Electric Cars

[Wesley]

Toyota drops plan for widespread sales of electric car | Reuters

Toyota Motor Corp has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands.

Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors Co and Nissan Motor Co, said it would only sell about 100 battery-powered eQ vehicles in the United States and Japan in an extremely limited release.

Anyone ready to buy one?

[Let's Go State]

Anyone have the video of The Simpsons at the electric car display at the worlds fair sponsored by oil companies?


HERE YOU GO

[dmclone]

It's all about battery technology and price. I think the Chevy Volt would be a great car for $25K since it has both battery and gas powered. The bad thing is that the Volt costs $60-$75k to build and even with a $7,500 government handout they still can't sell them at $33,500.

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

[Bobby45]

Buy an Electric Car?

No thanks. I'm in the camp with the guy that stated..."The gasoline powered internal combustion engine" type vehicle is gonna be here for a long long time because electric cars will stay prohibitively expensive for a very long time.

[leroycyclone]

It's all about battery technology and price. I think the Chevy Volt would be a great car for $25K since it has both battery and gas powered. The bad thing is that the Volt costs $60-$75k to build and even with a $7,500 government handout they still can't sell them at $33,500.

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

What does sell are cars with V-8 engines, that are smaller and badder than their 60s and 70s cousins. The new CAFE rules may well spell the end of these cars in the marketplace. What a shame!

[jbhtexas]

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

It depends. Ecologically, if you have to burn something to make electricity (i.e. coal or gas), you'd be better off burning something in an internal combustion engine directly on the car than burning something in a power plant and suffering transmission line losses getting the electricity to the car. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of excess hydro, wind, or nuclear (i.e. cheap) electricity on your hands, a "functional" all-electric car seems like a great fit.

[Let's Go State]

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

Maybe a good golf cart....

[cdnlngld]

It depends. Ecologically, if you have to burn something to make electricity (i.e. coal or gas), you'd be better off burning something in an internal combustion engine directly on the car than burning something in a power plant and suffering transmission line losses getting the electricity to the car. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of excess hydro, wind, or nuclear (i.e. cheap) electricity on your hands, a "functional" all-electric car seems like a great fit.

IC engines are far less efficient...... however coal is not clean either. we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford. Hell, relatively nobody but rich people had cars until Henry ford came along...

[Boxerdaddy]

Here's a great TED talk on the feasibility of electric cars.

Shai Agassi: A new ecosystem for electric cars | Video on TED.com

We need to treat the batteries like we do gasoline now...Change them at "gas" stations and you have an infrastructure set up to go all electric. Then just need the manufacturers to get us the electric cars that are affordable.

[JY07]

i'd probably jump in for one of these in a year or two (or their lower end sedan, depending on how that turns out):

Model S | Tesla Motors

[Cyclonepride]

IC engines are far less efficient...... however coal is not clean either. we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford. Hell, relatively nobody but rich people had cars until Henry ford came along...

If every roof in the US was covered in solar panels, it still wouldn't come close to meeting our needs.

[iahawkhunter]

If every roof in the US was covered in solar panels, it still wouldn't come close to meeting our needs.

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

[CyPlainsDrifter]

we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford.

Dream on ..... that will not happen. Not in your lifetime, probably not in your great-great grandkids lifetimes. The capacity factor for both are extremely low and not viable as our only energy sources. Not efficient, very high cost, limit capacity, weather dependent.

[CyPlainsDrifter]

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

Right now it costs around $35K to install a 7KW solar system. That is 7KW, on a roof in Florida, in the middle of the day, in the middle of summer. If you wanted to go off the grid, it would take probably double that capacity, and a pretty big battery, inverter, etc.... so you could sustain power while the sun was down. Not doable right now .... not even close and that's in Florida. If you tried it in Iowa, it would be further from possible by a long ways.

[Cyclonepride]

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

I had one posted in the Cave a while back. I'll try to find it.