6 Major Pre-Production Electric Vehicles Compared

rbgrn writes with a review of six major pre-production electric vehicles. The review offers an easy side-by-side comparison of these six cars with projected release dates of either 2008 or 2010. "With all of the hype surrounding hybrid vehicles today, I thought I'd do some research and post my findings on the next generation of fully electric and plug-in hybrids. The fully-electric EV has had a bad name in the past, mostly due to insufficient battery technology, politics, lack of performance models and other factors. Starting this year with the Tesla Roadster, the EV is going to take on a new form in the eyes of John Q Public. Quiet, efficient EVs will start to become commonplace in the next few years as major manufacturers go into production with the newest generation of vehicle sporting more powerful motors, efficient generators and the latest battery technology."

Comments

Electric Cars Powered by Coal Fired Power Plants??

[BanjoBob]

Electric cars need energy and where does it come from? In a large part of America, that is from coal-fired power plants. But do you understand how much coal it takes to do this? How many power plants consume how much coal over how many years?

The Appalachian mountain range with their mountain top removal has the same problem as here in the west...Wyoming has several HUGE open pit coal mines and, for example, Colorado has a moderate sized coal fired power plant near Pueblo. The Commanche Power Generating Plant was built when I was at the University in the mid '70s. The power plant consumes coal -- LOTS OF IT! They're expanding it by 50% and adding another power unit now.

* Trains have been running to the Commanche Power station since 1976
* There are a minimum of 8 trains of coal each day to the power plant. Often 12 or more.
* Each Train has between 100 and 125 cars of coal
* Each car holds between 286,000 - 315,000 pounds of coal

30 Years = 10950 days
8 trains x 100 cars x 10950 days yields 8,760,000 cars of coal
8,760,000 cars x 286,000 lbs per car = 2,505,360,000,000 Pounds of coal
One could assume that 2.5 trillion pounds of coal have been burned.
That's 1,211,753,400 tons!
Now there's 45 cu ft per ton for hard coal
So just this one power plant has consumed 54,528,903,000 cu ft of coal.

That's just one power plant. That's one hell of a big hole! That's also only for one small power plant. Almost 7 times that number of trains run through here and who knows how many in other directions from the mines. That same mine in Wyoming is also sending about the same amount of coal to Utah and other states. The hole above is just to keep one power plant running. Wyoming Some day I'm going to head up there because I want to see the hole that has produced over a trillion cubic feet of coal..

27 trains a day come through here (and 27 empty trains return through here) every day.
Each of the 54 trains has six engines smoking away as they go back and forth for hundreds of miles.
If North, East, West and SouthWest all have comparable train volumes from just this one mine, and there are many similar mines in Wyoming, we are consuming coal in mass quantities and stripping the land of its features in the process.

So, now what does it cost to run your little green car?