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You mean like electric cars, which struggle to compete against massively subsidized oil?
Funny I don't hear you complaining about cheap gas prices at the pump.
If oil wasn't subsidized it would be far cheaper. If the government wasn't pumping trillions of dollars that investors use to then prop up commodities, their prices would fall.
These type of cars (experimental) are always destroyed. This isn't some conspiracy tied to these cars.
These weren't just experimental cars. They were manufactured because California had tough emission standard in the late 1990s, and car companies could not make gas-powered cars efficient enough to meet the standards, so they built electric cars. Once the emission standards were raised, there was little motivation to sell electric cars, so naturally the companies stopped producing them. (Lots of people still wanted electric cars, but the market would have been small in comparison to standard cars. Also, electric cars don't generate much secondary income from selling replacement parts, so this makes them less desirable for from the standpoint of bottom line industry profits.) Fine. If we don't mind living in smog and bloating our land-fills, then gas-powered cars will out-compete electric cars. No problem. But there was no rule that said they needed to take back the cars and destroy them. Economics, in itself, would have said "Don't bother" with the defunct cars. Let people drive them into the ground. But this is not what happened. The car companies went out of their way to recover these cars and destroy them.
Okay, I didn't do a price comparison just pasted that info. I still stand behind the fact that if you want to save money, and use less fossil fuel a Hybrid is not the way to go unless you have a very short commute. If you want to make a statement, help advance Hybrid tech and have a short commute then they are the way to go.
Hybrids are better in town while diesels do great long distances. Many do most of their miles around town.
I agree and posted earlier that it's not viable outside of dense urban areas that have installed charging stations.
For most non city-center folks, an electric car is a great option even without available charging stations. My parents' Volt gets 40 miles to the charge. After that, it runs on gas (39 miles per gallon). Something like 75% of Americans drive fewer than 40 miles a day, so having a Volt and then charging it once you get back to you suburban or city home would be very doable for many Americans.
Currently, I'd say electric vehicles are least viable for urban dwellers. It's easy to plug in your car in your own garage. I image most city-center dwellers would have no place to plug in at their apartments and condos.
Very cool to hear there might be a move towards hydrogen, I remember years ago seeing something about a engineer designing a car that ran off hydrogen, it was a really cool concept, but wasn't sure if the car giants would ever go for something like that.
For most non city-center folks, an electric car is a great option even without available charging stations. My parents' Volt gets 40 miles to the charge. After that, it runs on gas (39 miles per gallon). Something like 75% of Americans drive fewer than 40 miles a day, so having a Volt and then charging it once you get back to you suburban or city home would be very doable for many Americans.
Currently, I'd say electric vehicles are least viable for urban dwellers. It's easy to plug in your car in your own garage. I image most city-center dwellers would have no place to plug in at their apartments and condos.
While I don't drive every day, when I do drive it's easily 40-70 miles when I do drive.
And the places I go to do not have charging stations so I'd be SOL once I got there.
Plus they don't make electric pick up trucks and that's a mighty handy vehicle when you live rural and have livestock.
While I don't drive every day, when I do drive it's easily 40-70 miles when I do drive.
And the places I go to do not have charging stations so I'd be SOL once I got there.
Plus they don't make electric pick up trucks and that's a mighty handy vehicle when you live rural and have livestock.
Then it's probably not a good option for you. For the average American who drives 15 miles to work in the morning and then 15 miles back home at night 5 days a week, it is.
At their current electric rates, to go 40 miles costs my parents about 75¢ in fuel. That same 40 mile trip at the current national average price for regular gas ($3.53) would cost a person driving a 25 mile/gallon car $5.65 in fuel.
Well, that takes care of the inevitable lies from the leftist fanatics. Seven fibs in one post, that's slightly better than average.
Back to the subject:
Electric cars will become practical when they have:
(a) Range of at least 200 miles on a charge, even in winter in Minnesota;
(b) Cost not much higher than their gasoline-powered equivalent;
(c) Recharge times of half an hour or less;
(d) Batteries that last at least 75,000 miles before being replaced (if they have to be replaced at all).
The OP is right. They aren't close.
Tesla is actually getting pretty close. Cost and infrastructure aren't there, but should be much more
acceptable sometime between 2016 and 2020.
But hey, we like to hate on new American technologies and companies these days don't we?
Tesla is actually getting pretty close. Cost and infrastructure aren't there, but should be much more
acceptable sometime between 2016 and 2020.
But hey, we like to hate on new American technologies and companies these days don't we?
Tesla will be bankrupt long before 2016.
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