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Electric Mini Cooper Has Rough Start
TopSpin writes "BMW's limited roll out of the electric version of its Mini has met with complaints from early adopters including less than advertised range, cold weather charging problems, bulky batteries and connection issues. Richard Steinburg, BMW's manager of electric vehicle operations, assures everyone that the manufacturer is 'learning quite a bit as we go.' Drivers are paying $850/month for the privilege of helping BMW learn how to build EVs, while also helping BMW meet alternative fuel mandates so that other models can continue to be sold in select markets."
Am I the only one who doesn't understand the craze for electric vehilces?
I work on my own vehicles, which makes me long for EVs. No more fuel-soaked hands, for one thing. Just moving pollution controls from the car to the power plant is a huge win, too. If you wouldn't rather have an EV than an ICE given similar performance characteristics, you don't understand the problem. With that said, we are going to need battery technologies that are more useful if we're going to make the switch.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They prefer the term "early adopters" and without them we wouldn't see half the new risky products that appear on the market.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Right, we are talking about new BMWs here. The original "green fashion" has already been adopted by the poor. It's called walking.
I am a v1ral sig. Plse c0py me and h3lp me spread. Thank y0u?
The problem is not solved considering biofuels are neither cheap, nor can you manufacture enough of them even if you covered the entire world in corn/soy. Switchgrass ethanol is too expensive, the manufacturing processes have lousy efficiency. Algae biodiesel theoretically could do it, provided anyone could actually do it in a large scale on the cheap. You can use biofuels for military and aerospace requirements, but it is too expensive for people's cars.
Even palm oil biodiesel and sugar cane ethanol are not good enough.
There is enough spare electric capacity in off-peak times to power several dozen million vehicles in the US alone.
I'm still confused about this hybrid thing. Go to Europe, and you see the same Dodge minivan picking up kids in front of school, but with a turbodiesel. I know the market is manipulated there too, but I'd prefer the established 40- 45 mpg tech of a TD. The 335d is a great example. More Torque than the titans of Detroit of old. A Peugeot Diesel was my renta-car, and it feared no Berlin Taxi. I'd take a Jetta TDI over a Prius, etc.
One important problem of the electric car is the time you have to spend charging it.
However, this doesn't happen with an hydrogen car like the Honda FCX Clarity car.
And it is also cheaper than the electric Mini (600$ a month)
More info at:
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/
Corn biofuel is extremely inefficient, and, depending on where you get your numbers energy negative. But there are other crops with far higher potential efficiencies. Biofuel is definitely part of the solution, but not if we keep letting fucking politicians and their corn subsidies determine science.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Same could have been said for microwave ovens, computers. Somehow, demand causes all kinds of change. When gas hits a high enough cost, building an entirely new *anything* might be cheaper.
Somewhere along the line, someone didn't quite think this electric vehicle revolution through...
Pollution, smog, limited fossil fuels, accidents, traffic jams, gas supply problems, getting oil from 3rd world countries.
Somewhere along the line, someone didn't think this combustion engine automobile revolution through... yet it happened anyway just as the electric vehicle revolution might.
Here's hoping that whatever will eventually replace electric vehicles (if they ever become dominant) will be absolutely problem free.
Awwww, not this shit again. The DOE has stated that almost 80% of a US fleet of electric vehicles could be charged from off-peak (night) power generation, without building any additional plants. Raw materials? It's going to be far easier to come up with those than more oil (which is slowly running out). The electrical revolution has already been thought out, and it's running full steam ahead.
A lot of electric power plants sit idle most of the time. They exist only for peak power demands. If most of those cars recharge overnight, you might not have to build a single extra plant.
I don't know stats. It may be that some would be needed. It may be that the peak power plants are the most inefficient and dirtiest. But it's not nearly as bad as you imply.
Infuriate left and right