Tesla Cars...almost IMO
Godfather.
Posts: 12,504
how much money would you save if you bought one ? and how long would it take to recoop the money you would spend on gas and add to that the cost of charging your new elictric ride.
in my humble opinion this(ele.) green car thing aint there yet I can't see spending that kind of money for something with a battery life that lasts about 4 to 5 years then replacing them cost thousands not to mention the possible added contanimation that the old batterys will add to the ground but all in all they're headed in the right direction.
Godfather.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/21/autos/t ... ?hpt=hp_c2
in my humble opinion this(ele.) green car thing aint there yet I can't see spending that kind of money for something with a battery life that lasts about 4 to 5 years then replacing them cost thousands not to mention the possible added contanimation that the old batterys will add to the ground but all in all they're headed in the right direction.
Godfather.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/21/autos/t ... ?hpt=hp_c2
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Comments
Although you might be saving money on gas, etc, electric cars are not the way to go if you're talking about being green. The process in order to make the batteries and then ultimately disposing of them anyway is almost worse than just driving a normal car.
As far as it being a pretty cool car, I would agree. But $60,000 for a base and $109,000 for the "long running" model? Gimme a f^cking break... You would never recoup that money. If I had $60k to play with, I'd invest in a diesel car, convert it to bio-diesel, and have a setup for recycling used oil from McDonalds or whatever. Comes out to somewhere around 80 cents/gallon. Even with all the investment, it would even come close to $60k.
Anyway, with all that said, the right direction is the Hydrogen Fuel Cell, IMO.
Godfather.
ha ha what the heck was I thinking
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fuelcell.shtml
Godfather.
Their are solutions and we need to implement them quickly:
Drive fewer times, less miles by combing trips, ride sharing etc.
Work closer to home.
Create more walkable communities.
Rebuild the US rail system (It is embarrassing how far behind much of the world the US is on this point.)
Make public transit afforable, safe and appealing.
Ramp up local economy. (Stop shipping foods all over the planet. Australian bottled water sent to California? Rediculous!)
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
as far as recouping your money ... that should not be the basis for buying an electric car ... how come no one ever factors in the pollution you aren't pumping into the air into the equation?
we are way closer to an electric future than hydrogen ... once they figure out the supercapacitors - they will have fast charging and long lasting batteries ...
Hybrids have a chance, but they too need to come down in price.
everything is about money,a car is an investment especially when you can buy a gas burner for half the price
car makers make money all their suppliers make money state and federal governments make money the only ones losing are the consumers then there is the wast factor with these cars...the batterys are short lived and create toxic waste
its all in the charging ... if we spent as much money on the R & D on the supercapacitors as we did on funding pollution ...
the charge stations are easy ... frig - you just need an electrical plug ... in edmonton, there are parking lots with plugs for block heaters ... a relatively easy infrastructure change ...
then why the heck do people buy suv's that burn gas like there is no tomorrow and have high repair rates, low resell value and basically need to be replaced after 150,000 miles?
the battery issue is definitely a concern but when you factor in the inefficiency and poor reliability of a combustible engine ... it's not even close ...
we should all be driving electric cars now if not for the same reasons that causes most of the problems ... the corporatization of gov't ...
SUV...other than statis or big family travel I don't know bro.
btw a diesel will turn 300,000 to 500,000+ miles
a battery not even close.
but tha all ele. car once they work out the glitches....I'm in.
Godfather.
Polaris, unfortunately I think electric cars will only be available to the one demographic you dislike the most ... super rich white people.
Otherwise, we really need to start driving smaller cars in general. There's no need for giant SUVs taking up the roadways when you can get into a smaller car and save gas. Bigger is definitely not better.
we do not need fossil fuels to power electric cars ... right now renewables offer the cheapest form of new power generation out there ... same price as coal and 1/10th the cost of nuclear ... big difference is once you build renewables (solar, wind) - it's free energy ... we don't need to blow up mountain tops to get the fuel ...
and as for diesel ... sure, you get better mileage but diesel fuel contains way more pollutants than standard unleaded gasoline and the refining process is also worse than regular gas ...
folks - if we didn't live in a corporatized world where the only goal of corporations was to make as much money as possible, we'd all be driving electric now ...
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
we have some dumb bitch legislator here in Utah who thinks hybrid owners should pay an extra tax because they don't pay their "fair share" of the gas tax but still use our roads :roll: . I'm pretty sure this is the worst state legislature in all of america.
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
And I also agree with brianlux. We have such limited public transportation here in North Texas and we are considered something like the 2nd worse area in the country for urban sprawl.
Many of California's big cities have excellent public transporation but even still, some areas are quite lacking. The county I live in, El Dorado, has made some improvements, but it reamins a major issue for folks without personal means of transportation.
I wish I could cite the exact article, but I read an article that analyses the costs of building high speed railroads as oposed to repairing existing rail systems. The article talked about how top-notch America's rail systems were before the oil interests made it difficult for railroads to compete. The author showed how we could provide a much wider service area across the states by rebuilding conventional rail systems (which would provide greater overall service than high-speed rail) and that done properly, these could provide fast, efficient, comfortable and enjoyable means of moving about.
I'm a member of Rail Pac and NARP (National Association of Railroad Passenger) and both have published articles that show that railroad travel is more fuel efficient per passenger/cargo than auto, air, trucking or bus. Re-building our rail system makes good sense!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
i'm on pace to do 10K miles this year, gf should do 4k miles.
hate to tell you, but out side of major meto area's, public transit blows. in my case, it costs more and takes a lot longer to take a bus to work, vs. driving.
plus when you get .govs invlovled, teh efficiencey of they system goes down. but left to their own device, you get the airlines. it's lose lose
But they need to be plugged in and that energy supplied is most likely, right now, a fossil fuel. Until we have charging stations that are powered by renewable energy, the electrics do use the fossil fuels (unless you live in a solar or wind powered home...)
I'm with you though, it's the right direction.
I agree!
But I live in East Jesus, rural cow country. I know living out here makes me less green in transportation use, but it does have it's rewards: more room to grow my own food, more property to grow more trees, the "slow life", etc. etc. And the "slow lifestyle" promotes driving less.
for sure ... just saying that there needs to be a shift in policy not only on the vehicle side but on the energy side as well ...
double negative ... haha
i think i know what you are saying ... the problem is that all these "innovations" require significant subsidies from the gov't ... if the gov't doesn't build interstates and remove old rail lines, the automobile would suffer ... same with their subsidies on gasoline ...
to electrify the rail corridors in the northeast makes perfect sense but the gov't isn't interested in spending that money on infrastructure (although there are some rumblings now) ... and that is the power of the automobile lobby ...
in europe - you can get to and from places with ease and in very fast times because they've put the money into the infrastructure ... but they are still somewhat a people driven democracy vs. a corporate driven one in america ...
Funny you should mention that. I live in West Jesus, semi-rural cowboy wannabe country. And yes, in green terms, same advantages/disadvantages here.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I think having high-speed transit on the east coast would be great. I also think it would be a very costly pain-in-the-butt to achieve. Hell, when I lived on Seattle, they could not come to any agreement on how to put in a rail system for local commuting. Someone was always appealing or fighting it because it would be an eyesore or lower property values. Seattle kept making adjustments to the point that the finished product would not really have any impact on commuting. I can't imagine the logistics of doing it on the East Coast.
Unfortunately, I think you've summed it up exactly. The arguement against high speed rail vs. rebuilding existing runs along the lines that costs and logistics of high speed are prohibitive (not to mention your point that no one can seem to agree on anything anymore) and that rebuilding existing is more feasable and would provide good service (i.e. better than what we have now). It's as though we had our chance years ago (around the time Europe developed high speed) but blew it- mainly due to our automobile addicition. And we really are addicted to autos and the withdrawl from that addiction is going to be difficult at best.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14