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Comments about "Power struggle for the electric car"
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14 Comments on this article:
There WAS demand for the EV1. Every time I took my Saturn to the dealership for an oil change, I would ask, when is the EV1 coming to all 50 states, instead of just CA? And they kept saying soon, soon. It never came. There was pent-up demand beyond belief for an electric car. GM just chose not to acknowledge it, as they don't WANT an electric car, they want to keep producing gas guzzlers forever. Well...they had better wake up and smell the green trend or they will become as extinct as the dinasaurs.
Keep in mind that you need to burn fossil fuels to power the batteries in an electric car. And you always lose energy transferring power from one source to another, so in the end - electric cars don't really do much to reduce carbon emmissions. But driving an electric car makes you feel better, and that's the most important thing.
Electric Cars are far less polluting then gasoline cars even when you get your power from the national grid (55% coal). Department of Energy and California Energy Commission studies support these findings and they are summarized on the DVD extras for "Who Killed the Electric Car".
Many people who drove EVs in California were (and in some cases still are) nearly 100% fossil fuel free thanks to the addition of solar systems to their rooftops.
Looking for the best use of home-made energy from my roof-top solar system I realized my biggest use of energy
was my gas guzzler. I investigated electric cars and ended up buying a 25 year old electric. No smog, no gasoline. So what? This was a purely logical analysis of the economic benefit. After 6 months of daily use I HAVE become emotionally attached to my EV.
You don't have to charge the batteries from fossil fuels. There's renewables as well.
That argument is just a smoke screen. The car has zero emissions. If you choose to power it from burning fossil fuels then you've made that choice. Like the previous poster said, that still helps.
At best an internal combustion engine will always pollute, at best a battery electric vehicle will not.
Because the 2nd big step is to improve our energy supply, doesn't mean the 1st step is bad or even less effective.
Whoever prepared this article was observant and thorough enough to realize that Formula One cars ( pictured) have 2 seats, twin windscreens, fenders, and headlights. Seriously though, the car is the Ariel Atom, built in Britain by a team of 7 individuals. It is a roadworthy, certified automobile. Even in EV format, it's extremely fast and agile. And it's occupants don't require air conditioning.
While everyone is crying about electric cars, making movies, and blaming corporations in typical fashion, the market is actually responding to the demand for electric cars. I am astounded that the article did not mention Tesla, an electric sports car company that hired a number of Stanford students, nor the very recent debut of GM's latest electric car.
"Who Killed the Electric Car" will become a non-issue very soon. GM's new E-flex drive system(aka series plug-in hybrid) will be in dealerships within 3 years. All the talk about battery technology not being there will be allieviated when GM tests the A123 Systems batteries. Those that have tested these batteries believe that they will easily meet or exceed GM's weight, power, temperature, charge time, charge life and durability requirements. All that is needed is to put them in a larger format and test them in vehicles. GM has put a lot of money into their E-flex program - enough that should silence any delusions that this is all a PR stunt.
I'm glad that Joshua Wong found this documentary informative. He mentions that he was "turned off by the emotionality of EV enthusiasts" who seemed to think the cars were a "cure for cancer." Well, Mr. Wong, as an EV driver and the "star" you thought had the poor taste to actually look sad when GM's zero emission vehicles were carted away to the crusher, I can tell you that when people drive cars that disconnect them from the pump, they feel some appropriate despair and disgust at the unnecessary destruction of those cars. I am happy to be CONNECTED to those emotions and happy to be DISCONNECTED from the pump because I know that I am not contributing to the 6,500 premature deaths that occur every year in the state of California due to fossil fuel emissions. I know that no one will die on any foreign shore because of my fueling choices. I also know that by driving an electric car and plugging into renewable solar energy, I am part of the "cure for cancer". EV drivers are part of the solution. Are you?
The EV1 was so efficient we could convert all of our gas use to EV1 without building even one new power plant. The electric usage curve shows a great peak in the daytime. The unused capacity at night and off-peak, if used to plug-in EVS, would actually help the electric grid.
Canny drivers who install their own solar PV electric wind up with more electric power than they can use, pumping much of it into the grid and driving at no additional cost.
The RAV4-EV, a small SUV, gets over 120 miles on the energy equivalent of less than a gallon of gas. We power two of them, total 30K miles per year, from on-peak credits from our 4.3 KW solar system.
No coal involved!
Sorry, Eric Anderson, the VOLT is just a PR stunt. GM has the battery right now, if they were serious; by calling for "research" into alternative batteries, they call their commitment into question.
I have seen the movie several times when it was in St. Louis. Those that are informed know that the Volt is a stunt. Why give us watered down technology and a car that looks like a toy? The EV1's and later repackaged cars with the better batteries, got over 100 miles to the charge. What is really strange, is no one talks about Chevron buying up the battery technology. Hello Chevron... your comments?
I looked at the Volt at the car show in Detroit. I think the Volt is a GM smokescreen to deflect negative publicity from the film (great film!). GM and the rest of the big six have no pressing need to offer us a electric car. They will only offer it up when pressed to do so by law. I would prefer not purchase any of their polluting products and wait for pure electrics to come out by smaller firms (Reva, Th!nk Nordic,etc.)
Phil