Living Car Free - Who Killed The Electric Car

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/


I wish you could have seen this movie with me because it really is an eye opener on how the electric car was the real alternative (not hydrogen) the motorist was looking for to avoid the high costs of gasoline. Unfortunately, GM couldn’t make a large profit selling the vehicle and discontinued production. They also discovered this non-combustion vehicle needed far less service because it had less moving parts thus cutting into GM’s profit as their centers would no longer make money from oil changes, replacement parts and repairs.

Once GM shut down the electric car plant, they didn’t want the owners of these vehicles to BUY out their lease and destroyed all the cars! Incredible. The cars were still in very good condition but they all went to the crusher because GM didn’t want anyone to know such a vehicle was even created.

Technology is ACTUALLY here that can bring back the good old days of cheap motoring for those who owned a home with a garage. I had no idea but this is a fact as the electric car was a solid product. As I said before in this forum, technology won’t come to the rescue until the last drop of gas is sucked from the face of the earth. We will all be old and gray before an electric car enters your showroom offering an alternative to the high price of fuel. Bottom line. The motorist is being taken for a ride.

It also came to me how dependent millions of Americans are with their motorcar. I found it humorous seeing the actors crying as their electric cars were crushed while other were arrested trying to stop the destruction of their vehicles. Helicopters were hired to photograph and document the vehicles as they entered the crusher. The movie displayed an incredible amount of human drama for the sake of cheap motoring. How sad.

Yet, no one came up with the answer those of us discovered long ago. We don’t need an electric car or any car for shopping, entertainment or employment. We have human powered vehicles and public transportation that can meet our needs today if we just relocate to a city that offered these services in abundance, while changing jobs with a simpler lifestyle. The director of the movie said we may have to wait 20 years before an inexpensive hydrogen car enter the market but don't hold your breath. I’m not going to wait for a hydrogen car, electric car, solar powered car or ANY car to enter the market because the real solution is be car free.

National CBS news had a segment
tonight that indicated that a company
in silicon valley is selling an electric car
now that goes 250 miles at a cost of
1 cent a mile. Downside is that it is
selling for $100K. They showed
Schwarzenegger in one and it
did 0-60 in 4 seconds.

Within 3 years this company is gonna
have a family car in mass production.

While it helps the peak oil problem and
dependence on foreign oil but does little
for the Global Warming problem. + or -
the efficiencies of electric power
generation, the efficiency of the car
and the source of electric generation.

But it looks good. Damned thing
moved like an italian sports car.
And it looked like one too.

While it helps the peak oil problem and
dependence on foreign oil but does little
for the Global Warming problem.

The Tesla Roadster http://www.teslamotors.com/

Does little for global warming? It doesn't have an internal combustion engine spewing carbon monoxide...

Even if it is being powered by coal power stations, they are more efficient than thousands of gas cars. Oh, and they say the electric engine is 90% efficient compared to the 30%? of a ICE. And no motor oil, air filter, spark plugs etc. Also the batteries are recycleable (lithium ion laptop batteries)

Interesting car, I'd much rather seee people driving those than H2s.

Downside is that it is
selling for $100K. They showed
Schwarzenegger in one and it
did 0-60 in 4 seconds.


This is good news but 100K is an insane amount of money. At that price, you can buy an SUV and the price of gasoline after 5 years wouldn't come anywhere near 100K. The EV cars by GM were actually affordable and with the recent developments in battery technology, the car could have traveled over 100 miles on a charge.

But the mass production car
is supposed to be competitive.

It is a Venture Capital startup
but they are selling cars now
and have future backers for
the full product rollout, or
so I understand.

Electric cars are great, but with the volume of cars on the planet and mankind's rather bum battery technology, we're going to create a lot of hazardous waste in spent rechargeable batteries. Ahhh... if only solar power were more viable...

The Tesla and T-zero are a "top-down" approach, making sexy electric dream cars. That does more for our cultural attitude toward electrics. Chrysler will be introducing an electric model of the Smart soon, having a range of 70+ miles per charge for the rest of us.

Electric cars do have a lot of potential to replace most daily use of internal combustion driven autos, but the battery issue is a strong point, and could become a problem if there were a surge in demand for electrics. Ultra capacitors using nanotube surfaces are can almost match batter power today, never need replacing, and have no hazardous byproducts. The current timetable is 10 years, but considering the circumstances and how rapidly technology has been progressing, I'm optimistic.

When you consider that Electric Motors power everything from your blender
to a open pit mining trucks it's easy to see that electric motors in cars makes
a lot of sense.

However there is one major problem at present..........
Generating capacity worldwide.

As easy as it seems one can't simply "plug in" all the electrical stuff that makes up
modern life then add the burden of millions of cars to the equation without the grid
collapsing. Much of the electricity we have is nothing more than converted fossil fuel
which doesn't solve a thing in the end. There are ways to tap the earth natural motion
for electrical energy but ,due to cheap fossil fuels, there has been little interest or
money to do so.

If "We" ,as a human population, could kick the big oil barons & their political stooges
out of the equation abundant electrical energy could finally be developed on a global
scale. Just don't count on it anytime soon.

It would be better to leave the remaining oil supplies for lubication and recycleble
plastics than to burn it as we are doing now. Oil used that way with earth powered
electricty would give the world an endless supply of the energy we need.

One thing is sure......
NONE of us are ever going to get off this planet so we must manage it better than we have.

Unfortunately, GM couldn’t make a large profit selling the vehicle and discontinued production.

Too bad it didn't make a loss, then there would be more of them. Does anyone remember when GM last made a profit? Maybe sometime in the late 60s.

Putting an electric motor in a car still doesn't address the fundemental ineffiency of a car, which is that using one to transport a human body from one place to another is like using a wheelbarrow to move an ant.

National CBS news had a segment
tonight that indicated that a company
in silicon valley is selling an electric car
now that goes 250 miles at a cost of
1 cent a mile. Downside is that it is
selling for $100K. They showed
Schwarzenegger in one and it
did 0-60 in 4 seconds.

Within 3 years this company is gonna
have a family car in mass production.

While it helps the peak oil problem and
dependence on foreign oil but does little
for the Global Warming problem. + or -
the efficiencies of electric power
generation, the efficiency of the car
and the source of electric generation.

But it looks good. Damned thing
moved like an italian sports car.
And it looked like one too.

Ya know, it IS technically possible, right now, to totally replace all coal-fired power plants with other, cleaner technologies, which would make electric cars totally green; no CO2 emissions at all. If the people who actually get to make decisions like that really wanted it to happen, we could completely transform our energy production infrastructure in less than 20 years. All it takes is political will, foresight, a willingness to put up with breeder reactors for a while, and a huge amount of public investment, on the scale of the Manhatten Project, or the war in Iraq. And -here's the tough part- the decency to put a viable future ahead of obscene short-term profits. (No, I'm not a socialist.)

(BTW, my personal dream is a future full of electric light rail, bike/pedestian-dominated traffic, and only enough electric cars & trucks to do what is utterly necessary, like deliver lumber and move around in rural areas, but I'm realistic enough to realize that'll never happen, at least not in North America. I dislike cars, but since we have to have them, bring on the ones that don't broil the planet, and do it quickly, please...)

Oh, one more thing: As a committed lifelong bike person, electric cars worry me. The few electric buses in Seattle scare the crap out of me when they pass, because I can't hear them coming. A future full of electric cars would be a bit unnerving.

I don't know the brand, but here in my town, there is a small electric car that a family drives around fairly often. It has no doors, and I can pass it down hill, so it appears to have a top speed of around 25.

As a case study in greed GM is great. How would an electric car affect obesity, heart disease, suburban sprawl, pedestrian/bike safety, and gas taxes?

How would an electric car affect obesity, heart disease, suburban sprawl, pedestrian/bike safety, and gas taxes?

Umm, an electric car would change nothing - there are already gas cars. Besides the gas taxes of course - they would have to increase the elctricity rates to get their "cut".

Oh, maybe ped/bike safety because they don't have as loud an engine (which is a big plus in my book) but that is offset by the fact that they aren't pouring out carbon monoxide all over you as they pass.

I will have to see that movie. I went into a theater in DC this weekend (E-street for anyone in DC Metro) to see "An Inconvenient Truth". Before the movie, I was standing outside waiting for a friend to get there. A guy pulls up and slowly parks his car right in front of the theater. It looked kind of like a Chevette hatchback (I don't know cars that well). In any case, all I noticed was that he was parked illegally and then he popped the hood and I thought maybe he was having car trouble. I was standing towards the back so I didn't see what was under the hood. I did notice the words "electric vehicle" on the side and but I just dismissed it.

So my friend gets there, we go in and see the "An Inconvenient Truth". On our way out, we noticed a poster for "Who Killed the Electric Car". We leave the theater and the car is still there and there's a small group of people gathered around the car and the guy's talking. We walk past the front of the car and then I see that it's an actual electric car. Unfortunately, I didn't stay long to hear what he was saying. I suppose it was publicity for the movie, but I thought it was cool to see an actual electric car. I definitely plan to go back and see this movie.

Speaking of EV's visiting the movie premiers, here's one firsthand account:
http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/blog/

The problem isnt how many kg's of CO2 we throw up into the air, or how many mpg or what range in miles a car gets. the problem is the car: a 2 to 10 seat vehicle occuipied in the us by an average of 1.3 passengers.


Putting an electric motor in a car still doesn't address the fundemental ineffiency of a car, which is that using one to transport a human body from one place to another is like using a wheelbarrow to move an ant.

I think the number we should be looking for is joules per person per mile, a number we want to minimize. we'll find for low occupancy/short distance that the bicycle is the answer and that for high occupancy/long distance, rail is the answer.

The movie I want to see is: Who's going to kill the internal combustion car?