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TechnoratiBig Oil's Vendetta Against the Electric Car
Somewhere out there, in the dusty basements of the Chevron-Texaco corporate headquarters, there is a technology that can - in one swoop - slash global warming emissions, save millions of people from respiratory illnesses, and stop us trashing the Middle East to seize its oil. Yet it is being deliberately left to rot, in the hope we will all forget about it.This sounds like the plot to a bad retro-episode of the X-Files, but an award-winning documentary released this week on DVD in Britain reminds us this technology is real and it is still there, waiting to save us. The film is called 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'
Its story begins in the smogged-out state of California in the early 1990s. The people of the Sunshine State were waking up with a cough to a crisis: one-quarter of all 18-25 year olds in LA County had severe lung lesions or chronic respiratory diseases caused by air pollution. The state government realized they had to act - so they seized on news of a dramatic new technology.
General Motors (GM) had developed a prototype of an electric car with swelling consumer potential. It was a sleek, silver car that could drive at the same speed as a fossil-fueled hunk of metal - only with no exhaust fumes and no carbon emissions. You simply plugged it in at night, like a mobile phone, and drove off in the morning. The electricity costs the equivalent of 30p for a gallon's worth of travel, as opposed to the £4 Brits pay at the petrol pump.
But GM seemed reluctant to push this extraordinary product onto the consumer market. So the California State Senate decided to give them a nudge. They passed a law that said if you want to sell cars for California's roads, a proportion of them have to be electric cars: 2 percent in 1998, 5 percent in 2001, and 10 percent in 2003.
The state senators envisaged a day when electric cars would turn the old fossil fuel beasts into relics. They argued that since it took a law to get seatbelts, airbags and catalytic converters into cars, we also need a law to get toxic fumes and surplus global warming gases out of the atmosphere.
The car companies were immediately and irreparably enraged. They began a two-pronged strategy: the most grudging and stuttering possible compliance with the law, while lobbying fiercely alongside Big Oil to have the law scrapped.
The first electric cars appeared on California's roads nonetheless, and a slew of celebrities like Tom Hanks, Ted Danson and Mel Gibson snapped them up and plugged them at every opportunity.
But the people working on selling the electric cars noted something odd: GM was deliberately underselling them. Chelsea Sexton, one of the company's electric car specialists, explains that the team had to fill in vast questionnaires for every customer, only for most to be inexplicably rejected: "I had to fill in a resume for Mel Gibson listing his accomplishments and achievements, because they said he didn't warrant a car."
Instead of marketing them with sexy women draped over the cars, GM's ads had odd opaque graphics and the voice of an elderly woman. Big Oil speedily joined this anti-advertising campaign. Exxon-Mobil followed its standard operating practice of setting up fake consumer groups to spread disinformation about the products, saying they were bad for the environment.
This corporate coalition finally succeeded in repealing the law - and GM immediately called in all their electric cars and sent them to the scrap heap. The drivers offered over $1.9m to keep the last remaining models - but the company preferred to destroy them. A bemused Sexton says, "There's no precedent for a car company rounding up every particular kind of car and crushing them, as if they're afraid one will get away."
Their campaign almost complete, Chevron-Texaco came in with a final blow. The biggest drawback to the electric car had been its limited range: one charge lasted around 60 miles, then the car stopped. So the distinguished engineer Stan Ovshinsky created a battery that could run up to 300 miles at 70mph on a single charge - enough to get from London to Scotland, and make the car extremely popular. The oil companies bought the technology. It has not been seen since.
Why? Why would a string of corporations turn down cash and scrap a potentially extremely profitable technology? Isn't that contrary to everything we are taught about how market economies work?
The oil companies had an obvious interest in stopping an alternative to fossil fuels. There is $100 trillion of oil left in the earth, and they plan to mine it - even if doing so will make the planet uninhabitable. Anything that could divert that cash away from them is a threat to be crushed.
But why did the car companies collaborate? Electric cars have no combustion engine - and it is in maintaining and replacing those engines that makes up a hefty chunk of Detroit's profits. A transition to batteries, which require little maintenance, would be a disaster for their balance sheets.
Besides, marketing clean electric cars would mean admitting that their core product is dirty. Tom Everhart served on the board of GM for more than a decade, and he explains how the conversation about the electric car went there: "We said that [using the electric car] we can meet the zero emissions requirements. Then we said, 'Do we want to show we can meet them? That means all our other cars...'"
Thatcho-Reaganites are always lecturing about how unregulated markets are the best way to stimulate innovation. The story of the electric car is a parable about how, to the contrary, unregulated markets often quickly descend into a corporate oligopoly that smothers new technologies in their cot. Only tough, democratic regulations - which they mock as 'red tape' - keeps markets from devouring themselves. The California government's regulations spurred innovation, until they were scrapped.
Out here in the smog, we have never needed the electric car more. The Royal Commission of Environmental Pollution warned this week that the air pollution in London is now as damaging as the low-level radiation Chernobyl survivors were exposed to, knocking an average of eight months off your life. The daily carnage in Iraq is the result of our burning thirst for oil. And more important still, global warming is acting like a slow-mo carbon bomb dropped on the planet, destabilizing the climate in ways we cannot control and cannot predict.
But however much we cry for it, the electric car will remain moth-balled in the vaults of Chevron-Texaco - until we change our economic system to put the needs of people before the unhindered, unhinged preservation of profits.
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
83 Comments so far
Show AllWho needs a battery in an electric car? Check this out.
80 mph, 250 mile range and with the right charging equipment you can charge it in 5 minutes.
http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/3/28/3608505.html
We can only hope.
I have been experimenting with an electric assisted bicycle for my 20mile round trip commute and for shorter trips. I use it instead of my car whenever I can. It does require the battery to be charged from an electric grid which(at present time) is fueled mostly by coal, BUT it takes only a tiny fraction of the energy that my gasoline fueled car takes. It is true that electricity takes much more energy than what comes out of the electric outlet but remember that gasoline also requires additional energy besides what is in the fuel. Gas at the pump requires additional energy to get it out of the ground, processed and transported to the gas station.
One of the biggest drawback of batteries is limited life. Hopefully when the sealed lead acid batteries are worn out I will replace it with a more advanced battery that will last longer.
I believe that for an electric vehicle infrastructure using solar/wind generated electricity to be successful that we will need to change our concept of what an automobile is. If we continue to insist on 6000 pound SUVs which are grossly over powered to move one person over relatively short distances then they will take so much energy that it will not be practical to convert to an electric vehicle infrastructure. For that we will need small, ultralight cars with modest amount of power and modest speed capability. It should also be noted that urban traffic moves at speeds which probably don't average more than about 35mph anyway.
Where did you plan on getting all that hydrogen from? Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is a storage media and transportion media. You get the energy from somewhere else and then convert it to hydrogen. And a hydrogen car costs 4 times as much in fuel costs as a battery electric car does. Here is the surpising news, that people are buying and building electric cars by the thousands - in 2002 there were 11 in Nebraska, 37 in Wisconsin, 91 in Indiana, 636 in Alabama, none in Arkansas, 4550 in Georgia, 9299 in New York, 10670 in California (including less than a thousand EV1's), all told in the country 33,047 in 2002, 45,656 in 2003 and 55,852 in 2005. At this rate by 2030 50 to 90% of all cars in the country will be electric. 2005 data should be available in June of this year. 1995 to 2004 data is at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/datatables/aft1-13_03.html
note that data on electric cars specificly excludes gasoline-electric hybrids. Hybrids are great for extending fuel economy, but electrics are the future. This year we will see three or four exciting new electric cars on the market, such as the Tango, Tesla and the Phoenix. Electric cars have come a long long way. Add some solar panel shingles to your house and your fuel cost drops even further. The Venturi Astrolab even combines the two, with a range of about 11 miles per day from the sun and 68 miles from the batteries. There is also a company that offers "solar roofs" for hybrids.
armybrat April 10th, 2007 6:31 pm
"The push for ethanol plants, hybrids, and hydrogen technologies is just the current corporate tactic of scamming the public - none of these are viable, and all cost more in energy to produce an equivalent amount of energy for the end-user (that's us.)"
1st. Ethanol works if you take it as a product meant to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. A 10% ethanol mix reduces our gasoline/oil use by about 7.5% (ethanol has less heat energy than gasoline alone so you get lower MPG. It does not in my opinion significantly reduce global warming gases because it depends on new plants being grown to absorb the carbon being released by burning the mature ones. It may be carbon neutral as claimed but I need to see the facts and science to be persueded.
2nd. Hybrids do work, especially plug in hybrids because significantly less hydrocarbon fuel is burned. They would be much better overall if the electricity used to recharge them were produced from clean sources such as solar and wind power technologys.
3rd. Hydrogen works when used directly as a fuel source. It has the range and convienence of gasoline and emits zero pollution and global warming gases. The current fleet of IC engined automobiles can be converted to run on it for about $1000 per vehicle. With tax credits the cost could be virually zero. It offers the quickest, cheapest method of obtaining our goals of reducing global warming gases, providing clean air, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It could also be better overall if the electricity used to crack the water to produce it were produced from clean sources such as solar and wind.
Lobo Gris
In the late 1940s my uncle (he was working at a GM garage at the time) invented an ICE carburation system that allowed the (huge)contemporary cars to get 50/mpg. This is not a RUMOR. This is FACT. GM forced him to give up the patent, even though he did not develop it on GM time - and they deep-sixed it. My family was outraged - but you can't fight GM (at least not back then, and live.)
As for the battery problem for EVs, Ovshinsky sold the damned patent to GM - and they did exactly the same thing with his patent. At least he got a bundle for it. (My uncle got to keep his job.)
The push for ethanol plants, hybrids, and hydrogen technologies is just the current corporate tactic of scamming the public - none of these are viable, and all cost more in energy to produce an equivalent amount of energy for the end-user (that's us.) Once we find out about this scam, they will go on to nuclear energy as the 'only' solution - while still ignoring EVs as the wildly extravagant success that they were - and still are. Full size electric pickups run just fine - but GM (and their corporate cronies) owns a lot of the patents needed to mass-produce these vehicles.
This is one reason I look at most Greens as if they're loony-tunes - they want ethanol, hydrogen techonology (that won't exist for at least another 30 years, if ever) and other pie-in-the-sky alternatives while ignoring the real threat to all of us - these corporate thugs that have looted the world and continue to do so. (Abusing and dishonoring the military in the process - one of my pet-peeves.)
Ovshinsky's solar panels work - in Scandinavia, where he went when the US gave him the finger. They'll work on cars too - and nowhere in that movie did I hear about wave-motion (tidal) energy - one of the more promising sources for large amounts of electric power, so long as the moon keeps rotating around our seedy little planet.
I know how creepy all those nuclear plants are all over Europe - gave me the heebie-jeebies every time I saw one. And I know ethanol is a scam, as is hydrogen (it isn't a source, remember?) Most Americans are NOT going to change their habits soon - so the switch to electric cars is imperative for the short-term future - if we are to HAVE a future at all (that's in doubt these days.) How many people drive more than 300 miles a day? And if we get rid of the corporations - the biggest problem in the world today - we can have their patents annulled (just like a bad marriage) and force them to repatriate all the money they've stolen from so many generations.
I remember the street cars - they were great. And I like traveling all over Europe so cheaply - and fast! But I still want my own vehicle because the US is built up in such a way that it is impractical to get around without one. (We can't all live in inner cities.) It will take decades of zoning changes - once the corporations are leashed - to change the face of our country, let alone personal habits. That's why conservatives (like me) want to move slowly - jumping over the cliff without looking carefully is just plain stupid!
Let's talk about efficiency in realistic terms since it seems to be on everyones mind so much.
I'll take everyones word that the available electric motors are 90% efficient. I have no reason to doubt that figure.
The best and most efficient electric car that I know of that was actually on the road was the GM EV1. With lead acid batteries it had a range of about 70 miles. I assume it had the most efficient electric motor that was available which would have had 90% efficiency.
If you drove the full 70 miles on the 90% efficient motor at the end of the day you needed to hook it up and recharge it for 8 to 12 hours so that you could drive it another 70 miles the following day.
Well what if we had an electric motor that was 95% efficient that we could install. If you didn't have any other powertrain losses you could then drive 73.5 miles on that same charge. Then you would still have to pull it in and recharge it for 8 to 12 hours so that you could drive it another 73.5 miles the next day.
What I'm trying to say is that 90% efficiency is good but what is really important, at least to me is range and recharge time.
With hydrogen that some seem to be so against, guess what I can drive 300 miles on a tankful, it will take 5 mins to refill at the local gas station and then I can drive another 300 miles. And what else? The air will be just as clean as if I had driven an electric car, I will have done just as much to prevent global warming, and just as much to reduce the countries dependence on foreign oil. Not only that but I will have spent only a thousand dollars on the conversion kit as opposed to twenty thousand plus on a new electric car. And you know what? I bet the 19,000 dollar difference will buy a lot of hydrogen.
Lobo Gris
#
pangolin April 10th, 2007 4:59 am
"Lobo- You really need to do a bit more research. There are no sources of hydrogen in the environment, no hygrogen wells, no mineral hydrogen. Hydrogen must be produced from coal, natural gas or the electrical or thermal cracking of water.
The way that hydrogen is produced from coal or natural gas is to use them to make electricity to crack water to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen can be cracked from water from clean electrical sources such as solar and wind power just as that same electricity can be used to charge batteries for electric vehicles.
In ALL CASES the hydrogen yields LESS ENERGY than the original source would have yielded. Google: Hydrogen Hype.
Hydrogen doesn't even come close to being the most efficient means of storing excess electrical power. Batteries are."
1st. Yes hydrogen needs to be cracked from water.
2nd. You as most others are confusing using hydrogen in fuel cells to create electricity with burning it directly as a fuel.
To burn hydrogen directly as a fuel you have a storage tank full of hydrogen with lines to the engine intake manifold. (Along with appropriate valving, switches etc.} The hydrogen is fed into the combustion chambers just as gasoline is, it burns when the spark plug ignites it just like gasloline does and voila you have a running engine.
An H2 Hummer just drove across the country in a rally fueled only by hydrogen. The only drawback being that they had to refuel at industrial supply houses because that was the only place that hydrogen was available.
No, and I emphasize No fuel cells or electric motors were used.
3rd. Everyone needs to get off the efficiency kick. This isn't about efficiency. If we want efficient there is nothing more efficient than gasoline and diesel for use in the internal combustion engines now in wide use. Both are still available, the infrastructure is already in place and nobody needs do anything but continue to drive.
This is about solving global warming, having clean air to breathe, and eliminating our dependence on foreign oil. Hydrogen provides the cheapest, fastest method for achieving those goals.
And yes later down the road electrics will probably be the best solution but it will take time, money and further research to put that in place.
Lobo Gris
Lobo- You really need to do a bit more research. There are no sources of hydrogen in the environment, no hygrogen wells, no mineral hydrogen. Hydrogen must be produced from coal, natural gas or the electrical or thermal cracking of water.
In ALL CASES the hydrogen yields LESS ENERGY than the original source would have yielded. Google: Hydrogen Hype.
Hydrogen doesn't even come close to being the most efficient means of storing excess electrical power. Batteries are.
PJD April 9th, 2007 12:51 pm
Lobo,
"Lets make something very clear. Hydrogen produced from electrolysis - the only clean form of hydrogen - is NOT A SOURCE of energy, it is just a relatively inefficient STORAGE MEDIA for energy."
BS
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Combined Heat and Power Partnership
Fuel Source
In CHP systems, fuel sources include natural gas, biomass, coal, biogas, wood chips, and fuel oil.
Hydrogen performs the same function as natural gas when burned directly as a combustible fuel.
fuel
1. Something consumed to produce energy, especially:
a. A material such as wood, coal, gas, or oil burned to produce heat or power.
b. Fissionable material used in a nuclear reactor.
c. Nutritive material metabolized by a living organism; food.
Lobo Gris
PJD April 9th, 2007 12:51 pm
Lobo,
Lets make something very clear. Hydrogen produced from electrolysis - the only clean form of hydrogen - is NOT A SOURCE of energy, it is just a relatively inefficient STORAGE MEDIA for energy.
Then I guess gasoline and electricity fall into the same category under your definition. Semantics aside hydrogen can be burned directly which you continue to ignore just as gasoline is. And BTW how is hydrogen inefficient. Facts and figures please and don't mix hydrogen used in fuel cells to produce electricity with hydrogen burned directly as a fuel.
"Hydrogen is being promoted by the Bush adm. and big oil because it will be produced from coal and oil which merely switches the carbon emissions to a central location from dispersed locations, with lip-service paid to unproven, still purely conceptual carbon sequestration schemes.'"
Hydrogen is not being promoted by Bush, he is promoting biofuels such as ethanol produced from corn and switch grass.
You also ignore the fact that the electric vehicles you promote also will get their electricity from the same sources you denigrate when it is used to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen, just as electricity used directly to power autos can be produced from clean sources such as solar and wind energy.
"You seem to be clinging to this hydrogen stuff as a can continue our wasteful lifestyles. Only changing the way we live will bring the quick reductions we need."
No I am promoting it as the quickest way to achieve clean air and reduce global warming gases. Again you cling to your same arguments about electric vehicles while ignoring the fact that everyone will have to purchase new vehicles to make it happen. Vehicles can be converted to run on hydrogen for about a thousand dollars a vehicle. No new car purchase required. And home heating the next biggest user can be converted even more cheaply than that for all those like myself that have natural gas fired furnaces. As the man that started WoolWorths said; It is a heck of a lot easier to sell a million people something for a dollar than it is to sell one person something for a million dollars.
I am glad that an electric scooter works for you in your part of the country, but as I have said it doesn't work where I live. Driving distances are greater and traffic is faster. If you think I am going to climb on an electric scooter that goes 45MPH and jump out in traffic that is going 65 to 70MPH including not only cars but Semi Trucks, think again. I am also not selling my house that I have lived in for decades to move closer to work so that I can save a few gallons of gas. My point being that your one size fits all solution doesn't fit everyone. Everyone can convert to hydrogen inexpensively and with little disruption in their lives. Everyone cannot convert to electric vehicles easily because of range and because it requires the expensive purchase of a new vehicle. And it also requires major lifestyle changes such as selling their house to move closer to work without a thought to what that will do to property values for those far away, the losers, and those close, the winners.
So hey, keep on using your electric scooter, I applaud you for it. Give me my hydrogen and I'll do my part too. Just quit trying to force your choice on me and I haven't and won't try to force mine on you.
Lobo Gris
"I think the problem is not one of individualism. It is one of discipline. Or lack thereof."
Actually the biggest excuse people use to drive when even frequent public trans. is available is "I don't have the time to take the bus". In my rust-belt city where there are less of the usual racist of classist aversions to taking the bus, simply the excess pace of life forced on people compels them to hop in a car rather that wait for a bus or trolley.
Slow down, people!
I think the problem is not one of individualism. It is one of discipline. Or lack thereof. It think many Americans do not want to exert any discipline. They are not making a decision for themselves and are afraid to try something other than the way we have always done things. They fear strangers socially, also, and cars let them hide from that. Then they cover up fear with stuff about individualism and freedom.
I really don't get the suspicion of mass transport thing. I grew up driving in a rural-suburban area, and lived in that kind of town for years. Then I worked as a newspaper reporter (read ambulance chaser) for a large daily and spent two years of covering deadly traffic accidents every other week. Driving is a major cause of untimely death, something auto manufacturers like to cover up with ads featuring promises of "high technology" safety features, which is empty PR.
I decided to severely cut back my driving. I moved to a city with good public transportation. Getting around is considerably cheaper, less nerve racking, way more relaxed (I can read a book!). I am a very individualistic person. But as an individual I feel I am better off: No back problems, no fear of crazy drivers, or road rage. I drive my car once a week.
I'm really glad to see the merit of electric cars debated here. I would like to view an analysis of how much energy it takes to power an electric car as compared to gas. Electric is cleaner at the car end. But as other folks here have already said, power plants are a massive contributor to global warming and, in my region, the single point source of toxic air pollutants. The city where I live has the third most polluted air in the country and it is largely because of an enormous power plant.
I believe we have the kind of minds and technology to address the problem in a realistic way. Rail is definitely the way to go. It is also statistically much safer than driving is.
Investment in passenger rail is the way to go to solve our energy-global warming-transit problems. A transportation system primarily based on the private automobile is the problem, regardless of the type of engine in those cars. Electric cars would have to be connected to the powergrid. It is highly doubtful clean energy could power tens of millions of elctric cars in the U.S.A. That would require nuclear power and fossil fuels. Fewer cars and a lot more trains is the real long-term answer.
Heard about this on another (football) board:
An electric car that can do 155 mph and has a 350 mile range.
http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=4560
and a summary of the cars available or soon to be available. Prices will come down quickly if people really want to make a difference with our pollution...
http://news.com.com/Zap+teams+with+Lotus+for+electric+sports+car/2100-11389_3-6154854.html
The Zap-X will cost only $60,000, said Zap CEO Steve Schneider. The Tesla Roadster sells for $92,000, while the WrightSpeed X1 will go for around $120,000. The Zap-X won't be as fast, but it won't putter either. It will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds; the Tesla Roadster does that in 4 seconds, while the X1 can do that in 3 seconds. Just as importantly, the Zap-X will have room for five adults, instead of the two seats in the other cars.
Lobo,
Lets make something very clear. Hydrogen produced from electrolysis - the only clean form of hydrogen - is NOT A SOURCE of energy, it is just a relatively inefficient STORAGE MEDIA for energy.
Hydrogen is being promoted by the Bush adm. and big oil because it will be produced from coal and oil which merely switches the carbon emissions to a central location from dispersed locations, with lip-service paid to unproven, still purely conceptual carbon sequestration schemes.
You seem to be clinging to this hydrogen stuff as a can continue our wasteful lifestyles. Only changing the way we live will bring the quick reductions we need.
One might use universal rechargeable exchangeable batteries that can be exchanged at service stations along the highway. If paid charges are in the exchanged battery then one could go from coast to coast in an electric car in much the same way as one does when fueling an internal combustion engine.
Dr zimmerman,
The probelm is, the sheer bulk and weight of battery packs, and the equipment to move them around and charge them, would require the service station to be the size of a small manufacturing plant or medium-sized warehouse.
Why should anyone have to drve such ling distances anyway when there are long-overdue alternatives like frequent high-speed intercity rail service - the US being alone in the world in NOT having any plans to develop (outside the behind-the-times Acela service in the NE). The railroads can even easily service national parks and vacation sites - like amtrak "Empire Builder", the or the California Zephir, or the florida "Auto-Train currently does.
does dponcy have a place to start? this story is like a myth coming real. can we get cynical enough to be anything but naive? is there always a thin percentage of the population that is quasi concious and the rest are brain dead? if so is the only way out another revolution? or do we just sit here and die?
Check out Amory Lovin's thoughts on the Hypercar, efficient and electically powered by fuel cell. He's at the Rocky Mountain Institute, www.RMI.org.
WmC April 8th, 2007 9:33 am
"Let me recommend to everyone John O. Blackburn's Solar Florida: A sustainable energy future, written in 1993.
Blackburn is a retired professor of economics and his calculations led him to conclude,
"The conclusion is clear: Florida can produce 67% to 100% of its own energy in a RENEWABLE fashion and can import the rest from other states.""
Actually, Florida should be able to do considerably better than that. If the global warming experts are right, everything south of Miami will be under water.
Lobo Gris
#
lpenek April 9th, 2007 3:13 am
"My 1990 Toyota Celica (1.6L) gets 38mpg highway — not bad for conventional internal combustion. The problem, as others here have indicated, 1/3 energy goes to frictional loss, 1/3 goes out the tailpipe (thermodynamic loss) and only 1/3 is left for go power. I guess the frictional loss can be minimized but the only real way to boost mpg is to reduce size, until you're down to a scooter or a gas powered skate board. I'm talking conventional ICE, not hybrid."
Actually diesel engines get about 30% better MPG than gasoline engines do, which is why they are so popular in Europe where gas prices are significantly higher.
And there are other improvemnents already in use or being contemplated or designed.
Direct injection where fuel is injected under high pressure directly into the combustion chamber. (better control of the fuel air mixture with resultant better efficiency, mileage, and lowered emissions)
CVT transmissions which vary vehicle speed but keep the engine running at it's torque peak. (torque peak equals highest volumetric effiency)
Variable valve lift and timing which also improves efficiency.
low friction materials for coating pistons and other moving parts.
plastics, for use in items such as intake manifolds which reduce engine weight.
turbochargers which make use of waste heat to further improve efficiency and allow the use of a smaller engine to produce the same power.
Advanced engine and powertrain management with faster computers.
Hybrids which combine gasoline and electric and could be further improved if they were built with diesels.
Just to name a few.
The industry is not standing still.
The biggest problem though is that to be implemented all of the new technologys require the purchase of new cars, which will require time. Time that we may not have.
We could be converted to hydrogen completely within 20 years , both in transportation and in the other big user, home heating if a crash program were implemented now along with tax deductions for converting.
Lobo Gris
#
Earl Simmins April 8th, 2007 9:51 am
Save the planet, eat a cow…-
LOL
Lobo Gris
John F. Butterfield April 8th, 2007 6:28 am
"I just remembered reading somewhere that making plastics was a much better use of oil than making fuel. Couldn't plastics be used in cars as well as in lots of other things?"
Actually plastics are used extensively in auto manufacturing. To include the bodies on Corvettes and Saturns. Plastic is also used in the making of furniture, household chemical bottles and food containers etc. etc. etc. The list is way to large to include even a small potion of it here. You should google it.
Lobo Gris
#
lpenek April 8th, 2007 4:08 am
"One more thing, out of curiosity: How many of you out there over 40 remember from years back the rumor of a car that got 70 mpg? The myth was that it was squelched by the auto companies. "70 mpg!!" I always thought, impossible! Now I'm not so sure that it was just an urban legend."
Actually the rumor was that there was a 100mpg carburetor that was bought and shelved by the oil and/or auto companies. At least that is how I remember it anyway.
Lobo Gris
My 1990 Toyota Celica (1.6L) gets 38mpg highway -- not bad for conventional internal combustion. The problem, as others here have indicated, 1/3 energy goes to frictional loss, 1/3 goes out the tailpipe (thermodynamic loss) and only 1/3 is left for go power. I guess the frictional loss can be minimized but the only real way to boost mpg is to reduce size, until you're down to a scooter or a gas powered skate board. I'm talking conventional ICE, not hybrid.
PJD, you missed my point about the $100K electric "sports" car. "Sports" cars have never been sold on their ability to carry groceries.
We are working within a society bred on consumerism, big-money advertizing campaigns, and individual internal-combustion powered vehicles. There is no way society will change overnight, so we have to work with what we have. Car manufacturers have long used halo "sports" cars to sell bread-and-butter cars. The concept of an electric "sports" car is a conduit to selling bread-and-butter electric cars. Gettit? We have to start somewhere, and yelling homilys from the rooftops hasn't worked in over a 100 years.
Fligfoot et al
Here in Seattle we have a large fleet of electric buses powered from overhead wires, exactly as Fligfoot describes. They're great, kneel for handicapped riders, have bike racks so you can pedal to a stop and take your bike to use on the next leg...
And city owns power company - hydro energy, credits for green sources...
"The myth was that it was squelched by the auto companies. "70 mpg!!" I always thought, impossible!"
The Honda Civic in the 1980's came close, with an EPA highway rating of 57 mpg. (and yes, you CAN get or exceed the EPA highway rating with proper driving technique).
Since then the number of cars exceeding even 35 mpg highway has dwindled to literally a handful. Go here and weep...
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymanu.htm
a few more comments:
Let me reiterate, limited range is NO PROBLEM if the car can be charged wherever it is parked. Cars usually spend about 90% of their time parked. As an owner of two EV's (electric motor scooters), the lack of a charging infrastructure is a bigger problem than the limited range of the lead-acid batteries. I end up doing a lot of surreptitious charging from outlets I find around town - like those often found at the base of sidewalk-trees or planter-boxes for those decorating lights.
Here in western Pennsylvania "cogeneration" has somehow just come to mean power plants capable of burning coal salvaged from mine waste dumps. I think the original "cogen" also sent steam to the town of Ebensburg, but no subsequent plants planned will do this.
Regarding the source of electricity to charge, I've heard that even the current coal fired plants would be overall less problematic, considering the relative pollution and efficiency factors.
Remote or local wind power or photo voltaic would also do nicely. (As above.) Additionally, the charging is best done at off-peak hours which is utility capacity friendly.
Ultimately, however, the coming shortage of fossil fuels will change all equations and we will have to rethink all options.
I have been following this discussion for quite some time.I hear more negative comments about big ole nasty corbon spewing power plants.Horay good news fron New Zeeland. They are developing a new solar technology that uses different colored dyes that even works in cloudy conditions.Imagine using the finish of the vehicle to produce power to recharge batteries. Read about it at.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/print/4017784a11.html
Sorrry about the last post about new dyes used for New Solar technologies it should read.
http;//www.stuff.co.nz/print/4017784a11.html
HCL is exactly right about the inefficiency of electricity generation from any heat source, due to the laws of thermodynamics. I remember being astonished by that information in a mainstream magazine (Newsweek?) during the 70's energy crunch days. One mitigating technique, aside from switching completely to wind power etc, is to locate fuel-burning power plants where their waste heat can be used productively, such as in or near a large city. I believe engineers call this practice cogeneration.
I have been following this discussion for quite some time.I hear more negative comments about big ole nasty corbon spewing power plants.Horay good news fron New Zeeland. They are developing a new solar technology that uses different colored dyes that even works in cloudy conditions.Imagine using the finish of the vehicle to produce power to recharge batteries. Read about it at.
http://www.stuff.co.nz
A big factor here is that 3 units of fossil fuel energy is burned by a generating station to deliver 1 unit of electrical energy. The rest is waste heat dumped into a body of water or through a cooling tower. Not a very efficient use of use of resources!
Let's face it folks, we've got too many cars on the road, electric or otherwise. Biking around my own neighborhood, I am astonished at the number of three-car garages. I am equally astonished when my friends tell me they are giving their kids new cars as graduation presents even before they have licenses to drive. Obviously we need vehicles that pollute much less than those available now, but we have over-loaded the highways, and we are paying the price.
Save the planet, eat a cow...-
Let me recommend to everyone John O. Blackburn's Solar Florida: A sustainable energy future, written in 1993.
Blackburn is a retired professor of economics and his calculations led him to conclude,
"The conclusion is clear: Florida can produce 67% to 100% of its own energy in a RENEWABLE fashion and can import the rest from other states."
Blackburn's conclusion presupposed only existing technologies and a Florida population of 23 million, at which point he assumed the state's carrying capacity would be maxed out. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that many states in SW US receive more sunlight than Florida.
@dponcy:
Your argument about electric cars being no better for the environment than internal combustion cars because the electricity is often made by burning fossil fuel is disingenuous because electric motors are over 90% efficient, unlike gasoline and diesel engines which are only maybe 20% efficient.
Therefore, even if the electricity for an electric car comes from burning fossil fuel, it is still many times better for the environment than an internal combustion driven vehicle. Add to that the fact that an all-electric car costs maybe a penny a mile to operate instead of 10 cents per mile, and you have a real win-win situation -- except for the oil companies.
I just remembered reading somewhere that making plastics was a much better use of oil than making fuel. Couldn't plastics be used in cars as well as in lots of other things?
Couldn't oil companies invest in something other than making fuel? I know they have a proven way of making a profit, but couldn't they make money by doing something a little more beneficial for mankind?
One more one more thing: LiIon batteries are subject to explosion if they suffer trauma. Look for that, probably solvable, problem to be exploited ruthlessly by auto manufacturers. Of course somehow the fact that we've been filling our autos with an extremely flamable and explosive liquid has been overlooked for years. Oh, and for a long time it was also doped with a deadly neurotoxin.
One more thing, out of curiosity: How many of you out there over 40 remember from years back the rumor of a car that got 70 mpg? The myth was that it was squelched by the auto companies. "70 mpg!!" I always thought, impossible! Now I'm not so sure that it was just an urban legend.
pangolin:
That's exactly the kind of technology that I feel is the future of transport: something that can be individual and is not _driven_, but computer controlled and theoretically immune to collision. Not only will it free us from "driving", but it will also form the basis for package delivery and myriad other uses.
I think "individual" is a requirement, though I'm sure some people will accuse me of haughtiness. Why required? Because some people hate mass transport, they always will. Don't fight a losing battle. Accommodate them and they'll cooperate.
zeitgeist:
About freeing us from the "grid". As a 30-year off the grid veteran I can say with a little authority "The Grid is GOOD". Total independence sounds great in theory but is not practical on an economy-of-scale basis. It simply is not practical to have every citizen generating their own power when a small group of specialists can oversee power production for a municipality or county. Now, if citizens generate, say, solar power and feed it back into the grid, Great! But it should never be a requirement.
To PJD, I'm glad you have posted to this article. The Dewalt power nailer is still ringing in my ear. Your post to that previous article is oddly prescient as you basically foretold the gist of this one: that markets won't necessarily find optimal solutions, etc. Good one.
"Their campaign almost complete, Chevron-Texaco came in with a final blow. The biggest drawback to the electric car had been its limited range: one charge lasted around 60 miles, then the car stopped. So the distinguished engineer Stan Ovshinsky created a battery that could run up to 300 miles at 70mph on a single charge - enough to get from London to Scotland, and make the car extremely popular. The oil companies bought the technology. It has not been seen since."
Lithium ion batteries exist, are available, give a range of 300 mi and are quickly rechargeable. In fact they are used in your laptop computer. The problem is that they are cost prohibitive in the quantities needed to power an electric car.
There is no need to use coal, oil, or ethanol. All of which emit CO2 and other undesirable pollutants. All vehicles could be converted to run directly on hydrogen which emits nothing but water as a by product for about 1,000 dollars per vehicle. Existing cars and light trucks could easily be converted to run on this clean fuel as well as building new vehicles to run on it from the factory. Above ground storage tanks could be added to existing gas stations lowering the cost of the needed distribution system. As a back up until the distribution system is fully in place converted vehicles can also run on gasoline by simply flipping a switch inside the vehicle.
Fact: Hydrogen is the only fuel that can be converted to quickly enough to make a difference in global warming. And yes ethanol and even coal can be converted to quickly but still emit pollutants.
Fact: World population has increased from 2 1/2 billion to 6 billion people in the last 50 years. Every one of the 6 billion of us emits carbon dioxide every time we exhale 24 hrs a day seven days a week. Population control is something that has to be looked at, and a solution found for, before we reach 18 billion in another 50 yrs and 54 billion or more by the turn of the next century. In addition to increased population there will be reduced land mass due to rising ocean levels as global warming happens. Mix in changing weather patterns, droughts, flooding, etc. and we have a disaster in the making.
Fact: Cattle population has increased along with human population and along with the carbon dioxide they emit when they breathe, they also emit large amounts of methane which is 20 times worse than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.
Lobo Gris
The technology is already here! You don't have to start a new car company. You don't have to use coal fired electricy. Conversion kits for plug ins are already available for a number of existing cars. This is reuse in action! Plus, the installation of solar panels hooked to the grid make the whole process totally liberating!!
The car/oil companies will never make this happen. EVER!!! The only way this is going to happen is in individual garages and on rooftops all over the America. The only way anything is going to change is energy and effort in your own communities, among a circles of friends who give a damn about the world.
It can be done!
Re: mass transit vs clean cars.
Most important is making it easier and/or more compelling for folks to work where they live or live where they work.
1. Stop subsidizing suburbs, motorized transport, free parking.
2. Encourage employers to open offices where people live.
3. Housing policies that encourage people to live where they work.
4. ...
Here's a cost effective alternative to electric cars. http://www.jpods.com/index.html The problem isn't just the car; the road that cars drive on requires huge amounts of concrete or asphalt(both major GHG sources) to build and maintain.
Suspended passenger rail pods would allow people to move around suburban or urban areas on elevator like pods without waiting for busses or trolleys. Freight could be dispatched to neighborhood loading docks in standardized pallet containers to be distributed or picked up. People could relax instead of driving.
GM has a long history of fraud in order to protect it's profits starting with the purchase and destruction of urban rail lines and later with the suppression of improvements in auto manufacture. This link shows a GM prototype the Stirlec1 http://tinyurl.com/2svsfc that was a 55 mpg series hybrid electric that could burn any liquid fuel. It dates from 1969.
We've all ridden on Disney's monorail and roller coasters. The same technology would allow neighborhood pod transport and regional high speed rail without tearing up the streets. The powers that be have no interest in letting people escape from the monopoly of the gasoline automobile until they've squeezed every last dollar from us.
We really are too stupid to object. Not all of us but most of us.
The electric vehicle has always held the promise of eliminating most emissions in the streets and moving them to central power plants where we presume the emissions can be contained. But in the past, we didn't consider greenhouse gases, the peak fossil phenomenon, or the militant hostilities in the oil/gas race. Coal is not for free, either. So even with emmissions equipment, itself quite expensive, fossil powered electricity for mass personal transport isn't very feasible.
In an energy policy that really works for the public interest, the technical side would exhibit considerable flexibility while ensuring ecological sustainability, and delivering huge efficiency gains plus incredible economic opportunties for large numbers of people. The political side would require the elimination of laissez faire capitalist controls over markets, governments and people, and the restoration of general civic responsibility.
"build an electric car that appeals to the fundamental appeal of owning a car in the US: Speed, tough, looks, sex-appeal, 1-upmanship."
Sure, all this for about $100,000 and you can't even fit four bags of groceries in it. (I've fit more than that in my scooter) Just what I'd expect from that den of capitalist iniquity called the "silicon valley".
This car is nothing but a millionaires toy. I suspect there are a whole lot more "greens" than people who can afford a $100,000 second car?
And Shane, those appeals you mention are exactly what is destroying the planet. They are the result of the brainwashing of the USAn sheeple through a multi-billion dollar PR industry.
Chevron will not allow nickel metal hydride batteries to be used in electric vehicles. Toyota uses nickel metal hydride batteries in their hybrid Prius (patent loophole). Toyota could easily make a plug-in hybrid that would allow people to make their daily commute electrically and still have unlimited range when the need arises. If they did Chevron would call it an electric vehicle and quash it.
jp April 7th, 2007 3:39 pm
"So now, even as we approach catastrophic climatic change that threatens the planet's very viability, big oil and energy corporations continue to quash anything that might diminish the next quarter's profit statement. It's unbelievable, and all so preventable. I just want to f**cking sit down and cry."
We all want to sit down and cry and some of us do. When I'm done crying, I get my ass moving again to reach and teach the truth to as many people as possible. It's what keeps me going.
The electric car is a great idea and it reduces the sites where pollution capture is required. Many processes and materials are being developed to reduce coal plant emissions. I find it hard to believe that this battery extended the mileage so far without any conditions. Currently, the Department of Energy (USA) is spending vasts amounts of money for researchers to develop batterys and other items concerning electrochemistry. I would hate to think that Cheveron has the answers to energy storage in some basement when the "best researching" country in the world is spending vasts sums of money to reengineer it. Lately, the big advance in batteries has been the lithium ion battery with iron in it. This is targeted for transportation vehicles, the first round being electric bikes. What is this secret battery?
While I don't argue with the need to develop efficient electric cars, I do argue that the individual automobile must go. Six billion humans cannot own their own vehicles. It is absurdity.
As for the cost being 1/12 the cost of fossil fuel, that only assures that many Americans will interpret that to mean, "I can drive 12 times as much!"
This promotion of the electric car is just another form of denial. We need to greatly expand public transportation and non-motorized travel in our cities. It is the only reasonable way out of this mess.
What the corporate markets are actually afraid of are radical new technologies that could promote individual liberation from the existing models of metered dependencies. To quote a market analyst who once said, "If you've got the meter running on the American people, you've got the best game in town." says it all.
Just read Margaret Cheney's book, "Tesla: Man Out of Time" and you'll discover for yourselves what happens to such thinkers who wish to liberate the human condition, from those who seek otherwise. (By the way, No relation to the demon Cheney)
Best wishes and hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
STOP THINKING ABOUT THE GRID AND SUPPORTING THE GRID!
That's the key!
Best Wishes
Innovation may have to come from the periphery, eg a country that decides to make this a priority and pump resources into it. It's astounding what government money can buy. There's also a lingering project: http://www.theaircar.com/
It's a design using compressed air incombination with fuel. But I'm not sure it's going anywhere, they've been researching and building prototypes for years now. Don't know what is taking them so long. Again, lack of investment money could be the thing. Too bad the super rich seem to have such a hard time parting with their money. If I had billions I'd pump a superlarge amount into one such project and make it fly. Would I rather go down in history as the guy who owned 11 yachts and 17 houses and a fleet of Learjets, or the one still had more money than he knew what to do with it after giving 95% of it away to one cause that changed the trajectory of humankind?
I've seen this documentary and it should be looked at by everyone!
The problem with all Electric Cars is that it paves the way towards innovative entrepreneurs breaking the existing model of a metered dependency. Forget about plugging into the grid! Think independent charging stations, personal garages with rooftops covered in solar arrays! Who knows where brilliant thinkers could lead us on this, if it were only allowed to emerge.
I saw another documentary, can't remember the name, but the Japanese have already developed an all electric prototype, capable of 350 miles between plug-ins. Trouble is the lithium ion battery technology it uses, currently makes it prohibitably expensive.
Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Ok, I got sucked in, I need to make a longer post.
This is a great article, hit all the points I'm usually posting on message boards, in the comment sections of blogs, and now here. XD
There's a couple it didn't cover though.
1. Why haven't market forces allowed small companies to fill in the gap when the big companies crushed all their EVs?
The answer is that it costs about $400 million to start a car company. To engineer and assemble the parts from all over the world costs millions. You can't just order one specialized part, you have to order large quantities. Then you have to crash a ton of your cars into walls for U.S. Safety Tests, and the tests themselves cost millions. There's only one promising start-up really, Tesla motors, they have the funds because they are former silicon-valley entrepreneurs: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/
2. But coal is dirty. The electrical Grid is inefficient, and not Zero-emissions.
Like I said before coal is cleaner, even assuming we use natural gas for power, the electric car powered on natural gas has less emissions than gas cars.
Another benefit is that electric cars take the pollution away from heavily populated areas. Not only that, but as the grid becomes cleaner with solar power and wind, our electric cars become cleaner.
3. The grid can't handle millions of cars charging up everyday.
Actually if people charge at night, the grid can handle an extra 180 million cars charging up with NO modifications to the electrical grid. There are only black-outs during the day when the grid is being pushed to the max, but at night there's tons of free-energy just waiting to be used. Read Tesla's white paper:
http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/21stCentElectricCar.pdf
or this message board discussion, which is the best discussion on electric cars on the internet IMO:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8972-0-asc-0.html
Coal is cleaner than burning gas (71% as many emissions). This is due primarily to the coal gasification (electrostatic smokestack precipitators) process regulated by the EPA. Either read "The Green Car Journal", 1993, page 116, or this Japanese study:
http://www.ilea.org/lcas/taharaetal2001.html
In the US, greed is the guiding light. There is a "Smart Car" made in Germany starting to appear on the streets of the US. There is also a comapny in Spokane, Washington making an electric car. If the demand is there, they will be made. Everyone ought to cry loudly and long to their Congressional representatives and to their Senators to get the electric car a more common place item on our streets. Why do "We The People" always have to cave in the face of big bucks?
I'd buy an electric car if I could afford it.
Hybridoma2001: Sounds like the ideal time for an innovative american or european startup to capitalize on the zeitgeist. I don't think it would be too hard to get venture capital for building electric cars.
There's no doubt that if we put our minds and wills to it we could have a clean (or much much cleaner) individual transport system. I've been thinking for a long time about the possibility of a track-based system, something like a distributed roller coaster that would share centralized power distribution, be computer controlled and theoretically immune to accident or crash. Roller coasters have things called linear induction motors (LIMs) that have essentially no moving parts, are almost completely reliable, and draw power from the track. Imagine stumbling into your car in the morning, punching in your destination and being whisked away in total safety, able to catch a few more zees... The possibilities are endless.
dponcy....
To a certain extent, I agree to your point, in that mass transit must be pushed forward, made attractive, but only to congested areas. For this reason we will always have a grid. But we can not deny individual independence from the grid if one chooses to travel a road not in the hands of the grid, to travel it as independently, innovatively and cleanly as possible.
I do find it disgusting to see many American driveways, overflowing out on to the street with 6, 8 or more carbon aspirating dinosaurs.
Your last paragraph is simply meant to keep entrepreneurs from thinking outside the box of metered dependency.
Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
A strategy must be derived to rid US politics of oil industry a**holes like bush, cheney, and their ilk once and for all.
GM recalling the electric car should be the permenent mental image of the oil-industry in politics.
As usual, profits over people. Millions suffering crumbling economies, disease, and rising global temperatures...
It's ridiculously obvious (not a "conspiracy-theory" as the US media would explain) that policies put in place by the current white house occupants were designed for the sole purpose of oil-industry greed. War in Afghanistan and Iraq, recalling electric cars, $5/gallon gas, secrecy, tax cuts for the rich, firing of any political resistance, extreme partisan politics, torture, "mobilizing" the christian right, etc.
If you went directly to hell itself, you could not find a more insidious group of evil scumbags than Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, Rice, and of course the little meaningless moron "shrubbie" GW.
This is like some Batman-nightmare where all the villians finally take control led by the Penguin(Cheney). And the villians finally figure out a way to keep from getting caught!
Tell me Cheney doesn't have a "secret-lair"... And tell me Cheney and Rove don't have "henchmen"... you know those guys in the stripped shirts and masks that always end up getting POW! in the end. Hell, Cheney even LOOKS like the Penguin! Where's Michael Keaton when you need him!
Just as the auto industry and oil and rubber interests bought out the trian system for inner cities in the 1920's, so today they are doing everything in their power to keep new and better cars off the streets - all in the name of money.
I've been hearing stories for years now about innovative, environmentally better cars are kept mothballed. What will happen when this film is seen by the public? I hope outrage and a demand for change. What will most likely happen is that Japan, Korea, or China will bring the new generation of cars to the market place. Japan is already doing so with the Hybrid car.
Once again, because of greed, the USA will lose out again on being the leader in a new and inevitable change in how we power cars. We are becoming less and less a benefit to the world and more and more a danger.
And, as others have said, even if coal will still be a source of power for these cars in the immediate future, the amount of coal used for this purpose will be much smaller due to the increased mileage.
We're looking more like the country without the know-how than the country that led the world in innovation during the 20th century.
These early years of the 21st century are showing the world that this could indeed be East Asia's century.
The electric car would be a boon for the nuke industry. With all its many everlasting dangers, nukes are a highly centralized, publicly traded and taxpayer subsidized industry with insurance exemption. Barring a general recognition of the roots of all our problems--too many people and a growing gap between rich and poor--we will suffer a reduction in our populations at the cruel hand of nature in the form of wars, plagues, crime, famine, etc. and a hopeful readjustment toward direct democracy. Maybe survivors can learn from the mistakes of this generation.
How many people are going to complain if their electricity bill triples or even quadruples, when they know that they don't have to pay for gasoline anymore and all their electricity is renewable and being generated naturally? On top of all of this, once the infrastructure is in place, the costs will start going down.
Obviously, electricity production has problems when it comes to cleanliness, but the issue is that the electric car was much more energy saving, you only have to look at the prices to figure that out. As for the dirty electricity generation, there is a large amount of interest in changing that infrastructure to wind energy. It may cost more today, but, "The electricity costs the equivalent of 30p for a gallon's worth of travel, as opposed to the £4 Brits pay at the petrol pump."
Which means that even if wind energy costs double what normal electricity costs, it is still a viable and very clean solution to the problem. Ford started from his backyard, time for a new generation to start from their's and show these big corporations that they are dinosaurs who should have become extinct the first day they greedily bought up and hid technology to advance mankind instead of allowing us to advance and adapting to the beautiful new world that is about to dawn, when these greedy monsters are finally put in their graves.
Oops...hit the wrong key!
The point to remember is that we already have the technologies in place to dramatically reduce the co2 emisions and that big business has stopped the progress.
As everyone has pointed out, yes some of the electricity comes from the burning of fossil fuels, but not all. There is hydro-electric sources, hopefully solar and wind technologies will become more cost efficient as well.
The point to remember is that
So the basic math, according to the cost numbers cited in this article, breaks down to cost of energy consumed by electric car = 1/12th the cost of energy consumed by fossil fueled car. Think about that. If we can reduce out fossil fuel consumption by a factor of 12, it's an enormous step in the right direction. As the technology improves, so does the ratio. The naysayers here need to realize that this is a dramatic improvement on the current equation.
As a boy in Wisconsin in the 1930's I witnessed the city of Milwaukee replacing its extensive network of street cars (electric trams) with trolley busses. They ran on electricity from double overhead trolley wires, but were not restricted to rails. They could avoid obstacles, pull into the curb for loading passengers, and, if necessary, using extension cords, make u-turns and reverse course. They were silent, swift, and of course emitted no exhaust. They were cheap to run and easy to maintain, and every time they put on the brakes, they generated power into the trolley system.
But within a few years the oil companies and the big auto companies conspired to have them replaced by noisy, smoke belching diesel busses.
Now the trolley busses are to be found on Market St. San Francisco, and I guess nowhere else.
One more victory for the "free market"
Where does the electricity come from to charge the vehicle? Don't be so short sighted as to look at the car and think "clean & enviro friendly". If it is coal power plants providing the electricity . . . uh oh!
I remember seeing electric cars in a big lot near the airport in L.A. and asking the attendant about renting one. He said I could not and that there was no way of test driving one either.
So now, even as we approach catastrophic climatic change that threatens the planet's very viability, big oil and energy corporations continue to quash anything that might diminish the next quarter's profit statement. It's unbelievable, and all so preventable. I just want to f**cking sit down and cry.
The problem with electric cars being "clean" is that the electricity to charge them usually comes from dirty coal plants and other polluting sources. In the United States in particular, the inefficiency of our electrical grid only adds to the pollution. Electric cars will only become relatively pollution free when the electricity used to charge their batteries comes from solar, wind, or some similar alternative energy source.
Until then, I'm afraid, it's really a lie to call them "clean".
lf there is a conspiracy it is the conspiracy of consumerism. l work at a Chrysler/Jeep dealership we sell a cute little Compas,Sebring, and PT Cruiser ( all capable of MPG ratings 20-30 MPG) yet more people buy or lease our Liberty,Grand Cherokee, or Commander with milege ratings in the teens; and are content to pay the extra "Gas Guzzler tax" to do it. As far as California electric cars, they have rolling blackouts now when everybody comes home and turns on the AC and what do we do when all those battery packs no longer hold a charge. Lets get that tax up another $3.00 (US) per gallon on gasoline; $1.00 For National mass transit projects and $2.00 for state mass transit projects. When the gas guzzler is outlawed only outlaws will drive the gas guzzler.
Something that needs to be made clear is that with adequate charging infrastructure- one that allows the car to be charged whenever it's parked - the range-per-charge issue becomes a moot point. EV with even ordinary lead-acid batteries would have enough range for the way a car is used 80% of the time.
For now I have developed sharp-eyes for outdoor electric outlets that are used to "opportunity-charge" my scooters while on longer distance errands.
@Candle stick
The batteries the author is referring to are the Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries. Chevron/Texaco bought the patents from Cobasys who developed the battery, then wouldn't license the technology at a reasonable price for really anyone (especially EVs). Ever since then, Lithium Ion have been quickly catching up... but NiMH are still thought to last longer and are safer and easier to recycle. With the plethora of battery technologies emerging, I doubt even Chevron will be able to keep up.
More info on the NiMH in EVs:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1198
I think too many people here have free-market-on-the-brain disease. As this article states, large corporations control, and seem to be deliberately holding back, key battery technologies that that those young, yuppie libertarian, capitalists are going to need, and they are unlikely to have the power (i.e. $billions) to bargain with them.
Additionally, there is going to have to be lots of government involvement and standardization in the charging infrastructure.
EV development will occur the way all other transportation improvements were made - by governments enacting laws.
But for now, there are individual measures - move to where your energy use is lowest - a small home, in a location where you can walk to shopping and public transportation, and close to work or public transportation to work. This was 80% of our consideration when we recently moved. Sorry, but anyone who doesn't take this approach is not serious about attacking global warming.
We also have two electric motor scooters that replace most driving in fair weather. Go here:
http://www.evtamerica.com/
It does not cost $400M to start a car company.
Electric cars do not have to be frumpy.
Look at http://www.teslamotors.com, born here in the US.
$0.01/mile to run, keeps up with all the $100K sports cars.
This is a better marketing strategy. Rather than building a car that appeals to the greens (a minority in the US), build an electric car that appeals to the fundamental appeal of owning a car in the US: Speed, tough, looks, sex-appeal, 1-upmanship.
It's all about marketing. The big car companies never wanted to sell the electric car, so it was marketed with as much appeal as stepping in a pile of doggy-doo.
"The business of America is business" - Calvin Coolidge
Foamweapons,
Thank you, the energy question is such a complex issue that science, social and political issues must merge. This is an extreme challenge. Not sure if climate disaster is your site, but a very interestig and well versed site. Working in a materials science research lab I know that many great people are working towards new energy solutions and really care about environmental quality.
Even with coal burning electric plants taken into account(and why can't we have better sources of electricity anyway?) the electtric motor is so much more efficient than the internal combustion engine that electric cars would be an all around improvement.