's not going to work that way.
What will probably happen is that for the next several years, we will start to switch over to hybrid cars, and ease into the electric car idea, and as the prices of gasoline continue to rise, we'll start to switch to completely electric cars. I think it will be at least ten to fifteen years though, before such a thing happens. It's such a massive change to our economy, infrastructure, etc, that we can't really switch overnight like some manufacturers seem to think. This is probably a smart move on GM's part.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
Before everyone gets on my case about it, I spent 2 years on a team that built hybrid cars. Electric powerplants, by themselves, are ecological nightmares. The majority of our wall-socket power is via coal or other equally ecoterrorizing sources. Their battery packs are highly poisonous, and gigantic on normal electric vehicles. GM's even spending a good portion of its money on hydrogen powered cars, which don't create any CO2.
Even though there are some concerns about the source of hydrogen, you can 'cook' oil and extract it from there, without combustion.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
As can already be read in the article, the success or failure of cars like this is not dependent on technical or marketing issues, but only on local regulations and taxes. And these tend to cycle every couple of years with the change of government after an election.
Years ago, one could run a car here on liquid propane gas. There was nearly no tax on that, basically because of a loophole in the regulations. Those cars were quite clean when compared to gasoline fueled cars. And on gasoline fuel there was quite some tax.
Of course, this did not last forever. The time came that LPG was taxed as well, and gone was the advantage for the average driver. So gone were the cars running on LPG as well. Fortunately the gasoline fueled cars have become cleaner as well, otherwise this would have had quite some impact on the environment.
It seems the same is happening with the EV1. Being phased out even while it has many advantages.
And asssuming an electrical system which is twice as good as the theoretical best case.
My university engineering department were doing some work on a hybrid car.
It was their experience that a pure electric car is very inefficient; for example it's not good at low-speed acceleration. But a combination electric/chemical power system with an intelligent control system allows you to reach very high effiency levels.
The car does indeed use retarders to recharge its batteries when braking, but the majority of battery charging comes from other sources. Besides, retarders radically drop in efficiency as speed falls, so they still have conventional brakes as well.
Nuclear
As long as we're burning fossil fuels to generate power, all an electric car does is move the pollution somewhere else. Just think about it:
Gas car: Chemical energy -> kinetic energy
Electric car: Chemical energy -> kinetic -> electrical -> long distance transmission (power lines) -> chemical (batteries) -> electrical -> kinetic
In the end, you get sucky performance for a couple times the energy cost. The idea of an electric car is utterly absurd, and I can't understand why it happened at all.
Maybe after get serious about cheap, clean nuclear power, and we make some major breakthroughs in batteries, the electric car can happen.
From the article "GM said(in an ad) :Electric cars are finally here" (apprximately)
Electric cars have come and gone through the decades, common in early 20th century. Went out with the Model T and made a comeback in WW2 time, along with wood burning cars, coal burners and the like.
Then GM introduces this one and then take it back out again
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
What makes me look twice is that the government implemented a standard that goes right against the two major electric car makers in America. I think that there might have been some dirty (think oily) outside influence in the decision.
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
The USA Govt is the evil empire, having surpassed Bill Gates. USA NOT OK.
I've heard a lot in this thread about how electric is a good, clean, cheap energy source etc.etc.etc. Then I read a post which said how the electricity is produced by coal, gas, etc.-burning stations. Perfectly correct. That's where the majority of all our energy on Earth comes from. Then someone flamed them for not thinking about renewable, e.g. solar, wind, wave.
The CHEMICAL and ENGINEERING power costs of making the plastics and metals, the chemicals in batteries, damn, even the wires means that we would use up most of what remains of our (i.e. the world's) oil supplies just building enough "renewable energy" equipment to keep us going for a few years.
We've got, maybe, far less than 75 years of oil left. That means we have about 50 years to become totally dependent on renewable sources, enough for us to use them to produce everything we know and use today.
I have a close friend, who's got more degrees, PhD's and Doctorates than I've had hot dinners and he was the first to show me the figures and open my eyes to this. How do you build and maintain a wind farm of giant metal and plastic structures without oil, coal and gas to power the factories and foundries? It's EXTREMELY difficult.
This is why the scientists are worrying. It's no longer just a matter of "Hey, let's just switch to solar." The manufacturing and maintenance power-cost of anything new is phenomenally expensive if we've got no fossil fuel left to make the damn things and keep them running.
You needed 80 jiggawatts of power to properly fuel the flux capacitator!
... IMHO.
An electric engine for the city and one of the new, very efficient diesel engine otherwise. My Audi A2 TDI runs around 50 mpq (4,5 l/100 km), which is quite good.
Remember that electricity is not emission free unless it's solar power/wind or water. Emissions are just made somewhere else.
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
With the US about to secure more Oil there's no need to replace the combustion engine.
Seems GM is switching their attention to Hydrogen, according to an article about a week ago. That could explain this move too.
Where I work, we have a fleet of electric cars. Although they leave a lot to be desired as a solution to the general transportation/energy problems of the world, they do have their advantages in some situations. From our perspective, the lack of emissions make them ideal for transporting canisters and employees around the underground passageways, where proper ventilation of exhaust fumes would be almost impossible, and at least economically unfeasible. A monorail system is an alternative, which has been used by some of our competitors, but monorails just don't have the flexibiltiy. I know some people will go on about electricity coming from fossil fuels, etc, but in our case we have our own geothermal plant tapped into the nearby volcanic core. (I'm not really supposed to talk about this, but one of our latest projects requires huge amounts of power ;-) The lack of noise can also be a benefit, especially for security applications - you can hear an engine comming a mile off.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
They blew up things like water desalination plants in the first Gulf War...maybe not directly at civillians, but the aftermath detrimented thousands. And the depleted uranium tiped missiles are still giving people cancer. Don't give me your brainwashed patriotic bullshit.
First and foremost.. I'm not bashing michael.. but the foreshadowing "With Ford also cancelling their electric vehicle program, looks like hybrids are it for the next few years" is unnecessary.. here's why..
:-P
An official letter from GMATV explaining that the charger conversion efforts funded by GM have been terminated due to the CARB decision to standardize on conductive charging. Click on the pages at left to read the letter from GMATV - Torrance Operations.
Ok.. so it's being standardized.. nothing wrong with that.. parallel ports are standardized.. so are serial ports.. it doesn't get simpler than that..
Now, back tracking to the Ford TH!NK article..
General Information
Why is Ford discontinuing TH!NK products?
As part of its continuing efforts to develop advanced vehicle technologies, Ford Motor Company has decided to concentrate its resources on the development of hybrid and fuel-cell technology.
Right, no ELECTRICAL cars.. but they will still be concentrating on developing HYBRID and FUEL-CELL cars..
So.. in conclusion.. NO.. the plug is NOT being pulled on Hybrid cars.. from my own personal standpoint.. I believe.. once we full utilize production and strengthen the abilities and features that hybrid cars and fuel cell cars.. we will concentrate on electrical cars..
And by we.. I'm talking about the car manufacturers, of course
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
Anybody bother to check the dates on those letters?
This is all so like LAST YEAR!
As in 'Who do we bomb if we need more batteries?' and 'What if evil terrorist overlord Magneto gains control of our dry cells?'. Not to mention the right-wing abhorrence of a transport market based on acid and piles.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
How come these hybrid/electric cars are always almost identical in appearance (the sloping/tapering rear end, and covered rear wheel)? They would probably be easier to market if they looked like normal cars. Is this design to maximize the efficiency by minimizing the air resistance? This makes sense, but I mean how much resistance can this really eliminate? And if it IS a significant difference, then why do they only do it to the hybrid/electric cars? Wouldn't they want to do this on ALL cars, even those powered by gasoline/diesel? Thereby making ALL cars more efficient...
Karma Karma Karma Karma Karmachameleon...
If at first you don't succeed... How does that go again? Ah, forget it.
I saw him give a talk about his career and in passing he mentioned that he was using one of these and that he was very irritated that they were taking his electric car back merely to destroy it.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
and our dependence towards terrorist countries continues...
So what kind of benefits does an evil henchman get? I hope they cover funeral expenses & danger pay, you guys seem awfully expendable.
Yes, that would include the cost of the pollution generated by using fosil fuels.
Yes, that would include the cost of a war over oil.
Prices of $1000,-/liter anyone?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
"February 7, 2002
EV1 Lessees:
I want to update you..."
Gee, this letter's a little over a year old...must have been sitting in Slashdot's inbox for quite a while. Let's just hope there's not a dupe posted in a couple of days.
I've just bought an electric car!
PLEASE, what should I do with my LIFE ??!
General Motors is investing $1 billion a year in R&D for hydrogen cars. Quite frankly, they're beating everybody else that I'm aware of so freaking badly in the post-gasoline initiatives sector right now the last thing I'm going to do is sit there and criticize them. If canceling the EV1 helps get that hydrogen-powered skateboard out there to the public that much sooner, then I wish they'd pulled it earlier. Of course, I don't own one so this is easy for me to say.
The first one is pollution. This is very serious to us as people.
The second is that oil isn't distributed fairly around the world. Some countries have it, others don't. This leads to a number of problems, everything from religious, economical, to practical.
Why not look into making alternative fuels that you can produce locally? We can, for instance, grow a hell of a lot more crop in Europe than we need for food. There are a number of plants that can produce oils that can be refined and used in disel engines, and they pollute less than fossile oil already.
What is needed is that companies like GM invests $1 billion in alternative fuels and make the production much much more effective and the engines more clean/effective with the new types of fuels. This is far more realistic than electrical cars is today.
Fusion could of course change this in a heartbeat. But although we (humans) should persuade this scientifically we shouldn't base our economy on it quite yet, thank you very much.
But imagine cars that you wouldn't have to fuel, were totally clean, and I am sure a lot of people would be happy;) We can simply start chaning models much more often instead.
Now, that the president of the USA has shown that he is doing everything to get cheap oil, who needs an electric car?
...I really wanted a car with a name so close to "Evil". I guess it's back to building my Evil-Mobile out of sugar crates and matchsticks. Fnaarr.
fcuk the cars wheres my personal jet pack.
forget the argument and rise above it
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Will this push back the hydrogen powered cars as well?
Makes more sense than fully electric/battery or a pure hydrogen fuel cell car.
You have the benefit of making use of the existing fuel infrastructure and storage isn't a problem, at the pump or in the car. It takes no longer to fill up/charge than it does at the moment for internal combustion powered vehicles.
It can be manufactured from biomass, fossil fuel or even directly from the CO2 in the air plus water if you're willing to put enough energy in.
Most of the reformers which can convert methanol can also convert existing fossil fuels as well, so you can fill up at any fuel station. Not that there aren't issues with using existing fossil fuels.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
His Former Ex? Was he dating Reagan before of after he hooked up with Satan?
Lets see GM market that!
The EV cars don't offer a lot of promise for replacing gas guzzling SUV's. The American consumer has spoken. The car companies need to chase down a way to make SUV's guzzle less gas.
The most immediate way to do that is borrowing concepts from the successful examples of hybrid cars that are out there today.
The next most immediate way to do that would logically be to use a hybrid turbo diesel / electric setup. But in the United States there is a strong stigma against diesel, even though they really are the stinky noisy black smoke belching garbage truck engines they were 25 years ago.
I used to own a 1959 Mercedes Benz 190D. That car sounded like a garbage truck, and woke all the neighbors up when it started. It was slow, and it smelled bad despite being in perfectly restored condition. That, my friends, is what most Americans think of when you say "diesel".
A friend of mine recently bought a brand new Volkwagen Jetta TDI and I must say diesel has come a long way, with a lot of props going to VW engineers. The TDI is quiet and smooth, odorless and relatively powerful. If I could get that in something made for taller men and larger families like a Crown Victoria I would be so happy.
The EV1 was a curiosity and a dead end. Range was short, charging options were very limited and there wasn't much promise for great improvements in the technology in the future. The car was relatively high maintenance (replace all the batteries every few years... wow that is expensive), and had to be parked somewhere with a specialized charging station because you can't fill up at the local Citgo. Also the range was impractical for most Americans who have a long commute to work and must make many side trips on the way home. It doesn't make sense for GM to continue dumping money into a dead end project. Let's see them move on aggressively to something more practical, please.
However, I must point out that the economic adjustment of which you speak may not be so painless as you imply. Ask the former residents of Easter Island what happens when you run out of an important resource (in their case, lumber) :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Hey everyone who is debating about "demand for cars" and cost of this or that, did you read GMs explanation to EV1 drivers? They said that CARB has decided that any car that doesn't use a conductive charging (rather than inductive) won't qualify as zero emissions. Since Toyota and GM both use inductive charging, they'll be dropping the cars. They are basically really upset that California decided to screw them like this so that they'd have to complete redesign the chargers on the cars and refueling stations, (very very expensive) so GM is saying "screw you too."
I don't personally understand it. Does anyone know why inductive charging shouldn't qualify for zero emmissions?
This is SO educational! -- Kintaro Oe
Wow, these guys must be pretty dumb then. If an electric motor is good at anything, it is acceleration. An electric motor has its highest torque at zero rpm. Do a Google search for electric dragsters and you'll find some neat stuff, e.g. like this.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Why do we need electric cars anyway? They may have been needed in the mid-90s, when GM first came out with the EV1. But now, we don't need to worry about advanced technologies like electric or combo gas/electric cars!
With the invasion of Iraq we'll be able to drive our huge gas-guzzeling SUVs all we want! And if we put our SUVs into 4WD, we might be able to make it over the mounds of dead Iraqis and GIs which will be killed in George's war...
and all I will say is that I am glad that the electric vehicle has been revoked.
Not only are batteries a danger to our environment they are made with toxic materials that harm our environment. Yes you can go on about as much as 90% of a battery is recyclible but its not a solid fix to the problem.
My opinion is that in 5 years time is should be law that all the car companies in the world must provide a demo of a car running on hydrogen. You think its not possible? Well the technology is already here, its just that all the oil companies run the show (similar the ciggarette companies).
Too bad noone gives a damn about anything except their buttom line and short term balance sheet until its too late.
Future Energies carried this article 2nd September last year. It has a few more details and links.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
While it does not create the air pollution that fossil fuels do, the damage it does to the river ecosystem disqualifies it.
And don't even get me started on nuclear power...
Apparently all of the user groups that got to try out the EV1 are begging to keep their cars and offered to maintain them all themselves.
It seems GM and Ford pulled out largely so that they could focus on the fuel cell race that is going on right now. GM swears they will be first out, and Ford of course swears that they will win.
Last I heard, GM is in the lead.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Seems to me that electric cars make more sense for Europe and Japan. Can anyone from Europe or Japan confirm or confront my specualtions?
Less is more !
One of the reasons we don't see more electric cars or hydrogen cars is the distinct lack of dollar signs, isn't it? I think deep down inside, even the most self centered people would like to see the environment cleaned up... just so long as there is no effort required on their part.
It's very easy to look at the situation and either dismiss it as not your problem or not worth the potential effort. The only way to get around this is to make it profitable.
Think of it this way, what do you think is more effective for recycling: 1) Totally Volentary Recycling, 2) Depoit Based Recycling (ie getting money back), or 3) Fines if you don't Recycling.
I'm willing to bet number one is the least effective. So how do you go about making it worth the car companies while to invest and properly support such things?
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
charging batteries erupt in FLAMES!(And kill some people).
Worse, the liabilities for maimed family members burned in car battery charging fires (these cars light on fire frequently in garrages) are staggering.
Jury awards could top 25 to 40 million if anyone is injured in a burning home.
Worse the batteries are HIDDEN all over the car and are not easily user serviced to prevent fires by inspection.
All of these cars are timebombs waiting to go off and their batteries quickly age and are not coverred by legitimate warrantees.
And they accelerate poorly and are highway death-traps and were never LEGITIMATELY for sale for us currency.
You had to be a green-loving person of high income and could lease them.
socialism at its worst. C.A.F.E. federal standards are a joke.
Until nuclear energy is common as in France using one blueprint for over 50 plants, as in france, electric cars are a pathetic joke.
I predicted this would happena nd used to boast to everyone that it would... even in california who now must get them from asia.
long live capitalism! death to firetraps!
Recently, I did a research report on the threat of global warming to the Earth. After digging very deep into the issue, and studying all the data, I've come a conclusion that many scientists share. Global Warming is normal. It is a standard part of the Earth's temperature fluctuation. Granted, we have increased levels of greenhouse gases, and helped to prolong this period of warming. This is not necessarily bad. The small amount by which we have increased the global average temperature, is not the end of the world that the ignorant media portrays. The end of the world will be when the next ice age, or glacial period hits. This could happen within the next 100 years. What may save us from this fate, are our "atmosphere damaging" gases. (Of course, I'm not saying pollution is a good thing, I'm purely talking about the warming effect of these gases.)
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
But you have to understand the potential energy of a hydrocarbon molecule.
What we have now is like screaming down the highway in a 3 litre V8, getting out and then asking the same of an electric car. And to boot, that hydrocarbon car isn't even very efficient.
What we need is a car that will compare to that of one driven by hydrocarbons, but only cleaner. Seems to me, a more effiecient Hydrogen car or even a hybred for new is better then pure electric.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Ok ... i kick myself for this one.
JOS
Wouldn't it be nice if they GPL all the technology the EV1 has? At least the electric engines were supposed to be great...
Los Angeles did make an effort to encourage people to buy electric cars- reserved parking with free charging, special lanes on the highway,... Imagine if LA made electric cars available via a Zipcar program? That could have been their public transportation solution. Much more practical than a subway too.
I drive a VW Jetta TDi car, that is, a Diesel car. I can get 50mpg on highway driving at normal speed.
:)
When speeding (I've done 115mph and there was some more left) and doing mostly city traffic I go down to only 44 mpg.
In Germany they have the VW Lupo, a car that gets ~80mpg. And also the bigger sedan VW Passat TDi, with ~45 mpg IIRC.
Now, those cars need zero modifications to use BioDiesel fuel. BioDiesel is vegetal oil. Nothing else could be more ecology-friendly. And, if needed, you can mixe it with regular petro-diesel, for older engines.
Now, Diesel fuel used here in the US are waaaay too dirty (this is what kills Diesel cars in the US when you look at EPA statistics). There are some laws in place to reduce pollutants in US Diesel to European/Japan levels (1/100th of current sulphur contents).
Also, my car drives like a sports car: very nice handling (corners, break...), it has side aribags and all kind of safety features... and I have to really try to drive it under 85 mph, 'cause it wants to go fast.
Then, the Wagon version has about the same cargo room as a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Good for soccer moms...or for carrying those plasma TVs and huge monitors for our computers
I say that current technology (Diesel/BioDiesel) is good to reduce pollutants and fuel consumption. In Europe, Diesel represent more than 50% of total new car sells.
The US has lots of land. The tobacco industry s looking for a replacement... Maybe all can go to soy for BioDiesel (or similar crops). This way we decrease our dependency of foreing oil, decrease pollutants in the air, provide a good income to our farmers (the new "bio-oil industry") and Detroit has a new field to innovate and generate new jobs. And Diesel engines last 200,000 - 400,000 miles. Not bad.
What do you all think?
--there's such a thing as going overboard to extremes. over-concentrating electrical generational facilities produce less points of failure that mean when they DO fail they affect a lot more people, cause a lot more damage. It's a security issue. It's also a cost issue. Business scandals, political manipulation, insider trading, etc have NOT gone away. What is happening is with each new scandal uncovered, the crooks see where they failed, and refine their techniques so as to not get caught next time. I don't think you can ignore this issue. Big whopper piles of money, as represented by centralised energy, seem to always attract very big crooks. Same as any other "big" business especially when it's one of those quasi public/private hybrid industries that the utilities represent, ie "legal monopolies".
I'm not giving up my home PV unit. The grid has gone out a lot where I live since I've been living here, I keep my power. Kinda nifty. It's like the olden days with only a few mainframes, you willing to give up your own computer? How about mass transit, you willing to accept only mass transit for everywhere you go, or can you see the practicality of individual cars? Food, a few whopper farms, or millions of farms and gardens? It's like do you REALLY want to put all your eggs in one basket with energy?
Back to PV, I am always wondering how much better it would be if virtually every sunny side rooftop in the US was covered in panels now. Maybe actually put a lot of the manufacturing guys back to work, re-open some more plants, build them by the millions instead of thousands. The space exists on these roofs and now is composed of shingles that get hot, and that's it. How much electric do you get from that? And what might happen to the cost if millions more were in market demand? Would the R&D and the manufacturing advances result in better and cheaper? I am guessing it would, seems to work for everything else.
I hate to sound like a guy with a tin-foil hat...but until the conspiricy of Prez George Bush(s)+big oil+detroit is broken, look for bigger SUVs.
But when it is broken...we first of all should look to hybrid cars to bridge us out of the oil economy for transportation...and then into either a fuelcell or high-effiency battery technology (or maybe both). And we have to look at transitioning over a period of 30 or so years to give the fuel cell and battery people time to *really* do research and create the technology we will need for these types of machines and infrastructure.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
California had a mandate that all major manufacturers sell at least some percentage of zero-emission vehicles. The original deadline was 1998, I think, and it got postponed. Will GM's move help kill the mandate? Or will California shut GM out of its market?
Many vehicles, including the EV1, currently use the Inductive charging system, which utilizes no electrical contact (for safety reasons) between the charger and the vehicle, but rather a inductive magnetic coupling.
Inductive charging technique may be inherintly safe, but there are ways to make conductive charging just as safe. You just have to design the safety around it. Nice thing about inductive is that you can charge safely even when you submerged underwater (that is what it was designed for in the first place - submarines). They were also talking about driving over spot in your garage so you can recharge your batteries inductively without getting out of your car! The real drawback to inductive charging is PATENTS. Conductive charging can be implemented by anybody who figured out how flashlights work. Inductive charging also may lose energy to the surroundings as RF.
I sure hope they recycle all those batteries somehow.
Remember, this recall comes from a company that was boneheaded enough to name their hybrid car "Impact."
....I never got a chance to drive an EV1, but they were small like the Insight. Whether youre trying to save some money or put your effort into the environment, the Hybrids are a good deal. If you buy a new untitled Hybrid, you're elligible for tax incentives as well. I bought my Insight (70MPG) used and love it for around town and what traveling I do on highway. It beats the 15MPG my SUV gets which I'll have to hold onto for towing and snow.
http://www.insightcentral.net
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
If you're saying that the electric car model inherently has poor acceleration, you are wrong. They are capable of faster acceleration than any internal combustion engine. I just don't think they're very practical yet.
I really do think it's time the US has 70% taxation on fuel, and make the majority of the population drive 2 litre engined cars. Rather like Europe. That's why France don't need a war just yet.
Maybe this is because GM is going to focus on Hydrogen fuel instead of electric cars. Other car companies doing the same thing (like BMW... can't wait for that).
This may also have something to do with President Bush pushing for research funding for hydrogen fueled cars.
Electric just doesn't have the power or range of gasoline powered cars. I think everyone is begining to realize that and hydrogen seems to be the best of both worlds, powerful yet environmentally friendly. Oh, and not dependent on dead dinosaurs.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
I wonder if they're ramping up the AUTOnomy project ahead of schedule. If they're planning to get their hydrogen vehicle off the blocks and on the road in the next few years, they might not want to confuse the issue by having it compared to the EVI. I can't think of another reason for having the cars destroyed rather than just sold.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
... that Homer Simpson belonged to for a short time.. The Stonecutters.
"Who holds back the electric car? We do! We do!..."
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Given what little pure science originates from the automakers, the applied science that leads to innovation must be conceivably executable in the near future.
EV may have represented applied science in the future, but hybrid is exactly what the preview says, 'where it's at'.
Automakers are better suited to applying applied tech to other factors that improve economy/utility/resale value such as better interiors, value added tech such as Onstar and improvements in plastics, paint, aerodynamics, and security.
The current economic situation does not help either.
Projects such as pure EV need to justify themselves. This program can be gutted and abandoned completely and restarted for a nominal cost if it should prove feasable in 10-15 years.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
All the car companies wanted their technologies to be the one every other company used in the new machines. That way they could collect on patents or at least control the direction of the market.
BUT theese 2 lost the battle for comformity. All the others car companies joined forces to make fuel cells. Which means if theese 2 also went with fuel cells then they could get cheeper mass produced parts all the fuel cell cars had in common.
conspiracy theory start
I wouldn't be suprised if the president, chemical companies, and oil companies didn't have something to do with this choice. It keeps us going to a station to buy 'fuel'. Since electric cars eliminated MUCH of the need for theese company's products and the services gas stations provide lots of jobs would be 'lost'. And lots of companies would have to change the way they do business. And we all know how hard financial groups can fight.
conspiracy theory end
There are no electric energy storage devices with a high enough energy density to make EVs practical. You get something like 100 miles per charge. Not only is that not far enough (in America anyway) but then you can't charge them nearly as fast as dumping in gas. Detroit has known this for a long time, but they kept trying anyway to satisfy regulations.
Honda has a real Fuel Cell *not hybrid* vehicle.
http://www.hondacorporate.com/fcx/
Consider updating the teaser.
As soon as Congress starts talking about regulating SUVs again...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
(1) it would also be a huge profit maker for US power plants
(2)would help move people from dependance on foreign oil
(3)would keep the profits in the US.
I am still trying to figure out why American electric companies aren't all behind electric cars.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
The title says it all.
Toyota and Honda both have hydrogen powered cars available for leasing, and as I'm aware the Los Angeles city has a lease on 5 Honda FCXs, and another UC Davis has a lease on a Toyota Highlander... sure... it's not much but it's a start.
The cars are here, but the problem is (and for all you business type people out there, you should jump on this like a fat kid on a smartie) we need hydrogen "Gas" stations. There's a few in .ca.us to suit the needs of those few leases, but shit, it's a long drive to California to fuel up my car!
So, until there's wide support for a place to gas up, there's no support for the cars themselves.
Let the wild dog chase at it's tail until it finally catches it.
So, until then, buy a hybrid win a prize.
It's just Crap.
It was 1.21 niggawatts. Takes a lot of slave labor to power a flux capacitor.
and electric cars, hybrids and even fuel-cell cars may be the future (in one form or another) but I'm just politically incorrect enough to feel that there is NOTHING (right now or in the forseeable future) that would make me give up my Porsche :)
sad robot making broken music
looks like hybrids are it for the next few years
Not necessarily. Honda has the Civic Si which runs off of natural gas. Think it would be hard to find a filling station? For $1000 you can retrofit your gasline to be a pump. Pretty cool if you ask me. I especially like Honda saying that the exhaust from the car is cleaner than ambient air in some cities. Kinda disturbing.
Case
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
About 70% of the energy in the power plant's fuel is lost to generation and distribution losses by the time it reaches the end-user in the form of electricity.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
In reality, if you want more energy, you stick a hole is Saudi Arabia, who spends $2/barrel to extract it, put it on a boat to the US, and stick it in a plant.
While some of our energy comes from other sources (coal, nuclear, hydropower, etc.), the variable sources of energy are oil based. The reason we can't get alternative energy is because oil is SO cheap and plentiful. Sure, the current "cheap oil" will run out in 20 years (it will ALWAYS run out in 20 years, that's how you extract oil), the newer technology expands the amount of oil that we can get cheaply.
Now, oil power plants can/should be more efficient ways to get energy from oil than cars are... however the amount of increase is the problem. Are power plants 20% more efficient? 50% more efficient? 100% more efficient? What about getting the power from point A to point B?
Your point about upgrading missing something. Power plants are operated for a LONG time. Taking one down for an upgrade is expensive and reduces power output... you can't do it unless there is a lot of spare electricity. And given the desire to not build extra plants, there isn't a lot of spare. As a result, plants are upgraded less frequently that you'd desire.
Cars on the other hand, are in service for between 10 and 20 years (sure exceptions on each side, but I'd say that the average car is probably in use for 10-12 years). This is a guess, maybe I'm over/underestimating how long cars are used. However, that process of replacing cars frequently means that they ARE upgraded regularly. Once you have a new way of converting gasoline to energy (say, reducing gas use by 20%), within 3 years, a LOT of cars have that in place, and within 5 years, at least half of the cars on the road have it.
Compare that to power plants, where you need a massive change to take them down, and new ones aren't that common.
Will a power plant shut down for 6 months for a 5% increase in efficiency? Will all new GM owners get the new generation capacity if it happens to be in the hood of their car when they buy it?
Alex
I don't know for sure, but probably some genius in the Cal State government thought "Hey, induction uses a magnetic field. That's an emission!"
It's very probable. I live in California, and the voters here send the stupidest, sack of s*** mother-effers that you have ever seen in your life into office. I am talking about the lowest form of scumbag life you have ever seen. This current governor and legislature anally raped the largest budget surplus into the largest deficit in just two years. If you ever wanted to know the harm Democrats can cause when unfettered, come on out to California.
In the North you have the final outpost of the Hippie movement, and in the South you have all the illegals looking for benefits. In the Center of it all is a vast pile of desperate, attention seeking lunatics who still think BDSM is a wild new thing and that anyone outside a few elderly folk in Iowa finds them shocking.
And then the absolute zero loser hypocrites (the politicians admonish people for their gas guzzling habits while the politicians themselves drive state subsidized SUVs and luxury cars) in office appoint people to these air and resource management boards that literally drive a practicing agnostic like me to use the word "evil" when describing them. One guy, Democrat Steve Peace, was basically the sole architect of the whole electricity crisis.
Peace's reward for causing one of the largest utility screwups of the century was to become one of Governor Gray Davis' power brokers and a lifestyle beyond the dreams of most here on /.
And the ignorant voters just eat it all up, bend over, spread their ass cheeks, and ask for another, please, sir.
Just a small part of the reason I tend to root for the asteroid.
But, hey, the weather's nice. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
Has anyone checked out the Ford Model U?
Article
Pictures
It's a political story. Death of the EV-1 is pure politics and economics. Patent politics. Market share politics. Regulor old government politics. As others have mentioned, GM was trying to forc their proprietary charger on people. GM was never really wanted the EV-1. The lease-only business model has been a bone of contention in the EV community for years. Leases suck. Most people want to own. It's no secret that GM set the EV-1 up to fall from day 1. End of story.
As for what the "best technology" for engines is, there isn't one. What's needed is for somebody to design a modular engine--think RAID for cars. Instead of one engine under the hoold that costs $5000, you need several easily removeable components under the hood that cost several hundred dollars. I'd like to see these components cost $200, but even $500 would be beneficial. Notice, I'm not talking about the actual tech of these components--I'm leaving that as a total abstraction for a very specific reason. Stop and think before you read the next paragraph.
Now think about your computer. A hot system can cost $3000, but none of the components in that system is more than $500, except maybe the monitor.
Computer tech is driven in part by the ability of geeks to swap inexpensive components out of their chassis and have them all interface together. Now imagine the same thing with cars:
Standard pressurized fuel system. Standard battery rack. Standard fuel to electricity converters. Standard exhaust bus. Standard computer monitoring and control interfaces.
Do that, and in no time at all you'll have dozens of companies striving to offer gasoline to hydrogen reformers that are just a little cheaper, or a little quiter, or a little more efficient. Geeks will be reprogramming their control units every other day, and RMS will be saying "GNU/Car", but that's about the only downside I can think of.
Something like this won't come from the incumbent manufacturers; certainly not in the US. Even the Asians are probably more interested in protecting the current business model--nobody wants their cars "cloned".
A revolution like this will have to come from someplace like North Carolina, where there are machine-shop workers, mechanics, and NASCAR techs who know how to build cars without "the man" getting in the way. A lot of NASCAR vehicles are losing sponsorship. There's nothing like unemployment to breed new ideas sometimes.
Regardless of who does this, it needs to be done. Only through interoperation of standard components can the automobile shake itself out of the ossified corporate tool inspired funk in which it is mired. Modular components could be the engine (no pun intended) of the next economic boom--but only if we can sneek them under the RADAR.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's a bit like accusing the Sierra Club of being influenced by Union Carbide.
You can find oil industry influence elsewhere, but the California Air Resources Board is well known for being one of the most radically environmentalist government agencies in the country. In general, if it screws big oil, CARB is happy; if it screws carmakers, CARB is even happier.
CARB is fully on the hybrid-vehicle bandwagon. CARB is so completely on this bandwagon that it has consistently refused to allow advanced European diesel technology (both from Euro carmakers and the European divisions of GM and Ford) into the state. This has created a financial disincentive to bring it into the US as a whole -- it makes the potential US market (with its fixed entry costs for safety redesign, certain emissions tweaks, etc.) smaller. CARB's stated reason is that allowing this intermediate step (which would cut fuel consumption ~30% per vehicle) would discourage further hybrid development.
I'm not sure why they decided to hose current electric vehicle development this way (although the pacemaker idea has some merit -- note the sign on the 7-Eleven door warning pacemaker wearers next time you walk in, and that's just for a microwave!). But I rather doubt CARB was influenced by the oil industry.
What Big Three has to realize is that their competitors, mainly Japanese car makers, are destroying them. Honda, Nissan and Mazda are cranking out cars with goobles of horsepower, leaving Detroit in the dust, literarly. The Japanese are feeding our love for big things, such as horsepower, which translates into quicker cars. I recently went car searching and did not look at one american car. Nothing in terms of performance and styling caught my eye from the American car market. I quick glance at any car ratings guide, and you'll rarely find an American made car in the top of its class...
SUV's however, I would not buy anything either than an American made model (Have owned 3 Jeeps, great SUV's). American's are leaders in this market (except for the british Land Rovers).
Ironic that a country who should be moving away from its dependency on foreigh oil has two of its leading automakers scrap electric cars and builds better gas guzzling SUV's than anyone else.
100% Insightful
I like the bit about spending a billion dollars. What they aren't telling you is most of the money came for the US Gov't. So we payed for GM to take a half assed approach to energy efficiant cars.
What's ironic is it's so short sighted. Every year the Toyota and Honda get that much further ahead. When I go car shopping I look for cars made in Japan. They are made better, and more fuel effient, and usually cheaper.
As several people have noted, the hybrid seems to be the way that auto manufacturers are going for "reduced emissions" vehicles.
At a recent "Engineers' Week" party, the local Toyota dealer had a couple of Prius available for inspection and demonstration. I was unimpressed. The drive system is overly complicated and 50 MPG is pathetic for a "reduced emissions" vehicle that has economy as its main selling point. Granted, it's better than 20-30 MPG I get in my eight-year-old Firebird, but it's not impressive. A ten-year-old Honda Civic or Geo Metro can do that, and they're pure gasoline!
This car has it right. The most efficient way to run an internal combustion engine is to have it operate at high manifold pressures and low RPMs: Wide Open Throttle. By using a 17 horsepower (12.7 kW) diesel tractor engine and a tall final drive ratio allows this car to get around town at 35 miles per hour while achieving 128 miles per gallon. Of course, it has a top speed of only 65 miles per hour.
If you read the letter that GM sent out to the owners you would see that it was sent a year ago. Electrics could make sense for alot of people, but the battery technology is not quite ready for Joe Consumer yet.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
11,000 trouble-free miles now. Great mileage. Roomy. Quiet. Clean. Comfortable. Decent sound system. Good cabin heat. And it fits a big fella like me; 6'3", #350.
Dog is my co-pilot.
How much energy is necessary to move it at 50 mph for 1 hour ? How much pollution generated the car during this our ? How much energy generate a small coal plent for this one hour ? how much polution ? Now how much car would you need to generate as much enegry ? How much polution would they egnerate in total ? Do you have calculated those data ? NO ? Too bad because you would have seen that due to the scale , car generate more pollution when scaled to the size of the coal plant. If electric powerplant are ecological nightmare, then oil car are door of doom. Final point : you can force the people to recycle the battery of a car.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This may also have something to do with President Bush pushing for research funding for hydrogen fueled cars.
Well, it does, but not directly. There's a lot of research money being handed out now for hydrogen fuel cells, and whether or not GM is getting some of this, they want to be seen as a player. Plus, GM owns (via patents) some significant fuel cell technology -- basically the most promising methods for storing hydrogen. So they're a player no matter what.
OTOH, GM doesn't have anything to gain by pushing battery powered vehicles. The only reason they were in it in the first place was because of the 10% zero emissions vehicle mandate by the state of CA, which has now been repealed.
GM is not interested in building electric cars -- they're in the internal combustion business, dammit. At this point, they'll do anything to keep them off the market, do whatever they can to make sure they're forgotten, and make whatever gestures they can to demonstrate they're not viable. Right now, this means harping on what a huge loss they took with the EV1, and actually sending the remaining EV1s to the crusher as their leases expire. You can check on this -- it's absolutely true.
Try this on and see if it's not about oil. I'm convinced now.
And what's this talk about keeping the Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil fields? Are you talking about conquest and empire-building? Some do want that -- Dick Cheney is a signer, for example -- but the first Gulf War was a war for liberation. Bush Sr. was a believer of noblesse oblige, not a megalomaniac.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
The point that you make could be straight from Big Oil's mouthpiece. There are many ways in which an electric car is more efficient than a gas car. A power plant is more efficient by far at turning chemical energy into kinetic energy than a car. An electric car is almost guaranteed to be smaller and more kinetic energy efficient than your Ford Executioner. When using electric cars, all the pollution comes from the power plant instead of from millions of little cars. You tell me, geeks of the world, which is easier to maintain and clean up? One big point, or millions of little points?
More important than any of those points, however, is that as long as people in power (like the board of GM) squash new technology, when the big oil runs out, replacement technology will be too immature. Only the rich will be able to afford oil OR solar/wind/your alternative of choice.
Look at it this way. The US is spending up to $200 billion to ensure that oil stays cheap for the next 10 years, maybe. We're only putting $17 billion, over the next 20 years, into researching practical fusion, and MUCH MUCH less into solar technology. You tell me, how far away is "cheap, clean nuclear power", and who's going to be sitting on that board?
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
Typical....
Batteries suck. Batteries are expensive to maintain. Batteries take up a lot of space in your electric vehicle.
Biodiesel is the way to go.
There is/was a legitimate technical reason for the inductive charger. Charging the car *quickly*, as in an hour or two instead of overnight, requires tremendous current. I don't remember the amount, but it's many times more than the 15A or so that a normal consumer power cord can deliver. Such large amounts of current require special equipment, which is expensive, and still dangerous for a non-electrician to be dealing with. Since it would cost just as much as an inductive system anyway, without even considering the safety/liability issues, it makes sense to just use the inductive system.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending GM. They were definately trying to make sure they got a piece of every bit of electric car action via their inductive charging patents and such. And there's nothing wrong with a normal household power cord if you have all night to charge the car. But for those quick charge stations in public parking lots, inductive charging was really the only way to go.
Let's say the war costs an astronomical amount of $500,000,000,000. Surely, Kicking Iraq's butt would be cheaper than that, but let's use that for now.
And let's say that is repaid, over a year (a very short amortization), by gasoline purchases only. You can extract 19.5 US gallons from a barrel of oil (the rest of the 44 gallons is for different products.) The United States consumes 18,920,000 Barrels of oil per day.
So, to pay for a really expensive war in a year, you'd have to add $3.71 to the price of every gallon of gas, or about $0.92 to every litre/quart (close enough to call the same)
As for the 'cost of pollution,' how, exactly, do you put a price on that? Do you propose to set up huge facilities to process the air, and remove the waste? Send up some huge ozone-repairing blimps to the south pole? Have complete remedition facilities on board every vehicle? All these things are feasible, but certainly would drive prices no where near the vicinity of $1000/liter.
And where do we draw the line between sucking out our own pollution, and undoing nature's own work? Certainly natural cycles have had a much greater impact on weather thousands and millions of years ago (contiunuing today) than any human activities could hope to attain. Can our activities affect the weather? Certainly, especially locally.
More realistically, if the war cost half as much, and the cost was spread out over 10 years over all oil products, the added cost would be well within normal price fluctuations, Even with your 'cost of pollution' fantasy construct.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Your friend doesn't seem to have a PhD in lifecycle analysis. Doing the maths for a wind turbine, you get to an energy payback time of 2-3 months. Photovoltaics is more (some years nowadays, but I don't have a ref handy). For wind, look here: windpower.dk
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
This is all really old news -- months and months. Those interested in this stuff should read EV World.
Ten years and OVER A BILLION DOLLARS??? If that's what it takes GM to develop a simple DC drive system, the stockholders of GM need to rethink their investment! That figure is more likely to be what they want to try and write off their corprate tax returns!
Anyone who has ever turned a wrench on an electric golf cart could design an electric car. As far as charging the vehicle, who gives a damn how it's done?! Plug it in or park next to the charger. Pick the LEAST expensive technology and go with it.
The problem with the electric cars is that you can't turn a big ass SUV into an electric car. Ford and GM are interested in PROFITS, not ecology. If they have to devote parts of their assembly lines to a niche vehicle, that takes up resources from their SUV lines.
And for the record, I drive a big-ass Ford Bronco with big tires and a lift kit.... I have nothing at all against SUV's and their drivers. But I'm getting damn tired of this country relying on foreign oil. Electric cars may not totally be the answer, but they are at least a step toward the solution. I'd drive one to/from work if I could buy one. Then keep my Bronco for trips, pulling my boat or camper, or hauling stuff from Home Depot. You know, like use the right tool for the job??! Cheaper and smaller for short trips, big and bulky when the job calls for it.
I always thought GM sucked, now they have confirmed it....
The number 1 problem of working in a cubicle - 23 power cords, 1 outlet...
I live in Europe too, and am pretty disturbed due the recent (or should I say steady and steep) rise of fuel prices. I have a car with a diesel engine and have to pay unbelievably big taxes too. With prices over abt. 1 euro per litre I think it just isn't even fair to further tax the darned thing.
And since here in Finland we also pay the same diesel taxes wether we used diesel or electricity I just can not understand how haven't people retaliated already. We need demonstrations, all over the world, the prices are too high, and as the availability of petrol becomes uncertain it'd be better to find other means of fueling up whether they were methane, buthane, natural gas, hydrogen, electricity or all of them they are already urgently needed. Not only because they are more energy efficient or cheaper, they also pollute less.
So here's my idea and proposition for all and everyone (anyone?) to get your hands on some energy efficient vehicles designs and specs, any sort of info ppl can get, learn, redesign and redistribute it to the public. Let's join an effort to build THE vehicle of the future, the 'GNUbile' and release it under the GPL so that anyone can recreate the fruits of our labour. And not just GM or Ford.
- Voice of Ambience -
- Voice of Ambience -
NIMBY.
Wanna know why California had a power crisis? They didn't want any big ugly evil powerplants anywhere near them...so they never built anymore.
I hear the Europeans really love nuclear power too.
The two real problem with current electric cars are electricty storage and charging times. Currently a the mass of the battery (both volume and weight) are restrictive to making a good electric car and since todays batteries aren't very good at holding much charge for long, you need a lot of them. This means that you need to frequently charge your batteries, but this takes ages. The ideal solution would be to swap out the batteries and exchange them for charged ones. Now I don't think that average Joe is going to find battery exchange points or fast charging facilities anywhere when doing the tour of their city. Even if you could swap out your batteries, are you going to trust the condition of the replacement ones?
All this is why Honda made the smarter move of going hybrid. Hybrid engines are cleaner and the combustion component is more efficient and cleaner than the average combustion engine, simply because it is easier to optimise an engine with a fixed RPM. It is always easier to evolve than to create a revolution, and technology should be designed taking this into account. Your average engineer might be able to understand some new mind blowing engineering concept, but we aren't all engineers, so we keep to out habits unless their is a good reason to change and any easy way to do it.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
When counting population SF is no different than any other metro area, the surrounding cities up to a certain distance (which fluctates) are included. It would make more sense to call it the "Bay Area" like our local news/people do but to the rest of the world it will probably always just be "San Francisco".
There are only 778k people in the city proper that live here. However during the day that number can peak over 1.2million (or at least it did in 2000; no telling now).
--- I do not moderate.
BioDiesel is vegetal oil. Nothing else could be more ecology-friendly.
I'll dispute that claim. Human powered vehicles (HPVs) are immensely more ecology-friendly than your vegetal[sic]-oil burning contraption. The energy that goes into manufacturing, servicing, repairing, and ultimately disposing of your monstrosity is also far greater than the equivalent required for an HPV. If you're scoffing at the very possibility of an HPV fitting into your lifestyle, it may also be time to look closely at your lifestyle choices.
An electric motor has its highest torque at zero rpm.
Perhaps you'd care to go into more detail as to how an electric motor produces ANY torque when it's NOT moving.
I want everyone to do something, everyone thinking the Honda Hybrid is the way to go. Go take a look at the fuel mileage. Now, take a look at the VW TDI-based cars. Look at that fuel mileage. Verrrryyy interesting. It would seem... like diesel.... gets better mileage! On top of that, if BioDiesel is used, you have a renewable resource that is better for the environment, and gets great mileage, all in a car that lasts longer! (typically, most diesels get 300k mi before anyone bothers to worry... just look at European taxis). For all the guys into biodiesel, we know better than to think a hybrid is the only way to go in alternative fuel sources. You can't forget about diesels. BioDiesel can be made from fresh oils (such as rapeseed oil), or from waste vegetable oil (WVO), which, btw Diners & Restuarants pay to have removed from their property. Plus, your exhaust smells like french fries! How can you go wrong? Read more here.
My husband and I leased an EV1 for three years. It was the best car we've ever driven: quiet, amazing acceleration, and zero emissions. (There isn't even a tailpipe.) We (and other drivers) sent money to GM asking them to extend the lease without a warranty, rather than crush the cars, and they said no. GM's claims that electric cars failed in the marketplace are false. EV1 drivers wanted to keep them, and there were many waitlisted would-be drivers who never got a car, despite GM's lack of advertising, etc. For much more information, see http://cleanup-gm.org.
Our primary car now is a Toyota Prius, which we've been happy with (except by comparison to the EV1). Driving around San Francisco and commuting over the Bay Bridge, often in bad traffic, I average 46 MPG, and it has lower emissions than other cars with internal combustion engines. It cost a little more ($22K) than an ordinary car, but I expect to recoup some of that with the tax deduction and lower fuel costs.
We recently assumed the lease on a Ford Th!nk City. As its maximum speed is about 55 MPH and range about 40 miles, neither my husband nor I can drive it to work. Instead, my husband drives it to the Caltrain station. We also drive it around town, where it can fit in tiny parking spots.
My points are:
- The EV1 was a great car. It was not pulled because of any deficiency or lack of demand.
- The only electric car available for lease for a little longer (Th!nk) is vastly inferior to the EV1 but still meets some people's needs.
- I was fortunate enough to get to lease electric cars because I was in the right place at the time. Many other people tried without success.
- While hybrids are better than ordinary cars, purely-electric cars have been designed and produced in ridiculously small quantities, not meeting consumer demand.
- If the government hadn't loosened its regulations, more people would be driving electric cars now or in the near future, and we'd be using less oil and polluting less. (Lest you dismiss all regulation as bad, consider the government's role in seatbelts, catalytic converters, and airbags.)
(And, yes, I know electricity needs to be produced somewhere. Internal-combustion engines are one of the dirtiest and least efficient methods, and spew most where populations are dense.)If this defines "the GM of the future, then GM doesn't have a future. Which, given everything in the economy today, sounds like a remarkably astute observation.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
>>Perhaps you'd care to go into more detail as to how an electric motor produces ANY torque when it's NOT moving.
Your thinking power
P=power
T=torque
r=moment arm
F= Force
w=angular velocity
T=Fr
P=Tw
If I grab hold of a lever and pull on it and it doesn't move I'm appling a force to it, and the lever has a lenght, this would be it's radius from it's pivot point, or mount. I'm not moving it but I am causing a torque about it. Now when I start moving it, and it revolves around it's pivot i'm still applying the torque as before, but now I have an angular velocity. Now there is an amount of power I am applying.
In theroy Electric motors can put out full torque at zero rpm. If I put a arm off the end of the motor and had it hitting a block, if the block required 500N of force to move it, but the motor only could produce 499Nm of torque and the arm was 1 meter long it would not move the block, but it would still be at full torque.
Now in reality do to efficencies and stuff motors don't always have so much torque at zero rpm, but the do still have massive amounts of low end torqu at very low speeds. This is why EV's can accel. so fast. Also one of the reasons electric motors are nice in machine apllications.
Ever wonder what REALLY caused the electricity "crisis"? These cars were priced out of the market by guess who? OIL COMPANIES!!! And, thanks to the market engineering of such firms as Enron, Dynergy and El Paso Oil the electric car received maybe the worst rap of any alternative vehicle on the market today.
...
To get a better understanding of this situation, perhaps we should ask President Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, former Chairman of the Board for GM. Or, perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, former CEO of oil company Halliburton, may have some insights. After all, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has absolutely nothing to do with how prices for electricity are set. Nor do they have any control over environmental planning concerns. By extension this means the Federal government has nothing to do with these big picture matters as we have all been told to believe.
Hell, California did everything it could to push progressive energy regulations AND to provide a cheap, reliable energy supply. (As I understand about 40 percent of power plant capacity was "down for repairs" during the "crisis".) California has had a great system as evidenced by the sheer concentration of energy-hungry high-tech companies here in the state.
GM on the other hand has done everything it could from day one to kill the electric car. This started with massive ineffecient design changes to the machines as originally conceived by the Caltech consortium that put them together. Then they lobbied and got deadlines pushed back. Then there was an electricity "crisis". Then they sued. NO WONDER THE EV1 DID NOT WORK OUT! This is just the ultimate conclusion to a big corporate CYA charade (well in case those crazy California politicians really don't get rid of the electric vehicle mandates).
Yes, there are people who have vested financial interests in seeing the electric car fail
You may have this all wrong. I'm an American, and I don't believe Bush is doing Iraq for oil. He's doing it for revenge. His Daddy, George I, messed up in the first Iraq war, so George II has to finish off Saddam because George I didn't. Got very little to do with oil, lots to do with finishing a job that Daddy didn't finish because he raised taxes and lost the election.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
i'm an electric car...
i cant go very fast or far...
and if you drive me, people will think you're gay
Here's my prediction on the matter - the rise of electric cars will come about just when we convert most laptops to run on fuel cells instead of batteries.
Mull that over carefully before responding...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
than San Francisco. Maybe they are counting San Jose/Silicon Valley as being part of the San Francisco metro area? If so, that's a very bad way of combining them.
1) Power plants are more efficient than your car engine (typically twice as efficient).
Yet power transmission is 50% efficient, and another 50% is lost charging the batteries. Net result - electric cars double the CO2 emissions.
Oh, but the emissions really stink!
Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenburg a star!? We do!!! We do!! Seems like the head honcho over at GM is a Stonecutter.. or a member of No Homers.
It still amazes me to this day that the governments of this world hasn't gotten its eyes up on this remarkable herb. Even Ford himself said in the beginning that he expected his engines to be run on fuel made of hemp, not on fossile fuels. Making use of fossile fuel is just totally ludicrous in this "enlightened" and technologically advanced world.
=-kiOwA-> EOF
The 'market forces' are already at work on this. There's been sufficient advancement in wind power over the last 20 years that the most recent generation wind farms are, in terms of cost per kw/hr of generation, directly competitive with fossil fuels. (To stave off obvious retorts, yes, that's only true in areas with sufficient prevailing winds--but there are some pretty big areas of the US that qualify and could power areas significant distances away.)
Generally I agree with your observations. I'm not of a particularly 'neoliberal' economic bent, but it's difficult to argue with basic economic common sense--for better and worse, mass market items are going to be made with and powered by the most cost-effective resources. Oil prices will rise over time and alternative sources to petroleum will become cheaper as technologies improve--and cheaper still when they can achieve sufficient volume. For most uses, eventually the recurring costs of petroleum will be higher than the costs of retooling to use a cheaper alternative.
All the options have pluses and minuses. Hydro seems to have the more mild minuses of our options.
Lesse, we have:
I've never understood why we can't just plug in our hybrid cars? The biggest problem with electric cars was range and time to charge. Why can't we just throw and extra battery into our hybrids, and give me an electric range of say 10-20 miles. This would be rediculous for a fully electric car, but for a hybrid, I could use fully electric mode to get me the first 10 miles, and the gas tank for the rest. I'm guessing that this would provide nearly all of the benefit of electric cars, with none of the drawbacks (except perhaps cost). Tell people that they can get a gas powered car they can dive cross country, but as long as they remain local, they never have to fill up again. Let me plug in when I get home, and to work, and I could use a lot less fuel. Throw a small, underpowered solar panel on top to provide a little extra effeciency. I can't wait until we see the first Hybrid with these kinds of features.
unless u r an aborigine whose ancestral lands r now flooded;-}
hey, let's flood the grand canyon...
Why should GM bother with a dinosaur like EV-1 when they have the next generation of electric vehicles going into preproduction testing?
I think you should look closely a time-out.
My lifestyle "choice" currently involves driving 100 miles per day to the only job I could find in the last 2 years so I can support my family.
I was a competitive mountain biker once and still ride regularly, so I'm no fat lazy American, either - I just can't get to work that way.
So keep your lifestyle judgements to yourself. Thanks.
They've designed it, they own the Patents.
Ironically...all of the liberals (you know who you are...the ones foaming at the mouth on Slashdot, not the sane and reasonable ones, however rare they may be) are trying to wield the issue in a funny way too. Blame it on Bush...blame it on cheap gas...tie the war on Iraq into it, and you've got a nice multifacited attack on people who have not a single fucking thing to do with it. The irony is, is that it's regulations in what is most likely the most liberal state that is causing the fucking problem that they are trying to pin onto the conservative.
Hey California...wanna know why your gas costs a little more? There are regulations on that as well...that the other states don't need. Don't let that stop you from blaming the administration though...
Oh yeah...also, California - know why you had a power crisis? You NIMBY'd every powerplant idea for 30 fucking years and then wondered why you ran out of it. Umm...hello? I don't have a PhD from Berkley - but I see the fucking problem easily enough. Why don't you?
Let's face it, no American really wants a light-weight, low horse-powered electric car. We all want to have the baddest car possible.
Of course, when we pay $1.70 at a gas pump we start to see the value in an electric car. But what we need is more effecient gasoline powered engines. I've heard rumors that they could develop engines that get 100 miles per gallon, but oil companies just won't let them do it. Can anyone confirm?
There's no place like ~/
It's simple really: standardization. The CARB decided that having a single standard for charging stations was more important than maintaining "backward compatibility" with existing vehicles.
As for why they chose conductive chargers, here's some information:
A CARB staff paper on charger infrastructure
The official regulatory statement of reasons for why they chose conductive, including rebuttals to various statements by interested parties.
IIRC, this is how deisel locomotives operate. Big f-off electric motors driven by deisel engines.
The engines are allowed to run at their most efficient, and economical, RPM. The motors have great torque at low RPMs, on a logarithmic scale as I recall. Great for getting heavy loads moving.
Anyone here work on these? I'd love to hear some specs from the field.
It is strange that they announced this at a time when the price of gasoline at the pump is so high. Why wouldn't they have kept their mouths shut for a while longer?
He Schutze, He Scores!
I've seen them and there are many more than you'd imagnine. Replicans are an evil lot whose purpose in life is to produce Replicants! just GOOGLE for replicans and you'll get 10 pages, how that for proof?
We need to line our hats with aluminum foil to keep out the magnetic waves they produce(the replicants), no wonder GM is pulling the EV1, inductivly coupled charging mechanism just think of all the magnetic waves these thing must produce! Much better to use a normal plug to charge it who cares if the cars blow-up in the car wash from shorting out and if a toodler sticks a metal fork in the plug and get electrocuted, well his mother should have just watched them better that's all.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You said:
"The market, with its greedy corporations and frugal consumers, will take care of the "oil problem" just fine by itself."
I wish we could believe that. In theory, rising prices should create an opportunity for other players with newer technology to compete and drive progress forward. In practice, Enron has shown us that in some cases a powerful corporation can hide information about how poorly a company is doing from the usual sources of information, and the management may be willing to go down with the ship as long as the golden parachute remains intact.
I think we have a responsibility to exert pressure on the corporations to take a longer term view. We can no longer rely on profitability as the sole governing factor.
Sorry CO2 is number four in greenhouse gases in strength, right behind number 3 water vapor; so you'd have to leave out the and part.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This should come as no suprise to anybody familiar with alternative fuel vechicles. GM lost huge amounts of money on every EV1 sold. The batteries for electric cars are outrageously expensive. In fact, I have a friend who's an engineer for Honda. When they were trying to design an electric car the joke was that the cheapest way to build it would be to go out and buy an EV1 and take its batteries.
--gas engines, or just personal motorized transpo? I'd say the bulk of the planet earth wants that. Most don't have it yet but that's the trends. ..when it comes to electrical power, actually, I DO think everyone, or to be more accurate, every building should generate some/most/all of their own power. I am totally against the way the grid electric monopoly is now. I am a big time personal preparedness/survivalist freak, it has too many advantages to it. There's too many reasons now to de centralise power,it served it's purpose but just like the "one" desktop OS it's time to move on, they are the same as long ago we decentralised computing and now everyone can have a computer, and the net is robust, and we aren't as critically vulnerable to a single virus taking it down from only having "one" OS. It's why taking away the long distance monopoly has (somewhat) worked, it's why having more than one car company works. I'm walking the walk on decentralised power, the advantages are clear to me. YOU don't control your power, and YOU got no control over weird political and economic events with centralised grid power.
Here's an open challenge I have thrown out over the entire time I have been on the web, whenever centralised power advocates challenge de centralised. I want to see ONE example where joe average can get a contract, for a bottom line price, carved in stone, for his "power", something that is guaranteed for like 10 or twenty years. It might exist, I don't know, but I've never seen an example of it. I HAVE seen examples and plenty of them where people's power bills went up drastically with little or no notice. And when peoples power does go out from the grid, it usually ain't at a convenient time like clear and sunny and 70 degrees out, nope, usually when the grid juice tanks is THE time you really want some power, it can actually get to the life threatening stages if you are up north and nothing works in your home because it's all dependent on electric to function and it's below zero out. Several years ago montreal came close when the ice storm hit there, a coupla big fires would have wiped that place out, right to the ground. that's the sort of real life real world threats over centralisation causes. it's not all "good", theres good and bad with both models, but de centralised gives ya a smidgen more fine tuning and tweaking and personal control. I like it. some do, some don't, but I am miffed that HUGE amounts of tax money and seizing peoples lands has gone into creating an extremely powerful monopoly industry, or near monopoly. I don't like that example of power politics corporatism. We HAD a robust and developing alternative decentralised energy market that was in full swing in the early days of the last century, if you research it you'll see what part power politics and creating a monopoly played in the whole way this "grid" centralised power thing came about.
You can get some of that independence and control with decentralised power, today, more of a guarantee of at least "some" power and having that %&^*(*^ bill paid OFF. Right this second, numerous places. You can't get it with bigelectro co. It's like hosting, you can get 2 9s to 4 or 5 9s, which is better? You can own or rent, which is better? Equity,or no equity?
I grow a lot of my own food, works good. Not all of it but a lot of it. If I had to go purchase that amount of organic chow I would somehow have to make an extra few thousand a year or more, plus live in some city where a market is that even sells it. That means to live in the city I would have to "make" even umpteen more thousands of dollars. I just plain don't like living where I would need 4 locks on the door, been there, done that. Phooie on that noise anymore, been there, done that, it ain't all it's cracked up to be. I can be 100% broke and I still got food and a ways to make more, this is a good deal to me. Same with power. Same with transpo. I took public transpo when I lived in town quite frequently,but that leaves 95% of the US landmass out though, we need cars and our public mass transit REALLY is this thing called "roads", because we are just all too different and got different things to do and to carry. so what else did we do? Take all the great rail systems we had, tear them up, violate the old deeds where theland should have reverted back to the real land owners, and put in restrictive "feel good" bike trails. Phooie, we should expanded the rails back to hauling more cargo, like it was designed for, and for hauling people. It was efficient, but now it isn't, because it leaves you stuck in a few large cities, again, not convenient for 95% of the land mass where people live. Humping anything more than a backpack gets to be a real pain on mass transit, I know, I've tried, sorta sucketh. I did the same with bicycles, I used to own a bike shop and was a two wheel fiend, but really, carrying cargo starts to be a pain in the tush. I just find that nowadays it gives me the willies to have to be forced to be dependent on all my critical systems that are filtered through large political and economic institutions. I don't trust them boys no more, they have proven to be lyin' weasels. I don't want anyone to be able to 100% control my water, my food, my power, I have to have at least some serious backups for all that stuff, if not total independece..
Too much weirdo crap going on in the world now for this boy. I got priorites, game machines and ski boats and trips to the "art" museum and watching large humans play with silly balls ain't high on the list right now.
drivers! It sounds like big oil is talking to them.
So I guess it's up to the underground again.
Hey all,
When I was doing my taxes I was asked (by quicken) if I had a electric or hybrid car. Does anyone know of the tax break you get when you have one of these cars?
If so, whats a good car that qualifies???
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
The average car owner won't even _consider_ an electric car until gas prices exceed $5/gal (which ought to be any day now).
Am I missing something?
The dates on the letters posted on that Web site, including the one about GM "pulling the plug," are from February 2002.
Breakfast served all day!
Uranium and plutonium!
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Since the american car companies have decided to not provide environmentally friendly vehicles, then I think we should boycott them. Why should they make money and not attempt to at least provide new ideas? Ford has backed out, and now GM has as well. I guess those two companies should be boycotted.
It's even worse when a company discontinues a car when people already own them. That's like a slap in the face to owners of the vehicles and also raises questions such as, can we get parts for our car?
Anyway, boycotting can be very effective, and if a boycott of GM and Ford were to occur, they would most likely continue these programs.
I have some knowlegde on trains. I have worked on series hybrid vehicles that work on the same basis of trains, only the vehicles have batterypacks where trains do not.
Your right trains are electric drive. And it's that low speed torque that alows them to get moving. I don't know the power rating for the motors though. The engine in them are normal a massive 2 cycle 16 cylinder diesel engine that puts out around 5000 hp at 1000 rpm. GE is the main maker of trains, with GM the second big maker. GE's website has a fair bit of info on them last time i looked.
GM is set to introduce car models based on their "Hy-Wire" platform in the 2004 timeframe.
Essentially, it has two new technologies. Hydrogen fuel powered ( fuel cell technology ) and the "Wire" part is an electronically controlled transmission system.
http://www.gm.com
Such as:
- "Weapons of Mass Destruction"
- "Used Gas on his Own People"
- "Al Quaeda Link"
- "Regime Change"
- "He tried to kill my dad"
- "It's not about oil"
and subliminally:
- "I love Rush Limbaugh"
- "Watch Fox News"
- "Stop Thinking"
Moron
Money spent on electricity, range, and diffivulty in finding recharging locations and planning distance trips almost require these cars to be owned by families with more than 1 car/driver who don't typically drive long distances.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
Where did you get your environmental degree - the Ronald Reagan School of the Environment? Remember those bad ol' polluting trees, and sunglasses and sunscreen as a solution for increased solar radiation? And don't get me started before I start ranting about those ketchup vegetables.
Yes, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but it is a self-regulating greenhouse gas. As water vapor increases more clouds form which reflect sunlight away from earth, lowering the amount of water evaported from the oceans, decreasing the amount of water vapor in the air.
Unfortunatly there is nothing self-regulating about CO2 produced by burning of fossil fuels. So don't try to cloud the issue by arguing that the earth pollutes itself so why should we worry about CO2.
You should also read Wired's article on the Hy-Wire, Popular Mechanics' article and How Stuff Works: GM Hy-Wire for more details.
California imports energy, because they won't let plants get built. Oil is used whenever there is a need to adjust the amount of energy. The base load is covered by the others, but when you make changes at the margin, it's oil.
And oil is the cheapest, which is why its a HUGE part of our energy. There is a lot of posturing for clean power, but oil is about 30% of it, and all the marginal capacity.
there is only one readily available solution ...
take oil crops (corn, soybeans) etc and produce biodiesel... The carbon that would be freed from combustion of such fuel would be carbon that had been in the atmosphere in the months/year before, not locked up in fossil fuels buried for millions of years... It isnt a win, but it isnt a lose.
(think of it as indirect solar energy...)
(and you can easily retrofit existing vehicles to use the stuff, just toss out natural rubber in favor of viton, and viola!)
I have difficulty overstating the effect of this revised assumption. If you assume that the batteries will be drained every day and they aren't, you'd have the great majority of your solar generation going to waste. You'd expect that to raise your costs ridiculously high, and sure enough, it would.
Another product of watt vs. watt-hour confusion? You appear to be assuming that the array would have to be able to recharge the vehicle in one hour . An 18 KW system, by your 0.21 capacity factor (42% over half the day) stated above, would produce 18 kw * 24 hr * 0.21 = 90.7 KWH/day. That is enough to charge about 4 and 4/5 18.7 KWH battery packs!Your unit errors above roughly quintuple the required investment, even granting your pessimistic assumptions about daily driving range.
A decent new car costs 20 grand; a cheap new car costs 12 grand. If I could supply all the energy for my typical daily commute with an additional investment of 4 grand and that investment lasted for 20 years, I think I could stand it quite easily. In many parts of the world, motor fuel is upwards of $5/gallon; at those prices, solar-electric might already be competitive. If global warming mitigation forces us to adopt carbon taxes or the like, it will be competitive everywhere.Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You
are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous
and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking
to conquer the world.
Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does
not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks fortune,
for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time."
Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
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