There is no way i'm paying $45 to fill up my tank in my civic

[slurp812]

in 1981, I paid almost $30 to fill up my gas hog. I drove somwhere around 250-300 miles on that. and I made like $6 an hour! Now I make quadruple that, and pay around $40 to fill my civic. SO actually, if I adjust for inflation, I pay LESS to drive. The main reason is I dont drive a gas hog any more, and I drive much more efficently. Yes there were times when I paid MUCH less......

[Chris D.]

Originally Posted by Nerys

I drive right by 12 gas stations. More $$ is a non issue.

Biting your tongue. The PURPOSE of life is to enjoy life. All other purposes are secondary at best. If I can do so cleanly all the better

THERE ARE VIRTUALLY ZERO CONSEQUENCES TO ELECTRIC CARS!!

The only thing stopping us is that greedy GM sold the battery patent we need to chevron via texaco. If not for that we would be driving $10,000 electric cars today.

$2600 will let me put a grid tie in inside my garage and a sufficient solar panel on my roof to generate and sell back the grid MORE POWER than I will use to charge my electric car.

The NIMH batteries are rated to last 250,000 miles probably a LOT longer if you buffer the power verse range requirements. MANY estimates of 500,000 miles are WELL within the realm of feasible before you would HAVE to replace that battery pack. and thats 10 year old tech.

The cars would use NO FLUIDS AT ALL except Freon and Washer Fluid for the wind screen.

The cars would be made of aluminum and plastic rendering them virtually maintenance free and virtually every lasting.

TYPICAL components CAN and DO last to around half a million miles WITHOUT replacement. I KNOW I am restoring my 88 Cherokee with 452,000 miles on it. I put less than $1,000 in repairs in the ENTIRE time I have owned this vehicle.

SO YES I and DEADLY fraking serious when I say we can RETAIN our rural lifestyle with virtually ZERO consequences to both our pocket books and the environment.

If you consider TRANSPORT is mandatory IT IS effectively zero consequences.

HOW MANY CARS have you gone through in your lifetime? Imagine if you could buy ONE CAR and it would last your LIFETIME and MAYBE just MAYBE you might have to replace that battery pack a single time in your lifetime.

CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE the Ramifications this would have on EVERY ASPECT of potential consequences From the materials needed to build the cars (aluminum and plastic being 100% recyclable being an additional bonus) to the materials needed to MAINTAIN the cars to the destructions of our environment as we DISPOSE of all this material to maintain our cars to the vast waste as we dispose of and replace these cars MANY MANY times in our lifetimes.

ALL THAT GOES AWAY with electric cars. There is NO DOWNSIDE to an electric car economy EXCEPT to those top 2% who RAPE us to maintain out current economy of oil.

For the other 90% of us its would be a new golden age of prosperity.

There is a small bump of course. Until the R&D dollars flow we will be limited to 150-200 mile ranges but thats insignificant. The savings would occur SO FAST so Completely that the adoption rate would be incredible! Within a decade we would have significant penetration and the R&D dollars would flow by necessity. The range problem would be Very very short lived.

GM realizes this. Chevron Realizes this. Hence the literal crushing of the EV1 and the selling of the all important battery patent.

I WILL NEVER give up my clubwagon. I could NEVER afford to buy another one. Was pure luck I was able to get this one.

In the winter I drive the mercedes in the summer I drive the Minivan. When we go away its VERY affordable to drive the Big van. It gets the equivalent of over 30mpg since it allows us to take a SINGLE vehicle or 2 Vehicles instead of 2 or 3 vehicles.

And you Adam78. GOD FORBID if the idea that we NEED to change our lifestyle at all is a simple FABRICATION of greedy people who want to rape us.

Eventually we WILL have clean power. Its inevitable. Whether that be capacitors and solar/wind/sea of Fusion or space born power IT WILL come.

Combine this with anything that is electric and its a WIN WIN WIN all around. There is NO downside.

THE ONLY thing stopping me is The batteries. THAT SUCKS. These fraking *******s are abusing our patent system to PREVENT the release of a technology. They have no interest in "profiting" from it because they make more money with there current technology which the new technology threatens.

Talk about being wasteful. How about the energy you burn and consume riding a bicycle everywhere. Increase your cycling 5 fold how much more energy are you going to consume? Deodorant Water Food Parts etc.. etc.. etc..

This planet will be TOAST long before the sun burns out. IT IS for all reasonable purposes FREE energy. There are NO human or planetary consequences to tapping it. It blasts so much energy into space that the tiny amount we grab is absolutely immeasurable on a stellar time scale.

Technically EVERYTHING has consequences. It would be silly to say otherwise. but we can place a LIMIT on what we consider consequences. Electric car consequences in comparison to ANY OTHER solution verse its benefits are ZERO.

THE ONLY ones who would lose is that top 2% profiting on our raping.

DO the math. I have. A Nimh powered electric car uses $1 in electricity to go 100 miles in driving. If you actually think that this $1 in electricity EVEN IF ITS FROM A COAL POWERED PLANTS AND THE DIRTIEST COAL PLANT ON EARTH is remotely comparable to the 5 gallons of gasoline the average american car will burn going 100 miles even the 2 gallons the MOST EFFICIENT cars we have will burn. Add to that the fluids materials etc.. and crap that is used as well.

If you really think these are remotely even slightly comparable there is something wrong with our information flow around here :-)

There is simply NO downside to an electric car economy when compared with ANYTHING else we currently have. The differences are just so dramatic.

Just seriously stop and THINK about the extreme far reaching consequences of an electric car economy.

I could live anywhere I wanted as far rural as I wanted travel any distance I wanted and have virtually ZERO impact on the environment OR my pocket book.

Imagine if we were free to travel anywhere with almost NO cost and NO damage to the environment.

Just consider what this would DO to our world. The transfer of power back to the population would be immeasurable.

Now thats a great rant i can get behind!

sad thing is that if we all rolled on electric,
chances are the cost of electricity would sky rocket

[Compaq888]

Originally Posted by Chris D.

Now thats a great rant i can get behind!

sad thing is that if we all rolled on electric,
chances are the cost of electricity would sky rocket

There is always ways to rip off the general public.

[Nerys]

Not if there generating there own power via solar to offset the cars electric usage. IE how would they justify the increase if we are NOT using more power and the fuel is getting cheaper (demand going down from less car usage)

IE it would be quite transparent and harder to "hide"

[dremd]

$74 to refuel the golf today. ergh. 1 month fill now . . . . .

[Nerys]

Vgers got a 20 gallon tank so in theory $80 to fill. Now my Clubwagon. Ouch 35 gallon tank so $140 to fill :-) but I can go almost 600 miles on that tank :-) (I can sometimes squeeze 16-17mpg out of it on the highway if I am really careful.

[adam728]

Originally Posted by Nerys

Not if there generating there own power via solar to offset the cars electric usage. IE how would they justify the increase if we are NOT using more power and the fuel is getting cheaper (demand going down from less car usage)

IE it would be quite transparent and harder to "hide"

Thats funny, because earlier in the post you said that if we used half as much gas they would just double the price.

Do you have a patent number for this secret battery technology? Patents are available for the public to veiw on many different web pages.

I do agree that electric cars can be cheaper to operate, but I think you are borderline tin-foil-hat with your theories here. If electric cars will be all plastic and aluminum, and cost $10K, why can't current cars be built this way? Steel is easier to form, cheaper, and more widely available.

Sorry I ride a bicycle from time to time. I guess trying to participate in a healthy activity makes me a horrible person. You just keep trying to justify operating multipy vehicles, keep talking about all the things you could do to help the enviroment, and keep blaming others for all the reasons you can't.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by dremd

$74 to refuel the golf today. ergh. 1 month fill now . . . . .

23 gallons in my mercedes will last me 2 weeks with my past driving style. I'd gauge it would last me 3 weeks now.

[Nerys]

Electric cars use NO gas. IE not less gas NO GAS. Also power companies do not use gasoline.

Just do a search for Chevron Battery Patent. They have a controlling patent on Large Form Factor NIMH batteries IE the E95 batteries used in the EV1 and the RAV4 EV

Its a controlling patent meaning it covers enough critical points that no one can make a similar battery without violating the patent.

Its currently owned in a spin off of ECD and Ebasys of which Chevron controls 20% and 50% as well as having VETO privileges over any licensing AND a clause to seize all IP under certain conditions of which IIRC they are actively pursuing in court right now.

The patent IIRC will expire in 2015.

They are. ever seen a saturn? the problem is MASS. electric cars such as the EV1 needed to be aluminum and plastic to make them light enough to GET those 120-150 mile ranges on the first gen batteries. We do not use aluminum because it costs more and our gasoline engines have enough surplus power to move the cheaper steel. SO we use steel. EV's would NEED to use aluminum to get the lower mass to gain the needed range. hence why the EV1 was aluminum.

MY point was aluminum does not RUST like steel does neither does plastic :-) They used it for mass reasons the long lasting maintenance free nature of aluminum was an extra bonus side effect.

I did not say they were $10k I said they SHOULD cost $10k if built right. Remember Electric cars are far far far simpler than gas cars. No transmissions No engines No compressor No power steering pumps No alternators NONE of that stuff. All to be replaced with electric motors and solid state non moving parts components.

If you know how solid state works you know its MUCH cheaper than "complex mechanicals" by a lot and only gets cheaper as you ramp up production scales.

Now consider we already have under $10k gasoline cars. hell I was blown away 5 or so years ago when Kia was selling $12k SUV's and $8k cars and has a buy one get one free buy there $12k SUV get the $8K free.

Now your talking about making a simpler cheaper easier fewer parts electric car and you think it could not be done as cheaply ? especially if production had CONTINUED this past 10 years.

Yes steel is cheaper but its heavy and rusts. The point of EV's being aluminum is that is makes them very much longer lasting if not ever lasting (on human scales) and would make them virtually maintenance free.

The EV1 was a prototype that they only made some 800 or so of them and ALREADY they had it down to $80,000 for these HAND MADE prototypes. Typically prototypes are 10 times more expensive than mass produced. Thats $8,000 and this IGNORES the fact that EV's are inherently simpler and cheaper than gasoline cars.

Go look at an RC electric car (a real one not a tyco job) you will note that it has 5 Primary components.

Reciever - Motor - Controller - Battery - Charger

A Full size electric car is LITERALLY a direct upscale of this.

Driver - Motor - Controller - Battery - Charger

They really are just that simple. There is nothing "Tin-Foil" about this.

EV's are faster better higher speed efficient clean quite cheap long lasting virtually maintenance free etc..

Besides RANGE and CHARGE time (both of which are VERY solvable) there is NO downside to an electric car.

Charge time will be solved by "high amp" electric pumps at gas stations for when you can not wait for your home power to recharge the batteries.

Range will be solved initially by more batteries and once R&D is spent IT WILL get solved.

My Commute to work adam728 is 52.8 MILES each way. YES each way. NO I can not move NO I can not move work or my home. We own the home and its a family business. YES when I had a second local job at radio shack You bet your butt I rode my bike to work. I am almost 400 pounds I NEED the exercise :-)

but you are damned right when a company ACTIVELY and INTENTIONALLY prevents me from having the technology I need to make a massive difference in my life out of PURE greed and using a Patent system WE GRANTED TO THEM as a PRIVILEGE to promote innovation and to then have them use this as a BLUDGEON against me to PREVENT me from using said technology that could SAVE our lives as we know it ELIMINATE unemployment INSANELY increase the wealth of our nations population AND save the environment at the same time as well as out economy (what would infusing over a trillion dollars BACK into the US economy do to it?)

YEAH you bet your buttocks I am going to BLAME them for it Especially when my government refuses to do anything about it because there greed is profiting right along with them.

SO YEAH I get a little ripe about it :-) hehe

[Compaq888]

Nice post. You are right about electric rc cars. For years I have been buying gas rc cars and the maintenance on them is unbelievable. Electric cars you charge up the battery and go. Not to mention electric cars are faster. The record is something like 110mph, while a gas one had to be modified like crazy with custom made parts to hit 102mph.