IMAGINE: A DAILY COMMUTE WITHOUT USING A DROP OF GAS

Richard S. wrote:Well I'm just a dumb amateur electrician but from my understanding if its not used they can't store it. Where it goes I don't know. I'd imagine they ramp a lot of power stations down at night. A lot of areas have different rates for during the night and day. My uncle for example has an electric hot water heater that heats water at night to store it for the day use to take advantage of the lower rate.

The different rates for night are because they have excess generating capacity at night. The power company pays the same for men and taxes at the power station regardless of how much it produces. They have to have facilities to generate peak load. Therefore, they offer lower rates at night when demand is down to encourage use of power at night. There isn't excess wasted electric. Only excess capacity.

Wood'nCoal wrote:http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16192

From reading the article, it says $250K of direct or indirect subsidies per car, based on 6000 cars sold. So if the article had been written when only 1,500 cars had been sold, the subsidy would be $1 million per car. Or if they waited awhile until 60,000 cars were sold, the subsidy would be $25K rather than $250K. If you look ahead 10 years and assume 600,000 cars sold, then the subsidy drops to $2,500 per car -- a bargain for jump-starting new technology.

And as the article admits, these are POTENTIAL subsidies, many of which may never be collected, so the subsidy per car drops even lower.

This is typical junk journalism, using distorted statistics and distorted reasoning to lead the reader to a distorted conclusion about electric cars. Makes you wonder who paid the writer -- Exxon/Mobil, maybe?

coal-cooker wrote:Wouldn't work here either. I drive 42 miles one way to work and 16 miles one way to a grocery store. Electric bill would kill me, unless I could tow a coal fired generating plant behind me.

I drive around 200 miles a day. I'm up one side of NJ and down the other side. By the time I get home from work the last thing I want to think about is plugging in my car for the morning. I want to change get some coffee or a beer and either play a video game or watch TV. I don't want to plug in a car.

Fred, that bike is awesome. Can you build me one?

Come on guys just think Solyndra can reemmerge and we can fuel up in the summer from voltaic cells.
Think of all the roofing jobs we can create

When I step on the gas pedal, I want the damn thing to move .... with authority. Although electric motors are all torque I highly doubt this thing would satisfy me. For starters I wouldn't pay $5,000 for it ... let alone $35k. And if it doesn't have a bed & trailer hitch on the back, it's completely useless to me.

Now maybe ..... IF I could get one for $2,500 I'd throw it up on blocks in the yard, & wire it into my house for power outages. For transportation, it's worthless to me ... and millions of other Americans.

SMITTY wrote:For transportation, it's worthless to me ... and millions of other Americans.

My round trip to work is about 25 miles. Round trip for most shopping is about the same, or less. So it would work great for me, as a second car. But the most I have ever paid for a car is $7,500, so until there is a good used market it is out of reach.

If I don't include my current truck (well over 5 figures ) & my very first truck (5 grand), the most I've paid for a vehicle was $500.

Doesn't count what I've put into them, but I've proven to myself that I build vehicles better than GM ever will. So far, my wife has gone over 3,000 miles in my Blazer/Jimmy hybrid, since October, without getting towed home once. The Jimmy got towed 4 times in 2 winters - in other words: 4 times in 6 months. Not even mentioning the thousands of dollars spent on that piece of *censored* in order to pass stupid emissions in this state.

I heard they gave those CATS cars to Congress to try out &they get around fine. Barney Frank got a special seat put in & now his has a supercharger.

SMITTY wrote:... I've proven to myself that I build vehicles better than GM ever will.

I have some old Mitsubishi engine parts in the cellar, plus some electronics from my Subaru that still work as long as it doesn't rain, and some 1976 Plymouth Volare unidentifiable metal junk, and I will check whether I threw out the stuff from my brother's '59 Renault Dauphine. I will put them all in a box and ship them to you, and you can build me a Franken-car-stein. Just don't add any Jimmy parts please.

Imagine.....................staying warm all winter and having an affordable fuel to make it happen! I sat in a Volt at Banks Chevin Concord, NH last week and the sticker said 44K+! I DIDN'T WANT TO DRIVE IT! It must REALLY throw you back in the seat 0-60!!! The politicians buses are leaving a HEAT signature similar to a 10 Million BTU bio-boiler.....now, how do we capture it??????

I will get some muscle relaxers to ease the lower back pain before I stuff my foot into the ...pump? Rheostat? Microprocessor? I can see the lawsuits as users take off with a 50 ft cord dragging behind...... A bicycle would be a zero emission vehicle and you'd be stylin' at the same time.......that would solve the texting and cell phone issues at the same time....

If you look ahead 10 years and assume 600,000 cars sold, then the subsidy drops to $2,500 per car --

Exactly. But right now the Volt is going over like a turd at a social.

Well said John!! You summed this whole debacle up in one fell sentence.

I'm On Fire wrote:Fred, that bike is awesome. Can you build me one?

I could.... but you'd have to plug it in!

Wood'nCoal wrote:But right now the Volt is going over like a turd at a social

Says who? From what I've read they are selling as fast as they are produced. This crap about fires is just that. In order to have a Volt battery fire you have to crush the batteries and wait...and wait... Fact: Not one Volt electric car has caught on fire during or right after an accident. Fact: Every year hundreds of people die in auto fires. ( http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/ ... i4-508.pdf) It always amazes me how journalists can highlight the story they want people to believe.

I think in the next few months you'll see this battery fire thing will be with any and all electric cars, not just the Volt.

Now.... if they could only get the price down to $15,000.....

Check this out!
http://www.thelibertyman.com/steam_generator.php

Says who? From what I've read they are selling as fast as they are produced.

They have only sold about 6000 to date... if that is as fast as they can produce them then we should buy them as a rarity and put them into a garage for ten years. The car collectors of the future will prize them. Stupidity knows no bounds. While you are collecting these I have more priceless items for your collection. The housewives of Warwick NY demanded three years ago that the school bus operators used veggie oil to run the school buses as it was good for the environment. The diesel mechanic warned them that with ultra high pressures the injection pumps would never last but they knew better. Would anybody like to add 20 blown injection pumps to their Volt collection. Ecolunies strike again.