Why We Need Electric Cars

My job as a locomotive engineer for the BNSF railroad here in TX. requires me to carry thousands of tons of cargo and use thousands of gallons of fuel to its destination. I handle many coal trains to the power plants and look at the pile of coal in storage and wonder how it will be able to continue and can we continue polluting our planet with the byproducts that these power plants emit. I am 60 years old, but I have had an interest in alternative fuels for many years. I am hoping that electric cars will come to market some time soon, but after going into an electric car dealership in Houston, Tx. a few weeks ago, I wonder if that will ever happen. The sales person seemed to know less than I did, and I do not know that much about them. If this is the norm for electric car salesmen, how are they going to win us over or at least take one out for a test drive. I can look and the sport of R-C aircraft and see the change that has taken place over the last 7 or 8 years. I know that in the past, most people flew glow or gas aircraft, but in the last few years, even the highest level of competition is going to electric power. I have been in the sport maybe 10 years, and there has been an explosion in the RC field, with electric motors and controllers. I know that this is a small group of people when commpared to the use of automobile, so why is there no great advancement in this area. I will admit, that the one part of the RC Electric Sport planes that have not come down are the batteries, but they have increased the capacity and the discharge rates allowing much larger electric motors to be introduced in the sport, which in turn allow larger and heavier planes to be battery powered. It seems to me that if the RC sport people can come up with ways to power their planes, then the transportation industry could do more to advance their electric products. Thanks, J L Redwine

Hi MWalker,I have a Chevrolet S10 electric truck.It was
converted in 1994 by US Electricar and there are probably about 100
still driving around. There also exist Ford Ranger EVs and GM S10
EVs, which share the propulsion with the elusive EV1 that was
crushed. There actually are 3 for sale at a government auction
right now, they are all non-operation, but that is the way to buy
an EV righ now, they are in such demand that it is hard to buy a
good running one, as people like to keep them.There is a list of
for sale EVs:austinev.org/evtradinpost

Thank you for a forum to share info, good job keep it up. Sam
Prutch

Cvan de Water You mention you bought an electric vehicle for
$4000.00 what type is it. I'm looking into going electric for city
driving. Thanks.

I live in Ontario, Canada. I am interested in purchasing an
electric vehiclesometime in the near future.Does any one have any
contacts in this area that I can call on?

I live in Ontario, Canada. I am interested in purchasing an
electric vehiclesometime in the near future.Does any one have any
contacts in this area that I can call on?

Dear CThorn Thank you for the reply, could you tell me the name
of the movie? maybe I can find it from just his name. Sam
Prutch

SPrutch. The movie mentioned by AHedrick is all about the GM
program. It was in 1996. If you haven't seen it it is very well
done and I highly recommend it.

In the late 60's or 70's, I'm not sure when exactly GM had a
very successfull electric car that they put out on a lease basis
for a while and then they were all recalled and destroyed. Can you
tell me if any of these cars survived and are there any pictures
available? Thank you very much. Sam

I just rented a great movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I
loved it so much I immediately bought my own copy to share with my
friends.

Hi Kevin,There already is a database of EV Chargers, I suggest
you join efforts instead of creating a separate database. The EAA
(Electric Automobile Association) has many local chapters and
volunteers are good at reporting the actual status of their local
charging stations.Cor.

I have a Prius and an Electric Car. I always hear the same
arguments. Are there some oil company employees responding?GLemay -
PG&E, my utility, showed why millions of Electric Cars can
recharge without upgrades. They recharge at night, when there is a
large surplus capacity. In fact, electricity would become cheaper
for everyone if enough Electric Cars would be recharging at night,
because the power plants are better utilized.

I always see the same mis-information posted when Electric Cars
are discussed. Curious....TSmall - Hydrogen is an energy carrier
that is extremely difficult to handle and transferring energy into
Hydrogen or back into usable energy creates large losses, so why
would anybody want to do that when the goal is to reduce energy
consumption?I recommend "The Emperor's new Hydrogen Economy" the
truth is out there although our leaders do not want to confirm this
inconvenient truth.

Sorry for the multiple posts, due to size limit. I own a Prius
and an Electric Car, so I can share from experience.2. TSmall -
Regarding batteries - do you know what happens to batteries?
Tada.... They are recycled!Toyota pays $200 bonus for every Prius
battery returned. And the batteries are designed to last the
lifetime of the car, so if you are concerned about the waste a car
makes, then you should be more concerned about the 10,000 lbs
monster trucks and SUVs, used to commute by a single person, as
they create three times the waste of a compact car.

Why Prius has a lower mileage in cold weather? Simple. More
energy goes to keeping the engine (and the cabin) at temperature,
so that adds to the consumption, as the extra energy comes from the
fuel and since the Prius uses very little for its propulsion, it is
very noticeable when you use a bit more. Even mounting new tires is
visible on the MPG display.Why do we need electric cars? Simple. To
stop paying our enemies.Are Electric Cars available? Oh yes. I
bought one under $4000 and drive it every day, unless I use my
bicycle for my 10 mile (each way) commute. The Prius is now my
second car.

In marketing Electric Scooters and looking toward marketing
Electric Cars, we found the LACK of plug-in stations OUTSIDE of
California.We are making a MAJOR effort to create a NATIONAL "Park
& Plug-In" database. It would be a listing that Electric
Vehicle owners can print out & keep in their glove compartment.
We are also giving serious consideration to include paid
advertising to help spread the database around as much as
possible.We want to greatly increase the use of Electric Scooters
starting this spring and Electric Cars come next fall.You can
contact us directly at Twenty_Third_Century_Living@yahoo.comKevin
McNamara

I have read the comments above and none of them seem to cover
two details. One is the initial cost of the vehicle and the
replacement cost of the batteries. The second and most important to
me is: If this country were to go largely to electric or hybrid,
what are we going to do with the millions of battery packs when
they wear out? We already have a major problem with landfills and
groundwater contamination and electric or hybrid would compound
this situation dramatically. Why aren't we pushing hydrogen? Yes,
Iceland is small but they have done a fantastic job on running
their economy off of hydrogen. We have deserts for solar
power(check out what China is doing), dams, wind power being
developed, and yes we have faults (like Iceland) where we could be
breaking down water into hydrogen.

Does anyone know which is more environmentally sound? --keeping
(or buying) a used car with average gas mileage, or buying a hybrid
car? I've heard the amount of energy into building a new car is
about 15-20% the amount of energy the car expends in its lifetime.
How do I figure it out?

In reference to the lower fuel milege in colder weather for the
Prius... If you noticed the engine normally starts up and completes
a warmup cycle before running in the hybid mode, the newer Prius's
have a coolant 'thermos' to keep the warm-up times to a minimum,
however, in cold weather the heat will still dissipate to some
degree and the vehicle will respond with running the engine more
often and for longer periods of time to generate the necessary heat
energy which will necessarily cause lower milege figures. Entropy
dictates that the energy will be lost more quickly to the
surrounding environment if the surounding evironment is at a lower
energy state, which is true of colder and colder weather.

RELLERBRAKEI think you got that right.The batteries are exposed
to the cold.I'll pass that on.Thanks

Hybrid cars are ok but if 10% of the population were to get
electric cars this year would the electric suppliers be able to
supply the increase in demand. I don't think so. They already are
near their limit. We should try to increase solar and wind power
first.

Some balk at electric cars due to lack of performance . But balk
no more, go see the Tesla Roadster. www.teslamotors.com. The price
is unreasonable, but the principle is proven: 0-60 4.5 sec, 280
mile range, etc... If this technology could be mass produced and a
robust method for recycling Li-ion batteries was in place, we would
be there. ASlo if an outer Photovoltaic automotive coating could be
developed, this could be a platform for any and all
vehicles.

I have a Mini with two under used rear wheels.Can sombody sell
me a kit with two hub motors a controller and some batteries.A kit
like that would make 80% of my trips emmission free, the other 20%
could be covered by the gas motor.The real plus is the extra green
30 or 40 hp when I step on it, and 4 wheel drive.The John Cooper
performance package would give me that 40 hp for about $7000 plus
gas.

A friend of mine has a Prius and has told me about the same 10
mpg decrease in cold weather gas mileage.I told him, cold denser
air needs more fuel to burn properly.More fuel and air means more
hp, more performance.So if he isn't asking for that extra available
performance, he's just driving normally, why is his efficency
suffering?

Yes, I have a 2005 Prius. I was surprised to find that in cold
weather the mileage is considerably lower than summer-- by perhaps
10 to 12 mpg. Summer- combination highway/city (perhaps 60%/40%)
gets about 57 mpg. Really cold weather -like now- perhaps 45
mpg.What I would like to consider is modifying the Prius for
plug-in electric, and I understand there are some after market
modifictions available but haven't really checked that out as yet.
Anyone have information about that?
ÿÿǸ5࿐ቷ￿￿￿￿￿￿

pbennett- I thinkit may be that in cold weather batteries don't
perform as well, and the electric boost is less, thusmore gasoline
is used; I do not pushfor performancein cold weather,and still the
mileage is low. My thought is cold weather = less battery
power.