It reminds of a letter I’ve seen in the paper before suggesting that we should have electric cars with two batteries, one to be charged by the momentum of the car while it is moving, and “don’t tell me it can’t be done!”. A sound grasp of physics there…
Don’t get me wrong ppl. Im not some new aged nutjob ‘electric car’ fanatic I just dont like the ‘Global Daycare’ culture telling me I should be a better earth resident but it’s fine to push around my 1.6L ozone destroyer!
Food for thought: http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php
Sorry if someone has already written about this. The fundamental failure of the plug-in electric car from an environmental standpoint is that is doesn’t really help the environmnet much, it any. By far the great majority of our electricity is generated by burning a fossil fuel. Ergo all it does is move the polution to another location.
The hybrid car is advantageous because it recovers part the the energy otherwise wasted in braking.
What is the global daycare culture? What the heck do you mean by that term?
‘Global Daycare’ is the nanny culture that has arisen alongside the Global Warming ‘save the planet’ theme as supported by most major governments.
Here in the UK I see regular adverts showing the massive polution put out by vehicles and the constant message to ‘do my bit’.
In essence, the goverment ‘Nanny’ telling me to be good, drink my milk and recycle the packaging!
In response to the OP, the answer is the Stonecutters.
Interesting, I live in the UK, but have never come across the term before.
See my link from previous post. That is just plain wrong.
And that’s without improved sequestration technologies. This would help a lot.
I think it would be necessary to include the increased carbon cost of manufacture, spread across the life of the car - refining the metals etc for all those batteries might come at a cost.
Would the governments would nanny the corporations a bit more sternly.
But in the U.S., that would be Baby scolding Daddy.
I never said the term was recycled! Apologies for any confusing originality. 
As a UK resident you may have come across the ‘if you could see the polution’ adverts and the ‘save the earth countdown’ adverts.
I never said the electric car was easy…just a seemingly logical step if we are to move away from fossil fuel technology.
God is holding back the electric/solar car. Stupid, stupid physics.
The problems here stems from the fact that you DID say it was easy:
Then you implied that the only reason we don’t have said electric cars is because Big (bad) Oil™ is keeping them from our grubby little hands. When it was pointed out that this is ridiculous and you were asked for proof then you seemed to change your tune somewhat.
As to what you are asserting NOW, I somewhat agree…electric powered cars DO seem the next logical step. Whether they will be powered by hydrogen or methane fuel cells, batteries or Mr. Fusion, it SEEMS that this will be the way we will eventually go. THe problem is…the technology isn’t quite ready for prime time ON THE SCALES WE NEED IT TO BE AND WITH THE CAPABILITIES CONSUMMERS DEMAND. SImply put, it ISN’T easy to get manufacturing costs down, to stretch batter capability to the point where the vehicles have roughly comparable capabilities, etc. If it were, then some bright individual (or several) would currently be making hundreds of billions of dollars selling them to you and me.
-XT
Sure you did.
Your shoddy comparisons do nothing but highlight your misunderstanding of the challenges facing electric cars.
Your main objection seems to be that democratic governments should not merely attempt to influence the voting public but actively select a technology and fund it to the point where it becomes economically viable verse the entrenched IC model. Fine, that’s actually a semi-valuable debate that could be had. But complaining that we can build a hand crank powered Hot Wheels car but not an equivalent human-rated passenger vehicle is stupid.
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?
Well, that’s why we need wealthy status-seeking individuals to buy enough of the early models to drive down prices. Heck, if enough people hadn’t thought it was “cool” to plunk down $800 for a top-loading mono VCR, we wouldn’t now be debating the philosophy of Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD.
I just hope the perfect storm of Smug doesn’t devastate North America first.
I presume that there is no “crash” program, Manhatten Project-style, because:
- The demand by the potential consumers is not quite high enough yet,
and
- The goverment may feel that the private sector seems to be spending their money (to advance the tech) at an acceptable rate, based on the perceived demand.
Just to be clear, who are these powers that be? Many companies are developing the technology, but it costs a lot of money and has a lot of risks involved. Lots of promising technology doesn’t pan out after all.
Who do you consider to be the ‘powers that be’ exactly? The government? Big business? Some shadowy organization that says fnord a lot? What are we talking about here exactly?
That aside, why SHOULD anyone throw their ‘FULL weight’ behind this technology? Can you read the future? Do you KNOW what is going to end up being the best alternative to what we currently have? Will it be batteries or fuel cells? Or maybe some kind of third rail system like subways use? Perhaps it will be that Mr. Fusion thingy? Well, speak up…trillions of dollars are riding on you picking what the future will hold!
As for your assertion that the current efforts are ‘token’…its to laugh. Auto manufacturers are literally spending BILLIONS of dollars on various alternatives in the hopes that they will solve the technical and economic challenges and come out with the next big thing that will replace the current ICE. Its no token effort but a flat out race. The problem however is, unlike you, they don’t have any way to peer into the future to KNOW what is going to be worth their R&D investment…and what are blind alleys that are just money pits. So, they can’t throw their ‘FULL weight’ behind any one thing…they have to throw their R&D money at several potential alternatives (as well as at alternative for the short/medium term like hybrids, as well as the long term like battery vs fuel cell, to extremely long term based on future technologies that are only fiction today).
They don’t have unlimited funds. As to the gubberment…well, again, what exactly would you have them do (with our tax money)? Which technology should the politicians (who are generally clueless about science and engineering) concentrate on…and why would we trust THEM to pick a winner?
-XT
Because of the risk involved. If a company is going to put its full weight behind “something”, it needs to be damn sure that that “something” is more than potentially viable (i.e., it is viable).
on preview… what xtisme said.
LilShieste