DON'T get excited about the electric car

[CosmicWizard]

Tek_Freek wrote:

I swear that as soon as someone becomes a part of the local political decision making system their IQ drops 50 points.

Yes, I have noticed this too, but not just locally. It seems to apply all across the country. The higher the office, the bigger the drop off. The man in the oval office seems to have experienced the biggest drop of them all. We might soon find out if this applies to women too or is it limited to men only.

[Philip T]

The current guy was not gifted to start with. C's at Harvard are just in lieu of tossing you out.

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Serious market survey study sort of question?

Any or how many of you here would be interested in driving/owning a car that picks power directly from the roadway? Be a system where the city, state, or national government (depending on road type) would bill you for the power consumed -- that would make up for the loss of fuel tax.

Typical application is you pull out of your driveway, and start picking power up from the roadway. Goes along that way until you reach the parking lot or wherever you are heading. Meter on board picks up the power used and you get billed or money is debited from your account.

Could do a "cheap" one that only used electricity with a small battery to get you across driveways and such, or a more expensive car that still had a gas or diesel generator on board to drive beyond grid enabled roads into remote areas.

Would pretty much wipe out air pollution in the cities, as well.

Looking at doing large scale power replacement projects -- farming is next and then I guess cars -- because so much renewable energy electricity is coming on line that there will probably be a glut.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by imperieux

I agree with the other posters who have said that we need mass transit and more walkability. ....

Yes, and maybe the newly laid off city development planners have time to think about that solution

RE: electric cars... back in the '70's... The "Invent" ... company that I worked for had FREE plug-in parking for several cars at each factory site. There were many cool ones, from Corvairs to BMW's (all were conversions) + plenty of 'handbuilts'.

[censusdata]

Originally Posted by stepka

Did you ever walk, drive or bike thru a city and just see how much land is devoted to the car? Parking lots, six lane city boulevards, 10 lane highways, and all the land that is wasted inside the cloverleaf offramps, and has to be mowed?

The great irony is that so called walkable and bikable neighborhoods are often also easier to DRIVE in. Just compare the amount of traffic congestion near a mall surrounded by parking lots verse a Main Street type area with the same square footage of retail.

[miu]

It doesn't take that much electricity to run an electric car. My boyfriend wants to convert one of our Civics to electric. For about $10k in parts we could have an in-town car with about a 50 mile range. For $20k, we could have one with a regenerative braking system that would have a range of about 150 miles. So... hopefully within a year, we'll have an electric car of our own.