Posted on 01/31/2011 8:37:14 PM PST by goldstategop
Oh yeah, seems you should read both articles maybe.
5 Concerns About Electric-Car Batteries
Electricity may be the auto fuel of the future, but a lot remains to be answered about the batteries that house it.
By Jacob Gordon of TreeHugge
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1176838
Lithium-ion batteries lose storage capacity over time; how long does your 5-year-old laptop battery hold a charge?
The Volt will do very well in snow and cold weather owing to it's backup engine.LOL! You don't see the redundancy in that?
Sure, a Nissan Leaf or a Tesla Roadster has no tailpipe emissions — they have no tailpipes at all — and a Chevy Volt will take you 40 emissions-free miles before the ultraefficient engine kicks in. But these cars charge their batteries from the grid, and in the U.S., most utility plants burn coal to produce electricity. So is this "greener" than driving a gasoline car?
It looks like the answer is yes, but not by much.
Different regions of the country have cleaner power than others, so it matters where you live.
I understand that LG Chem of Korea is building the battery cells for the Volt in Korea until 2013. Then LG Chem will build the batteries in Michigan. What happened to U.S. ownership of the manufacturing?
These lithium-ion batteries made with lithium-manganese spinel cathodes are quite expensive to build. Right now, the Chevy Volt costs twice as much as a conventional car of similar size. Chevy Volt has a battery guarantee of eight years or 100,000 miles. It is the cost of that battery that causes the Volt to be so expensive. Eight years from now, owners will hope the price of these batteries comes down. At the same time, it would be beneficial if the batteries were engineered with more capacity. Getting more bang for the buck would make battery driven cars a more acceptable alternative to the oil fueled car.
Yep. Actually, Rush, it was the first thing I thought of.
I live in North Dakota.
For a few months here, staying warm is the difference between life and death (-55 wind chills expected here tonight, but it was pretty calm and only -14 out (static air temp) when I came in).
If you want to pump a fortune into a glorified golf cart, be my guest. Just do it all without expecting us to pick up part of the tab (through tax breaks and subsidy money).
The engine doesn't move the car - it only recharges the batteries. The batteries drive the electric motors which move the car ...
By the way, I had a friend who was forced to drive a neighbor's SMART-CAR from Halifax to Toronto with a 40mph head-wind all the way! Could barely make 50mph and was tempted several times to drive it into the St.Lawrence and hitchhike.
The smaller and more under-powered a vehicle is, the more negatively susceptible it is to wind. Of course you could be going with the wind, but what are the chances of that 100% of the time?
Electric cars would be absolutely fine for underground cities with a year round stable environment.
But planet earth is changing rapidly, we will get more changes in the weather, more cold, more snow, more rain, more heat.
They might as well be called suicide machines.
But if and when mankind lives on another planet they could be useful.
“An electric car is best suited to a bay area climate without extreme temperatures. I guess that eliminates most of the country unless you want to freeze, sweat, and provide heated housing for your car not to mention recharge it every night.”
Harry Reid pushes all this crap. But think about a drive from Vegas to LA, when it is 112F out on a three hundred mile drive with the air conditioning going full bore. Lot’s of people also drive at 90mph. How does this compute?
And nobody even mentions that the batteries are not biodegradable so they will be filling up landfills as they expire, causing more pollution in that regard.
bump
And the Chinese have all the rare-earth metals to build exotic, neat stuff. If we pi$$ off the MiddleEast and China in the future, we’ll have no cars, no gas and no Happy Meal toys.
You didn’t read the into the article very far....did you?
You didn’t read into the article very far....did you?
“But think about a drive from Vegas to LA, when it is 112F out on a three hundred mile drive with the air conditioning going full bore.”
I said the bay area, not driving to LA in the summertime. The preferred route for the electric vehicle is the Pacific Coast Highway. You cannot drive 90 mph on the PCH. The electric vehicle provides the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful scenery and drive at reasonable speeds. Hug the coasts, roll down the windows, and enjoy a leisurely drive.
We need some lifestyle adjustment. The rats can help us adjust our lifestyles.
The chances are roughly 25%.
50% of the time the winds would predominantly be from the side (right or left), 25% of the time they would be from the front and 25% they would be from the rear.
Driving through snow is like driving UPHILL everywhere.
Quite a toll on a battery powered car.
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