Slashdot Mirror
General Motor's EV1 Electric Cars Scrapped
jangobongo writes "Yesterday, the last of General Motors EV1 electric cars were transported to their final resting place, the GM Desert Proving Grounds in Arizona, for "final disposition," which for most of them means crushing and recycling. The experimental GM cars were originally leased (starting in 1996) to owners in California and Arizona for three years while GM developed electric battery technology, but the expected breakthrough in battery technology failed to materialize. GM spent more than $1 billion developing and marketing the EV1, but concluded that the electric cars would not be profitable. The EV1 program was ended in 2003. Some of the cars were donated to engineering departments of colleges and universities, while others went to museums, including the Smithsonian Institution. Despite protests and petitions, GM would not sell the last available cars to the public due to the lack of replacement parts for repairs, and because of potential liability claims. It's sad to see this chapter on electric cars close."
Won't somebody think of the CARS!!!
Poor automobiles.
It's all part of the Big Oil conspiracy. ;)
GM may be scrapping their electric cars, but by weeks end I should have my '80s vintage RC-10 up and running again.
Har har. What a gas you are.
Yes, it's sad to see a symbolic engineering marvel like the EV1 go, but all this does is shift the pollution elsewhere. Not to mention not being very practical at all.
See here for energy densities of various materials.
Could there be a reason that gasoline is the energy storage mechanism of choice for vehicles?
Why not concentrate on GM's current hybrid timeline, or on vehicles that are actually useful and that normal people might buy, like GM's 2007 GMT-900 platform (Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon/Yukon XL/Escalade) which will have a strong hybrid option, with a standard 5.7L Vortec V8, but with Displacement on Demand, disabling 2 or 4 cylinders as conditions permit, and featuring two 30kW electric motors housed in the standard Hydramatic transmission case that doesn't require major resigns and retooling entire truck production lines for use, but still yielding up to a 40% mileage improvement, instead of making ugly little cars on which it is apparently mandatory to have the rear wheelwells covered like hearses?
of the only non bimbo on baywatch.
alexandra paul was part of the protests and was arrested for her trouble.
Now just fix that pesky problem of dreadfully short ranges. :)
-mkb
Search NPR.org for an interesting article. According to GM, there where only 50 people committed to buying an EV1. That didn't stop environmentalists from chaining themselves to the last enclave of EV1s in Burbank, CA.
My neighbor drives a very nice Honda Insight (Hybrid). Seems like a lot less hassle than an electric-only vehicle, until hydrogen (or the next big thing) comes along.
Error 404: punny not found.
... said Bush.
Trolling is a art,
The gas electric hybrid is ingenious. You get great range and great gas mileage.
Electric only cars are in some ways a waste, because of lossed in electricity transmition and pollution at the plant, they might end up causing more pollution per mile than a gas car. Just its pollution somewhere else.
Some bright mind in some university will work upon it and fix it/better it... ...and then be sued to dead, maybe?
errera hunamum ets
Too bad. Seems odd, though, that GM sites lack of parts and liability as reasons. After all, if they were really worried about liability, why would they have allowed them to be purchased in the first place.
:-(
Here a link to pics of the remains.
it really speaks well for how well Toyota has done with their hybrid engine. While there's lots of talk about hydrogen (here in California they say it will be possible to drive from end to end using hydrogen-powered autos in a couple years), their problem remains setting up a vast distribution network that rivals that of gasoline. That's not cheap. I think that they hybrid will be the predominant player for the immediate future.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
gas prices are up 50% for the last 12 months
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
GM would not sell the last available cars to the public due to ... potential liability claims.
I wonder if this is a red herring or not. Sure, lawyers have turned the U.S. into a lawsuit-happy country where people are visited in the hospital right after surgery with promises of grand malpractice suits (I work in a hospital, so that's the only example that comes to my mind right away). But, it is possible that GM made some damn good electric cars. Maybe they don't want people using them so they can force-feed a few more SUVs to the nation. Either way, I'm of the opinion that we should drastically increase our fossil fuel usage. The sooner we use it up, the sooner we will stop using it.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
The protests would have been better-attended, but many of the protesters were hospitalized for heat exhaustion while trying to bicycle to the desert site.
Have you read my blog lately?
My first thought was, "1337"...
Whatever did we do without it?
I took one for a spin at a GM proving grounds, and floored it from every stop sign. After about 10 minutes, a fully changed car was almost dead. A kick to drive, but I'd never buy one.
There's a reason GM didn't sell them, and chose to only lease them. GM knew they were just a big experiment, and had no intention of supporting pre-first generation EV parts for the Federally mandiated period of time (5 years?).
-MrLogic
Here's to you, EV1!
At cornell. It looks quite cute, but unfortunately i've never seen it run :(. It had a huge number of batteries in it. And it has this really cool induction-based charger port in front.
If anyone from cornell is reading this, its the car that used to be in the back of Rhodes Hall all the time (red, really small). It's at a top-secret storage location now.
I wish people would focus on real problems, like installing an artificial engine noise maker on a silent fuel-cell motorcycle.
I wonder if they just made them inoperable (to avoid liability concerns) and sold them as collectable on ebay if they wouldn't make the program profitable after all.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
They should be working on a new Z28 anyways.. who needs a retarded slow eletric car?? Bring on the V8 gas guzzlers.
I've read that it costs $8000 (of course in US dollars, you godless heathen!) to replace the batteries for electric and hybrid cars. And furthermore, they need to be replaced every three years.
If that is true, (please tell me it's not true) how in the heck are you ever supposed to sell them in a used market?! They would essentially all become scrap, sort of like a two year old iPod. How is that environmentally sound?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I think it's "reasonable", though perhaps not "fair" for any country where they're most likely to see visitors from, to list that country first. A large number of websites are US based and the majority of their customers are US based so it's reasonable to list USA as first. That would not be true in Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. I think you're trying to create FUD where it doesn't exist.
Each of those vehicles cost more than ANY Ferrari to make. GM lost hunderds of thousands of dollars per EV1 it leased. If the people want one it would be cheaper to buy a new saturn and have Boyd Coddington or some other high end hot rod house convert it to an EV1 alike then pay GM cost for the car.
Because the step to an all electric car was longer than the step to a hybrid. I work for the Office of Energy Efficiency (part of Natural Resources Canada) and we're testing a verity of fuels. Yesterday I went for a ride with a biodiesel converted Smart car, and it worked fine. But I doubt it will catch on though, since the cost for biodiesel is still too high. Gasoline/electric hybrids is the next step, since it's still the most cost-effective alternative (Hydrogen cars would have been cooler, but the infrastructure is not there yet.).
Everybody who had an EV-1 signed a lease with the understanding that it was a limited pilot program to provide real world test data.
Several manufacturers (Ford, Toyota, Honda, GM) all have hybrids in production, or near production. They get better mileage, accelerate faster, brake quicker, and (at least the recent entries) look like the normal vehicles on which they're based.
antipaucity
if they used energizer batteries
they wouldve kept going, and going, and going...
Rumor has it that Ed Begley Jr. refuses to give his up, and he's leading a police chase up Highway 1 in California. Granted, its a very low-speed chase, and should come to a halt soon so that he can plug it in...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
Judging by today's market reaction, the above is just one of many miscalculations on GM's part. This morning, the company forecast its largest quarterly loss since 1992, lost a chunk of its market value, and riled the corporate bond market. Fitch, a major credit ratings agency, has already downgraded the company's debt to BBB- while rumors of imminent downgrades by other agencies are circulating the investment community.
Detroit's 800-pound gorilla is looking rather emaciated this afternoon.
Sahil
Hydrides currently achieve volumetric energy densities 50% better than liquid hydrogen (and safer than gasoline). There's no mention of this on the page you've linked -- but then the writer clearly has a pro-gasoline axe to grind.
There's no question that gasoline is the most convenient vehicle fuel available right now, but it's stupid not to look for alternatives -- including more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered vehicles, hybrids, and electric cars (of various kinds).
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." Isn't that what they said of the Dvorak typewriter key layout?
This is classic. Just like with public transportation, the "Big Boys" claim that they know what they are doing, spend a lot of money, then say "Gee, we tried and we're the experts, but it's way too expensive." Or, "we're the experts and WE can't make it work." This is why the BART system in San Francisco ended up costing $83,000 PER SEAT at a time when a competing system cost $1,000 a seat, was very energy efficient (basically a conveyer belt), and had very few moving parts (It was called "Mass-Portation" and was invented by Walt W. Cushman). Actually BART cost more than a Boeing 747.
The EV1 was designed to fail, and fail it did. Now you can just go on out and buy that gasoline . . . because there isn't any OTHER way to get to work.
Did you notice in the news this week that OPEC is pumping all they can and prices are STILL going up? "Peak Oil" anyone?
Let's get on with diesel. Why?
1) Better efficiency than gasoline
2) Longer engine life
3) Diesel fuel can be produced from non-fossil sources such as soy and corn (even hogfat!)
But aren't diesel engines dirty, you might ask? Not inherently. The problem is the quality of the fuel, specifically the level of sulfur. Here in the States, in less than a year the standard will reduce that nasty impurity by huge amount.
A whole lot of goodness, no? Plus, it is a way for our struggling farmers to increase demand for their products.
For more info:
http://www.biodiesel.org/
This car was reasonably priced and had a top speed of 40 MPM rather than 30 MPH like most electric cars out there.
In addition I liked that the thing was so darn ugly it was cute.
There are a lot of people, myself included, that wouldn't really ever be interested in driving an electric car because of their very un-sexy sound (or lack of sound.)
Manufacturers would probably have better luck if they stop treating electric cars as replacements and sell them as "second" cars. Many people already have 2 cars so why not advertise it as a supplement to their existing car instead of a replacement? By owning two, people can use the advantages of both without the pros and cons of only one.... City/errend driving (majority of miles for most users) in the EL car and longer trips in the gas one?
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
OPEC? Stockholders? Earth?
I do not understand why an auto manufacturer (or any manufacturer) does not crush the competition by releasing a "green" "peoples wagon". Make it "green", safe, cheap, and efficient and the first manufacturer to do this would clean house! (is good, fast, and cheap impossible?)
|plastic....or gasoline?|
In other news Toyota and Honda have managed to sell tons of hybrid-electric cars and are now licensing the technology to North-American Producers. 'There is just such a huge market for people who want energy efficient cars that we knew that we were going to be successful. Once we proved the naysayers wrong and ramped up production profits have been fantastic' -unamed Toyota representative. I can't imagine what
Like http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=585990this one.
Also, the fun of the high torque electric engine made 0-60 pretty darn quick. Of course that took about half your battery life right there. =)
That said the car was wicked small and hardly practical for much beyond putting to a very close office and maybe the grocery store. (at least here in Phoenix where density isn't very high). I was really hoping they could get the density up so that range could get to the 200-250 mile range. That would have made it much more practical. Of course it still means long trips would have been broken up, but at least you could drive around on the freeway all day without worrying about your car running out of battery.
Sad to see it go... it was a fun car. But I doubt we've seen the end of electric car experiments.
Our vast investment in petrofuel technology poses something of a chicken/egg problem for switching. Can't use electric (or other power) cars, because there's no fueling stations. Can build alternative fueling stations, because there's no cars to consume their fuels. By switching cars to electric, which can be fueled at home while fueling stations are gradually retooled, we jumpstart the process. The upstream infrastructure can be powered by any fuel, as long as it delivers electricity to the existing grid. Which is a much smaller hurdle than the alternatives. Even from a purely energy-efficiency analysis, reusing more of our existing infrastructure for the evolution of vehicle fuels will save energy in demolition and construction. Electric is the cross-platform way to make the transition smooth enough that it could actually happen without huge, possibly unsupportable, losses.
--
make install -not war
I remember when the EV1 came out a few years ago, we would see them from time to time around Phoenix and Tucson. Compared to the other models from those years, I thought they were pretty nice for a sporty coupe. Certanly no uglier than the Ford Probes and Toyota Celicas. They supposedly had a range of around a hundred miles for a charge. This didn't seem like much, until you figured in that most of the people using them had chargers at work and home. The charger was cool, too, because it was inductive so it could be used by toddlers in a rainstorm; it was completely shielded and posed no electrocution danger.
Not only that, but the EV1 was partially designed to counter the stereotype of the "gutless" electric car--apparently, they had plenty of power, handled well in rush hour traffic, and were just a fun to drive coupe... but at the cost of some range.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
So EV1 has been scrapped due to liability issues. I guess they shouldn't have bought that license from SCO.
Unknown host pong.
"If only some one would make a electric car the whole world could be saved and the car company would make billions. But they won't because the evil oil companies stop them and force everyone to buy SUV's against there will." In stead of have customers in the form a lease spending $3,000 to 5,000 every 3 to 5 years for new batteries is just the thing to making a profitable car line.
MOPAR Did the same thing with the Chrysler Turbine Cars, they expected to use them as a mobile test platform while they deveoped the means to make it work
In the end nearly all but 3 or 4 went to the factory to be cut up into teeny tiny bits....sad but it happens....
>>Won't somebody think of the CARS!!!
I can understand some of GMs thinking, especially the part about litigation, but it seems a waste to crush so many perfectly usable automobiles.
Before and after photos of at least 60 EV1s being crushed: http://ev1-club.power.net/
There are a lot of problems with implementing hydrogen fuel-cell cars and battery-only electric cars. Isn't the biggest problem though the short-term thinking that requires a brand new technology to immediately have all the bells and whistles of a technology that has been around for 100+ years?
Think about it... It doesn't seem that anyone would switch to a new technology no matter what its lack of environmental impact or other benefits unless it:
Handled like gasoline cars or better
Accelerated like gasoline cars or better
Had every other feature of gasoline cars or better
So long as nobody is willing to drive a version 1.0 of anything, I don't see us ever getting out of this cycle of developing a concept car, declaring it to be not profitable or practical and then throwing it away.
I'm a big tall mofo.
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndweb pages/alexandra%20paul%20arrested%20in%20protest/
Other related stories http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=%22alexan dra+paul%22&btnG=Search+News
Finish my PNRE (personal nuclear reactor engine)..
but I must complete the following
1)trick middle eastern terrorists into letting me build them a nuclear bomb.
2) Use plutonium for PNRE
3) ?
4) Profit!!!!!
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
Cars with frickin' laser beams on their hoods.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Yes, it's sad to see a symbolic engineering marvel like the EV1 go, but all this does is shift the pollution elsewhere.
Two thoughts: 1 - Even if what you say is true, at least the pollution is moved to a central source, where it is easier to control. 2 - This is all the more reason to move more and more of our electricity generation over to cleaner sources such as nuclear.
Not to mention not being very practical at all.
Is any new technology "very practical" when it first comes out? Also, were you aware that the Toyota RAV4 EV easily attains over 100 miles per charge? Considering that the average person drives less than 40 miles a day, that sounds pretty dang practical to me.
Why not concentrate on GM's current hybrid timeline, or on vehicles that are actually useful and that normal people might buy...
Why not concentrate on something more innovative, like electric cars? They're better than you think. The only reason they're not "actually useful" is because big coporations refuse to throw all their money behind them.
And no, in fact my electricity does not come from fossil fuels.
You probably shouldn't click this.
I guess they can bury them next to all those Atari 2600 ET games.
I've been studying fuel cells of late and the one thing fuel cells can't cope with is changes in demand. So accelerating and decelerating (like you do when you drive) is just about >the worst application for fuel cells imaginable. They will have their application areas, but cars were not (and will not ever be) the area of choice. As another poster mentions, bio-fuels are the way out of our current ecological mess, and the technology is available today.
Unless the Energizer batteries were put in backwards, in which case they would've kept coming, and coming, and coming (sorry, old joke -- What happens when you put batteries into the Energizer Bunny, backwards?).
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
The crusher operator would be too if they forgot to take out the batteries...
Seriously, this post has less than 20 comments in it and 3 are already blaming Bush or Big Oil.
The eviromentalists need to realize something: people like driving big gas guzzeling cars. Despite them being bad for the enviroment people will continue to drive gas powered cars. Realize that the public you're trying to convert is the public that stuffs itself with McDonalds. If the public won't take care of their own bodies what makes you think they give a hoot about the enviroment? The people (for the most part) won't buy them, hence the car manufactures won't make them.
Also, people keep hawking on hybrid/electric cars. What about trucks/suv? They hold the market share. Those puny hybrid/electrics won't haul a boat, or a trailer, or a load of 2x4s. Yes I know Ford has 1 hybrid SUV out. Big deal, what's its market share?
Further, the handeling/performance of electric vehicles suck. Yes, I know about the amazing electric sports car that can do 0-60 quicker than a porshe, but guess what, it also costs as much as a porshe. You want the American public to embrace electric cars? Make an electric Mustang that has the exact performance specs as it's gas powered brother, and at the same price. Until some R&D department can do this the majority of the public won't convert to electric.
I'm not saying it's right, but enviromentalists need to wake up and realize their fighting this battle all wrong. You'd think they'd take a queue from the food industry. A majority of the public is under the impression that "fat-free" foods taste like crap. Never mind they might be better for you. Never mind your HCL is through the roof, Americans want a fat-free meal that tastes EXACTLY like a full-fat meal, if it doesn't, fuck it we'll die fat and happy.
The chemical-thermal energy density of gasoline is hard to beat. Plus, as you correctly alluded to, a battery does not generate energy, it stores energy. Therefore, it's only a clean and green as the energy producing plant that was utilized in charging you batteries. Then, of course, the batteries wear out and have to be disposed of. Point is, an electric car is not automatically environmentally clean.
A few years ago...ok, many years ago, those of the "Mother Earth News" ilk we're into converting cars to run on alcohol - the "clean and green" technology of the day. There were a few problems with that as well. First off, alchol wasn't pollution free after all, just a different set of pollutants. Second, while you'd get better "octane rating", your fuel efficiency would go down because you just don't have the same energy density as you do with gasoline. Finally, the alchohol tended to clean the crud off of old car cylinders causing them to loose compression. This made coverting that old beater a little more expensive than planned.
Anyway, I bring this up to point out that we've gone down this path before. Sadly, getting a clean burning vehicle is not just a matter of a different power source. You have to be able to change the entire underlying infrastructure, and even then there are legacy technical problems to work out.
Even the hybrids (back in the day, simpler versions were also popular tinkerer projects) are not immune. Overdrive them and they can pollute on the order of a typical car. You also have additional weight and battery disposal to contend with.
Like I said, it's a tough nut to crack. Still, Here's hopin' they crack that nut.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Ford said the same thing with it's electric-converted Ranger pickups, until lessees banded together and signed waivers absolving Ford of all responsibility for maintenance, parts, and other liabilities.
The EV-1 owners proposed a similar scheme to GM, but GM wouldn't budge.
These cards didn't need to be destroyed.
:(
Rather than crush the cars, why didn't GM just let it be known that they were going to dump/abandon these vehicles, with keys in the ignition and blank title paperwork in the glove box, in their desert holding area? Then, with a wink and a nod, inform the community that if anyone wanted to *steal* the vehicles it wouldn't be in GM's interests to prosecute.
Presto - problem solved. If anyone cared, they could have a car. If they injured themselves, GM could say "tough doughnuts -- you STOLE it, after all!"
I'm sure a lawyer can come up with a good reason why this wouldn't work. Spoilsports.
Nothing is stopping hybrid DIESEL.
1) Better efficiency than pure diesel
2) Longer engine life than pure diesel
3) Diesel fule can be produced from non-fossil sources
4) Extra 10 to 40 percent efficiency due to regenerative braking + running the engine at peak efficiency
GPL Deconstructed
"Once you've gotten used to the smell of rendered hog fat, you'll wonder how you ever did without."
There were only 50 orders for the cars because FEW PEOPLE KNEW THEY WERE FOR SALE! This is the first I've heard of it. I just asked a few friends who were thinking of an Electric Car, and NONE OF US KNEW that these things were for sale.
Both Autoweek http://www.autoweek.com/ and Car & Driver http://www.caranddriver.com/ have had some excellent reviews about Honda's new top-o-the-line Honda Accord Hybrid V-6. Both magazines noted that, for buyers who want to get more MPG for their money without something as unconventional looking as an EV1 or a Prius, the Accord may fit the bill.
Not to mention the fact that the new hybrid Accord sits at the TOP of the Accord lineup for Honda. Friggin' $30K for a hybrid V-6, but you DO get 255HP and a nice car.
I wonder, though, if this prices what could be a very nice, standard hybrid sedan out of the reach of the consumers that Honda hopes to reach -- those that want something "normal" instead of a stylized Prius. Certainly, the Civic hybrid is an excellent, cheaper alternative, but it's not nearly as roomy, and for long trips, it's gonna be cramped/inadequate, say, for a family of 4.
The Ford Escape Hybrid has also gotten lots of good press from these magazines. And the hybrid Lexus RX400 (2006? yes? no?) is supposed to be a marvel of hybrid innovation and luxury technology.
I guess we'll have to see how the hybrid phenomenon goes forward. I thought this morning, as I sat behind a Civic Hybrid on my morning commute, about how soon hybrids are going to NOT BE ENOUGH to help with an emerging energy crisis. This while I'm listening to an NPR report on the US Senate vote on drilling in ANWAR for oil. It's going to be an interesting next few years, I'm afraid. Hope my rather inefficient Subaru Forester doesn't become a MPG killing liability.
IronChefMorimoto
which, in a decision like this, is probably all that GM did look at, and they were going to pencil out at a loss of say $1000 per vehicle, nobody would blame GM for killing the project.
if all you look at is the money that failed to get even a safe transit solution for a project that wasted public money on this scale: The Big Dig project began in 1991 with an initial cost estimate of $2.6 billion, a figure that has since ballooned to $14.6 billion., you have to ask, whether you hate govt subsidies or not, why we wouldnt bail out electric car manufacturing instead of incompetant civil engineering firms. A generous allowance for unexpected costs would still have capped the big dig at 10 billion, the remaining 5 billion would have got 5 million electic cars on the road at a subsidy of $1000 each.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Nuff said.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Unfortunately, I cannot buy one.
GM has stopped.
Toyota's electric RAV4 is only available for fleet purchases.
Ford has stopped making the electric Ranger.
A golf cart won't cut it for me.
It's a shame.
If anyone can recommend an electric car available for NJ, I'm listening.
Incidentally I recommend www.evworld.com for alternative fuel cars, but it has recently become a subscription site :-(
I just don't get it. The oil industry needs to get out of the oil business before the whole basis of their industry is gone. Diversify! Do something else. They know their product is polluting the earth. Don't they care about their own children's children? Idiots!
We need to be using renewable fuels and lubricants. Like ethanol and vegetable oils. We have the chemical and engineering technology to make this feasible. What's stoping it? Capitalism & economic short-sightedness.
Eh, what do I care? I'll be dead before the shit really hits the fan. All you twenty-somethings and your kids are the ones who're gonna be living in a world of hurt.
Good luck with that.
Environment 0
Profit 1
Typical . . .
How come the cars couldn't have been donated to a museum instead of being destroyed?
--
Secondary liability is a bitch
In california the clean air resource board talks about sticking it to GM. Comments about such as 'Gm could have made it work but sided with big oil' - blah - blah - blah. The poor EV-1 is forever overlooked and maligned. That is really too bad.
GM is the ONLY large manufacturer to produce and lease electric vehicles for road use to the general public. It did so at a tremendous loss and a LOT of RD went into the vehicles. I wish GM got more credit for what it tried to do. In retrospect - it is truly amazing that they even took the chance - considering fuel prices (Close to an all time low) and the performance of batteries at the time.
Sadly they couldn't see the cars because of the lawyers. I often wonder if the "rule of law" will remove all our innovation and ingenuity.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
I'm sure GM could find 70 car collectors who would buy these EVs and gladly sign non-operation agreement and legal-waiver, but no, they decided to feed these engineering gems to the compactor. This is a very sad chapter of GM, whose ignorance of EV fans' enthusiasm is sure to result in the loss of customers.
What is the GM leadership thinking? The analogy here is that if Paramount decided not only it would cancel the sci-fi TV show "Enterprise", but also destroy all the films!
Sun and Fun
A "quick" summary of US energy use is available here. The 2003 mix was "coal-fired plants accounted for 53% of generation, nuclear 21%, natural gas 15%, hydroelectricity 7%, oil 3%, geothermal and "other" 1%." Total production was about 3.8 PWh, or about 13 quad out of about 100 quad total use.
So, it is worth noting that while the US electricity is still principally fossil based, it is also mainly coal based; our known coal reserves are the world's largest. Electric-based systems suggest a transition method. IMHO, the gripping hand is that electric powered cars don't seem as promising long-term as using biodiesel storage of solar power-- which makes electric development mostly a dead-end detour, aside from the chance of getting better laptop batteries.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Of course, to be fair, since the People's Democratic Replublic of Kalifornia (PDRK) forecd GM to so this, they should be given the responsibility of disposing of the cars and they should be charged the $1Bn.
I'll volunteer to go door-to-door and confiscate the correct amount from each and every cticzen in the PDRK.
Andy Out!
Does anyone know if the Sun Java car got crushed (or will be crushed) as well?
Wow, that's a mighty impressive run-on sentence you got there.
it's stuch in a chimney of afraternity house
I believe the liability was due to their known problem of cathing on fire during a charge.
for caving into SCOXE like they did.
JADBP
- Multicrystalline: 3.7 years
- Thin film: 3.0 years
- Multicrystalline, anticipated: 2.1 years
- Thin film, anticipated: 1.1 years
Warranty on today's PV panels is typically 25 years, and panels can be expected to go on producing well beyond the warranty period.Sustainability and energy independence essay
Granted that the EV1 wasn't really ready for prime-time but GM continues to fall behind in alternative fuel technology. Typical that the largest US automaker will be the last to offer any alternatives to standard gas models
Sure, they will say they are continuing to invest in Fuel Cell and Electric cars but we continue to see Toyota take the lead with some very good Hybrid technology and Honda right behind. Ford uses the Toyota system.
I'm certainly not going to feel sorry for them when things get bad and they have no cars to offer as the Japenese continue to improve their Hybrid technology.
Even this news coverage seems slanted to make GM look bad on its stance for more fuel efficent cars. You think they would have handled it differently.
Face it, the EV1 failed because, well it was the EV1. GM counted on a breakthrough in battery technology that never came. Instead, we've got a bunch of manufacturers producing hybrid vehicles that are actually competing with regular gas cars. Hell, Ford even makes a hybrid SUV, for christ's sake. I mean, a hybrid SU-freakin'-V. C'mon - has there ever been a bigger oxymoron?
If the EV1 had to fail in order to prove that electric-only powered vehicles weren't/still aren't ready for prime time, then so be it. It's a fallen soldier on the road to liberation. I'd rather have a better solution instead of suffering with a mediocre one. Maybe (if better battery or fuel cell technology goes gold) we'll all drive EV 2's or EV47's one day.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
And don't forget all the pro-environment movie stars who feel that Bio-Diesel (recycled, processed vegatable oil) in their H2's somehow make them criticism-exempt from the causes they support so vociferously!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Sustainability and energy independence essay
And then assume further, that you like it so much that at the end of the leasing period (3 years typically) you buy the car from the leasing company.
And then, just a few years down the road, you find out that the batteries are dying and you need the replace the batteries to the tune of 10 to 15 grand.
What would the knee-jerk reaction of the typical American be?
That's right: LAWSUIT!
"Yes, your honor, unlike a car with a gasoline engine, the resale value of this car has dropped to zero!
With so-so batteries, it would be worth 6 grand but now they are forcing me to invest 15 grand (which I have no way of coming up with) into an old car which would, at best, bring 6 grand on the resale market!
I feel tricked!
I suffered emotional damage!
I want $5 million for the emotional stress this issue has caused me!"
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
This strikes me as wildly optimistic, given that after almost a century and a half, Gallup polls show only a little more than a third of the US has "come to terms" with the Theory of Evolution. A good business plan will assume they will continue this way. "No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
In the sense that there will always be residual oil somewhere on the earth, you are right. However your statement is misleading in terms of using oil as a fuel; someday, the cost of getting the oil will exceed the value (in terms of heating a house, fueling a car, oiling a machine, what have you).
>>Oil in the ground is not like a gas tank where you pump it out and Boom! it's gone one day. It just gets more and more expensive to pump it.
Yes, but not only will it get more expensive per unit, it will simultaneously become *rarer*. So not only will prices rise, but production will fall. It's not like everone just has to get used to higher prices - most of us will eventually HAVE to do without, because even if we CAN afford to buy a $20 gallon of gasoline, it's not available, Period, unless you're a member of an ever smaller group of "haves". Oh, and while oil gets more expensive, and more rare, demand will rise. We're not just talking about peak production; there IS a limited amount of oil, and even if we never do extract the last drop, it's going to "run out" in the sense that *you* and *I* can't get it. And, our approach to that point is faster as time passes.
>>What will happen is that fossil fules will get progressively more expensive until cheaper alternatives become less expensive than they are, and certain uses will gradually switch over.
Not to split hairs (okay, to split hairs) actually what will happen is that fossil fuels will get progressively more expensive until they are impractical, and then asymtotically approaching impossible to use due to availability/cost/yourmetrichere. Now, if we collectively had some smarts, we would realize that the cost of (not so) blue sky research on alternative energy *now* will save us buttloads of money on fuel because we will have to do it anyway, and if we do it before oil is a $500 / barrel, we'll save all the extra money of switching before we have to instead of only when we're forced to. (grumble grumble big oil grumble)
>>There's not going to be some magic day where Boom! THE OIL IS GONE OMG WE'RE DOOMED WHAAAA.
If I were to infer that you lean right politically, would I be barking up the wrong tree?
>>Everything will "just work out", as it always does in matters of economics.
Well, if by "work out" you mean that a new level will be sought in terms of price, production, availability and alternatives, you're stating a tautology in terms of economics. If you mean that there's no chance of serious economic hardship for the whole world, including real fiscal pain in the first world and possible life-death issues in the third world, I'm sorry but I have to contradict you there (if that's what you meant). The richest of the rich will continue to live in comfort, as they always have and always will. It's the other 99.999999% of us (or our grandkids) who will face real difficulty.
The Post-Oil period won't be the end of the world, but there are serious - as in, failure is possible - challenges to overcome if we expect to continue to live anywhere near as conveniently as we do. Cheap oil moves goods from cheap producers to the markets, cheap oil keeps us mobile, etc. We're racing toward a huge question mark. To say that it isn't an issue is foolhardy at best. There's no need to play it off like the concern is only felt by CrAzY lOoNiE fReAkIeS!!1! It is an issue. The sky is not falling; it's just rain. Lots and lots of rain... no need to insult the ark-planners. You'll be glad they were working on it someday.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Instead, a lot of really cool-looking bodies that could have been used in any number of ways have been destroyed. It's a crying shame.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Like the article says this is a FAILED technology on many fronts. Poor range and performance, dangerous materials and pollution that is simply displace not removed.
Hey give me a high torque electric car that doesn't look like a toaster and has a range more then an extension cord AND doesn't cost as much as a condo and I'll trade in my hotrod (ok maybe not but I'd drive the electric more)
And all you miss-informed nuts thinking these are zero pollution vehicles need to go stand down wind from a coal fired plant like Navaho in AZ. All these do is put the smog on the people who can't afford to NIMBY.
We need (1) a means to produce cheap clean (including the process) hydrogen (2) hydrogen distribution and (3) either a hydrogen car or hybrid!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
If all of these EV1 cars didn't have a $699 licensing fee payed to SCO, then they would be profitable.
Instead of pissing and whining about it, try the button that says "BUY". That always helps make products remain in the marketplace. Just a friendly tip....
Many of the cars were donated to a museum.
Because these cars were not so good...now, when Chrysler did the same thing (produced a bunch of cars, distributed them on a trial basis, decided not to produce them, and then scrapped all but one or two of them) with the Turbine cars in the late 60s, there was a tragedy...those were great cars...good looking, fast, and would run on anything from diesel fuel to cheap vodka...those were the cars of the future...and don't get me going on how the US government had all of the Flying Wings scrapped...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Actually, yes they did. The problem that GM has is that, if a car is on the road, they are required to provide spare parts (either by manufacturing them or providing diagrams for third-party manufacturers) for those cars for 10 years past the date of building that particular vehicle. In other words, GM would have to come up with suppliers (or themselves) for parts for these cars until at least 2009, and with the problem of the suppliers not being willing to make those parts, it puts GM into a bad situation.
GM was fortunate in that, with these cars only being leased to customers, they could pull them off the roads and thus limit their liability. I would love to own one of these vehicles myself, but I can understand GM's position.
Disclosure: I used to work for GM, and work for one of their automotive suppliers now, so I do know a little about what goes into these types of decisions.
GM's "Chicago School" (aka free-market) economic idiots long ago (1970's) decided to halt investment in new technology, about the same time they decided to start outsourcing most of their (acutally *our*) industrial production. Instead of considering corporate profit as being a responsible increase in production outputs (measured in actual physical units, not in imaginary, fraudulent and totally manipulated "financial" units) with a decrease in production inputs, they decided to form GMAC, a financial operation not unlike an early form of Enron, and do free trade profits, instead of production profits. They proceeded to drive themselves straight into a debt bomb of their own making. (Oh Sama Oh Sama! Bin Laden where are you, now that our Wall Street Boys need you most! Without you who will Peter Jennings to point a finger at, for us, that we might not eventually figure out that Wall Street prettyboys and gangsters have "blown up" more of our pensions, and factories, and bridges, and more miles of RR track, with their LBO debt frauds and Federal Reserve currency frauds, than you & yours ever could have! Oh Sama, Oh Sama, where are you that we need to!)
Now, GM bonds are rated right down there with junk bonds of the heyday of deregulation, free trade and formation of pure-risk in currency markets. Soon, GM will need to file bankruptcy protection -- in order to protect -- you got it, not the production, upon which our clueless Wall Street bankers depend, buy to protect -- the Wall Street bankers, themselves. (I've got *my* money! Have you got yours?)
It was not for technological or environmental or upright and American-honest political reasons that GM's half-hearted "investment" in electric cars failed.
Why hasn't anyone brought up ethanol yet with all this talk of "running out of oil"?
Take a look at some mass-market-appeal type vehicles. Flexible Fuel Vehicles can use E85 (85% ethanol) or regular gasoline, just fill it up with either.
some more interesting info.
75%? WRONG. Try 55% tops for gas-fired combined-cycle, 40% for coal-fired IGCC, 33% for powdered coal steam cycle.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Living in California, I have a first hand view of why renewable energy is not happening, at least out here. On the one hand, you have groups of environmentalists who want to have things like Wind power, hydro electric power, and solar power,.
On the other hand, you have groups of environmentalists who don't want these things because Birds get caught in the turbines/propellers, or because hydroelectric plants require damming rivers, thus altering habitats. Tidal will mess with sea habitats, and while solar might be acceptable, but it's too inneficient for large scale generation.
And the dominant politicians in California are beholdant to the environmentalist groups, and since the disparate factions can't seem to make up their minds, the politicians just blame everything on the greedy oil industry, or on fear of the "China syndrome".
This is not a troll. This is fact, and it's the case out on the eastern seaboard as well from what I understand. It's a damn shame that in the name of environmentally sound energy generation, we are sticking primarily with coal and oil.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
A 30 MPG car burning 6.167 lbm/gal gasoline at 18640 BTU/lbm lower heating value (what you get without condensing the water vapor) would be using 1122 Wh(thermal) mile. The electric is definitely better, marginally better than even a 40 MPG car... and you can rachet up the efficiency of the electric long after manufacture by changing the powerplant mix. Try THAT with your gas car!
If the powerplant is burning natural gas, it won't even be close. If the powerplant is nuclear, solar or wind, you have zero emissions. Check my blog for more.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
My parents recently purchased a used Toyota 2001 Prius. Before committing to the deal, he asked the local Toyota dealer how much it would cost to replace the batteries - somewhere around $6-8000US. Then he asked them how many batteries they have had to replace (all model years). "None" was the answer.
I wonder if this is a red herring or not. Sure, lawyers have turned the U.S. into a lawsuit-happy country where people are visited in the hospital right after surgery with promises of grand malpractice suits (I work in a hospital, so that's the only example that comes to my mind right away).
Until congress passed a limitation on the liability of aircraft manufacturers under Clinton in the 1990s the production of private, single engine aircraft had fallen to zero. Why? Because some boneheaded pilot could decide he could fly IFR (instrument conditions, bad weather) despite not having the rating ("what does the damn gubmint know that I don't"), crash the plane killing himself (and maybe some others who had the misfortune to trust him/her and climb aboard), and the aircraft manufacturer would not only be sued, but often lose and have idiot juries award tens of millions to the relatives of the idiot pilot! I kid you not. It happened enough times that virtually every manufacturer of small aircraft ceased production. They simply could not clear a profit once liability costs were factered in.
It wasn't until congress limited this liability to a mere 19 years after manufactur that the industry rebounded, and one can buy new personal aircraft once again.
Look to software patents as another example where, in the not too distant future, patent attorneys and bad governance will converge to kill another innovative industry: ours.
While I believe there are real technical issues vis-a-vis the energy storage density of batteries that probably killed the EV1, liability was probably a non-negligable factor in decreasing the overall profitability beneath the threashhold required for the car to survive.
Innovation is far riskier than doing the staid, "tried and true" thing. That is one of the reasons why most aircraft engine designs are decades old (the design of mine dates back to the 1930s), and manufacturers are loathe to modernize them despite the plethora of good ideas out there. Patents are another reason, but compared to litigation risks, probably secondary in this instance.
So don't kid yourself, lawyers can and do kill entire industries, dead. The lucky ones rebound, the unlucky ones disappear for good, or for decades at a time.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
They hoped an (affordable) battery technology would come along.. it didn't. It doesn't make financial sense to try and support 800? or so cars just because a handful of people want to drive an electric car that can't go farther than 100 miles (or less) without being recharged.
I don't believe there is a "Big Oil" conspiracy to take these off the road. There just needs to be a portable fuel source for every car that can take it 300-400 miles before the average consumer will be interested, and currently the EV1 wasn't it.
There are other electric cars out there.. and other electric car companies. Those who are really into the EV1 can take their $24,000 and buy one of those if they really want an electric car. :)
While General Motors is busy destroying its last EV1-s and getting people arrested over it, the French have debuted a new electric vehicle concept at Geneva Motor show.
Here is the press kit and images of the BlueCar, designed by Philippe Guedon and sponsored by Vincent Bolloré.
In other EV news, Commuter Cars Tango is reportedly close to producing its first vehicles, one of the first ones sold to George Clooney
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Or, what about the idea of "rim motors"? Basically, make the rim a ring of magnets, similar to the rotor on a stepper motor, or the ring magnet in a computer fan. An axle the rim rides on (using ball bearings, of course), a quad or 8-way stator coil pack in the middle. Keep the weight down for everything that doesn't need to be magnetic by using kevlar and/or carbon-fiber with high-strength/temperature epoxy castings. Wrap the rim with a custom tire from Ameritire, and I am certain that unsprung weight would be close or equal that of a regular car tire and rim combination. Make the interior passenger body pan a seperate, but connected to the main unibody (via pancake shock absorbers - which if they don't exist, would need to be invented).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Ethanol.
There are many FFVs out now (Ford Explorer, and several other popular makes that I can't recall) that can use either regular gasoline, or E85, which is 85% ethanol.
Reduces dependence on foreign oil, burns cleaner, supports US companies.
See more info here
That the louder their motorcycle is the more likely it is for people to hear them coming.
I've been riding for 30 years and I've only been in one accident - I got rear ended. And the close calls - it's people who didn't SEE me. Sealed up in their cars I make damn sure they can see me a lot further away than they could ever hear me, even if my bike was as loud as a 747.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Bzzzt. Wrong. Yes they do. Electric cars powered by coal and gas plants are about twice as efficient than gas cars (28% versus 14% for cars).
In addition to that, electric cars (powered by fossil fuel sources) have only about 0.2% the emissions of a gas car per 100,000km driven.
STFU about slashdot bias.
The most dangerous stuff that's present in any quantity is lead in the solder. Solution: recycle today's panels along with the rest of the electronics waste stream. Mfgr's are already moving to lead-free solder.
So do the plywood and shingles that make your roof. I don't see you complaining about it.Sustainability and energy independence essay
First of all, we don't all live near enough motive water to do so--some people live in deserts.
says
further
http://www.bchydro.bc.ca/environment/
More than 90 per cent of BC Hydro's electricity is generated by water powering turbines at 30 hydroelectric facilities on 27 watersheds around British Columbia?
but- that's mitigated by the fact
http://www.bctc.com/about/faqs.shtml that the bctc states
(clipped to get to what I consider relevant) What is the relationship between BC Hydro and BCTC?
BC Hydro will be a major customer of BCTC, as will other electricity producers and wholesale customers. BCTC will contract with BC Hydro for certain services, such as engineering and field services.
The fact is, more than 90% of BC hydro's power comes from water- (which isn't practical for the world at large) but bc hydro's product is not 100% of the electricy going thru your lines.
Just a a thought...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Tomorrow, I shall be piloting my pizza/beer fueled vehicle to work.
Proven design, minimal (but not zero) emissions, zero fossil fuel use, low initial purchase price, decades long lifetime.
The eviromentalists need to realize something: people like driving big gas guzzeling cars.
I'm not the classic definition of an "environmentalist", but I'm also not someone who says "oh well if I can't convince the majority of something then I'll just give up" either. I agree with you that a lot of environmentalists don't "get it" per se, as they tend to argue the finer points of their position with people who just don't care, but a lot of environmentalist-type people DO "get it". The problem isn't that they are approaching the argument all wrong (and they are a lot of times, so I'm not excusing anyone); the problem is that the desire of the majority of US people to consume, consume, consume for happiness is so driven into our collective minds that it's going to take more than a minority of people to change that philosophy on a national (and even global) level. I completely agree with you that we are a nation of people who (at least in terms of the masses) are "trained" to believe that more stuff=more happiness, but I disagree that we should just throw in the towel trying to convince people otherwise just because it isn't currently a popular idea.
Consider this: for the past 50+ years, society has taught people that more of everything is a good thing. That McDonalds isn't the problem; it's fat people that eat at McDonalds that are the problem (and the whole "it will never happen to me" attitude). Over that time, using the logic of society, we have become the most obese nation on earth. Now, however, we are starting to realize that unhealthy lifestyles are REALLY bad for US. Not bad for "other people" but bad for OURSELVES. That's why there's the newfound interest in the "low carb" diets (low card diets are nothing new BTW), fitness shows, and other things that are rewarding healthy lifestyles and making them more popular than unhealthy ones. Check back with America in 20 years - I'll bet we're not at the top of the obesity list anymore.
This same kind of realization and transformation needs to happen with regards to the cars we drive and the resources we use (not only gasoline, but energy as a whole). Environmentalists (and then everyone else) need to start promoting the "coolness" of conservation, not necessarily from the "we're gonna die if we don't" perspective, but rather from more of a "look - everyone's conserving because it's COOL" perspective. Of course, that's the real trick, but we can't give up because it's not currently popular. At one time it wasn't popular to be a geek either...:)
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
The electric cars were heavily subsidized both by the government and by GM.
To get an idea of what you can buy, consider a Corbin Sparrow (http://www.sparrowelectriccars.com/) or Seqway as "free market" equivalents. The dinky (but fast) little Sparrow is $15K, the Segway $5K. The listprice of the electric RAV4 was over $40K. Basically, the people who are whining about their destruction were getting a free ride at $400-500 per month including maintenance.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Fooooooooooooooootloooooooooong
Wanna eata Anita?
I've seen this done both reasonably (where the 5-10 major economies head up the list and the rest of the world follows on alphabetically - USA, Germany, UK, France, Japan etc) and unreasonably (where the USA is justy stuck at the top of the list and no allowance is made for address formats that don't conform to a USA-like template). I think the former strategy is very intelligent, the latter just lazy.
That was classic intercourse!
Diesel fuel has skyrocketed in price relative to gasoline recently, and it doesn't look like prices will go down.
And remember -- biodiesel is only cheap when nobody wants it. Once the producers of food oils realize that there is significant demand for their waste product, they will begin to charge for it, and the price structure for biodiesel will change. Biodiesel prices are already rising in Seattle (though that could well be a supply problem, given the number of totalitarian environmental freaks in this town).
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
it should be even better!
-- the cake is a lie
Seriously. Open your eyes.
Why such a big fuzz for electric cars? they are feeding from the grid that is powered by fossil fuels. That the fossil fuel plants are more efficient than car engines? well yeah but by the time you transport the energy (heat + electromagnetic losses) + charge the battery (heat losses, batery inefficiency) + feed computer + electric motor (more heat and electromag losses), you end up with the same efficiency than a normal car or even less. Then you have to add the enviromental cost for building all the batteries/fuel cells in terms of energy. (freaking cars cost more than 1 million!)
And then a friend that works for a new wind power generator turbine was telling me that they were planning on putting some of those on top of the AC units of some buildings and use the convection currents to generate electricity!. Cmon!! if you think that is clever go and ask for a return of money of all your thermodynamics class.
Speaking of wind turbines... well if you build enough to feed the power grid by themselves then they will mess up weather conditions by disturbing the wind patterns. Same for ocean waves or ocean currents.
Solar panels take more energy to build that the one that they will produce in their life time.
Everybody talks about hydrogen and get all exited about it. Well where are you getting the hydrogen from? usualy water so people gets even more exited!. "woow energy from water" Well getting hydrogen out of the water requires huge amounts of electricity to break the link between the hydrogen and oxigen. And that same energy is then released when we burn the hydrogen or put it in a fuel cells.
Methanol from plants? gime a break!!! how much land do you need to clear to grow sugar cane using pesticides altering weather too. We will have to grow sugar cane in all earth surface to provide the amount of energy that we are going to need.
It seems that the only current solutions are:
-make internal combustion engines more efficient and increase hybrid useage
-Nuclear power (what to do with nuclear waste for the next couple of million years?)
The way I see it, oil and gas production will start to decline sharply in about 50 years and then huge wars for oil will happen (they already started!!!coughiraqcough) and energy demands from places like china and india will exponentially grow at the same time.
Not a very bright future if we dont find a real energy alternative that does not mess up earth environment.
Electric cars are about twice as efficient in hte overall process of converting fossil fuels into miles driven. As new sources of energy like nuclear, solar and wind gain traction, this difference will only get wider. Pure electrics also generate only a tiny fraction of the emissions that fossil fuel (including hybrid) cars produce for the same number of miles driven.
http://www.evadc.org/pwrplnt.pdf
STFU about slashdot bias.
My wife drove an EV1 for five years and it always amazed me how much attention was focused on the environmental/efficiency aspect and how little was paid to the general product advantages. In the end, it felt like IBM was taking our laptops away and giving us back typewriters. Three years later, my wife still hasn't bought a gas car. - In the last three years, the car had zero maintenance. No tune ups, oil changes, trips to the gas station, nothing. - It was remarkably clean - no drips, no exhaust, so smells - we could have parked it in the house. - It was really cheap to charge. - My gas car sat idle most of the time because the EV1 was always our car of choice when we went out. - It got a tremendous amount of positive attention on the road. - And lastly, she never lost a race from the stoplight in five years. When you consider all the reasons, practical or not, people buy cars, I'd say the EV1 was the best consumer product we've ever owned (leased). It was proof that U.S. ingenuity and industry can lead the world. Despite all GM's excuses, the car was an excellent choice for many US drivers and those of us who got to drive one know it.
In my early days as an electrical engineer I personally changed one configuration bit from a zero to a one for every EV1 made. I forget now what the configuration bit was, and even which controller, but my 1 kilobit contribution to the program is now crushed.
Oh well. Their grandchildren won't have a choice in the matter.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...as long as our consumption rate is less than or equal to the replenishment rate. It's not that oil is non-renewable, it just takes a long time for those plants and animals to die, pile up, get buried and be slowly geothermally cooked into oil.
Don't forget, hybrids also EXPLODE on impact if you are driving at more than 5mph and get into an accident. Also, they only get about 1/10th the fuel mileage of a diesel. Also, ambulance and fire truck drivers will let you die rather than getting you out of one due to the 10,000 volt electricity that is contained in the death pod... i mean battery.
Customers are reluctant to buy vehicles that require fillups more frequently than 300 miles. The EV1 was 70-90 miles. Current hydrogen cars are about 120 miles.
I drive one of the last GM Electric Vehicles on the road. I own (with a title) an S-10EV that I commute to work in everyday. I don't drive it because I want to save the earth; I drive it because the technology under the hood is unmatched in any other vehicle on the road today. Sure it is slow and the range isn't stellar but it fulfills my need for 90% of my trips.
Thankfully my truck cannot be taken away from me and crushed along with the other GM EVs. However the day will come soon where I cannot get parts to repair the vehicle if something happens to it. Batteries are already impossible to find, I am collecting parts now to convert my truck from the original Panasonic lead acid batteries to a commercially available Optima cells.
Some day soon commercially produced electric vehicles with "advanced batteries" will be on the road. These cars will make the EV1 look like a classic car, they will run circles around Internal Combustion cars and go hundreds of miles between charges. So keep you eyes peeled for these advanced vehicles and when they do arrive in a showroom be sure to consider them for your next vehicle purchase.
We've been using hybrid diesel in the US for a long time now.
It's the standard motive force on freight trains.
A quick & dirty:
The big automakers have not committed to really migrating to electric cars. They're more than willing to suck away any R&D funding they can...free money and also kills funding for startups.
The process kills startups twice. Not only does GM (etc) take up the best speaking spots at electric car shows, it takes the money as well. (Some have said to sink it into recycled technology.)
Solar cells take almost as much energy to make as they put out over their lifetime.
BULLSHIT!
maybe if most 'alternative' fuel vehicles didn't look like turds on wheels maybe you could sell more than 4 of them.
Of course on the highways here in the NYC area, and in most metro areas, stop and go is the rule.
Exactly. So why have all those cars standing still with their engines running, creating a giant cloud of pollution? A hybrid switches to "golf cart mode" in stop and go traffic, with the gas engine kicking in only as needed. Strong hybrids, with, say, a 30 mile electric range, would be able to do most local trips under clean electric power.
All manner of vehicles with parts, including brakes, that must be custom fabricated or retrofit from others are perfectly well being driven legally. Seriously, do you think Ford is still making Model T parts? Come on. This is just GM erasing them so they can't be reminded of failure.
Economist Paul Erdman feels that we will see gas prices hit $4 per gallon sometime in the next five years.
When you consider that OPEC is currently pumping out as much or more oil than it ever has before in it's history, and growth in China is causing their demand for fossil fuels to grow exponentially every year, you can see that there is a crash coming in the future.
As further evidence that this prediction is not as crazy as it first sounds, I submit this photo.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
There was a story that went around about a year ago about how the power lines for the hybrid drive went through the doors. This makes zero sense - my fuel and brake lines don't go through the doors of my standard car.
A few days later, a correction was issued:
http://www.wtop.com/index.php?nid=333&sid=201268
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
One thing most people seem to forget about the EV1 is that by now it's over 10 years old. It was developed in the early 90s when cars in general were much cruder than they are now. More importantly, the NiMH battery technology was still in its infancy. In fact the first EV1 had crude lead-acids. Since then, battery capacity and longevity have tripled, and cost is a fraction of what it was then. Furthemore, the EV1 was the first electric car even talked about for decades, so it was completely alien to the public. So at that time the market was a lot smaller than it would be now, simply because the public has been exposed and the idea has had time to sink in.
So before you write off battery powered cars, quit thinking like it's 1995 instead of 2005.
I heard the story on NPR. How are electric cars going to get rid of oil, again? Or does everyone forget that plastic, nylon, polyester, (synthetic rubber), vaseline, etc, etc all come from oil?
In other words, even if we don't put it in the gas tank, the rest of the car still needs it... ahhh ignorance is both fun and filling.
Hydrogen is a crappy battery, even the hydride systems don't hold a candle to hydrocarbon sources of fuel.
Also, Hydrogen *LEAKS* even in a perfect container. Hydrogen has such a small atomic mass that the atoms percolate through steel vessels.
Economist Paul Erdman feels that we will see gas prices hit $4 per gallon sometime in the next five years.
I hope so... it will hurt, but it's probably the impetus needed to spur nuclear growth and other alternate energy sources.
As further evidence that this prediction is not as crazy as it first sounds, I submit this photo.
Keep in mind a lot of the pricing of gas is also related to the taxation on gas done in certain areas (like California), the special requirements certain areas put on their gas ingredients (like California), the difficulty in getting the gas there, the cost of living in the area, etc.
I was driving through a mountainous region in CA 6 months ago, and came to a gas station charging $3.80 per gallon... but in addition to the other "california factors" affecting gas, you have to factor in the lack of competitors near this station, etc.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Does anyone else find it hard to believe that the Prius has better fuel economey than the Echo on the highway?
After all, on the highway, the electric motor does no work (since it only operates at low speeds). Additionally, some energy is required to recharge the batteries in the hybrid (and that energy ain't free). One would think that a hybrid Prius and a Toyota Echo would have very similar highway economy.
Am I missing some thing here, or is the number for the Prius's economy padded?
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
I've never had a car that was as much fun to drive as the EV1. They were outstanding vehicles, with excellent handling and performance. Everyone who ever rode in my car got out with a broad smile. The EV1 handily demolished the myth of the electric car as slow and impractical. Its 100-125 mile range was more than enough for my needs. I never had to go to a gas station except occasionally to top off the tires.
I even believed, for a time, that GM wanted the EV1 to succeed. But it became increasingly obvious that, despite the slick brochures and the marketing propaganda, their hearts were never in it. They'd been under pressure for years to put EVs on the road, so the EV1 became their cynical "Final Solution" to that annoying California EV mandate.
GM was taken aback by the strong response to this vehicle. They had expected and planned for a flop. They only made a few hundred in each model year, claiming that they could always make more if demand warranted. But even after the existing EV1s quickly sold out and long waiting lists formed, no more EV1s were forthcoming. Instead, they repeatedly told the California Air Resources Board (CARB), with straight faces, that there was simply no public demand for electric vehicles. Each time they said this, they were greeted with laughter and guffaws by the hundreds of EV1 enthusiasts who drove to Sacramento just for the hearings.
But GM still won. Dangling the far-off promise of fuel cells as bait, they quickly closed down the EV1 program and took cars away from hundreds of satisfied customers who would have gladly bought them. Have you noticed that we haven't heard much about fuel cells lately? That's because, as far as GM and the other automakers were concerned, fuel cells have already served their purpose -- getting rid of the ZEV mandate.
GM's action in pulling the EV1 off the market is utterly inexcusable. I will never again buy or lease a GM vehicle. This isn't much of a sacrifice on my part, as no other GM car has ever excited me very much.
The Toyota Prius HSD uses 4.4 litres per 100 kilometres travelled, which translates to 53.46 miles per gallon, and expels 106 grams of CO2 per kilometre travelled.
Toyota Echo models with manual transmission consume about 5.8L/100km, or 40.55MPG, and expel CO2 at a rate of 138g/km. Automatic models consume about 6.5L/100km, or 36.17MPG, and expel CO2 at a rate of 156g/km. (I listed both, since you didn't specify whether your car was a manual or an auto; in general, autos use more fuel than manuals.)
By those figures, your Echo is using up between 31% and 48% more fuel than a Prius, and spitting out 30%-48% more CO2.
However, most Prius owners don't attain the fuel consumption level on the sticker. Courtesy of http://www.greenhybrid.com/, it's more realistic to say that the Prius gets about 4.9L/100km, or 48MPG. Furthermore, the CO2 emissions scale steadily with the amount of fuel used up, so it's probably emitting closer to 120g/km of CO2. This makes the comparison a bit better for the Echo, but it still uses 18%-33% more fuel and emits 15%-30% more CO2 - and it's a much smaller car than the Prius.
Though people don't achieve the standard measurement of fuel consumption on average, a conservative driver can beat the fuel consumption measurement on the sticker in just about any car. I have a Nissan Pulsar that was listed at 7.4L/100km (just under 32MPG), but I consistently get around 6.7L/100km (just over 35MPG) - about 10% better than the sticker.
Petrol-electric hybrids aren't a bust, as such, and the technology is improving. Daihatsu have a hybrid in the works that goes 60-70km on a litre of petrol - up to 1.4L/100km, or 170MPG. For the moment, hybrid cars are still superficial: they make a statement about the environment and about the future, but they're hideously expensive and they don't pay for themselves. You'd be better off buying a small car with decent fuel economy, and joining a tree-planting campaign.
Consider this, though: it is estimated that the construction of a typical car consumes 25-50 barrels of oil and pollutes 120,000 gallons (450,000 litres) of water. If you were really concerned about the environment, you probably wouldn't have a car at all.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Interesting, interesting car. I was only 10 or 12 at the time, I don't recall the details of the arrangement with GM, but we certainly weren't paying the lease price. Or any price, for that matter.
A few things stand out in my mind. The inductive charging system in particular was pretty cool. They installed a futuristic charging unit some five feet high in our garage attached to a wire and plastic paddle. Shove the paddle in a slot where the engine would traditionally be, and in a few hours we'd have a 75% charge. Impossible to electrocute yourself.
I don't agree with the poster above comparing it with a Geo. The EV1 has the second lowest drag coefficient of all time of any vehicle, and the lowest of anything mass produced. If GM removed the speed limiter (80 MPH, I think), it'd top out north of 170 MPH. There was no wind noise at any speed, nor motor noise. Slight tire noise was the sum of it.. given the craptastic rubber the Ev1 was shod in, it's no surprise that was the only sound apparent. Absolutely eerie compared to our old GMC Suburban and any car at the time, luxury of otherwise.
The dashboard was another trick feature. It was a thin digital panel that wrapped around the plastic just below the windshield. Range and battery meters, obviously, standard equipment. I could never get enough of it, I wish they'd put something similar in a traditional car.
Range on our EV1 blew. It was quick, definitely.. 0-60 in the 8s, which was nice, but regular driving wouldn't push us far beyond 45 miles. Max range would have been 75 miles or so, if we'd driven like a grandmother and were actually willing to run it to empty.. but you don't do that when there's no good way to charge away from the house. Given how badly lead-acid batteries respond to a full discharge, it wouldn't have been in the interests of the car to try it anyway.
Surprisingly however, there were a number of places with driving distance of our place that had EV1 charging stations. I question if they still exist. Doubtful.
Anyway, the EV1 was as much an engineering project for GM as anything else. In that, it was a success. When a key component of the business plan was 'incorporate awesome yet-to-be-invented technology', they couldn't have been seriously banking on it as a mass-produced alternative.
-u15
Even if we had magic gas tanks which never went empty, SUV's would still suck. They handle like a brick in freefall, are wasteful regarding steel and rubber, dangerous to the normal sized cars in a collision and create huge blind spots all over the road increasing the likelyhood of collisions.
Also, the hypocrasy in licensing of SUV's allows them to use the more lenient truck emmision standards, but they are not taxed accordingly. Similarly, many SUV's are over 5000 LBS, but they aren't forced to conform to street and bridge weight restrictions.
The only justifiable reason to own an SUV is for towing, because you need a heavy vehicle to safely tow a trailer. If you want an SUV for carrying stuff, get a minivan since they have more interior space.
GM doesn't seem to be anxious to build an electric car, yet 100 years ago electric cars roamed the roads with internal combustion cars, GM conspired to destroy the electric street railway system in the 1930s to force streetcar customers to buy more cars, and they built the electric vehicle Mars Rover.
It was acknowledged that the streetcar railway fiasco was done not only for GM's interests, but for the oil and tire industry's interests.
GM is in no hurry to build an electric car.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Basically, this is a disel locomotive, downsized for the street with batteries and regenerative braking instead of the dynamic braking (generators tied to wheels dumped to a massive resistor with a radiator to dissipate heat) of a locomotive
Do your homework sonny boy...
You are quite mistaken, and obviousely not a motorcyclist.
Hybrid WHAT?! With all the different options (gasoline, diesel, natural gas, propane, hydrogen fuel cell, electric) and potential combinations, you can't reasonably call something a "hybrid" without qualification.
That would be a winning hybrid, I think. Make that turbo biodisel & electric.
Cheap fusion already exists, and the fuel supply is expected to last millenia.
It just happens to be 93 million miles away.
Photovoltaics aren't sufficiently efficient yet to remove significant amounts of demand from the electrical grid, but PV isn't the only type of solar energy. Personally, I'd like to see a scaled-down version of Solar Two. I mean, think about a couple 3-meter heliostats (the same size as the older analog satellite TV dishes) sitting on top of your garage (or on top of a shed in the back yard; as long as it gets plenty of sunlight), focusing on some small collector on the top of the house.
A 3 meter diameter dish has about about 7 square meters of aperature. If your heliostats are about 85% efficient (you can get reflective films which do this), and the main collector/generator is 33% efficient, that's about 2 kW for each heliostat (7 sq meters * 1 kW solar energy / sq meter * 0.85 * 0.33). That's about 28% efficiency, from the surface of the heliostat to the final output. Considering the fact that most PV's (and all consumer-priced PV) are <20% efficient, that's not too bad. If your generator consists of a steam engine (Rankine or Kalina cycle) or Stirling engine, these typically product AC to begin with, so you don't have to worry about an inverter (which you will probably need with your PV, since they only produce DC).
If you use the molten salts Solar Two used, you could still get power after the sun sets (their research showed this was >95% efficient in terms of energy in vs. energy out). Alternately, you could just do net metering and knock your electric bill down.
Also, if you use the waste heat from the system to provide household heat or hot water, you get an even higher total efficiency. That aspect of it could reduce the amount of electricity you need, as well (if you have electric heat or an electric hot water heater).
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
Why did GM destroy the cars?
Pure spite.
GM never wanted to build the EV1. They had good reason of course. They KNEW battery technology was nowhere near good enough for a truly functional, profitable electric car. But environmental and government pressures made them do SOMETHING, and this was the token effort to get the Sierra Club types off of their backs for awhile. Unless a miracle was discovered, I think GM knew from the get go that these cars had no future. But since they felt forced to build them, destroying them is a nice thank you (with a middle finger) to all that were pressuring them on battery powered cars. Yes, large organizations have personalities, and can be spiteful. This reminds me an awful lot of what happened to Northop in the late 40's, when the USAF destroyed Jack Northop's Flying Wing. As the LA Times article notes, Northop wouldn't allow his company to be forced into a merger with Convair, so the Air Force got medieval on him, in a way...they made his employees watch while Air Force personel took industrial saws to the flying wing prototypes. Now THAT'S spite, folks.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
but all this does is shift the pollution elsewhere
Shifting the pollution elsewhere can be a very good thing.
It is a LOT easier and more cost-effective to scrub emissions at a few large single sources (electrical generation plants) than at a few million tiny ones (automobiles). Also, you can and usually do locate your generation facilities away from population centers where emissions would be more likely to cause health problems in humans. That's impossible to do if the combustion is occuring directly in people's commuting vehicles.
"Shifting the pollution elsewhere" is exactly the point.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Conservation of energy and thermodynamics don't apply to alternative energy sources.
Oil is mostly hydrocarbon chains of various lengths. Partial oxidation, in the presence of the right catalyst will give you (using Octane as an example):
C8H18 + 4(O2) --> 8(CO) + 9(H2)
add the carbon monoxide to some steam:
8(CO) + 8(H2O) --> 8(CO2) + 8(H2)
so the sum reaction is:
C8H18 + 4(O2) + 8(H2O) --> 8(CO2) + 17(H2)
Notice what the resultant chemicals are: Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen (gas). Sure, you can get hydrogen from petrochemicals, but you also get Carbon Dioxide in the process.
Pretty much any hydrocarbon can be used in this fashion, from Natural Gas (mostly methane; CH4) to Asphalt (mostly C20H42 or something similar). The end result is always the same, just in different combinations.
I thought the whole idea behind hydrogen power was to REDUCE the greenhouse gas output? In this scenario, you're still making greenhouse gasses, you just aren't producing them at the tailpipe. Considering how bad the total well-to-wheel efficiency is, you'd be better off just burning the petrochemicals.
But then, we're already doing that.
Don't even think about electrolysis. One kilogram of hydrogen (about the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline) has about 33 kWh of energy in it, if you've got a 100% efficient hydrolyzer. About the best you can hope for, though, is about 50% efficient, so it'll take about 66 kWh of electricity to make one kilo of hydrogen. Where I live, that's almost $5 for the equivalent of ONE GALLON of gasoline, and most of our electricity comes from coal-burning power plants (greenhouse gasses still being made at the power station, if not from the tailpipe). Since electricity made solar or wind is more expensive than electricity made from coal, hydrogen made from those sources would also be more expensive.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
IMHO, would be a rapid move toward bio-diesel hybrid/electric vehicles. Bio-diesel would offer great highway mileage, with the hybrid/electric boosting urban stop-and-go mileage. If the diesel were burning 0% sulphur like corn or canola oil, the only concern would be with recycling those batteries every 3 or 4 years. If an automobile company were to come out with a bio-diesel hybrid/electric all wheel drive SUV, particularly one that the batteries could be recharged from photovoltaic cells at home (or work), I would be standing in line to buy one.
So now we have 800 lbs of highly toxic lead-acid batteries to dispose of PER CAR. Gee these electric vehicles are so environmentally friendly! And my, what a long life-span they have too.
For some time now, you've been able to buy a turbo direct-injection diesel engine Volkswagen in europe that gets 81 miles per gallon. Yes, eighty-one. And with the new diesel particulate filters coming this year, these same cars will meet the very strict euro-IV emissions standard.
Hybrid is a gimick, electric is simply not feasable or environmentally friendlty with today's battery technology. turbo direct-inject diesel is the only way to go.
I drive a 96 VW Passat TDI (here in the US). I get 50 miles per gallon and I fuel my car with B100 Biodiesel (a diesel compatible fuel made from vegetable oil instead of petroleum oil). see www.tdiclub.com and www.biodiesel.org for more details. Biodiesel is 100% renewable, produces far less pollution than any other motor fuel, and can be used in TODAY's diesel engines - this is not vaporware, it's right here right now. It can also be blended in any percentage mix with regular diesel fuel.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
NPR show on EV1.
While you're at it subscribe to the All Things Considered RSS feed... http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?prgCode=ATC
Not only that but they couldn't possibly get insurance on a vehicle who's brakes can not be replaced due to the part not being available.
Ford doesn't make replacement brakes for model T's, either. Yet people still collect, own, and yes even in some circumstances drive them.
Because there are collectors, there is a market, and *someone* makes replacement parts, even if it's a machinist down the block making them custom.
The EV1 would have made a fantastic collectible, even if it wasn't licensable as a primary driving vehicle. No court in this country would have listened to a collector trying to sue GM after his unlicensed EV1's brakes failed. GM could easily have sold them off to collectors at the very least.
Someone would have been willing to make custom replacement parts (even computerized ones) for collector's EV1's, because their existence would have made a market for it.
GM's argument is a red herring - they explicitly wanted the cars to disappear, and they aren't saying why.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
That almost *had* to be Needles, CA. There's a place that I *always* hated driving through, no matter what I was driving. 100 miles from anywhere, and it always seemed that I didn't plan for it. Last time I did it it was with my 1983 Jeep Wagoneer. That 360ci AMC motor was always hungry. :) Towed everything I threw behind it, tho.
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
Who cares about CO2 consumption? What about the all important statistic of 0-60!
My Pontiac GTO goes 0-60 in a little over 5 seconds, and has a top speed of over 150mph!
This is my sig.
Our society is seriously screwed if these cars are going to be destroyed just to avoid potential liability issues. Is it really the case that no one can safely purchase these cars with their eyes open? What an awful waste of resources. Hang your head in shame, western world.
I find it interesting that the EV-1 is often considered the "clean, environmental choice" when in fact US electricity is largely coal based and is *the* major mercury source in our food chain. EV-1 = Hg 2 (2 = also, not a diatomic liguid).
I've heard that argument and I just don't buy it. GM never made a serious effort to sell them those cars, not for one second. A limited lease program is not developing and selling a car. Do they only lease vettes? Or can you buy them? Do they only lease x,y or z model, or can you actually buy one? See the difference?
I think because it worked so well (the Ev1 was an oustanding car actually according to all reports and owners anecdotals I have read) and they realised that solar PV and other tech was coming on strong that soon people wouldn't *need* to actually buy gasoline for a lot of purposes and driving niches. Being car guys they are also oil guys,this is just long standing tradition, hence, they came up with "hybrids", the design that will insure that people stay tied to the pump instead of plugged in to the array on the garage roof that they can actually own and get paid off 100%. And once this hybrid novelty wears off, they will be selling you their hydrogen from their hydrogen stations. This is just so obvious.
Big business really doesn't like the idea of you not stopping to "fill er up" when it comes to your ride or have to drop tons on "service" or send them a check monthly like with your "power bill", they are so used to that concept and it's so entrenched into their ideas of economics (your money needs to be their money as quickly as possible with no options for you), that anything else they will more or less *sabotage*. They made all this PR noise with the EV1,got some nice tax dodges out of it, kept "the greenies" sorta shutup for a few years, then they dumped it once those dodges were played out. And that ten year parts dodge is a scam, they could have provided parts, one of the great features of those cars turned out to be they didn't break much anyway, another negative feature from a sellers POV. And they don't seem to have any problem none whatsoever a-tall providing parts for the other hundreds of models they sell, but that one, no-o-o-, they couldn't do that, because they didn't sell it, had "too low of adoption numbers". Well shazzam, I just wonder why that is? "It's not for sale only leased in miniscule numbers in a very few places so gee whizz we didn't sell any so we have to crush the rest because we can't make the spare parts because not enough sold.err". Spot the recursive loop yet? C'mon, this was an obvious scamola.
BTW, I worked for GM too for one year many moons ago in the 60's. I was arguing to both rank and file and what management I could stop for a few that the Japanese would be over in a few/several years and take our lunch money because they were "getting it" on making more reliable and higher mileage cars. Understand this was way before any "OPEC" crisis or gas shortages or anything like that, I could just look at the few examples and see it coming from their understanding of tech and market long term. No one listened then because muscle cars were king and gas was under 20 cents. There's a ton of much smaller shops out there who have decent pure electrics, they work, just none of them have the clout or cash to go large scale production to make them even cheaper and actually offer them all over "for sale".
The first US prez to ride in ANY automobile rode in an "electric car", just something to think about.
I think the problem with the Focus is that it's not focused enough -- it has a bit of an identity crisis. It's supposed to be a cheap car, but in many ways it isn't. It's heavier than a Chevy Cavalier, it rides smoother, it has better sound dampening, and it feels much less "cheap" overall. The plastic surfaces have a little bit of "give" to them, making them more pleasing to the touch (but also hard to clean). It also has a somewhat slushy torque converter that hurts performance from a dead stop, but it has plenty of passing power. Driving one daily (mostly city) I get between 23.5 and 24 mpg. (It also has a nice sound system and power everything, though those don't have to add weight.)
:)
The Cavalier, on the other hand, just exudes cheapness. Every plastic surface still has the sharp edges where the halves of the injection mold met, the texturing is uncomfortable, things you expect to be padded aren't, the front seats are thin shells, no power windows or door locks, and sound and shock dampening are rather poor. But as a consequence, it weighs a bit less than the Focus. The torque converter is much tighter, so it darts off the line quite nicely, but revs the engine much higher in doing so. Engine noise at these higher RPM rates is much more noticeable not only due to volume, but the raised pitch. That said, it's ALSO not lacking for passing power, though it gets a little squirrely on the north side of 85 mph. On the other hand, I've never obtained a speed in the Focus that I felt was beyond the car's capabilities, and that includes 90+ mph straight drives from L.A. to Las Vegas.
But all this stripping down does have some tangible benefits -- driving the Cavalier under the exact same circumstances, I get between 26.5 and 27 mpg. I know gasoline is a finite resource, but I don't feel the trade is worth it. There has to be a way to squeeze more efficiency out of the Focus without turning it into the Cavalier. Maybe the newer ones have tightened up that torque converter so it's not necessary to mash the pedal at every light (try that in the Cav and you'll smoke the tires), that has to help.
In any case, I'll be quite glad to go back to driving the Focus. Being able to lock/unlock the doors by remote is very useful since I park the car and walk away about a dozen times a day, I was leaving the Cav unlocked a good portion of the time since there's nothing worth stealing in a rental car. Not having to pay the rental fee will also make me feel better of course.
The whole point of this long-winded diatribe is that 2001 Focus > 2005 Cavalier in everything except gas mileage and full-stop takeoffs, and the gas mileage difference isn't all that much. But it's enough to be noticeable in a so-called "economy car".
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
It seems I leave things out a lot.
/. to accept the parent to this.
It took three tries to get
The $15,000 electric car is a Corbin Sparrow.
I think I saw one in Davis, CA.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
I tells ya what. I'm going to move out of campus in a few months; wherever I move, you agree to foot the bill for the biggest solar panels we can fit on whatever property I live on next, because by then I will have no money nor people left who will lend me money.
sounds good?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Which they won't be.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
On doing more searches, I found that Corbin Motors went bankrupt in March 31, 2003.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Actually, I avoid fat-free food because I'm afraid of what might have been added to replace the fat. It's just like that sugar-free nonsense: it's all very healthy until a few thousand lab rats get cancer off the substitutes. I'll stick with the oils and amino acids several million years of evolution have crafted my body to handle, thanks.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
What the hell are you trying to do? Kill me?
/. God help us. we're smegin doomed.
1 7.shtml?tid=126&tid=14
As if I weren't already awair that they just carted off the last of
the EV1's, Now I have to go over to slashdot of all places and read
all of this crazy Bull Shit. On
(A Friend of mine) wrote:
> http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/03/16/1992
What the hell am I supposed to do:
- "My Echo gets 3mpg less than a Prius" (sic)
Sure it does, if you drive half the speed.
- "couldn't possibly get insurance on a vehicle who's brakes can
- "not be replaced due to the part not being available" (sic)
There's nothing wrong with the brakes, I quote "electronic brakes" ie
regen brakes via the Motor, it surely still has a duel-zone Hydralic
system and standard brake rotors and pads! ( required by law )
- "but all this does is shift the pollution elsewhere."
Tell me, Have you ever tried to drill & process oil from your back yard?
Well, It's entirely feasable to collect your own "solar" (wind, hydro,
pv) energy via the roof of your house and drive this car with ZERO oil.
- "See here [xtronics.com] for energy densities of various materials."
Yes, but an ICE only yields 20% of that energy, BEV's yield 80-90%!
BTW. Did you include to discovery, drilling, processing, and calaratal
damage (I mean cost) of the gassoline that you pump into your car?
- "According to GM, there where only 50 people committed to buying"
SIC SIC SIC That's total nonesense, even today there were at least
78 individules willing to buy them as salvaged vehicles, and GM finally
admitted that there were several thousand people on waiting lists.
They even refused to sell ONE EV1 to Jay Leno for a cool Million.
BTW. There's a 1 in 25 chance that you happen to live in a state where
these cars were "Available". I don't call that trying to sell them.
- "After about 10 minutes, a fully changed car was almost dead."
SIC SIC SIC SIC TOTAL NASTY SMELLY RUNNY GREEN BULL SHIT !
You would have to be burning off the energy at a rate near 120kW.
CONTINUOUSLY! That means you ran it up to a brick wall and then
spun the tires, HELL even that wouldn't work, you'de have to.....
I rented and drove a GEN 1 Lead-Acis version 110 miles in LA!
I also had it SOLD! in less than 3 hours! GM LIES, and the LIES MORE.
- "I wonder if they just made them inoperable (to avoid liability
- "concerns) and sold them as collectable on ebay "
Funny you should ask, all the ones that went to musiems and universities
were "severly disabled", ie:no run, prior to the donation. Empty Shells.
ONE thing is certin, GM sure as hell wants to make sure that noone who
hasn't already driven one of these cars will EVER get the chance.
L8r
Ryan
I will conceed "stupidity" overstates the case for dramatic effect; I suspect "irrationality" is a larger cause, although the poll can be read to place "ignorance" as an additional source of blame. On the other hand, I've done rather better in life since I reduced my underestimation of my own ability to be an idiot. On the gripping hand, disagreement with current scientific orthodoxy is best backed up at the very least with statistically rigorous data.
Are those who disagree with evolution wrong? Maybe.
Maybe? At this point I leave you to the November 2004 National Geographic, available at your local library.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
There's an entire sub-culture of people who still support Volkswagon bugs. I know these cars are more complicated, but why not sell the EV-1's? Someone in Mexico's bound to be willing to make the needed parts, just they like several Mexican companies now support the Volkswagon Bug (original models).
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
In a hybrid, the combustion-powered motor only drives a generator. It is set to operate continuously at its peak EFFICIENCY, at a fixed RPM, regardless of the vehicle's speed. The energy from this generator, combined with stored electrical energy, powers the electric motors. Since the motor driving the generator operates at a constant RPM, its torque curve really doesn't matter that much.
GM has never told the truth about demand for the EV1. I waited for almost 2 years on an "unofficial" waiting list to get one. I finally got one on a lease return with 2 years left on lease. The car was a NiMH Generation 2 model and I used it to commute 75-80 miles a day over a 1600' mountain pass with no problems. I just plugged it in every night and the range indicator in the morning was usually about 120 miles (a little less in the winter). It was great never having to stop at a gas station and the total I spent on maintenace was about $5 for a few gallons of windshield washer fluid. The EV1 was very comfortable, easy to drive, handled pretty well and accellerated like a sports car. All in all we loved the car and were very sad to loose the car at the end of the lease. GM also had the gaul to charge us $135 for a small paint scrape on the front airdam as excess wear at lease end and then went and crushed the car.
The range of the car covered 90% of our needs and if GM had built a power trailer for it like the AC Propulsion trailer for the T-Zero, it could have served 100%. With gas prices in the Bay Area at about $2.30, the $1-$2/day extra on our electric bill when we had the car looks really good now.
At least US law.
Right after funding a joint GM/Ford Diesel hybrid, the feds changed the laws so that no Diesel, hybrid or no, can be classified as a PZEV (partial zero emissions vehicle). Which means it cannot provide the full tax or HOV fringe benefits of a hybrid.
Silly? Possibly. I have to say I am not a fan of Diesels over gas engines, but at least give consumers a chance to choose.
...Stonecutters!!!
Spod - In "We Do" mode!!!
Gas is still under 20c, adjusted for inflation. (More accurately, the average daily wage pays for more gas now than it did then)
Interesting rant, BTW. Not too sure about your logic. Service and spare parts are not big profit centres, on a current value basis.
Sooner or later someone from out of town is going to drive through your area in a Prius. Even if the vehicles aren't sold there, it's a good idea for the fire department to familiarize themselves with the specifics of a hybrid power systems, and associated rescue procedures. This especially a good idea, as we'll be seeing more of this technology in the future.
r ius_erg_1.pdf,
r ius_erg_2.pdf
Toyota makes publicly available, a guide detailing the operation and technical data of their hybrid power system:
http://www.toyota.com/web/vehicles/prius/safety/p
as well as another guide specifically on emergency procedures: http://www.toyota.com/web/vehicles/prius/safety/p
Divide by zero hurts my brain.
Goddamn. Well, you got the right nickname, Rain Man.
You can't set up a hydroelectric dam just anywhere. You gotta have the geography. You gotta have the geography. You gotta have the geography.
Should I say it again, just in case you fucking missed it?
You gotta have the geography. You're not gonna be able to get a hydroelectric station just anywhere you please.
The major hole in the notion of handing out the keys is that if they do SELL them (They had only leased them up until this point) The would have to make parts for a number of years to support the vehicles. The auto industry is under regulations that require them to do such things, unlike the computer industry. Imagine the odd, proprietary hardware that you have sitting around your workroom, all having to be supported for 10 years. How much would that squelch innovation. I think that GM's original decision to release their vehicle on a lease only basis was wise.
As for the wonderful mileage that everyone's posting on the hybrids, we get close to that with a beat up, old Ford Festiva, without the problem of having to charge up a huge battery. No special training for the fire department on the jaws of life, just get out a spatula! (Or the shop-vac) I won't discuss the milage on our other vehicle. {whistle and twiddle thumbs, trying to look innocent}
Why not just allow them go to car museums instead of crushing them? I am surprised nobody wanted to save a small and relatively rare piece of history in a historic manner. Too bad.
Hybrid automobiles have two philosophies. One is Toyota's where each engine can run the car independently. Generally, at low speeds, the electric is used, but the gasoline engine kicks in and directly drives the vehicle at higher speeds. The engine will run a bit extra when the batteries are low to keep them charged. In other words, both can drive the car separately or together.
The second philosophy is using the electric as a acceleration enhancer. This is Honda's method. The gas engine is designed for cruising rather than acceleration, allowing the engine to be tuned better for constant speeds and small size (since it takes a lot less horsepower to maintain speed than increase speed). The electric kicks in when you need to accelerate. It also acts as a massive starter motor, so the gas engine can start instantly from stop.
In both cases, the gas engine directly drives the wheels, at least when it comes to cars. Now locomotives are different, their diesels act solely as a generator and never power the drive train directly, but that's not the case with cars.
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.
...according to MSN, the cars only cost $1.50 each. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P112408.asp
The cars will more than likely be recycled and turned into high-grade Slurm cans.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
If you commute 20 miles a day and you can power even 10 miles with electricity from the outlet in your garage, you've cut your gas-station visits in half. 15 miles a day, and you've cut them by 3/4, say from one fill-up every two weeks to one every two months. That's a lot of hassle you don't have anymore.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
The problem of diesel particulates is a nasty problem that needs to be corrected before diesels become widely available.
Fortunately, with the arrival of low-sulfur diesel fuel (mandated by the EPA by the late Summer of 2006), this makes it possible to offer turbodiesel engines with common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection (e.g., extremely precise fuel delivery into the combustion chamber) and catalytic converters that an also "burn off" diesel particulates simultaneously so we can get diesel engines that will be legal in all 50 states in the USA. That will pave the way for our biggest vehicles (SUV's, pickup trucks and minivans) to be switched to these new class of clean-burning diesel engines en masse, which could cut the fuel consumption of these vehicles 35-45 percent! =)
Also, clean-burning turbodiesel engines can have great automotive applications. Honda's much-lauded i-CTDi 2.2-liter turbodiesel engine which was introduced in Europe in early 2004 shows you can get great fuel efficiency and low emissions without sacrificing power output; it would be the perfect engine for the Honda Accord (it may be a tad slower than the 2.4-liter I-4 gasoline engine now used on US models but you can't argue with the possibility of 40 miles per US gallon or better fuel efficiency in freeway driving).
Mmmmmmmm ... hemp exhaust.
There are no hybrid passenger cars in production that match your description. Only train locomotives operate as you describe.
A known amount of energy is radiated from the sun to the earth. Luckily, exactly the same amount of energy is radiated from the earth out into space. So, what matters here is not energy, but instead entropy differences. High frequency photons hit the earth, and that energy is then radiated out as low frequency photons. On the way of becoming low-frequency photons, they can power some things on earth.
Now, if sunlight heats up a solar pannel, or a part of the roof, that pannel still gets hot (thermodynamics), and still will create rising air currents, still creating winds.
You also get electricity, which powers, say cars, producing heat, producing air currents, creating winds, and driving on streets moving air arround, creating air-currents.
So, you will change the weather patterns, but it isn't as if you use up all the power of the sun or the wind.
Thermodynamics... it's complicated.
Service and parts are *enough* of a profit center that the big companies have been fighting to keep specs from the independents, couple of bills in congress right now trying to change that very thing. They also fought after market parts sales but lost that one. Not sure any place else, but around here the dealers service bays are always packed, and they get 60-80 clams an hour plus parts for half a dozen to a dozen mechs full time. I'd say it's somewhat profitable for them.
:)
Although I am fully aware that the real profit is in the paper work shuffling financing,(like GMAC, etc) although past few years that's been dropping as well due to low interest rates. I really don't care either, I always thought it was pretty usurious, I mostly have always paid cash for late model used myself. Never liked financing, thought it was a rip. Whenever you see a humongous paper work shuffling business making the cover the biz mags, and they want your money...well, usually you are getting creamed pretty hard, else those boys wouldn't be *rich as snot*. I think that's a good rule of thumb to go by, to see where your cash goes-or stays, heh!
As to fuel prices, two data points to keep in mind, part of gasoline price now is a stealth tax we pay by maintaining such a huge military presence in the middle east. The other point is to the economy as a whole, the 60's were the transition period from the united states moving from being a net oil exporter to importer, with the result of the beginnings of the trade deficits that are now so far beyond reason, combined with the declared debt, that there's no rational hope of paying them off short of defaulting or just running the presses. That 20 cents may be equivalent adjusted for just inflation, but not when you take the other points into the scenario. Figure how much more that 20 cents was worth to the economy when it stayed home, rather than being exported. And figure what the true cost is if you add in the military over expenditures needed to insure oil supply. So, throw another buck (conversationally speaking, I would have to look up the actual numbers, call it x-large) on the pump price per gal to pay for the military involved in the "disputed oil producing areas", and you might get closer to a more accurate price then, just hid inside "income" taxes and what is lost to the macro economy by exportation of dollars.
It was pretty funny being in detroit back then, intergalactic HQ of gearheads and v8 monsters, and be arguing for better mileage cars and better engineering for reliability. Tell ya, I made the maytag repairman look like a party animal, it was *lonely* out there.
Another weird point, but the cars themselves. It used to be, getting back to financing, that 12 or 18 months was common, very common. What is it now, 60 months or something? Are cars really 5 times better? I don't see it, 5 times more breakble gadgets in them mostly. A lot of tech improbvements, but quite a lot of rube goldberg crapola bolted on too, cars come pre riced now.
More dollar stuff to get back to comparing 20 cents then and whatever it is now. Home mortgages, used to be 10 years was normal, now it's 30 years or unlimited, with perpetual interest payments schemes. People actually sign them things! That tells me a lot about the economy as a whole and the status of this dollar and what it is really worth. So, I really don't think we can even compare the "dollar" any more, it's different, and the dollar I had back then was either silver backed paper or real silver, it wasn't a bank's IOU debt "note".
Different world now really. and following the econo newz, looks like a heap of foreign nations are getting ready to finally wean themselves of filtering their economic reality through those debt notes. next few years should be real interesting, heck, next few months should be too, depending on how they jump with iran and syria.
Think I'll stockpile some more of that adjusted for inflation still cheap gas, gone up a quarter around here the past two weeks.....
I make most bears look like drunken lotto winners in vegas
WRONG
s p
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/1106ng.a
Check this out.
This really demonstrates how a constantly engaged (no-cones & belt) CVT works and why the Prius's drivetrain is really revolutionary, should be lower maintenance cost lifetime, and is just plain geeky cool.
Also, it shows what happens when you "drain" the drive battery down in that it doesn't stop the car from going, nor does it kill the battery.
A well-engineered wind turbine would be made only as strong as necessary to survive the maximum expected winds in the area. Any thing more than that reduces the overall efficiency of the system. Sure, you could build a wind turbine with a massive flywheel, but during calm weather, if the flywheel had to to do work to generate electricity, it would soon spin down, unless it was hugely massive or geared up to increase its speed. This comes at a cost, of course. All that rotating mass would resist changes in rotational direction, and make it difficult to reorient the blades during times when the wind shifts direction. Large amounts of inertia in the blades would also complicate the job of adjusting the prop pitch to match the wind speed for maximum efficiency.
Using a flywheel for long-term energy storage is inefficient, it is better to have an efficient windmill generate electricity at whatever rate the wind will allow, and feed it directly into the grid, or store it in batteries, or generate Hydrogen, or use some other storage medium.
Flywheels have be used as experimental energy storage devices, using heavy flywheels travelling at fantastic speeds in a vacuum on magnetic bearings. They are extremely expensive, dangerous, and not really practical for long-term energy storage, when safer and less expensive energy storage devices exist.
Amen. Humans have evolved to eat lots of fresh vegies, wholegrains, and the occasional binge of fried mammoth.
You don't need to gorge on industrial chemistry to substitute for fat, just ensure you don't eat loads of fat (or sugars) for _every_ meal.
Oh, and walk somewhere once in a while.
sustainable living
I am also shocked at the misinformed regurgitations on this site. I would have expected much better informed people here. The EV1 with the NiMH battery was ALREADY practical, 4 or 5 years ago, so GM had to kill it. My parents leased an EV1 for 3 years and loved it. They used it for nearly 100% of their driving in town. They were not real pleased when GM demanded the car back. They are among the people with offer letters to buy their car for the residual ($25K) while relieving GM of any and all future liability.
_ fcvs.pdf
GM funded a study to show that nobody would buy electric cars at the same time there was a large waiting list for the EV1. One of their assumptions was that the EV1 could only driven a max of 8,000 miles a year because of the charging time. Part way through my parents 3 year 36,000 mile lease, GM sent out letters changing the terms to 3 years 48,000 miles because too many people were surpassing the 12,000 mile a year limit, double their claimed maximum mileage in their bogus study. My parents were well over 40,000 for their 3 years. GM has lied about this car for years, and funded bogus studies to get California to drop their ZEV standard. California caved, and GM killed the EV-1.
Battery technology has already improved to the point of at least twice the energy density of the gen II EV1, with at least 3-4 times on the immediate horizon. That translates to a 250 mile range now, with 400-500 miles in the next year or two. That is plenty of range for 95% of consumer driving.
Somebody claimed that the amount of electricity generation capacity to support electric cars couldn't be supplied for 20 years. BS. First, the electric cars are more efficient, so they use less energy, so the total amount of energy used would be reduced. Second, the majority of automobile charging would be at night during off-peak hours, when the load on the grid is by far the lightest and can handle it. Third, the number of electric car sales would only start at a max of 12% or so, and would increase slowly. The total percentage of electric cars on the road would probably take 20 years just to reach the 40%-50% level, so the impact on the grid would be gradual in any case.
Here is a study comparing the cost of fuel cells vs. batteries. It shows the clear superiority of batteries without even taking into account that there is no distribution system for hydrogen.
http://www.metricmind.com/data/bevs_vs