Who Killed The Electric Car?

scoobyonline200

scoobyonline200

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Los Angeles, CA
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scoobyonline2000
I just saw this trailer for movie, which can be seen at the link below. And after seeing this, I began to think. Why wont the car makers go electric instead of these 'Hybrids" that still use gasoline? A few years ago I saw this segment on Techtv's "Fresh Gear" about an electric supercar...it was FAST!!! and it ran on pure electricity. Why has no one taken advantage of this and developed a car that runs on electricity and runs on 0% gas??? are there production problems, selling points that are of a concern or what? Here's the link to the trailer...and tell me what you think. Because if anything, I would switch over to electric in a minute rather than pay $3.22 a gallon (Current rate here in my town).....

The link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/whokilledtheelectriccar/trailer/
 
scoobyonline200
are there production problems, selling points that are of a concern or what?
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Where do you get the electricity from?

If you plug the car into the mains electricity to charge it chances are the electricity is coming from an oil or coal power station - not environmentally sound, is it?
Solar/wind power don't (at the moment) provide sufficiently enough of the electricity to take over from conventional power stations, so while they would be a relatively clean source of electricity they're not widespread enough.
Nuclear power would arguably be the answer to the problem - a plentiful supply of cheap electricity. However, due to the stigma attached to nuclear energy it's not very popular.

Another problem is the sheer amount of electricity you can realistically store in a vehicle. Ranges for pure electric vehicles are generally very low (less than 200 miles is a figure stuck in my head, but I'm not sure how correct it is currently - I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong) and performance can be lacking (though that's not much of a concern for the average driver). Using batteries to store energy leads to increased weight and less space for passengers.

Then, of course, you've got the extra cost associated with an electric vehicle. They're not exactly mass-produced at the moment (save certain niche markets like milk trucks) so it's not economically viable to produce them and only a very large company could ever dream to develop, launch and make a fully electric car a commerical success today.
 
Wasn't it a French engineer who designed it but then Exxon or one of the other supers bought the Patent for it and never developed it. Could be urban legend to, that's just what I remember hearing.
 
scoobyonline200
Why has no one taken advantage of this and developed a car that runs on electricity and runs on 0% gas???
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There’re plenty of electric cars. Let me use one as an example to show you why they make no sense though right now.

Toyota RAV4 EV. MSRP: $42,000. I don’t know what a new regular RAV4 cost back then, but it sure wasn’t 42 grand. Then at 50,000–100,000 miles, you have to replace the batteries for $26,000. Hell, that makes a transmission fix look like pocket change.

Sure, you’ll save money by using electricity instead of gas, but it will never make up for the ginormous amount you paid for the car, and you’re still consuming fossil fuels, since something had to make that electricity.

It’s economically unsound, and people won’t buy into a new technology if it doesn’t make sense financially.
 
Pako
Wasn't it a French engineer who designed it but then Exxon or one of the other supers bought the Patent for it and never developed it. Could be urban legend to, that's just what I remember hearing.
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It's probably true (although I never heard such a story). The car industry is notorious for forcing out better ideas from smaller companies. Since we're on the topic of movies, Tucker is a great example.

There are a few legitimate reasons why electric cars are not viable in their current form (no pun intended). The first is efficiency. Since most methods of electrical generation are fossil fuel-based, there is a fair amount of loss when sending that energy down the line, so what is delivered to the vehicles will be less total energy than would have been generated by having a small fossil-fuel generator (your average piston engine) inside the car to begin with. Under most circumstances, 87 octane petroleum doesn't lose much energy in the fuel tanker carrier.

There's also the recycling issues. Even small A/AA batteries pose a potential environmental risk, and even though the rechargable packs in an electric car differ greatly from the average Duracell, you really don't want someone dumping one in your vegetable garden.

But you can be sure that Exxon and friends are making sure that certain research grants are...diverted for other uses. And helping make sure that laws aren't too strict on emissions or consumption, since that just makes it easier to sell fuel at a premium and the same old engine designs at higher prices because they're "better". Because they're raking in so much money, it's just not in their interest to do the right-but-unpopular thing.
 
Sage
Toyota RAV4 EV. MSRP: $42,000. I don’t know what a new regular RAV4 cost back then, but it sure wasn’t 42 grand. Then at 50,000–100,000 miles, you have to replace the batteries for $26,000. Hell, that makes a transmission fix look like pocket change.
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Don't forget the stunning range of '80-120 miles on a full charge'. It also takes 5 hours to charge from fully-depleted to fully-charged. Holy crap where do I sign up?!

Special mention to this guy. Who has owned 3 electric vehicles, but linked mainly for this quote (It's pure gold):

Some Idiot
The Ford Ranger EV was the latest aquisition...Lead acid batteries in a heavy vehicle with poor aerodynamics leaves us with just 50 miles of range, however...Still it was VERY handy to have around.
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50 miles of range! That's as handy as a pogo stick! What's more, he shows off this incredible mileage.
dash_50miles.jpg
 
Casio
Don't forget the stunning range of '80-120 miles on a full charge'. It also takes 5 hours to charge from fully-depleted to fully-charged. Holy crap where do I sign up?!
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Casio, I don't know who you are, but I love you. Never argue with me about minivans.

This is just classic:

Originally Posted by Some Idiot
The Ford Ranger EV was the latest aquisition...Lead acid batteries in a heavy vehicle with poor aerodynamics leaves us with just 50 miles of range, however...Still it was VERY handy to have around.
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And perhaps it was handy to have around because when one of his other electric vehicles ran out of charge (assumably around ten miles from home, which is about as far as they could get), he would simply walk back to his house, get the Ranger, and tow it in?

By the way, I don't see the 5-hour charge time as prohibitive. I stick my cell phone in the charger every night, and though it charges for only about 30 minutes before being complete, it really could charge for the entire six to eight hours for all I care. A car could be the same way, really, and it wouldn't matter.

That is - as long as its range was long enough. You can't have a list of errands to do and go to the store, then come back and have to sit around for five hours as it charges, then go to the post office, etc. But a 200-mile range and a 5-hour charge time would definitely be workable, I think.
 
By the way, everything about the dashboard picture is classic. The vehicle has almost no mileage on it, which is classic because it basically validates the biggest problem with the vehicle, that you can't get anywhere without it running out of energy. Also, there's a gauge that reads "ON" and "OFF," with space in between as if there's some medium area between the two.

The best part, though, is the gear choices: Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and ... what, Electric? Is that a gear, now?
 
I think its economy gear..?? I you look at the dash to the left you can notice a gauge that say econ with a negative and positive reading. Maybe its equivilant to like how cars otday show how good your gas milage is and the e drive helps.
 
So I guess there are factors to this that wont help out and some that will, if the proper technology is developed. I'm no tree hugging hippy, but I'm starting to notice how our climate is changing DRASTICALLY, and its not good. And I think that the cause of this, or part of it, is the use of fossile fuel's. Will we always depend on gas? I mean its not like its an infinate resource.
 
Global Warming is an unproven hypothesis at the moment, noone can accurately predict what the weather will be like tomorrow, much less climate change.

I need a bumper sticker made,
"Smokey the Tailpipe says, Give a hoot, and Pollute, because only YOU can prevent Glaciation."
 
Electric cars arent dead at all. Theyre gonna be taking over from petrol when we run out, if you count the electric motors in hydrogen fuel cell cars electric.
 
Poverty
Electric cars arent dead at all. Theyre gonna be taking over from petrol when we run out, if you count the electric motors in hydrogen fuel cell cars electric.
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I don't think it does count. Otherwise my Cordoba is an electric car because it has electric windows.

Although, fuel cells are somewhat battery like, so I see where your coming from.
 
Who here remembers Ford's expiriment with the C!TY (I think that was the name)? If I can recall correctly, it was a small electric car that would be sold for less than $20,000 and had a range of roughly 50 miles and a top speed of 45-ish MPH. Yeah, and it like lasted for only a year.

At the moment, electic cars are a joke. They aren't safe, they arn't viable unless you live in a large (mostly flat) city, and don't care to drive quickly.

I think we should be more worried about Diesel cars, as that is where the money is at right now. Full-electric power is still 10-years down the road at best, and even then, we would have to be in a TIGHT squeeze with oil to make those cars popular.
 
Ford didn't manufacture the City, it was a Norwegian brand called TH!NK which Ford either bought or wholly subsidized. The vehicles were then sold at various choice locations around the world. Ford's connection with it was strong, though. As recently as two years ago (literally two years ago today) I saw the vehicles being leased at a small dealer in California's Bay Area - this was near Palo Alto, California, not far from the Stanford University campus. To my knowledge, the vehicles continue to be leased, with many going to various local governments.

The most popular electric vehicle on the market today is collouqially known as the GEM, which stands for Global Electric Motors, a manufacturer in North Dakota presently owned by DaimlerChrysler. The vehicles the make are the size of golf carts and slightly larger - they seat up to four and get heavy fleet use. The vast majority of them go to southern California, though some end up elsewhere. In fact, I saw one in use at a grocery store in Grand Junction, Colorado, a mid-sized town on Colorado's western slope. Here's the photograph I took of it:

999-nev.jpg


In Colorado, electric vehicles with 17-digit VIN numbers get special license plates. This is the only one I have ever seen, attached to the vehicle described above:

9980-nev.jpg


As I mentioned, these are today's most popular electric vehicles.
 
I've seen those GEM's here in Los Angeles, especially where I work in Downtown L.A. Most of the time its full of buisness people going from building to building and usually they're going the speed limit...or rather it looks like it. Do those have to be registered???? I suppose they are since they ARE cars.
 
M5Power
Ford didn't manufacture the City, it was a Norwegian brand called TH!NK which Ford either bought or wholly subsidized. The vehicles were then sold at various choice locations around the world. Ford's connection with it was strong, though. As recently as two years ago (literally two years ago today) I saw the vehicles being leased at a small dealer in California's Bay Area - this was near Palo Alto, California, not far from the Stanford University campus. To my knowledge, the vehicles continue to be leased, with many going to various local governments.
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I knew there was an "!" involed somewhere, but I couldn't remember where it went. I've only seen one of the cars, and it was at an autoshow. My impressions of the vehicle? Too much Rubbermaid plastic, too small, not worth the money. Hmmm, the public must have thought the same thing as well given that nobody seems to have bought one...
 
scoobyonline2000
I've seen those GEM's here in Los Angeles, especially where I work in Downtown L.A. Most of the time its full of buisness people going from building to building and usually they're going the speed limit...or rather it looks like it. Do those have to be registered???? I suppose they are since they ARE cars.
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Well, in Colorado, they get those electric vehicle plates which means they're exempt from the cost of registration. However they still need license plates, because they're being operated on public roads and they do have a 17-digit VIN number.

In California, I would not be surprised if the vehicles did not have to be registered, but obviously the law changes state to state and I can't be completely sure.
 
M5Power
Well, in Colorado, they get those electric vehicle plates which means they're exempt from the cost of registration. However they still need license plates, because they're being operated on public roads and they do have a 17-digit VIN number.

In California, I would not be surprised if the vehicles did not have to be registered, but obviously the law changes state to state and I can't be completely sure.
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I guess it must be cheaper to register them if you DO have to register them, or are the fee's the same? And dont state laws have something to do with the saftey of a car, is the GEM a safe car itself? I was just curious as I see it has no doors and it looks to be made out of either fiberglass or plastic...
 
YSSMAN
I knew there was an "!" involed somewhere, but I couldn't remember where it went. I've only seen one of the cars, and it was at an autoshow. My impressions of the vehicle? Too much Rubbermaid plastic, too small, not worth the money. Hmmm, the public must have thought the same thing as well given that nobody seems to have bought one...
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They're extremely popular here, or rather was, as imported french el-hatchbacks and el-vans are superior in every way - except for safety. The car was safe, proved by a collision-test where it totaled an S-class, while sustaining repairable damage to its own front bodywork and suspension.

They've gone down the drain though. Kewets and Peugeots are numerous however, and are quick in city-traffic. Also, the only thing making them popular is the complete absense of taxes on EL-cars, plus they can drive in the bus/taxi-lanes, park for free and don't have to pay tolls.

Some other reasons might be explained in this article. With cars like that, driving an electric doesn't sound very appealing.
 
scoobyonline200
I guess it must be cheaper to register them if you DO have to register them, or are the fee's the same? And dont state laws have something to do with the saftey of a car, is the GEM a safe car itself? I was just curious as I see it has no doors and it looks to be made out of either fiberglass or plastic...
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Usually it has to do with the size of the engine or in some cases the weight of the car. Obviously this car is exempt from most safety regulations since it probably weighs about as much as Sean Connery, but it's still considered a registerable car because it has a 17-digit VIN, which is sometimes all it takes. In Colorado anyway.

aeb-b9.jpg

By the way - I killed the electric car. I ate it. And you're next. Grrr...
 
M5Power
By the way - I killed the electric car. I ate it. And you're next. Grrr...
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No you didn't. The Stonecutters did it! You know that chapter of "The Simpsons" where Homer gets accepted into a secret society - "The Stonecutters". And after being accepted, in one of their meetings, they all sing a song that tells about their actions, and among "Who keeps the Marsians off the maps? We do", and "Who makes every Oscar-night? We do", there's a "Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Gutenberg (me asks: :crazy:WHO?), a star? We do, We do"
 
Meh, Electrics have another weakness...Top End Power

In a standing 1/4, many electrics will beat a similar model off the line. they have massive torque at .000001 RPM, but, on the freeway, electrics are much less efficient. it's like Turbo Lag in reverse.
 

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