Electric cars a bad idea?

[nfpgasmask]

IMO, electric is just a trade off. So we use less fuel, but imagine how much nuke power (more nuclear waste) we would need if even 50% of the current autos on the road were electric powered?

Solar and wind and geothermal would need to be full swing. We need to get away from fossil fuels, yes, but we also need to realize what the trade off is. Until we can produce on a large enough scale, TRUE, clean, renewable energy, I think gas will be here for a while.

Bart

[Marlin]

IMO, electric is just a trade off. So we use less fuel, but imagine how much nuke power (more nuclear waste) we would need if even 50% of the current autos on the road were electric powered?

Solar and wind and geothermal would need to be full swing. We need to get away from fossil fuels, yes, but we also need to realize what the trade off is. Until we can produce on a large enough scale, TRUE, clean, renewable energy, I think gas will be here for a while.

Bart

Nuclear is pretty clean. The waste is all self contained for the most part and not pumped into the atmosphere like fossil fuels. Downfall is that it takes a long time to become safe. But there is this one place we can store it....I think its called Nevada, or something like that.

[circmand]

Hmmmm seamed to miss "Although its clear that current electric vehicles arent the way forward" in your whole governent conspiracy theory attack hahaha

Seemed to miss? Actually I left it out because electric cars MAY be the solution. But to know this we have to measure honestly and not allow the government to do like the NFL referees are doing and decide the winners. In addition if we get everyone driving electric we do not have existing energy capacity to create enough to recharge all the cars. What happens then the cost of electricity skyrockets and the cost per mile figured out for current use is no longer correct. Look what happened to the price of corn when the govt forced ethanol on us. It greatly increased the cost of corn as food for humans, cattle feed as well and gas with ethanol causes vehicles to get lower mpg so more gas is needed all driving up the cost per mile as opposed to reducing it.

[Scott Harness]

But there is this one place we can store it....I think its called Nevada, or something like that.

LOL...under Bart's house
It's hard to beat the internal combustion engine.
The problem "is" too many people

[circmand]

I think you are also missing some data. Sentras only came in a manual tranny up until about 8 years ago, the base model had no AC, power windows power locks, power trunk release and so on, .

Why do we need all these friggin extras. I prefer rolling down the window by hand to replacing a motor for $800. Anyone think our windows would have the issues they do if they were perfected manual roll downs? Power locks hell I never locked myself outr of a car til cars started locking the damn doors for me. power trunk release how lazy are some people. How about the 20 speaker stereo systems. Friggin 10 pounds of speaker wire plus the speaker and stereo. How about these 22 inch rims and tirems weighing 50 or more pounds a piece.

And they do all this crap and then the one good option that used to be standarded a full sized spare is dropped for weight.


ARRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!

[RickOKC]

Strange, I looked at the traffic fatalities numbers, from 94 (thats as far back as it went) to 2006, traffic deaths went up almost 10%!!! Went from 36,200 to 39,200!

I wonder how that compares to the population increase.

I wonder if that is due to speed limits going to 70mph?

BITE. YOUR. TONGUE. No really, right now. We'll wait.

[Marlin]

I wonder how that compares to the population increase.


BITE. YOUR. TONGUE. No really, right now. We'll wait.

LMFAO, my tongue hurts now, thanks. As for the population increase(9% from 2000 to 2010), all those kids haven't started driving yet, so unless you are referring to illegals without driver's licenses or insurance, I doubt it

I rarely drive the VX over 50 mph, even on the freeway I am in the right lane.

The F250 on the other hand....it just rides so nice at 80mph and it still gets better mpg than the VX does at 45 or 50!!! I love my big diesel truck, gets better mpg than a mini cooper and I can haul a house with it. Definitely could haul some gold bars in the bed
Oh, I am on this mini cooper kick cause one of the guys at work bought one for his wife. She is only getting around 24mpg around town. They are pissed.
She says she takes it easy, but for some reason, I doubt that

[nfpgasmask]

LOL...under Bart's house
It's hard to beat the internal combustion engine.
The problem "is" too many people

Amen, brother. STOP BREEDING PEOPLE!

Bart

PS - Storing nuclear waste in any form is just an accident waiting to happen. "Clean" isn't really the word I would use for nuclear...and yeah, I don't want that chit in my state in any quantity.

[newthings]

Root problem -- Like Scott said, ”Too many people”. To political to tackle that one. Mother nature will fix, in her own good time.

Current battery technology is not suitable for competing with oil based gas as a car fuel.
Trying to justify electric power in a subsidized environment is like trying to quantify farts.

(Year old data) Honda has a program in SoCal, offering natural gas powered conventional cars for sale at normal unsubsidized prices. A low pressure house gas line is used with a compressor to give a partial fill up overnight. The cost of the compressor unit is about $2000.00. No one mentioned -- How about buying two compressors?”

Natural gas is the only thing that makes sense right now and for the next 10 years. We have a lot of natural gas. If the cracking extraction process does not get greedy and pollute the water tables and ruin the reputation of the product, we can get and distribute natural gas now. The natural gas stock market is slow and boring. The politicians do not champion natural gas. Politicians do subsidies and pay offs. They are not working for us.

Methane hydrate lays thick on the bottom of vast deepwater sea beds. That is natural gas and water under pressure. Rejecting that the human race will continue to breed infinitely, there is a near infinite supply of methane hydrate there for the picking. Technology is needed, but it is conventional not magical, like an unobtainable ideal battery. Sorry, the chemistry and physics just are not there.

Look at all of the quickly improving technologies we are use to. Batteries have only improved in small increments. Even high temp batteries with lots of risky side effects, are not capable of the power densities and long life, need in cars. Pull the subsidies and you could not make enough 10 foot poles for the Volts and Leafs. Soon the Priususes will be needing to be re-batteried. Who will pay and how much? Top Gear drove a Prius hard and got about 6 mpg.

But don’t get me started.

Roy

[circmand]

Root problem -- Like Scott said, ”Too many people”. To political to tackle that one. Mother nature will fix, in her own good time.

Roy

Too many people driving but on the other hand not enough paying into social security.

Think about it. That is the main problem about solving problems. One only looks at one issue and how to solve it. That translates into causing other problems usually just as bad or worse than the initial problem. Frankly it isnt too many people it is too many stupid people. There should be a law that limits who can breed.

And for those who say that would be wrong or violate their rights I say who cares. What about my right not too be unduly burdened by morons.

[Stephen Biko]

You can't compare the weight of a base model from 19 years ago to now and say its only because of safety stuff.

It really doesn't matter where all the weight comes from - focusing on that is a red herring. The point is that cars weigh a helluva lot more and yet mpg is roughly the same because engine technology has come a long way. You put a modern engine in a 1990 chassis and you are looking at way better efficiency than we had before. What we had back then does not compare to what we have today.

Strange, I looked at the traffic fatalities numbers, from 94 (thats as far back as it went) to 2006, traffic deaths went up almost 10%!!! Went from 36,200 to 39,200! I wonder if that is due to speed limits going to 70mph?
Just wondering, since our vehicles got safer, yet fatalities went up.

US population in 1994: ~260M Fatalities: 40,716
US population in 2006: ~300M Fatalities: 42,642
US population in 2009: ~306M Fatalities: 33,808

That's a population increase of 15% but really only a %5 increase in fatalities by 2006 and a 17.5% decrease in fatalities by 2009. That drastic drop over the last ~5 years is due to increased safety requirements starting early in the decade.

[Stephen Biko]

And for those who say that would be wrong or violate their rights I say who cares. What about my right not too be unduly burdened by morons.

Nothing wrong with it all! I vote you and your gene pool to be the first.

[Marlin]

It really doesn't matter where all the weight comes from - focusing on that is a red herring. The point is that cars weigh a helluva lot more and yet mpg is roughly the same because engine technology has come a long way. You put a modern engine in a 1990 chassis and you are looking at way better efficiency than we had before. What we had back then does not compare to what we have today.

So we need to put new engines in old cars!!! I wonder if fuel prices affect accidents as well. When the prices go up, people drive a bit more conservatively, drive less and so on.
I couldn't find a fatalities per gallon of fuel sold or something like that. We couldn't really use miles, since we have no idea how many miles folks are driving. But gallons of gas, we could use an average mpg to get a ballpark, and then using the fatalities from each year come up with some accidents/mile figure. Say 2% of gas is not used in vehicles (lawn mowers, generators and so on, I have no real idea, just guessing. Its probably much lower than 2%)

[circmand]

Nothing wrong with it all! I vote you and your gene pool to be the first.

Fix me at let me at em I am more for the motions than the results anyhow. Just make sure my social security is covered.

[Y33TREKker]

I think the benifits are supposed to be for the environment arent they?

Exactly.

Throw the money involved into the mix though, and it's endless smoke and mirrors. Play the endless scenarios of "how much will it cost me" and/or "how much money can possibly be made" to their conclusions though and a person is still left with one reality...what good will the money that's been saved or made do if the only option is to spend it in a place that's no longer habitable?

Of course, that hinges on whether a person believes that current man-made technologies are worsening the environment, but we won't go there.

Now maybe the current technologies still aren't to the point of making electric cars viable as all-purpose vehicles, but at least attempts are being made to come up with alternatives. And in my opinion, that is where the focus should be maintained, as opposed to only pointing out perceived problems or failings.