Electric Cars

[Rob]

JG--

I saw an electric motorcycle of the 'crotch rocket' style a few weeks back. I had to do a double-take. It was packed in one of the lots here plugged in to a charging station. Nice looking red bike. It is very doable.

[angib]

They're popular in European cities like London, which offer public places to charge them.

Yes, they're selling quite a few G-Wiz cars in London. Free charging, free parking and you don't pay the $16 per day charge for using a car in the city.



But it's $15,000 for a top-spec new one and recently the press have just woken up to the fact that they are "quadricycles", a tax class for light cars that, like three-wheelers in the US, don't have to pass crash tests. And they can't!

But full marks to the bureaucrats who made the Yurpeen quadricycle rules - electric cars must be under the maximum weight (around 1000lb) but are weighted without their batteries. Clever.

Andrew

[Mary K]

GM Designed and produced a whole fleet of Electric cars that would run 100 or so miles on a charge. They leased these cars in Calif for a time. Until CA decided not to regulate manufactures to produce a certain % of non fossil fuel cars. Something like that....

GM only leased these cars and would not sell them. When leases were up, GM would not renew the lease. The owners of the cars loved them and wanted to keep them and did try to fight...

But in the end, ALL of the cars where destroyed by GM.

Mk

[Hamcan]

Mary
GM is developing a new all electric commuter car called the Volt, it will use a lithium-ion battery pack that will extend the mileage beyond what the old electric would go, however, there are two problems. Lithium-ion batteries have an optimum temperture range so they require a heating/cooling device that will use power and the the batteries are very expensive at this time. The car will not be a simple design, very high tech which adds to the cost and the maintenance. Expect the Volt to be expensive and still be a short range vehicle.

See Andrews post above, it appears that the Yurpeens are marketing a more practical and much cheaper commuter car already. Volt is scheduled for 2009 if all goes well.

Regards, JG

[asianflava]

I had considered converting my truck to electric power at one time. The body was OK, the suspension and frame were perfect. Since I work 12hour shifts, charging at work would probably give me close to a full charge for the commute home.

When I started looking into it, the "Kit" was rather expensive. It also did NOT include the batteries. Everything needed for the conversion would have cost twice as much as the truck was worth. I figured that I'd have to drive it 60,000miles before I started making the initial investment back. By then, it would probably need a new battery pack. In the end I just bought a gas guzzler truck and kept my old Honda Civic.

[Micro469]

I liked the Corbin Sparrows.... Too bad they went bankrupt.....

[Steve F]

Are they really as 'green' as implied, wasn't there a report recently about the whole life environmental impact of them and the pollution produced in the manufacture and disposal of them and the batteries etc. Something along the lines of a hybrid/electric vehicle having a large environmental impact than a 4WD due to it's short life span and energy required to produce the elctricity etc etc.

Anyway, this Dilbert always makes me smile



Cheers
Steve

[madjack]

Steve, in the link I posted about the Tesla, they go into detail about just that...it all sounds good to me but what the heck do I know about 'em...
madjack

[asianflava]

Don't know how true this is but keep in mind that it is a commentary. I figure that all that Nickel would get mined and refined regardless if Toyota was using them for cars. It's an interesting read though.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/ ... Prius.html