Having an Electric Car Would Solve A lot of the Worlds problems

Originally posted by Passer By
Wasn't there a study done a little while ago in the States that essentially said that most people don't use their cars to the potential. That is that 80% of all car trips are done in the immediate area, and thus are suitable for electric vehicles.

that is bad reasoning. unless that number is 100 %, there is still the need for a conventional vehicle. unfortunatly most of us can't afford the luxury of haveing two vehicles to use depending on our needs. the same argument is used about people who own larger vehicles. as a person who had a van it got prety tireing all the people NEEDING me because their econo box was too small to handle this or that. even people at work who i barely know would beg to have use of it. i can see that worsening with your point. "can i borrow your car? i need to run to such and such to do whatever, my car isin't set up for that can i borrow yours?" the answer of course would end up becomming "NO" verry quickly.

Originally posted by drogo

Originally posted by Passer By
Wasn't there a study done a little while ago in the States that essentially said that most people don't use their cars to the potential. That is that 80% of all car trips are done in the immediate area, and thus are suitable for electric vehicles.

that is bad reasoning. unless that number is 100 %, there is still the need for a conventional vehicle. unfortunatly most of us can't afford the luxury of haveing two vehicles to use depending on our needs. the same argument is used about people who own larger vehicles. as a person who had a van it got prety tireing all the people NEEDING me because their econo box was too small to handle this or that. even people at work who i barely know would beg to have use of it. i can see that worsening with your point. "can i borrow your car? i need to run to such and such to do whatever, my car isin't set up for that can i borrow yours?" the answer of course would end up becomming "NO" verry quickly.

Thank you for the response...

I beleive though you are mistaking a couple of things. Any plan for the future is just that for the future, so to disregard the whole, because of a part, makes as much sense as refusing to see the car as a needed step because there were no paved roads. Yes, as it stands now there are a few destinations that are too far to be reasonable on an electric car today, just as there were no paved roads before. Yes, it is an impediment, but merely moving things to a more community based system wouldn't be harder than starting new wars to find new supplies of oil would it?

The 80%(Or whatever percentage it was) is also based on the locations of things based on cars. Which, really the location of things being further and further apart, and the whole suberbia was to get people to buy cars and spend money, so it shouldn't be a surprize that it is that same design that will be th emajor hurdle - but thats it - one hurdle. Or we keep going the way we are going? It makes no sense to me. We know we can't keep doing what we are doing, we know we will also have to modify our behavour regardless what system takes over from the internal combustion engine - so way wait?

I tend to agree more with passer by -- at least, up to a point.

I live eight miles from work and my wife works closer than I do. It never snows here (although it gets pretty hot in the summer) the land is level, and ther are good surface streets between our home and our respective workplaces.

In other words, we're prime candidates for electric vehicles.

Although our schedules are different (I work five days 0700 - 1530 and she works three days 0700-1930) we carpool on the days she works. She has already decided not to replace her Isuzu with another car, but has ordered a hybrid (pedal and electric motor) bicycle. If it turns out to be a workable thing, I'll get one too, and we'll both be able to commute at a very low initial cost (~$2000) and minimal pollution.

But that doesn't mean we're going to get rid of our cars! There is no public transportation to speak of here in the Arizona desert and we routinely travel distances beyond the capabilities of electric bicycles. Remember, when you recharge the batteries on an electric vehicle, it's not just a case of pulling into an electricity-station and asking the attendant to "fill 'er up"; it will take three or four hours to do so.

The only way I can see us switching from burning hydrocarbons in our vehicles (which, I think we all agree, is a Very Bad Thing) is to move from petroleum to hydrogen-fueled fuel cells. The infrastructure could change over a couple of decades to dispense hydrogen, so you wouldn't have the crippling range problems that you do with an electric car.

The problem -- and we keep getting back to this -- is that it will take a lot of electricity to produce, compress, store, and transfer the hydrogen itself. If you don't use large-scale nuclear fission to generate the electricity, you're right back where you started from with the problem of burning petroleum to generate power, whether it's electricity or hydrogen for your fuel cell.

There are no doubt issues to be resolved, but they are by and large minor issues for people as bright as humans. The problems as I see it for a pure electrical vehicle(and for the record I am more leaning with a hybrid, but instead of gas, why not use propane? It is clean fuel, burns well, easily stored, long storage periods and gives the range as gas does) are energy storage, energy generation and range.

Energy storage is difficult, but there are some really neat things happening in battery technology. Increasing the amp hours, while decreasing the charging times. I beleive one company that has a lead acid gell battery that charges 80% in less than 2 hours. Major advancements, and all without any real push.

Energy Generation - That is a problem, however only if you continue to think of centeralize power generation. If you break that habit and look more at distributive power models there is more than enough energy, assuming modest growth in technology, for both the house, the car, and feeding back into the grid which will make things easier on everyone.

Range - that IMO is the bigger issue. I just don't know if humanity, specifically American and Canadian people, are willing to make the changes needed. Enertia seems to be a very powerful control.


What about you guys? Any idea why a electric/propane hybrid hasn't been done yet?

The only problem i see in changing to a form of transport that benefits the planet is that people are like EMUs and don't want to think that oil is running out. If there was a demand for electric cars I'm sure the Engineers and Scientists would soon solve the problems.

The way I see it the only way we are gonna solve out problems is going towards Fission as a stopgap until we perfect Fusion. 35-50 years worth of more fission waste isn't gonna kill us all, it WILL present us with some cleanup to do but IMHO the ends justifies the means in this case and only this case.

i like the propane idea, but it is also a fosil fuel and therefore dosn't realy change anything. not to mention the stench a propane car gives off. what we realy need is to concentrate on bio-fuels. or come up with something differant. concentrateing on electricity is wasteing presious resources best used looking for a real replacement to combustion as we currantly know it.

as it stands now an electric vehicle is not an option. sure my daily drive to work is only an 80 km round trip, but i often travel up to 700 km on trips. not to mention the fact that i also need actual room in the vehicle to haul stuff. it would be nice if there was a decent replacement for gas but so far there isn't. untill there is unfortunately we are reliant on fosil fuels. untill government and big business want to fund reserch into a better car power source we realy don't have much hope in getting anywhere.

personaly i feel that electric cars are just there to let us spin our wheels while not actualy getting anywhere in reality. it also keeps the enviro nutters happy thinking that it is better for the enviroment, even though it's not.

I like the way you all give up on an alternative to petrol, just think that it will be there for you forever, when you get charged $ 20 a gallon i will be thinking why did they not see sense and look to alternative sources of energy.The time will come when you cant afford gas , petrol.

Originally posted by Bulldog 52
I like the way you all give up on an alternative to petrol, just think that it will be there for you forever, when you get charged $ 20 a gallon i will be thinking why did they not see sense and look to alternative sources of energy.The time will come when you cant afford gas , petrol.

i have not given up on an alternitive. i have just said that electricity is not that alternitive. in fact i had stated that we should be looking for a REAL alternitive and not waste time with electricity that is a stop gap mesure at most. why waste time and resources on something that is not an alternitive?

Well to me the only alternative is the electric engine , unless you can recommend another, perhaps Hydrogen. The only way to make people look for an alternative energy supply to drive the car is when they cant afford the fuel.

Bulldog, I don't know whether this discussion so far is over your head, or whether you simply don't want to accept the fact that it takes fuel -- some kind of fuel -- to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries.

But it does take some kind of fuel to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries. Electricity does not fall from heaven like manna, you have to spend something (fuel) in order to get something (electricity).

Now no one here is saying that gasoline engines are good thing, so your outrage at gasoline, is, frankly, a waste of your time and ours as well.

We're discussing a viable way of generating the electricty now.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Bulldog, I don't know whether this discussion so far is over your head, or whether you simply don't want to accept the fact that it takes fuel -- some kind of fuel -- to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries.

But it does take some kind of fuel to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries. Electricity does not fall from heaven like manna, you have to spend something (fuel) in order to get something (electricity).

Now no one here is saying that gasoline engines are good thing, so your outrage at gasoline, is, frankly, a waste of your time and ours as well.

We're discussing a viable way of generating the electricty now.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Bulldog, I don't know whether this discussion so far is over your head, or whether you simply don't want to accept the fact that it takes fuel -- some kind of fuel -- to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries.

But it does take some kind of fuel to generate the electricity that goes into the mains that you use to charge your batteries. Electricity does not fall from heaven like manna, you have to spend something (fuel) in order to get something (electricity).

Now no one here is saying that gasoline engines are good thing, so your outrage at gasoline, is, frankly, a waste of your time and ours as well.

We're discussing a viable way of generating the electricity now.

Perhaps the petrol that is not being used in gas guzzeling cars can be used to deliver electricity in the short term till the scientists have made improvements in the way to generate electricity,you seem like someone who thinks this problem cant be solved thats bad for society as the oil runs out you will have to buy a bicycle in the USA.That will be good for your health.

Thank you for sharing, Bulldog.

Off the street,

I need to prove it to myself. Then I will go from there, and see if I can some how help the device become more well known. You have to be very careful in this world regarding who and how you give some information. That is my understanding right now. Sorry if I was vague, for right now vague is the only way I know how to describe it.

Yes technology is suppressed, why do we even have these overly complex Internal Combustion engine? Why is so much complexity needed? Rods. Pistons. Lots of oil. Etc. All you are trying to do is spin a flywheel, more or less.

My weed eater is battery powered. Very handy. And I don't have to worry about carb adjustments, or pulling the string. I push the button in and I'm going. Superior to the endless pulling of a stubborn weed eater. It cuts through a fair amount of grass. No gas mixing. And no cord.

Troy

Intersting topic.

I just wanted to make a couple of points. Even if everyone is driving electric cars oil is still needed. Unless Biomaterials are developed also, oil will still be required to make plastics for the seats, dashboards, etc., never mind the amount of energy from oil required to build the car in the first place. So with oil to provide the electricity to power and build the cars, where is the reduction in energy use?

Renewable energy sources are finicky and heavily geographically dependant. With some investment they may reduce energy consumption in certain areas, but unless we are willing to take up a more energy spartan lifestyle, it will have little effect overall.

Japan is putting serious time and money into solutions. The Toyota and Honda Hybrid designs are a result of this. There is a functional solar-only car in development it seems, but if you are looking for a honey-wagon or a serious set of wheels, it is not for you. Based around the Japanese "K-car" which is a class of car built for below 1000cc engines, a large solar panel, the length of the vehicle, when allowed to charge early in the morning for a couple of hours will allow a very reasonable amount of travel during the daylight hours.

There is a show on TV in Japan where this vehicle is doing a lap of the country's coastline, totally on solar power. It easily covers 50~60 miles a day regardless of weather, they even braved the snowy ice-covered roads of farthest northern Japan and were fine!! So for an urban runabout it is viable.

Manufacture as many cars as you can in the boonies, you know the free energy variety. Trick Bill Gates into thinking it is another one of his big pharma vaccination tax write offs or something. Hire some former special forces people to deal with the oil company thugs, some dedicated attorneys to deal with the big oil attorneys but keep them in reserve, and keep it low profile. Don't forget to hire some hillbilllies on your payroll, and pay off Bush under the table. Now a big chunk of your budget is security, but what the heck just produce these babies now!

Maybe the easiest way to do it is to rewire some Honda insight PHEV conversions so they don't drain into the ground all the battery power. You only need to be over unity slightly so avoid overdoing it. Now with hundreds of these with some other Prius models and so forth, your Hummer hybrids could add some flash to your nationwide tour and publicity campaign. Remember these are free energy vehicles, and the hybrid part is just for cover. Use at least $100 million or so to unlock the controlled media, and pump more money into the Republican National Committee as well as the Democratic National Committee. Just grease the wheels. Use some of your free energy proof of concept engines to manufacture some vaccines cheaply just to keep Bill Gates and the Treasury Dept. happy so they keep up with the next tax credit. Selling power back to the grid with some of your advanced larger motor-generators could raise more useful capital.

Remember all of this is totally useless when nationwide toll roads happen, so use part of your budget to destroy that proposal completely.

[edit on 7-6-2005 by SkipShipman]

Thanks skip for that, although i didn't understand a word , English is so corruptible nowadays, my point is that an electric car can be developed that can rival petrol driven ones, but the major player in this ,USA seems to want to keep it oil based. I'm assuming that this is down to the oil companies who have influence on Government strategy. To me the way foreword is to embrace new Electronic vehicles , not to develop this technology would be stupid.

Yeah Skip, thanks for the post! I think I got the idea.

Say you have this great product that greatly lessens the dependency on fossil fuels. The question goes, how do you get that product out into the open, without it being squashed by "Mr. Oily Big Pockets." More or less you have to figure out how to get it to the masses, without the wrong people squashing it. So you have to get it to all the good folks without the wrong people "seeing it." And when you get a bunch of users from around the country, who see for themselves that the device does work, then I think it's harder to destroy it's validity.

Troy

Thanks for that post Skip, I think I catch your drift, but that is some pretty arcane and esoteric technology, the whole free energy thing.... but I see potential, I bet that was how the ancient flying vehicles in India were powered, the vemanas? I can't recall the right name for them. I have read little bits about some of the guys who were having success in that area.
Heck, if we could figure out how Ed Leedskalnin did his Coral Castles, I know that would help.
And Off the Street, thank you for your input, and I have heard that Solavolt is one of the world leaders on the cutting edge of solar technology, aren't they the firm that can print off sheet of silicon photocells like paper? It shows promise. And bluenergy is a company that has visions of giant sub-oceanic turbines which would work like windmills, but with the advantage of the water being many times denser than air, which would produce many times more power from the same size generator. They could place them where there are consistent currents, and have a endless supply of electricity.
I like the free energy stuff better though, it is just way cooler.