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Big Oil’s Vendetta Against the Electric Car
Topic Started: Mar 6 2008, 06:02 AM (286 Views)
HabeasCorpse

Quote:
 
The oil companies had an obvious interest in stopping an alternative to fossil fuels. There is $100 trillion of oil left in the earth, and they plan to mine it - even if doing so will make the planet uninhabitable. Anything that could divert that cash away from them is a threat to be crushed.



http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/07/377/

I quoted my favorite part from this article just to tie it in with my thoughts. I don't believe it's an accident that our only real alternative to the combustion engine, Electrical is now taboo due to global warming alarmism.
Could it be that co2 has been made the Antichrist of all gasses just to delay the inevitable. With so much money at stake from big oil and the auto industry, these all electric cars are notoriously reliable and need next to no maintenance.
The comments section from the site just demonstrates how successful the demonising of electricity has been.

Quote:
 
Where does the electricity come from to charge the vehicle? Don’t be so short sighted as to look at the car and think “clean & enviro friendly”. If it is coal power plants providing the electricity . . . uh oh!




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Q
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A Higher Evolution
Search LCF2. I posted a link to "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

It contains a brief excerpt of Phyllis Diller (who has made a shitload of money trading on her "ugly" face) talking about an electric car when she was a child. It was a reality. They all hopped in and drove to town and when they got home, it got plugged in for a recharge.

There was no Great American Love Affair with the car. Detroit bought up all the tramways and closed them down, so people were forced to go and buy cars.

EDIT:

I can only find dead links.

Try this in eMule:

ed2k://|file|FD_Who%20Killed%20the%20Electric%20Car_ENG_[DVD-Rip.XviD].avi|736411648|776FB76D7481C7B6AF27AA94D87B6914|/
Edited by Q, Mar 6 2008, 08:20 AM.
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alexvegas
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alex25smash
The point about 'where does the electricity come from' isn't necesarilly moaning about carbon emmisions, it's pointing out that fossil fuels are still being used to power the cars. The oil and coal companies are all using up the same rescources.
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Q
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A Higher Evolution
alexvegas
Mar 6 2008, 08:05 AM
The point about 'where does the electricity come from' isn't necesarilly moaning about carbon emmisions, it's pointing out that fossil fuels are still being used to power the cars. The oil and coal companies are all using up the same rescources.
The bit about emissions is simple. If all cars were electric, then the only real inefficiency is at the generating plant, and some of them have become amazingly efficient (whether it be coal or oil), so cars powered by the grid are contributing less to the problem that filthy oil-smoke blowing Internal Combustion Engines.

En electric vehicle can coast down a hill with the "Reverse" switch on, and use the gravity to recharge it's batteries. It can also use this technique instead of brakes. I would still recommend standard disc brakes for safety, but in normal use the car should be stationary before you've depressed the brake pedal far enough for the pads to engage the disc, and the faster the car is moving, the more effective regenerative braking should prove in slowing the vehicle down.

As people are DEMANDING more and more renewable energy sources (wind farms, etc.) electric cars will be the way to go. The biggest hurdle is battery type.

Rechargeable batteries in order of energy density:

Lead Acid: If built and maintained properly should last a life time, too high a power drain or charge can buckle the lead plates rending the battery useless. Lead is a heavy metal; and their damned heavy!

Nickel Cadmium: Better capacity. Handle high charge and disharge rates fairly well, but must be fully cycled. So when you plug you car in to charge, it must fully discharge before it commences recharging, otherwise the battery life is shortened. When cycled properly a Ni-Cd should last "forever". Cadmium is a heavy metal.

Nickel Metal Hydride: Better capacity. Don't particularly like really high charge, discharge rates, but don't need to be completely flattened before recharge. These batteries just "die", reason unknown.

Lithium Ion: Favorite in phones and computers. Higher capacity, handle high charge and discharge rates, no memory effect. Must be monitored carefully during charge, because if one cell fails, the whole battery may catch alight. Sony had to recall a whole shipment of laptops because of this. Litium Ion batteries begin their decay on the factory floor, and no matter how well you look after them they will decay to the point of being less useful than the energizer bunny. Lithium is heavy metal.

Lithium Polymer: Higher capacity again. Handle high currents, but come with all the baggage of Lithium Ion. Even more prone to single cell failure and fire. Lithium is a heavy metal.

At the forefront is the Lithium Silicon battery. It promises higher (10*)capacity and current handling ability, zero memory effect, less continuous decay. Real world data unavailable. Lithium is a heavy metal.

The best way to store a Lithium style battery for long term is charge to 40% and keep it in the fridge (in plastic to keep the moisture out). Keeping them in the glove box where you would actually be using them is the worst, because the heat speeds up the decay. Modify one of those air fresheners that hangs in front of the air conditioner to hold the batteries in the cooler air. Or keep them in a camping fridge in the trunk.

I point out that all these batteries contain heavy (toxic) metals. Too many of them are going to land fill. I recondition my own PC batteries, and I have a big coffee tin out the back--all the old ones go in there. When it's full I pay the postage to send it to "Battery World" who specialize in refitting camera and PC batteries. It costs me the postage to get rid of them safely, and they get the metal recovery fees. For lead acid, I take them to a car wrecker--I'm not posting something that heavy to anyone.

Having access to 2 * V8 aluminium block engines, I really want to try out Brown's Gas. This stuff is amazing. Get a torch "burning" with it, place it under a saucepan for five minutes, and the saucepan will not get hot! Fill it with water, and the water will heat up. It has been used for "cold welding"

Now, if one could get a turbine running on this stuff--throw away that thousand moving part I.C.E. and go with one moving part. And if all the "hype" is true, the only "emission" is water vapor.
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HabeasCorpse

I have Who Killed The Electric car on DVD, I don't remember Phyllis. I will watch it again.
Good info on the batteries but I reckon they would have developed this technology much further had it not been for our dependence on stinking oil powered combustion engines.
I also don't think fully electric cars won't be a real alternative until they have a way of screwing out of us the replacement revenue lost in oil taxes with a replacement carbon tax.
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JimBob
Trolls R Us
Electric cars have a long way to go before batteries have a power density (watts per pound battery or fuel) to rival that of gasoline. It would be extra cool to have a battery/capacitor/solar/internal combustion hybrid car. You could be alternately free of the gas station, or the sun, or the electrical grid, whatever the need was at the time.

From what I have read, it takes a bit more oil to power the electrical plant to charge the car batteries, but the pollution is less because the power plant exhaust pipe is cleaner.

The oil companies are not stopping people from buying the electric cars available now. When they get better and cheaper, the cars will be more popular.

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chrisfarb
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I want one of these. 300 mpg gas electric hybrid.
Posted Image
http://www.aptera.com
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blarney fife
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chrisfarb
Mar 6 2008, 06:02 PM
I want one of these. 300 mpg gas electric hybrid.
Posted Image
http://www.aptera.com
Don't forget about this you posted last month chrisfarb...I thought is was very interesting

Nanotech Batteries by chrisfarb
An interview with the inventor of the Silicon Nanowire Lithium-ion battery.


http://www.gm-volt.com/2007/12/21/gm-voltcom-interview-with-dr-cui-inventor-of-silicon-nanowire-lithium-ion-battery-breakthrough/
Posted Feb 2 2008, 05:46 PM in The Lounge
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JimBob
Trolls R Us
The Aptera car company is now claiming about 130 to 300 mpg based on trips length and the state of the battery charge. With a low charge on the battery, the engine has to run more and charge the battery. I think the average mileage for the prototype is about 230 mpg. They claim mileage will be less with a gasoline engine. Aptera was unable to get their small diesel engine to pass CA emission standards.

The price is rather high for a small car, $26,000 and up. If we compare an Aptera (230 mpg, $26,000) to a Corolla (38 mpg, $19,000) with gas at $3.00 per gallon, it costs $24,500 to own and operate the Corolla 60,000 miles and $26,900 for the Aptera. This only factors in vehicle and gas cost. I do not know what insurance and maintenance rates are for the Aptera. The Aptera does not show a cost savings over the Corolla until gas goes up to about $5.50 per gallon.

If the government ever includes three wheeled vehicles in their incentives programs, this will make the Aptera less expensive to own/operate. I can see the price going down a lot if the car is a success and other companies compete. I like this car, but the price is more than I want to spend.
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blarney fife
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JimBob
Mar 6 2008, 10:29 PM
The Aptera car company is now claiming about 130 to 300 mpg based on trips length and the state of the battery charge. With a low charge on the battery, the engine has to run more and charge the battery. I think the average mileage for the prototype is about 230 mpg. They claim mileage will be less with a gasoline engine. Aptera was unable to get their small diesel engine to pass CA emission standards.

The price is rather high for a small car, $26,000 and up. If we compare an Aptera (230 mpg, $26,000) to a Corolla (38 mpg, $19,000) with gas at $3.00 per gallon, it costs $24,500 to own and operate the Corolla 60,000 miles and $26,900 for the Aptera. This only factors in vehicle and gas cost. I do not know what insurance and maintenance rates are for the Aptera. The Aptera does not show a cost savings over the Corolla until gas goes up to about $5.50 per gallon.

If the government ever includes three wheeled vehicles in their incentives programs, this will make the Aptera less expensive to own/operate. I can see the price going down a lot if the car is a success and other companies compete. I like this car, but the price is more than I want to spend.
While your numbers are all well and good, I think they lack at least some forward thinking. The Corolla will burn almost 1580 gallons of gas, the Aptera will burn just under 261 gallons over a four year period based on 15000 miles a year. The consumer expense being about $50 a month over that period. I will concede that $50 dollars may be more than many people can afford, especially considering the direction our economy is heading.

Your numbers don't reflect the ecological damage to the planet, or the vast sums of money that have been and are being spent in places like Iraq to protect/secure access to the resource itself. Or the money being spent to prop up regimes like the one in Saudi Arabia that would undoubtedly collapse without US military and political backing. There have been many politicos (unfortunately only Jack Murtha and Mike Gravel come to mind) proclaiming that those type costs already make the (hidden) price of gasoline in this country somewhere in the 7 to 8 dollar a gallon range.

Like all big problems the US faces now and in the immediate future, there are no easy answers. I'm convinced that if we do nothing, the problems will not only get worse, but will have far more drastic consequences than the price of a gallon of gas.
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JimBob
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blarney fife
Mar 6 2008, 11:59 PM
While your numbers are all well and good, I think they lack at least some forward thinking.
I agree; I was just throwing out a few numbers about the cost of efficient cars. We need to improve the way we handle the materials used to make batteries too. The lead and other heavy metal really mess up the environment. Capacitors might be a much better storage solution than chemical batteries.
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chrisfarb
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JimBob
Mar 7 2008, 01:52 PM
blarney fife
Mar 6 2008, 11:59 PM
While your numbers are all well and good, I think they lack at least some forward thinking.
I agree; I was just throwing out a few numbers about the cost of efficient cars. We need to improve the way we handle the materials used to make batteries too. The lead and other heavy metal really mess up the environment. Capacitors might be a much better storage solution than chemical batteries.
This company, although very secretive, is working on just that. If what they claim is legit, they will have it first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEstor
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Q
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A Higher Evolution
chrisfarb
Mar 6 2008, 06:02 PM
I want one of these. 300 mpg gas electric hybrid.
Posted Image
http://www.aptera.com
Sorry, I'm not buying a car that looks ike a modified Butt Plug.
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