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

[bhazard]

A full tank in my tbird is about $80-90 now. 22.1 gallon tank.

The shadow has a 14 gallon tank.

I also run premium in both. Theyre turbo cars. Especially with the shadow being non-intercooled with cast pistons, its worth a couple extra bucks at fillup for the insurance against a melted piston.

[Daox]

Nerys, according to what you say, you're paying $3000 in gas per year. Go buy yourself an older Civic or Corolla or something for $3,000 or less, get double the mileage and break even after a year and a half. After that, you're just saving money. You don't need a hybrid but with as much as you travel it certainly would pay for itself pretty quickly. Do the math and see what works.

BTW, battery packs in those things are holding up incredibly well. The Prius has less than 1% failures after warranty has expired so far.

[Nerys]

Yes I know I am trying (I spend over $4g's on gasoline that $3k is JUST for my work commute)

No the civic etc.. don't get double the mileage. I get 24-25+mpg with my Voyager. Double is 50mpg. Thats why I am looking for a metro but most are out of my price range. IE I can not afford a $3,000 car :-( 1600 miles a month $4 a gal $266 a month in gas just for my commuting. at 50mpg $128 a month in gas, saving me $138 a month in fuel. almost 23 months just to break even on the gas savings. Thats too long IE the "savings" is not enough to pay off the car so I need the money up front. I do not have it.

and thats at 50mpg. civic/corolla are not going to net me much above 35-40mpg making the payback period longer than the projected lifespan of the car before major repairs become an issue.

Now if I can find a $1200 metro things change a bit. now I WILL get 46-50mpg making the payback period to break even on fuel savings 9 months. Big Big difference.

I still can not afford even a $1200 car but I could probably scare up $500-600 and the payments would be less than the fuel savings IE I could do that :-) Just give that $138 month saved in gas to the car lot and its paid for in 5 months.

As for prius battery packs. Regardless of how long they last show me a single Prius with 600,000 miles on the clock. Show me one with HALF that on the clock :-)

I have no doubt they might last 150k maybe even over 200k (keep in mind those numbers are in CABS who drives orders of magnitude more miles than ANY of us drive IE there figures do not count) Lithium batteries have issues with AGE more than they do MILES in our math. 600,000 miles means 11-15 YEARS of driving for ME and I am a heavy driver.

[louisb323]

Can you sell your Voyager and get a more fuel efficient vehicle?

Have you modded your Voyager to improve efficiency? An easy one would be to take out your extra seats. I used to have a Voyager and those seats weight a ton!

[Nerys]

Yes they are quite heavy. No selling its not an option. We NEED and USE the space it provides on a weekly basis. IE I need the voyager AND a metro. A metro alone would not do it and I could not get enough for the voyager to be worth it to sell it (they go for $900-1500) and mine has almost 200k on the clock.

I am having trouble selling my diesel mercedes for $1400 HALF what its worth (I have 2) so I have no real chance of selling the voyager.

I have another van a clubwagon but it never gets driven except on trips and vacations. 14mpg just hurts too much for a daily driver though its my favorite vehicle to drive (if your over 6'2" you understand)

I have not made any physical mods yet but do have some planned. I am hoping to eek out 28mpg from it. Borderline possible but it is possible.

The way I drive I optimize for economy anyway hence how I can get 25mpg out of it :-) I have not tried any "real" hypermiling yet. Still working out the car issues.

The problem is "fuel efficient" vehicles do not really exist as budget cars. Quite literally the only vehicle remotely in my price range is a metro and its the ONLY one that will get 50mpg.

Civics and the like do not offer enough mpg to even pay for themselves in a reasonable time at there current prices IE none of them get anywhere near 50mpg reliably most top out at 35mpg for the type of commute I have. 10mpg boost is not enough to warrant the massive outlay of cash that I do not have.

As soon as I get the pulleys installed in the garage yes I am removing the rear bench (we use the middle bench I almost always have at least 3 people in the car so we need it) but the back bench rarely gets used and your right the fraking buggers are heavy. I would not be surprised to see a tenth of an mpg boost just by removing it. its GOT to be over 100 pounds. But I need to be able to safely store it. at least once a every other week I will have need of that bench seat maybe even weekly.

I was even contemplating replacing the middle bench with some light weight tumbler seats from another mini van (would weigh HALF what the bench does!!)

I have not done much with external modding yet until I fix some issues with the car so I have a good baseline FE history to gauge upgrade values. I got a mil light and some valve covers that need sealing to worry about.

Also need to get the air fixed. While I try not to use it where I live the humidity is just insane. We use air more for dehumidification than cooling really :-)

[adam728]

So why not sell both Mercedes and the other van? Sounds like they don't get used, and selling them should be able to cover the costs of a used car that will then instantly start to reap savings at the pump.

What I WANT is my damned electric car. They I can KEEP my rural living with NO consequences to me my pocket book OR the environment. TOTAL freedom and free of cost.

No cost? No consequences? How do you figure?
No offense, but you sound as bad as the people that feel they need and deserve cheap gas. That way they can continue to drive gas guzzlers, live where ever they want, and drive as much as they want for no reason. God forbid that someone should have to make a change to their lifestyle. The world should adjust to meet their precieved "needs".

[thebrad]

Originally Posted by adam728

No cost? No consequences? How do you figure?
No offense, but you sound as bad as the people that feel they need and deserve cheap gas. That way they can continue to drive gas guzzlers, live where ever they want, and drive as much as they want for no reason. God forbid that someone should have to make a change to their lifestyle. The world should adjust to meet their precieved "needs".

Thank you.
I was really biting my tongue on that one.

[slurp812]

Originally Posted by Compaq888

I could use that money elsewhere instead of spending $45 and have all that gas sitting in my car. I'm going to start putting in $10-15..

You'll spent more $$$ making frequent trips to the gas station...

[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.

[Compaq888]

I put the $15 on tuesday. The needle barely moved and it's friday. I've averaging about 47mpg to and from work. The doctor appointments and driving to school is killing me.