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As both an old TDI and EV owner, I welcome the change. However, the beauty of the old TDI is that it relies on fewer electrical components...and VW (like most Euro brands) have a spotty record with electrical issues. I sure hope they sort that all out before going hog-wild into EVs.
Our used 2013 Fiat 500e was purchased for $7,300 out the door with 24K miles on it less than two years ago. We now have 61K miles with no noticeable degradation to the range/battery capacity. It's enough to get my wife to another charging station at her office 55 miles away. It has a retro and spartan interior that we love.
As for a vintage conversion idea, I'd love to have a balance EV drive unit and suspension tuned on an old Porsche Speedster, VW Karmman Ghia, MG Midget, Austin Healey, or old Jag. Older folks aways complain that electrical components were terrible and the motors hate unleaded gasoline. A modern EV powertrain could solve both of those issues...of course there will will be new issues like killing the spirit of an old roadster with a single reduction direct-drive transmission and a motor with a flat power-curve.
I have of yet been unconvinced that electric cars are going to take over, and after watching numerous video's from John Cadogan (autoexperts.com.au), I've become even more so. Bottom line, BEV's are only "green" if the electricity to charge them comes from renewable (or nuclear) energy. Otherwise, electric cars are simply de-facto coal-burning vehicles. This is equally true of PHEV's, which I had earlier thought were a better option than pure BEV's; Cadogan has convinced me this is not true.
Also, BEV's becoming the dominant technology is going to require big gains in battery energy density, and also a charging network that will take years to construct. More likely, the vehicle of the future is going to be a hybrid of some kind. Or, BEV's will become cheap urban runabouts (like the vehicle proposed by VW), and people will be required to rent vehicles for longer trips or hauling/towing purposes. Tesla is the vehicle to purchase if you're looking to spend sixty grand. I would no sooner spend sixty thou on a car than I would a half mil on a home, it's just not gonna happen for me.
The future of human transportation, at least for those of us who have to spend our money where it does us the most good, is going to be a mix of technologies, and as in most countries, the most energy-efficient vehicle ever invented for human transportation will likely play a much larger role than present (yes, I'm talking about the bicycle).
Or, BEV's will become cheap urban runabouts (like the vehicle proposed by VW), and people will be required to rent vehicles for longer trips or hauling/towing purposes.
I personally wouldn't waste money buying an EV with a lot of range.
I understand that I rarely would drive beyond the range of a short range EV. If going further, I take the other car.
Used short range EV's are the raging bargain of the automotive world. Which one would I buy? This one from these guys... 53 to choose from.
BEV's are only "green" if the electricity to charge them comes from renewable (or nuclear) energy.
And what do you have against nuclear energy?
The counter to this is straightforward: it is more efficient to generate electricity on a huge scale than in any smaller component; that power is more fuel- and emission-efficient than fifty thousand individual fossil-powered cars. Even coal can be limited in emissions in a modern plant; for whatever duration we're stuck with fossil fuels for electrical power, it's still better to generate more of it from plants than it is to keep generating vehicle power on a unit scale. Fossil-fueled vehicles have no future, whether you put it at a year or ten; EVs are and must be the future, even though we will need to grow and evolve our generation methods. The point is that in ten years gas powered cars will still need gas; EVs can use electricity generated from any source at all. Right now it's coal (bad) and NG (not great) and "renewable" (limited), and eventually it will be a combination of renewable and nuclear/fusion. But juice is juice, and there's no good reason to postpone a serious start on the change.
Absolutely nothing, provided the plants are not located in earthquake zones or operated by potato-drinking rubes (see Fukushima and Chernobyl). I'm not up on the science, but supposedly the new-style and future reactors are much safer than older and existing technology. And they better be, because we've had our own problems as well (Three Mile, Idaho Falls, and going WAY back, we're still cleaning up or need to clean up weapons and experimental sites like Hanford, Moab UT, Rocky Flats, (original) Argonne site, and Oak Ridge (from my memory). But to get off fossils, we're going to need more than wind and solar. A LOT more. Until fusion is developed (and it may never be), nuclear is our only option to eventually supplement renewables. And it may be that every roof of every home and business in the U.S. will need to be fitted with some kind of PV or solar heat-capturing supplemental system. I'm all for doing that where it makes sense to do so.
Bottom line, what I'm most interested in, and what I think provides the biggest bang for the buck, is efficient building and transportation. We currently waste so much of the energy we produce, that better building codes, weight-reduction in autos, etc., will provide the best results at the lowest cost. But it's going to take a long time to transition, and people generally reject the idea of freezing to death or not being able to get to work. The idea that internal combustion is on its last legs is just pie-in-the-sky nonsense, we're going to be using hydrocarbons for decades to come, the scale of the problem demands it. That doesn't mean we can't use much less of them than we currently do, though.
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