I want to get to the bottom of this ethanol killing my mpg

[Nerys]

I know you meant it humorously but many others would not see that as another myth is that it has not been successfully done IE there are none and thats not true. SO I included it in my responce.

I am "not" for any plug in hybrid or any hybrid. I think hybrids plug in or not are a massive waste of money.

I did the math on a prius. 68 years to break even and thats driving 30,000 miles a year.

[gone-ot]

...hm-m-m-m, which is it?

A) you can pissoff SOME of the people ALL the time (websites)

B) you can fool ALL the people ALL of the time (politics)

c) you can lead SOME of the horses to water, but NONE will drink (or learn)

d) all the above!

[Nerys]

"you can't tell people amidst a recession to buy a new car. But in the immediate future I definentily think we need a gas replacement that any car can be quickly setup to run. This gets us off oil."

Actually this is not correct. Done right poor people IN a recession would FLOCK to buy EV's they could not make enough to meet the demand I assure you.

Let me give you the what if.

Lets take the government incentives into the picture (I HATE THEM but they already exist so might as well use them)

$15,000 full retail price. FIRST many many people could afford this right out of the block.

I just did the math. as a promo the government will make the interest rate 0% over 60 months on an EV purchase (this is nice so far since 0 tax dollars have been spent so far) We just bailed the banks out at gun point so now the gov will make them give 0% car loans to almost anyone at gun point. Seems fair to me.

$15,000 0% interest 6% sales tax no fees. No down payment. No trade in (your gonna keep your gas car so if you have to go further than 100miles you can use that)

The monthly payment is $265

now before you say WAIT what if I don't have $265 remember your BUYING GASOLINE every week. What do YOU spend in gas each week? even if you fill up just ONCE a week with a 20gallon tank thats $50 a week or $200-$225 a month to be exact 52 weeks $2600 divide by twelve $216 a month in gas.

Now your car payment is only $49 over what you are ALREADY PAYING RIGHT NOW.

If gas were back to what it was last year buying this brand new car would actually mean you pay LESS money. IE you would be GETTING PAID to get a new car.

I know I currently spend $300 to $400 a month in gasoline (over $3500 a year in gas)

that means instantly with no trade in and NO money down I would actually be spending less money per month by buying an EV at 0% and $15,000

ie ALMOST ANYONE can afford one !!

What if the GOV chipped in with a $5,000 credit for buying an electric car?

now your monthly payment is only $176 and thats still NO money down and NO trade in.

So how much DO you spend a month in gas again?

anyone who currently BUYS the gas for their car can afford an electric car with less than or zero or a VERY TINY amount above what they are already spending right now!

Add into this the virtually ZERO maintenance involved with an EV and the fact that it should need ZERO major repairs including to the battery for over 20 years ! (average car today is kept for 9 years) yes EVEN THE BATTERY is good for 20-25 years or LONGER depending on how much of that full capacity you need. and at today's prices its only $4500 to replace the battery.

Trust me if we wholesale switch to EV they would be no where near $4500 in 20 years in fact you would probably be buying a new battery EARLY in 10 years for half that with double the range or more.

There is simply NO consumer downside to pure EV's done right.

its one of the primary reason they refuse to make them. you see over HALF of GM's profit comes from after they sell you the car. since almost all of that goes POOF well you can see why GM went to just great lengths to KILL the idea.

Then the gov also helped GM kill it with the Hummer Tax Credit because the US dollar and some of our taxes DEPEND on "gasoline"

Check out my other posts to see how I came up with $15,000 its a VERY real price. you could do that TODAY with off the shelf components if that battery pack was available. in fact you can actually BUY all of that right now EXCEPT for the battery.

your not allowed to have that battery though. GM sold the patent to texaco/chevron and off course chevron REFUSES to license it for mass EV usage.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Nerys

GM sold the patent to texaco/chevron and off course chevron REFUSES to license it for mass EV usage.

...ah, but PATENTS "expire" and smart people can come up with "generic" versions of batteries just as they do/have with medicines!

[Nerys]

That is where you are not quite correct.

With medicine there is both MONEY and DEMAND.

With batteries you have NEITHER. The only DEMAND is from those without the money.

the only people who have enough MONEY to BUY the batteries as a sensible price (the $4500 is quoted as the full retail price via GM and Ovonics)

The only people who have this kind of money IE Auto Makers are also the VERY PEOPLE who want NOTHING to do with them.

See the catch 22 their?

So ok the patent expires (I think it expires 2014 or 2015)

Now what? the only company tooled up to MAKE the batteries in mass production is ECD Ebasys. Take a wild guess who owns them (71%) CHEVRON

so guess what will happen once the patent expires.

Make I have some batteries Ebasys? No Chris we don't want to make them go make them yourself.

SO now its going to take YEARS for me to tool up test R&D quality control the batteries to mass production myself. ERR full stop. Ooops I don't have that kind of CAPITOL

Guess who does? Auto Makers? guess who would rather drop dead than make EV's? Auto Makers.

Again catch 22. if CARB had done its job and forced the auto makers hands it might be different. you see if ENOUGH people had experienced EV's if there were ENOUGH EV's on the road that people KNEW how good they were eventually Governments and Auto Makers would be forced to bow to consumer demand.

this is why GM refused to sell any EV1's why they TOOK every single one back (they were only leased) and literally I kid you not CRUSHED every one of them (except a few "crippled" models in museums) and those people had to sign AGREEMENTS to never ever put the cars on the road even if they could fix them.

Then they sold the patent to texaco/chevron knowing they would rather rip there heart out via their own throat with their bare hands than sell those batteries. (would you sell someone guaranteed to put you out of business?)

The Government helped with the 100k Tax Credit for over 6,000pound vehicles which at the last minute was "altered" to conveniently include HUMMERS

guess what GM bought a month after closing the EV1 plant? HUMMER.

Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences. ESPECIALLY when its regarding corporation decisions.

Is this a conspiracy? well what the US gov did could qualify as conspiratorial.

what GM did was not a conspiracy. It was just long term planning based on GREED. Pure simple unrestricted GREED.

When the CARB board was hearing decisions on whether to maintain the ZEV requirement the AUTO MAKERS got all the time and the DOZENS and DOZENS of citizens who showed up to speak were essentially told to shut up and sit down.

it was a "show" to say see we did it democratically when it was anything but that and they NEUTERED the ZEV requirement.

hell even the PRIUS was an accident. The japanese made the prius because of the EV1 (they did not have the battery tech and they were too far behind to try and wait to catch up) had they known GM was going to murder the EV1 project and kill the ZEV requirements they also would have killed the Prius but they were too far along when they figured it out so they just kept going with it.

Its hard to CONVINCE someone your right with just words facts and data for a topic like this especially when there is SOOO much disinformation floating around.

if there were only just a few more EV's floating around. enough that I could say HERE hand you a set of keys and say drive this for a week.

You would never turn back. citizens would DEMAND them.

alas good luck finding one.

There are a fee RAV4EV's but they are rare. there are NO ev1's someone just "restored" one but they are forbidden from putting it on the road via that agreement.

There are some S10's but again super rare.

the HOME MADE electrics are not a viable comparison since they are RESTRICTED to lead acid batteries. this limits their range to around 40 miles max.

Take note of another coincidence. The VOLT has an all electric range of ..... 40 Miles.

Do you REALLY think thats a coincidence? the volt is a bandaid to say SEE we tried its just the best EV's can do see only 40 miles. Just to hold us off till they can get Hydrogen working.

you see they were hoping to get hydrogen working before the patent expired.

Hydrogen is very consumer UNFRIENDLY but like gas cars is VERY corporate friendly.

Expensive prone to maintenance needs car with Expensive fuel that they can CONTROL distribution of just like gasoline.

WHAT you actually think your going to be able to legally make your own hydrogen at home even if you COULD afford the equipment to compress and store it? yeah right.

Drives me nuts. Truly grrrrrrr

[gone-ot]

...there's a simple solution, buy up a 100 or so lap top computers and transplant their batteries into your EV...Prius, Insight, etc.

...I hear LOTs of enterprising Californians are "upgrading" (eco version of Calif's early days of "hot rodding" by upgrading?) their Hybrids to home "rechargable" capabilities.

...the 'new' Tesla is an eco version of the 'old' DeLorian...just get a bigger, better, faster rechargable "flux-gate capacitor"...or more realistically, a cheaper super-capacitor.

...Hydrogen power is great, just "water" out the exhaust pipe, but getting the fuel is where the problem lies...electrolysis is do-able, but trades coal-fired energy source to make something that's both dangerous and difficult to handle and store--just ask Goodyear, Hindenberg, and the USN blimps (which use Helium not Hydrogen).

...I'm all for a grass-roots uprising of DIFFERENT possibilities, from which the PUBLIC gets to pick/select the "best" from by way of their buying power...but, one has to wonder if the Government would even LET the people have, let alone exercise, that kind of "power"???

[Nerys]

yeah know how much they cost? and then the electronics package to MANAGE 100 cells. if I could afford that I would not be compalining about gas prices.

The government does not GET to decide if we have that power. the power is their for our TAKING. We out number them THOUSANDS TO ONE.

if people actually WOKE UP things could change rapidly. if just 10% of the population stood up in UNISON and said NO. what are they going to do? you can NOT arrest 10% of the population.

Arrested 1% of the population (the HIGHEST IN THE WORLD higher even than china) is taxing our system beyond measure.

if 10% of us said NO. the president would snap to and say YES SIR and do as commanded by the people.

thats where de education and media control come in. Keep them dumb. control the flow of information.

the government does not LET us to anything. WE PERMIT the government to have a say.

Remember that its important.

[gone-ot]

...you've got an optimistic opinion of USGovt, I can tell...sorry, but I don't.

...as the late-american humorist, Will Rogers, sardonically said: "...we've got the BEST government that MONEY can BUY!" and, oh, the irony of that statement!

...a government OF the people is what the parchment reads, but it hasn't been that way since the 1800's.

[Frank Lee]

We get the gummint we deserve.

Today's imbeciles don't deserve much.

[gone-ot]

...to wit: EPA declares a "gas guzzler" tax on vehicles that don't meet certain MPG ratings, but continues to let them be SOLD to the public, without regard to the fact that any idiot can "drive" a 50 MPG rated vehicle in wanton ways & manners so that it'll have LESS MPG than the "gas guzzler" vehicle, and do so without incurring legal or moral wrath.

...I think the analogy is, instead of CAVEAT EMPTOR "...let the BUYER beware..." it should be CAVEAT PUBLICUS "...let the PUBLIC beware..."