Here's another car with the other coolest horn ever.
Posted on 08/14/2009 5:51:51 PM PDT by WhiteCastle
Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out?
Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes.
"If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
This assumes that we will unable to increase our own oil production and efficient use because of the greens. I disagree.
I haven’t read this entire thread, but is there any information about how many kilowatt hours it takes to do one of these overnight charges on some of these electric prototypes?
That’s a key question because we can all look at our electric bills and determine how much we pay per kwh, no matter how the electricity was produced.
Here's another car with the other coolest horn ever.
In some regions of the country, yes we do have excess generation capacity.
What we don’t have is the distribution infrastructure, especially at the neighborhood level. There are still MANY neighborhoods in the US with five or six houses connected to a single 25kVA pole pig. If only half of those houses get electric cars, the power company will need to put up another two pole pigs.
See posts 65 and 66.
As for regular cars, synthetic motor oil and block heaters have rendered starting reliable to -35 and colder. Once running, I have had very few problems in the last 100,000 miles, with a variety of vehicles from a 1975 full sized chevy van (350 V8, 4 bbl carb) to a 1990 Dodge caravan (fuel injected 3.3 liter).
Did the electrics make the 260 mile round trip to the next major town at -30, busting snow drifts and keeping the cabin temperature above freezing, and do it in the roughly 5 hours a gasoline vehicle will, with enough 'fuel' left to keep the lights on (so you don't get hit by another vehicle and can be seen) and keep the occupants warm for a few hours if you end up in the ditch?
Or were they tested in a controlled environment?
Otherwise, they are a deathtrap.
Many of the smaller cars cannot handle the road conditions alone for lack of ground clearance, and they lack the mass (which translates to momentum) to bust drifts.
The last two batteries I bought were through the Honda dealer. This latest one was an Interstate. I was told to expect two years out of any battery in the AZ heat. When your car is sitting outside on blacktop and baking in 115 degree heat every day all summer, it’s hell on the battery. (Not to mention the people!)
Well maybe if you live in California where the temperature stays between 40 and 90 degrees, that might work. But the majority of the country doesn't enjoy such temperatures. Live in a place where the temp goes -20 degrees, or in the desert where it hits 115 on a regular basis, and the batteries are going to last a fraction of what they will last in California. I say let California mandate these stupid battery cars for their own people. They deserve them. But the rest of the country is not California.
I know two people who bought the Prius here in Phoenix. Both of them sold the cars after two years because they had problems with the batteries.
Geez. Have you ever been to California? Lots of CA has temperatures rivaling that of Phoenix. Prius' do fine in that environment.
I live in California. I WISH the temperature never went above 90! If you are so ignorant about your next door neighbor's climate, maybe you are also just totally ignorant on electric cars.
I hate to bust your bubble but Arizona has to bow to California for the record high temperature in the US. BTW, the record is above 90 degrees.
I lived in California for ten years. The majority of the population does not live in Death Valley, they live on the coasts.
“The idea that we can’t get off imported oil is just a lack of imagination.”
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I disagree that it is lack of imagination. I believe that it’s far more a lack of political will that we have not eliminated most foreign imports. If we would drill where we have oil and gas resources, and went all-out to develop oil shale and oil sands, eliminated the delaying tactics used to halt production of nuclear and coal generation, and allowed the free market to determine the success or failure of the “alternatives”, the US could easily get off imported imports. I do agree that electric-hybrids can be a useful part of the mix, but it would likely be more sensible for most “2-car families” to own only one of them. Given the type of driving I do, I don’t know which I would choose, personally, if purchase cost was no object.
Like a typical Californian, you seem to have the attitude that everyone else should live the way you do. Drive your little pint-sized rollerskate, screw up your back up into little knots. Don't tell me I have to do the same thing.
And by the way, when it gets over 100 degrees in the inland valleys of California, it does not last for months on end - with the exception of Death Valley, where no one lives. Maybe YOU should learn a little more about YOUR neighbors.
Perhaps you have never heard of Sacramento, Bakersfield, Fresno ....
Duh. Do you always project falsely? My wife drives a non-hybird 4WD SUV. I have two V8's one about 300 hp and the other about 400 hp and capable of doing the quarter mile in the low 13's. Now go turn off your internet connection until you can stop lying about others.
I live in the inland valley. Duh.
I was born outside of San Francisco, moved when I was 5, moved back when I was 26 and stayed ten years. So your snarky responses just illustrate your obnoxious sense of self-importance, which I find common in Californians. I just checked weather.com. The temperature in Sacramento is 77 degrees. It will get to a whopping 92 today. On my back patio, in the shade, it is 97 right now. It will get to 104 this afternoon. This is called a “cold snap.”
I don’t think one size fits all in the transportation area.
Hopefully there will be a wide variety of vehicles that help us reduce oil imports, suitable to their climate and usage.
Electric cars and hybrids will have their niche, and diesel may eventually, if the strict emission rules in the US can be met at a cost the consumer is willing to pay.
I’m looking into a Honda Civic that runs on CNG which are mfg here in Indiana at the new plant in Greensburg.
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