msnbc has an article today talking about gm.

gm states that the cocept "volt" car unveiled 2 mts ago, will be in production by 2010.
it states that in a single day right now you can get 40 miles out of electricity. it will be repowered either by an on board small engine or an electrical outlet.

that 40 mile thing isnt going to cut it with todays society and especially the futures society.
thats the best they can do right now???
im 29 and hopefully driving for another 40 plus years, i can see myself at the pump for all of that time, unless they have some sort of miracle.
with rising gas prices,g.warming,supply and demand, populations rising across the world, i dont know if its a crisis in our lifetime, but deffinately in the future.

when you actually look at physics, the story behind putting people on the moon and bringing them BACK, 40 miles on electric is the best that they can do??????
i just dont buy it.

 

The problem with comparing current vehicles to alternatives, is that gas engines were discovered early & just make so damn much power. One of the problems we have in switching to something else is that it's harder to find something that makes enough power to satisfy us. The reason for the electric motor only going 40 miles is because it has to use such a high percentage of it's stored energy to get that car moving, and keep it moving. Another problem is all the added features we have on cars. If we could take away the radio, spedo, tach, gas gauge, AC, pw, pdl, etc, the car would go for much longer. An electric engine working off a battery can't charge the battery, so it runs out quicker. It'd be like running your truck, and trying to have the exhaust pipe go back into the gas tank to get used again, just doesn't work that way.

Add in the oil industry corruption, political corruption, under-the-table deals, and all that other junk people talk about that holds back innovation, and I think you'd have your answer.

 

Part of the problem is in your response- "today's society". Why do people insist on commuting 20, 30, even 100 miles to work? I commute 5 miles, the speed limit is 40 MPH, and most of the time you can't even get going that fast for the traffic. I would love to have a small, affordable electric city car I could just plug in at night. Note I specified 'affordable'!

 

Agreed. The fact fact that a lot of people choose to live a long way from where they work doesn't mean that it's reasonable. It's a tremendous waste of resources for so many people to be driving this distance.

Also, I don't think you can say that oil industry corruption is stifiling innovation and research into energy alternatives. Heck, the fuel high prices (which folks say are caused by corruption) ENCOURAGE innvoation by creating a financial incentive.

 

I know why people live a long way from work-because they have to.

-Buying real estate in a major city is typically very expensive compared to 10-20 miles out.

-Renting is a waste of money.

-Crime tends to make people live farther from the city. I know that there is no way in h3ll that I'd live in Cincinnati if I worked there. I probably wouldn't even live in the county and pay thier taxes.

Mike

 

When I was in high school, we took a 1986 Mazda RZ-7, and made an electric car out of it. The cost in 1996 was $6000 for everything, except the donor car. It was a 120V system, so it had 20 6 volt batteries, and a 40 hp electric motor. To run accessories, it had a separate 12V battery, this gave it a range of around 70 miles. We never did speed tests on it, but the setup we used actually out accelerated the Miata of that year to 60 mph.

So 11 years later, why can detroit and japan not have a car with a 100 mile range.

Of note, most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels as well, so until we develop better sources of renewable electricity, its only a stop-gap mechanism anyways, though it helps some.

Also, why do they assume it is cars and trucks that are the main culprit in global warming? could it be the fact that 200 years ago there were 500 million small buildings on earth being heated by wood and coal, and now there is 7 Billion being heated by higher intensity fuels and more efficient burner systems? And what about the fact that there was no asphalt pavement 200 years ago, no there are so many million square miles of it i can even begin to imagine. this absorbs more heat into the earths surface. You ever look at urban areas low temps verses the more rural areas?

ok, off of the soap box I go.

 

What about the people and the industries' that use fuel to earn a living? Are we supposed to stop shipping things?

My wife works in downtown Atlanta and we live roughly 45 miles from there. She makes more money by commuting to the city and it's safer to live away(far away) from this city, and we can own more that an acre of land since there's actually land left outside the city limits.

This is the answer to the question "why do people have to drive so far to work?" simply put- the money is better which allows us to have more and live better.

When it comes to energy use, I think we're asking the wrong questions. One I'd like to know the answer to- why haven't we run out of crude?
I remember five-ten years ago the "experts" said we'd be out in the next ten to twenty years. Just like global warming, which I stress "is still a theory", this shows me that mankind doesn't really know ANYTHING. All we can do is geuss, educated or not, We really aren't as smart as we think we are. I'm all for keeping the earth beautiful so that our great-great-grandkids will know what we know, so that said- why don't we stop these greedy builders from destroying 100 or more acres of forest to create a new subdivision or a new shopping center?(this includes and really means you-WALMART) Maybe we're seeing what we "say" we're seeing due to the fact that there aren't enough trees left in the world to clean the atmosphere. Why is no one(politician)making movies and preaching this?

There has been over 3 thousand acres of good hunting land and forest destroyed in my county alone in the past 8 months. What for?-two new(unneeded)subdivisions,a new car lot(there was nothing wrong with the one they owned across the street from the new one) and a brand new WALMART shopping center. The people in the county fought and petitioned against the new walmart and geuss what? Big money somehow won. There will be 8 acres of walmart store space alone,950 parking places,just for the walmart(uhhh?? HELLO-asphalt!!!! thats a crude oil product) The new shopping center has destroyed over 1500 acres alone, and now I have a walmart, in a square pattern, all the way around me(this will make four in a 25 square mile radius all the way around me. There is nothing wrong with the three operating now, they simply want me to have one everywhere I look.
If you can't tell, i'm antiwalmart, haven't been in one since august of last year and won't go into one.
If there's two corporations The people should be worried about it's walmart and mcdonalds. Everwhere you go you can find one of these being built, and then ten miles up the road, you geussed it-there's one in operation,and there's nothing wrong with it(you simply have to go to the next exit to get their product)

That's what I wanna hear a political figure preach about-LAND CONSERVATION

Sorry to hijack your thread and vent but I think we focus on things too hard,and the wrong things,at that.

 

Hate to disagree with you, ag30265, but there's actully more forest area than there was just a few years ago: http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/countryinfo/en/
This is just the U.S.

Granted, urban sprawl is a real problem. When we moved to our little corner of the planet 7 years ago (Kiefer, Ok. pop. 865), one of the main reasons was because of the low population density. Sure, the wife drives a little farther to work, but my commute averages 100 miles/day, round trip, and it wouldn't matter where in the area we lived. I'm a general contractor, and I have to go where the work takes me. I have to drive a full size truck, carry a lot of weight, and get lousy mileage. I'm also a contributor to the Sierra Club, the Arbor Day Foundation, and the Nature Conservancy.
I like to think that my impact on the environment is offset by the good I do, such as all the trees I've planted in and around my town, and stressing to my employees that wastefulness in the workplace (especially wood products) is not economically feasible, it's also bad PR when a home owner sees enough scrap to add another room. I like to tell them that just like money, wood doesn't grow on trees I can't quote statistics on this one, but I've been in the business since '75 and I would guess that 25-50% of the material for new homes is made of recycled material or would have in the past, been dumped in the landfill. Even shingles are being made from recycled petrolium products. Most lumber mills use 100% of the trees, even the sawdust. And homes are more energy efficient than ever, and getting better.

I understand your frustration, believe me. I don't care for the new wave of people moving to our area either. We have three new neighborhoods going up in our small town, with no end in sight. But, it's what puts bread on my table, and the added tax base provides fire and police services, along with a new high school, that would not have been possible without them. One of the stipulations included in the permitting of these new additions was the setting aside of a certain number of acres of "green belt" zones, which previously had been for the most part dumping grounds for the oil and gas industry, and overgrown, abandoned farm property.


RESPONSIBLE development is the key.
O.K., enough and sorry for the , it's a touchy subject with me.


Pete

 

Does anybody remember the EV-1 that GM had? It was an electric car, and leased to people to drive around the city. The people that used them, loved them. Suddenly GM pulled the plug,(so to speak) on these cars, and crushed them. The people that leased the EV-1, were not happy about having to give up a vehicle that worked. They even tried to buy the cars, but GM would not let them. No one knows why. The EV-1 was a step in the right direction, but was derailed, and here we are.

 

Good story. I would like to see things like that being done at more schools. Think of a car like that built from light weight materials with more efficient batteries .... 100 miles?
Back when I was on the road a lot, I noticed that most cars are transporting one person and doing it very inefficiently. I wonder how high gas will have to get before we get serious about transportation?

 

Netflix has a film about that car. I think I will check it out.

 

> but GM would not let them. No one knows why

Liability, as simple as that.

 

bottom line this is 2007, and 40 miles for electricity 3 years from now isnt "up to par with technology"

these hybrids now adays, ya there cool, but were still competing with gas consumption cars, when we all know its not the way of the future.

president now and dating back to carter have stated "becoming less dependent on foreign oil"

ok how????
we will need it for heating purposes,industrialization, it would be a great step in the right direction for the big three to run down this route.
right now vehicle sales in the gas department is gms,fords,and chryslers main focus.
competing in a mrket that will be eventually fizzled out.

but i still dont buy 40 miles for electric car in 2010.

its going to be like buying a 2 megapixle camera in january, and being able to but a 6 megapixle in june.
or gigahertz with cpu's.

2010 it will be 40 miles on an electric spark.
2011 60
2012 70........and so on on.

i wouldnt be suprised if the had the technology right now to drive 300 miles on a single charge.

 

Sure they have that technology, but they so far can't put it into an affordable car that gives the performance that the public demands.
Heck, double the size (and weight) of the batteries in this car and it'll go eighty miles.

 

You might be surprised what people might buy and will stand for when gas hit's 8.00 a gallon. We've done run out of time, they started worring about this stuff way to late. Were gonna suffer at the pumps, "heck", we allready are and it's only going to get worse. They should of been working on other fuel sources in the 60's and 70's. The muslims literly have us over a barrel. Were at war with them and the control the oil. We as a people are gonna be doing some suffering, it's unavoidable at this point. It's kinda strange, we are in control of Iraq, they have the second largest oil reserves in the world, but we still have oil shortages. In fairness, I know it's been hard to get oil out od Iraq and you still need refineries. I don't think that oil supplies are the problem as much as who has the supplies. This E-85 thing sounds promising, but you can't even get it around here. The time to act is now, we need answers now, we need fuel now, the future isn't soon enough. I'm allready worried about how much gas will be this summer. I just bought 150 gallons of fuel oil for my house, it cost 400 bucks, it's the 3rd time this winter, my tank hold 275 but can't afford to fill it. We spend some cold nights, "so yeah", were allready suffering. I think I will be looking into a heatpump when I get back to work, maybe a wood burner as well for a backup. But God forbid uncle Al and Babs let us build more nuclear power plants to help heat our homes. Were our own worst enemy sometimes.