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Personally, I'm one who doesn't care. I think you're assuming that everyone's driving habits are the same as yours. I work at home and I am not an impulsive person. I tried hard to think of a time I "jumped in the car" to use a phrase I've read here several times for an "impromptu drive." Couldn't think of one. If somebody needs to go to the hospital while my car is charging I'll call an ambulance.
I don't have to assume anything. The dismal sales of electric cars says all that needs to be said.
When we lived in NYC we did not really need a car to get around the city, buy groceries or get to entertainment or work. We did need the car to get OUT of the city on many weekends. Since we returned to suburban/exurburban New England we need two cars to get to the stores, work or bus transportation to Boston. Recently I added a motorcycle to the collection just for fun.
We may replace the Subaru with a well used hybrid if I can find one with decent battery life left at a low enough price. I would probably add a charging kit to keep the battery topped off from the electric power grid.
Greg, we now have a Forester. We love our Subaru, but sadly they have no hybrid offering.
From what I have followed on this thread, I am thinking the EV may have a brighter future than I had in prior guesses.
So I started pondering. Was pondering just how many EV charging stations would required for "covering" the whole US mainland.
So check me out, here . . . .
Here are some of the ponderings -- if say a Volt (yes they suck, but using them as a Base Line) -- which can go about 40 miles (yeah, this is just more or less), we would need at least 1, every 40 miles or so.
3000 miles East-West X 2000 miles North-South with EV stations on a 40 mile grid, that would more than cover the area, along with some chunk of Northern Mexico and Southern Canada.
(3000 / 40) = 75 stations East-West X (2000 / 40) = 50 stations comes out 75 X 50 = 3750 stations roughly cover all of US and a little more.
At Maybe $10,000 each that comes out $37,500,000 -- about $38 million. Not a lot on these type budgets.
Comparing that to Oil use . . . $38,000,000 / $80 per barrel = 468,750 barrels.
Considering we burn over 18 million barrels a day, that is about 0.026 of a day's use of Oil . . . or about 38 minutes of 1 day's Oil use will cover the entire US with EV stations to go anywhere in the US -- and need no Oil to fuel ground transportation.
Amazing.
No Wonder Big Oil does not want US to quit our addiction.
Personally, I'm one who doesn't care. I think you're assuming that everyone's driving habits are the same as yours. I work at home and I am not an impulsive person. I tried hard to think of a time I "jumped in the car" to use a phrase I've read here several times for an "impromptu drive." Couldn't think of one. If somebody needs to go to the hospital while my car is charging I'll call an ambulance.
I have no quarrel with your habits, but after more than a half-century of being used to going somewhere at the drop of a hat, I doubt if most Americans would agree.
Over the past two years, I have been fortunate to have been offered free tickets which became available at the last minute - very expensive tickets - to wonderful events. I would say about three times total over two years, and I was doubly fortunate at being free to attend the events. One event was the world premiere of the new opera "The Gospel According to the Other Mary". Notification was a matter of hours.
Here's another example. I am sitting at home and realize I am bored. So the thought pops into my head, "This would be a good time to go see that foreign film that my good friend X recommended." So I check the newspaper for show times, the show times work perfectly, and I hop in my car and drive to the local art house cinema.
O.K., you are not an impulsive person - I get that. I am merely posting the counterpart; I am (at times) an implusive person. And the more important point may well be that at age 68 I am unwilling to give up that sort of freedom, having been used to it since I was in my third year of college. And that was a very, very long time ago.
So I would not choose an EV as my only car but would consider one as part of a two-car household.
You can ponder, you can do math until the sun doesn't shine anymore....
Nothing you can theorize/ponder/calculate can gloss over the fact EV's are a dismal failure in their current form.
As has been said before: EV's are expensive toys for snobs that like to look down their noses at everyone else.....
BTW, the Big Oil conspiracy is over that way <--------------------
While I don't quite share your extreme pessimism about EV's, I do agree about the Big Oil conspiracy. One piece of evidence for my agreement is the substantial tax credit which Congress approved for the individuals who purchase EV's. How could that incentive to jump-start the acceptance of this technology in the marketplace have ever passed the Congress if Big Oil controlled everything?
While I don't quite share your extreme pessimism about EV's, I do agree about the Big Oil conspiracy. One piece of evidence for my agreement is the substantial tax credit which Congress approved for the individuals who purchase EV's. How could that incentive to jump-start the acceptance of this technology in the marketplace have ever passed the Congress if Big Oil controlled everything?
I remember listening to President Bush (W) on the radio saying he was all for hybrid cars, and would encourage them, but we would not see one for at least twenty years from now. That was the technology of the future. The very next day good ol' Toyota introduced the Prius.
I think we have dragged our feet and it is mostly the European high price of gas and demand for small economical cars and international competition that pushed us into the alternate fuel market. It was either that, or be left behind. It's the way of the future and the US auto industry has taken enough hits.
Last edited by goldengrain; 12-02-2012 at 06:03 PM..
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The power, or lack of power, of Big Oil
