This kinda thing can't help but keep fuel prices down.

Interesting that GM is reportedly killing off the Volt, the only EV that runs on electricity generated from its internal combustion engine(after the initial battery charge is depleted). One if the biggedt criticisms of EV's is lack of range and getting stuck on the side of a road. The Volt addressed that but still never caught in. Sales have fallen off like a rock. Ev's may be all the rage is socialist leaning countries but apparently not so much here.

But i'll keep the EV in the back of my head if I ever decide to move to France or even BC.

myredracer wrote:
Imagine one day going to an Indy car or Nascar race and just hearing the woosh of tires as they go by. Sad! Save the gasoline engine forever!!

Hey could happen........

Formula E is thriving (all electric Indy Style)
Companies are pouring monies into it

No fuel source will be 100%. It will be a variety of fuel sources.

-windmills
-solar farms (private and public)
-natural gas
-hydro-electric
-hydrogen fuel cells

and finally,
-fossil fuel

In 50 yrs., who knows what will be invented by then.

These threads alway bring back memories of my relatives as a very close great-aunt lived to be 101. She was born in 1900 and I took care of her from when she went into assisted living in 1995 and she passed in 2001.

In Italy, she didn't have electricity as they used oil lamps when she was a small girl. Horses and walking were the mode of travel. Moving to the USA in 1919 was a big eye opener.

As time went on, new things were invented and she was excited about a microwave in the 1970's. Phone service became a lot more reliable along with efficiency's of other products....ice box to refrigerator.... no air to window units to central air conditioning.......single pane windows to double pane windows...etc. etc..... the list goes on and on.

All things will improve and be invented in our lifetime, I find that extremely exciting.

The power of Lithium Ion batteries compared to wet cell (weight and charging rates) is one thing we've seen recently along with anything electronic.

MM.

myredracer wrote:
Imagine one day going to an Indy car or Nascar race and just hearing the woosh of tires as they go by. Sad! Save the gasoline engine forever!!

Even *if* electric cars ever become viable (including environmental damage) what about all the commercial trucks, trains, airplanes, excavating equipment, ocean freighters, etc. that burn fossil fuel? How much would EVs save compared to everything else that will need fossil fuel? I'm not sold on the idea of transferring pollution from individual vehicles to generating plants and the required infrastructure.

In some cities in Europe, bicycles are the choice of transport for many due to the narrow streets and lack of parking spaces. To get any distance, public transit is popular and air travel between countries is low cost. EVs there may not be all that attractive. Our son is living in Amsterdam and says that cars aren't a viable option.

We spend lots of time in Europe and yep, there are some cities where cars are more of a hindrance than a help. Rome comes to mind.

Re drag racing though, I could do without the noise, ( I wear earplugs when we go) We took a P90D Tesla for a test drive, zero to sixty in 2.7 seconds. Angela couldn't even hold the camera straight. The new ones are 2.3 seconds. And that's for a 6 passenger car with coffee cup holders. Amazing.

Imagine one day going to an Indy car or Nascar race and just hearing the woosh of tires as they go by. Sad! Save the gasoline engine forever!!

Even *if* electric cars ever become viable (including environmental damage) what about all the commercial trucks, trains, airplanes, excavating equipment, ocean freighters, etc. that burn fossil fuel? How much would EVs save compared to everything else that will need fossil fuel? I'm not sold on the idea of transferring pollution from individual vehicles to generating plants and the required infrastructure.

In some cities in Europe, bicycles are the choice of transport for many due to the narrow streets and lack of parking spaces. To get any distance, public transit is popular and air travel between countries is low cost. EVs there may not be all that attractive. Our son is living in Amsterdam and says that cars aren't a viable option.

It's real easy for a politician who will be out of office in 2-4yrs to buy votes today with a program that will be paid for 20yrs down the road.

What baffles me is this goal to produce a car that can compete with a gas powered car in terms of capability. It makes them expensive and complicated and ultimately has slowed down their acceptance.

Why would I pay $35k for an electric econobox when I can pay $16k for a gas econobox that gets 40mpg.

Instead limit the range to 50-60miles and drive the price below $20k and market them as 2nd family cars. The vast majority of commuters go less than 50 miles in a day and would have access to a gas powered car for those rare longer trips, so your market is probably 25-40% of all cars sold. An $18k car where you never have to pay for gasoline vs a $16k car where you have to constantly buy gasoline is a lot easier sale. Add in the $7500 tax credit and it's drastically cheaper.

Of course in terms of trucks and RV's its a different ballgame. The typical cargo load in a passenger car is under 300lbs. Maximum capacity is maybe 1000lbs. More importantly, it's relatively easy to make a passenger car extremely aerodynamic.

With trucks and RV's (ignoring people using pickups as grocery getters), trucks are on average taking along several times as much cargo and the aerodynamics are horrible by comparison. This creates a compounding problem, you can add more batteries but that means you need more batteries to drag around the extra batteries. In commercial trucks you start eating up the weight limits which means you may need a 2nd truck because rather than a semi carrying 25tons of cargo, they can only carry 15 tons of cargo before they hit the weight limit.

bucky wrote:
Power companies are now asking for surcharges to be levied against solar users as they are "not supporting the infrastructure of the grid". Yet they have huge solar farms to produce electricity to sell to us. Nobody wins but the big money in any of this.
Hydroelectric is the best answer IMHO.

How do you think the grid gets paid for?

If the power company builds a solar farm, they factor in the WHOLESALE PRICE and build the cost of the grid into the KWH price you pay plus any other costs associated with solar, such as backup power plants.

If you dump electricity back on the grid at FULL RETAIL PRICE, they still have to maintain the grid and they have to maintain backup power for peak period, which is usually 5-6pm in the winter when solar is producing 0% of it's rated output.

Nothing greedy about it, it's just not realistic to expect to get paid FULL RETAIL PRICE when you aren't supplying everything that is involved in getting a KWH of electricity to the end user.

bucky wrote:
Power companies are now asking for surcharges to be levied against solar users as they are "not supporting the infrastructure of the grid". Yet they have huge solar farms to produce electricity to sell to us. Nobody wins but the big money in any of this.
Hydroelectric is the best answer IMHO.

I have never seen a electric bill that did not have a distribution charge on it. Actually our town has two power generation facilities. It is used in peak demand times and the rest of the time power is purchased off the grid at a heavy discount.

In less than 23 years market forces will make plug in hybrids the number one choice anyway. Best of both worlds. Batteries to take short trips and capture energy from braking, combustion for long hauls. As the tech continues to improve that'll be just as expected as aircon and abs.

Power companies are now asking for surcharges to be levied against solar users as they are "not supporting the infrastructure of the grid". Yet they have huge solar farms to produce electricity to sell to us. Nobody wins but the big money in any of this.
Hydroelectric is the best answer IMHO.