# Who's stopping the electric/solar car? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 28, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820 "2007-06-28T20:55:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/61 "2007-06-29T16:30:34Z")
[QUOTE=Ambski] Whoops! Apologies for the casual ‘easy’ faux pas. This forum (the technical replies at least) have illustrated the challenges to the electric/solar car which I wasn’t aware of. Fancy that…not knowing. We now appear to be getting to the crux though, why are the powers that be not throwing their FULL weight (not the usual token effort for the green voters) behind this **POTENTIAL VIABLE** technology? [/QUOTE] Which viable technology? Gas/electric/SuperCapacitor/Natural Gas Fuel Cell/Hydrogen/Metalized Hydrogen … The sheer number of options potentially available makes any government mandate ineffective. If you really wanted to drive something home, a government would impose massive taxes on gasoline consumption. Seeing how democratic governments are elected by people that would rather not pay more taxes they tend to not do that. Instead they throw a smattering of cash at advertising on the assumption that personal conviction will shift the economic tipping point towards market driven solutions. Solutions arrived at with other people’s money. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/62 "2007-06-29T16:36:01Z")
How are electric cars doing in Europe? They have massive taxes on gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/63 "2007-06-29T18:26:48Z")
> **[Best Electric Cars of 2023 and 2024 - Expert Reviews and Rankings | Edmunds](https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/)** > > Edmunds expert reviewers rank the best electric vehicles of 2023 and 2024 on a 10-point scale that includes performance, comfort, interior, technology, and value. I don’t know if anyone’s covered this, but a lot of what he says matches my point. Automakers are required to produce parts for cars for a number of years… I’m not saying GM is innocent. But I am saying that the EV was not a car to be sold, but a technology experiment. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/64 "2007-06-29T18:47:06Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] See my link from previous post. That is just plain wrong.And that’s without improved sequestration technologies. This would help a lo > [@](#): > > Quote: > For every gallon of gasoline burned, approximately 22 pounds of CO2, an important global warming gas, are created. If a car gets 25 miles a gallon it will emit 22 pounds of carbon dioxide over that distance, as well as other pollutants. By comparison, an electric car may travel the same distance consuming 5 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electric power at a rate of 200 watt hours/mile. Assuming the local grid is 100% coal-fired, roughly 5 lbs of coal would be consumed to create that 5kWh. Depending on the grade and carbon content of the coal, one kilowatt hour creates approximately 1.4 pounds of CO2. That’s 7 pounds of CO2 vs. 22 pounds to travel the same 25 miles. But recall that the power grid isn’t entirely coal-fired; it includes hydroelectric, natural gas, nuclear and a small, but growing segment of renewables. t. [/QUOTE] Your quote from the article contains a manifest impossibility. The claim is that 1 pound of coal produces only 1.4 lb. of CO[sub]2[/sub]. If the coal is 100 % carbon, 1 lb. of coal produces 1 lb. of carbon atoms combined with 2.67 lb. of oxygen for a total of 3.67 lb. of CO[sub]2[/sub] assuming perfect combustion. For the 5 lb. of coal assumed this makes 18.33 lb. of CO[sub]2[/sub] Now one gallon of gasoline contains about 5.62 lb of carbon atoms if it is pure octane. This will prduce 20.6 lb. of CO[sub]2[/sub]. The quote was somewhat deceptive in that it cited the total CO[sub]2[/sub] for the gasoline and a per pound CO[sub]2[/sub] for the coal, and it got that wrong. In addition, gasoline contains about 1.38 times the energy per pound as does coal, 11000 cal/gm vs. 8000 cal/gm. If you compute the total available energy in a gallon of gasoline it produces about the same CO[sub]2[/sub] as does coal for the same energy. This seems reasonable to me. The combustion of each carbom molecule produces a certain amount energy and produces one molecule of CO[sub]2[/sub]. If the coal plant and the automoble engine are producing the same amount of energy then they should produce about the same amount of CO[sub]2[/sub]. The greater efficiency of the coal plant being offset by the greater energy/lb. of the gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/65 "2007-06-29T19:00:04Z")
There is hydrogen in gasoline that combines with oxygen as well so I would expect gas to give more energy per pound of CO2 emitted than coal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/66 "2007-06-29T19:08:01Z")
[QUOTE=gazpacho] How are electric cars doing in Europe? They have massive taxes on gasoline. [/QUOTE] They also have alternatives to automotive transportation, which the U.S. distinctly lacks. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/67 "2007-06-29T19:54:41Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] Your quote from the article contains a manifest impossibility. The claim is that 1 pound of coal produces only 1.4 lb. of CO[sub]2[/sub]. If the coal is 100 % carbon … [/QUOTE] And right there is where you are wrong and why they are at least closer to right. Coal is about 30 - 40% water. If you had coal which was 100% carbon then you have a much higher efficiency product and in fact [some producers](http://www.evgenergy.com/fact_sheets/GHG.PDF) (warning pdf) are trying to produce and market refined coal similar to that. That product would give significantly more kilowatt-hours for less CO2 produced. Using your calculation set-up and assumptions otherwise that results in gas costing nearly twice as much carbon per mile as electricity produced by coal exclusively with no sequestration done at all. The advantage of course compounds given that the US power grid is not entirely coal or even fossil fuel based. Sequestering carbon more effectively at the plant is a work in progress but can be realistically expected as cars gradually switch to electric. As to the cost of carbon in production of the vehicles … there is no reason to believe that there is more carbon production cost to batteries and electric motors than to the entirty of a gas powered engine especially accounting for regular oil changes unneeded for electric motors. Add in the value of energy independence and the relative ease of implementing a repowering infrastructure compared to say fuel cells … biofuels? More carbon efficient to build plants that burn renewable biomass than to expend energy and carbon transforming it into something that can be transported to the pump and then burned by the car. Again - price, power, range, speed of recharging if not using a back-up gas or flex fuel generator on board - these are the big issues that are already being addressed. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/68 "2007-06-29T21:27:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Who’s stopping the electric/solar car? The all-powerful Stonecutters! > [@](#): > > Who controls the British Crown? > Who keeps the metric system down? > We do. We do. > Who keeps Atlantis off the maps? > Who keeps the Martians under wraps? > We do. We do. > Who holds back the electric car? > Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? > We do. We do. > Who robs cave fish of their sight? > Who rigs every Oscar night? > We do. We do. Can’t belive I was the first person to remember this one! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/69 "2007-06-29T21:51:10Z")
BTW, I hope we can dismiss the thread title’s idea of a “solar” car. Not enough sunlight strikes a car to power it, unless it’s the kind of light, specially designed go-kart used in the [World Solar Challenge,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge) and I very much doubt those can be made practical for daily use. (And they would, obviously, need some other power source for nightly use.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/70 "2007-06-29T21:53:37Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] The all-powerful Stonecutters! Can’t belive I was the first person to remember this one! 😃 [/QUOTE] See post #46 (and that wasn’t the first, either). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/71 "2007-06-29T21:59:00Z")
[QUOTE=Ambski] **Who’s stopping the electric/solar car?** [/QUOTE] [hijack] I can’t prove it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same parties were involved in stopping the [Florida High-Speed Rail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_High_Speed_Rail) project. Certainly Governor Jeb Bush spearheaded the repeal effort, and his family’s ties to the oil industry are no secret. Of course, there’s no denying the voters had the last word there. OTOH, the new Governor, Charlie Crist, [just might revive the project.](http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070212/COLUMNISTS0502/702120356&SearchID=73272066374453) [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/72 "2007-06-30T00:23:15Z")
Lots of interesting perceptions in this thread. I was told many years ago by a wise mentor to never forget that big companies are only in business to do one thing, and that is to make money. GM, Ford, Toyota, etc. only make cars because they want to make money. If the cars are powered by fossil fuels, electricity, Soylent Green, whatever, it matters not to them. Heck, they’ll get completely out of the auto biz if the only way to make money is to do something else (GMAC comes to mind). The real blame lies with the purchasers (us). People like fast cars, powerful truck, and the roar of the engine. Driving a larger, fancier golf cart just isn’t the same. It will be a long time, and gas prices will be much, much higher than they are now, before there is a wide-spread move to electric cars. [Quote=DSeid] the substantially decreased carbon footprint even using coal-fired power plants with today’s sequestration technologies. [/Quote] I’d really like to hear about “today’s sequestration technologies.” We’re a long way from having something that works on the scale that is needed to take care of the CO2 from a single 500 MW plant. There are tons of ideas and concepts, and a handful of development efforts, but that’s a far cry from having a technology that works commercially. [Quote=DSeid] Coal is about 30 - 40% water. [/Quote] That’s pretty poor grade coal, probably lignite. In general, coal contains much less water than that. The 5 lb = 5 kWhr is pretty close, on average, and coal contains about 80% carbon, some a bit more, some less (subbituminous coal and lignite are on the low end, and can have as little as 50% carbon). On average, though, you still get about 10,000 Btu/lb of coal, and the average efficiency of coal-fired plants is such that it takes about 10,000 Btu to generate a kWhr at the plant breaker (check out the DOE Energy Information Administration site for details). There will be losses for transmission, distribution, and in storage, so you’re probably doing well to get 80% of the energy into your car. You then have to deal with the internal losses of the car, not attributable to moving - motor losses, inability to completely drain the battery, headlights, radio, air conditioning, heater, etc. We can be generous and say that it takes 7 lb of coal to generate 5 kWhr of energy in the form of movement. At 80% carbon, we’ve just released 5.6 lb of carbon into the air at the plant, which is in the form of 20.5 lb of CO2. There are major advantages to dealing with CO2 (and all the other pollutants) at a central facility rather than being distributed among several hundred million moving tailpipes. Moving the other emissions out of highly populated areas is also a good thing to do. And there are numerous other ways to generate electricity other than using coal. But for at least the next decade, things will look pretty much like they do now. There is a long way to go before electric cars and carbon capture and sequestration become a reality. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/73 "2007-06-30T04:12:47Z")
**Public Animal No. 6** , my source was that “some producers” link and upon reread does specify Western coal stocks as opposed to Eastern coal stocks which tend, according to them, to be of higher grade. Which coal is “most” coal and which should be used for the analysis? I defer to your apparent greater knowledge. As to sequestration, cetainly some is possible even now if there was a political will to make it happen, at least according to various sources [such as this one](http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17411&ch=biztech) and this _Science_ [Perspective.](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/300/5626/1677?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=coal+sequestration&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT) > [@](#): > > Today’s urgent need for substantive CO2 emission reductions could be satisfied more cheaply by available sequestration technology than by an immediate transition to nuclear, wind or solar energy. Further development of sequestration would assure plentiful, low-cost energy for the century, giving better alternatives ample time to mature. I did just read the word “available” didn’t I? The issue is the simple fact that doing so may be a bargain compared to building new nuclear plants or renewables but it still isn’t cheap and the will to make it happen has not yet occured. As to what consumers want … Tesla aint having much of a problem getting people to line up to fork over 50K down to reserve their 100K cars. Helluva “golf cart” that. No, most people wouldn’t be happy with a Zap Xebra sedan, but funny how Detroit is still recovering from having said the same thing about small cars so many years back. People will never buy them. They want our big cars. Funny how a funny looking Toyota compact has dethroned GM as world car sales leader when all people care about is the VROOM factor. Yes, cars need to appeal to consumers and saving a boatload at the pump and national interest in energy independence are enough if the cars won’t perform well and be fun to drive. But electric can be at least as fast and powerful as ICE. If you want noise they can play a tape of VROOM for you. Me, I’ll crank up my music. Reality is that no single technology is going to be a White Knight. That’s why GM’s Volt concept is a wise one (if they actually follow through) … same platform easily modified to use gas, fuel cell, ethanol or biodeisel as its back-up generator. It’s the natural stepping stone vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/74 "2007-06-30T04:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] And right there is where you are wrong and why they are at least closer to right. Coal is about 30 - 40% water. If you had coal which was 100% carbon then you have a much higher efficiency product and in fact [some producers](http://www.evgenergy.com/fact_sheets/GHG.PDF) (warning pdf) are trying to produce and market refined coal similar to that. That product would give significantly more kilowatt-hours for less CO2 produced. [/QUOTE] I’ve gone through a whole bunch of references and it turns out (gulp) you are right, but for the wrong reason. When burning coal it takes 0.67 lb. of carbon to produce 1 kWh of electricity. The remainder of the 1 lb/kWh that your cite gives is something other than carbon. There is a small amount of non combustibles that shows up as ash and some impurities such as sulpher. I ignored them and said all the rest is water. In this case one pound of coal produces a total of 2.46 lb of CO[sub]2[/sub]/lb of coal and .329 lb of water vapor. The total greenhouse gas for the 5 kWh is 13.94 lb. of which most is CO[sub]2[/sub] Gasoline, on the other hand is a hydrocarbon and a significant part of its energy output is from the burning of hydrogen and a large amount of water vapor is produced. In octane, for example there are 8 carbon and 18 hydrogen atoms. When the amount of carbon and hydrogen required to produce 1 kWh of energy is burned 1.84 lb of CO[sub]2[/sub] and 1.69 lb 0f water vapor result. A total of 17.7 lb of greenhouse gas is produced when 5 kWh are generated. The difference is entirely a result of the higher thermal efficiency of coal fueled electric generators over internal combustion engines. Nowever, only 1.65 lb of water vapor results in the coal case while 8.45 results from the gasoline case. And water vapor is the cause of 4 or 5 times the greenhouse effect of CO[sub]2[/sub]. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/75 "2007-06-30T04:36:14Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] And that’s without improved sequestration technologies. This would help a lot. [/QUOTE] I do my part and get laughed at. My boss asks why my desk is covered with trade magazines I haven’t read and catalogs from vendors I don’t use and he doesn’t accept “I sequestering carbon” as a reason. ☹ I keep looking for ways to commute 30 miles one way, generally at highway speeds, and save both money and CO2. The best I’ve found is to set the speed control at 55mph and flip off the people I anger. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/76 "2007-06-30T08:16:32Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] 1. The people who had driven the cars were very sad to see them go. . [/QUOTE] This is mostly a fabrication. The people _they showed the interview o_f on the movie loved the car. Mostly dudes who did not need that car for their only means of transport. And, I’ll bet they also had footage of dudes who said “that car was crap” but they didn’t show that. I drove an Evo (two test drives, was “on the list”). Gutless wonder that had an almost useless range (60 miles) and could only be charged at a few very rare special recharging sites. Not just running an extension cord out from the garage. Sure, the 60 mile range (that’s 30 miles out and back or to be sure you did get back call it 25 miles out and back) did barely cover the average trip of around 29 miles, but remember- an average has both high and low points. So, the Evo could do many things, but it just plain could not do even a moderately long trip. And it took 8 hours for a recharge. From Wiki: _The Gen 1 cars got 55 to 75 miles (90 to 120 km) per charge with the Delco-manufactured lead-acid batteries, 75 to 100 miles (120-to-160 km) with the Gen 2 Panasonic lead-acid batteries, and 75 to 150 miles (120 to 240 km) per charge with Gen 2 Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge (although one could get an 80% charge in two to three hours)._ Now, if you are a celebrity and you have an Evo _and_ a Landrover\* and\* a Ferrari, sure that Evo is just fine for tooling down to Rodeo Dr for a shopping trip- because you have the Landrover for a longer trip. The Evo \*deserved \*to be killed. The Market killed the Evo, not GM. Now it did give GM some good experience, so they should have been out there with the Prius amoung the first , while instead they have nothing in that league even today (However, on the Prius and Civic Hybrid is in that league so few others are jumping on the super gas saver bandwagon). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/77 "2007-06-30T08:19:46Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] F You can go with a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) which, by law, is regulated to 25mph max. These include [the Kurrent](http://getkurrent.com/home.html), [ZENN](http://www.zenncars.com/), and [the Dynasty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_EV), among others. Cheap -6 to 14K, but can’t go on a road that has speed limit over 35 mph. Good for local use and in city driving. . [/QUOTE] That being said, if your home had solar panels on it’s roof and you had one of these (very nice for a 2nd or 3rd car, I admit I am tempted) you would- _in essense_- have a solar-electric car. Super-green! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/78 "2007-06-30T12:27:21Z")
**David** thank you for the calculations and research. **DrDeth** How about [this goofy looking thing?](http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=3804) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/79 "2007-06-30T13:44:34Z")
[QUOTE=Public Animal No. 9] I was told many years ago by a wise mentor to never forget that big companies are only in business to do one thing, and that is to make money. GM, Ford, Toyota, etc. only make cars because they want to make money. If the cars are powered by fossil fuels, electricity, Soylent Green, whatever, it matters not to them. Heck, they’ll get completely out of the auto biz if the only way to make money is to do something else (GMAC comes to mind). [/QUOTE] Unless some of the major stockholders in the auto companies are also major stockholders in the oil companies, which is very likely. ---
**Author:** ![Ambski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f04885/32.png) [@Ambski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambski)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820/80 "2007-06-30T13:50:06Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] **David** thank you for the calculations and research. **DrDeth** How about [this goofy looking thing?](http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=3804) [/QUOTE] Cool! If we all drove them they wouldn’t look goofy…or at least AS goofy! I like the look of this though: [http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php](http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php) DrDeth: 200 miles a charge would be ok for most i’d imagine. gazpacho: The electic scooter is really taking off in Italy. Public Animal No. 9: I agree. Its our choices that drive the industry, not the other way around…most of the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-stopping-the-electric-solar-car/409820.md?page=5)