The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I got into a discussion with a couple of my friends,they're pretty "Green" to the Point  where they will pay more for things just to be more "Green"...

So if you could buy an electric car right now...Would you?

I thought about it,and said it depends..If it had....
Good Acceleration,Torque
Excellent battery life
Easy to maintain (I don't have to Plug it in every 2 hours type thing,Has to charge 12 hours for every hour of use type thing)
And was in my price range
(and preferably looked like a truck)

I have a difficult time believe a completely electric car can meet my needs. I have not looked at them in years though so the technology has improved I am sure.

If it was in my price range, I defintely would.

As it stands now, I'm waiting for the new Honda Insight to come out in April '09. It's a Hybrid with a base price of around $18000. Looks like the Prius, but a Honda. Which makes me happy. I'll probably get onelate '09. Since I want to squeeze another 20,000 miles out of my current car. (It's at about 81,000. Figure 100,000 and it's time for a new one.) All of this is null and void, though if VW releases a Jetta hybrid.

There are lots of factors that would make me want to buy:

- economically viable
- convenient places to recharge
- capable of traveling long distances
- looks like a normal car (I hate when new cars look all futuristic like Jetsons.)
- been out for more than one series (Not sure I'd trust the first model.)

A friend of mine just got done building his own electric car into the chassis of a Toyota Tercel.  He said he can go over 50 miles on one charge at speeds up to 100 MPH.  Plus he has solar panels on his roof to charge the car.  I think he's still in testing but so far it works great.

No. We have a Corolla with 40,000 miles on it and a Xterra with only 20,000. High gas prices or not, it doesn't make sense to buy a new car when the one you have works fine.

I'll buy a hybrid or electric vehicle after the Corolla dies.

The electric car proponents convienently leave out the fact there is no viable way to safely deal with the masive amounts of batteries these cars use. They are an enviromental nightmare, which makes the irony so much sweeter.

Batteries can be recycled.  They do it all the time.  I saw it on How Its Made - they showed how the toxic elements were neutralized and the rest of it was recycled.

Additionally, assuming owners properly dispose of the batteries, it's much easier to sequester the pollutants then it is to pull the pollutants generated by internal combustion engines out of the atmosphere.

I'm more concerned with battery life (not the life of a charge, but the life of the battery itself) and replacement costs.

^^ good point about the batteries,on both counts...

I feel like the Electric grid in America,as it stands right now,couldn't handle the extra work load say if 10% of the Cars in America were Electris ..(That's just off the top of my head....)

I just thought it was interesting to see IF people would buy one...

I would agree on all those points but let me add a few as well:

- doesn't lose performance when the battery gets low
- doesn't take a long time to charge
- battery doesn't lose power faster in the rain or cold

I'm holding out for flying cars...I don't care what they use for fuel. ;D

We would need nucular ... say it like Bush ... power plants to propell all of those darned thngs!!!

It has been talked about in articles and shows that the cars go through so many batteries so quickly that the recycling companies wouldn't keep up.

When they develop a hybrid Corvette I'm there. Until then I need my V-8 shot everyday............. 8)

Are electric car owners destroying our eviroment? Are they contributing to global warming by plugging their cars in to charge?
I mean where does that electricity come from could it be coal powered, gas power, nuclear powered?

Yes!  Its a trade off - either you pollute the environment with CO2 every mile you drive, or you pollute the environment by increasing demand on the local power plant.

The difference is that the power plant will be running whether you have an electric car or not.

you're assuming that:

1 - new recycling companies wouldn't spring up to meet demand
2 - existing companies wouldn't ramp up capacity
3 - demand driven technological innovation wouldn't occur

your sentence reminds me of those old physics questions "when you throw a ball at a 45 degree angle with X force .. how far will it go.. in a vacuum with no friction"

Another things with batteries (electric) vs. emissions from gas powered cars is that batteries can get their fuel from a variety of sources -- from burning coal (which is similar to what you'd get from a car), to nuclear, to wind, solar, hydroelectric, etc.  With a gas motor, the result is always the same -- exhaust.

To me, this makes the car FREE to use and FREE from any environmental impact.

I'm all for solar technology, but the yield from it isn't that great.  When they use solar panels on cars, it helps, but doesn't provide nearly enough energy to power the car.  It's more to help with other electrical things, like lights, radio, etc.

I listen to some science podcasts and they've had some good information about solar technology lately.  They were saying that one of the big increases that can be made is in the actual storage of the energy.  It's kind of a misconception that we should be working on harnessing more energy, but I think that we're pretty close to capacity in that respect.  I think it's more a matter of efficiently storing the energy that you've harnessed, for use at a later time, and a way to do that more efficiently.

Be careful Dave, this guy has 3 solar panels on his roof, about 3' x 1' each, and he runs half his house on it.  He can't run the A/C but he runs the fridge, a TV, and a few lights off those three panels.

I imagine that the amount of power that it takes to run a TV and some lights pales in comparison to how much it would take to power a car.

Depends - each panel provides power to charge a battery.  It all depends upon your setup.  I'm just saying "it can be done."  Don't be so quick to write it off based on 10-year-old notions of inefficiency.

back to the original question:

i would own the shit out of this electric car !

http://www.teslamotors.com/

(http://www.teslamotors.com/images/content/wallpaper_4982_300x225.jpg)

I agree that it can be done.  I just don't think we're there yet.