Posted on 09/19/2009 4:38:49 AM PDT by iowamark
Rush has always said he is NOT against gas-electric hybrids. If that's what people like, all power to them. He is against govt mandating what people should drive and also people buying them for the wrong reasons (ie 'saving the planet').
I’ve noticed that too around here - the witch hunt against any conservative who likes electric cars.
Personally, I don’t give a flying flip whether the power comes from solar, wind, coal, or nuclear. I care that it’s domestic. I want my vehicle to have 1/10th as many moving parts as it has today. I want it to have full torque from zero RPM. I want it to be quiet. And that is what electric is.
One thing you didn’t mention about the electric cars of the early 1900s: back then, gas was about the same price it is today (adjusted for inflation), but electricity was (adjusted for inflation) about $4 per kilowatt hour! So back then, gasoline cars were actually cheaper to run. But oil is getting more expensive while electricity gets cheaper. Even if Pelosi shoves Cap and Trade down our throats, electricity will still be cheaper than gasoline (especially if Cap and Trade hits gasoline, too). And as time goes on, gas prices will continue to rise, but we have enough coal and uranium to last us centuries.
There are a lot of dumb myths being expressed here, so I’ll break them down:
* One, for those who actually care, only half our power comes from coal. The next leading sources are nuclear, natural gas, and hydroelectric.
* Two, power plants are more efficient than electric cars, and they don’t emit their exhaust in your face.
* Three, the most popular electric motors don’t take any rare elements. These AC induction motors are made out of aluminum and/or copper. The inverters are made of electronics that use things like silicon and silicon carbide.
* Four, the batteries, too, don’t use anything rare or toxic. We’re not talking lead-acid or nickel-cadmium. We’re talking lithium iron phosphate or managanese lithium-ion batteries. Lithium salts cost, what, $2.50 a pound? And the other components are even cheaper.
* Five, the aforementioned batteries are, for all practical purposes, limited in charge rate only by A) how fast you can cool them down, and B) how fast you can supply the power. Aerovironment, a defense contractor, already makes an 800kW charger for the military. That thing could charge a fully loaded semi three times faster than it burns energy going down the highway, let alone a car or SUV. Smaller units, like the 250kW chargers, are about the size of a coke machine. You pair them up with a battery bank, so you don’t need a huge grid feed. Such units cost about $120k each (today), which sounds like a lot, until you look at the price of building a gas station from scratch, and consider that nobody needs to do anything more for them than occasional maintenance - no staffing, no deliveries, etc.
The real issue with electric cars is price. Not just the battery pack, but everything - most people don’t know that all the other stuff that goes into them is really expensive today, too. They’re just not mass produced - none of it.
Of course we’ll still need oil. Even the most starry-eyed optimists in the industry don’t think even new car sales will be more than 10-20% by 2020, let alone all the cars currently on the road. And even if everyone went electric, you still need oil for a lot of other things. But it’s key that we both increase our oil production and reduce our consumption at the same time. Otherwise, China and India are going to monopolize the market; their future demand makes our current consumption look like nothing by comparison.
Whoops - power plants are more efficient than gasoline cars, not electric. The original statement made no sense.
Thank you...great information there. Take a look at the new Nissan Leaf if you haven’t already. It will be comparably priced with the other similar sized cars and go about 100 miles per charge. Very cool, and alot cheaper than gasoline...not to mention the very low maintenance costs.
It’s not about how much gas you burn but the total cost of ownership over the life of the car:
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2008/06/hybrids-dont-shine-in-true-cost-to-own-study.html
I’m sure it’s a nice car, but TCO is the real metric when it comes to the cost of personal transportation.
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