http://driving.ca/ford/fusion-plug-i...ids-to-pay-off
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Until someone invents a battery that can store mega-energy over a long period of time and deliver that energy at a constant rate while the battery discharges with generating stations on every street corner,then,and only then,will electric vehicles make sense. What makes me absolutely nuts was Wynne's commercial crowing about $14K-$30K in "incentives" for anyone buying an e-vehicle. Those things run between $60K-$115K. Do the Liberals really think people who can afford one of these things need government "incentives" of taxpayer funding to buy them? Liberal "green energy" nonsense is nothing short of a collective (coitus) insanity. Their bullshyte knows no bounds.:mad:
To some extent many who pay for a diesel upgrade in a P/U just for fuel costs run into a similar calculation. By the time you pay the price of the option, add in DEF additive it can be years before you break even if you don't really need the towing capacity.
Actually, unless you provide people with an incentive, not enough will buy such vehicles in order to make it attractive for manufacturers to further invest in development. If you ever worked in R&D, you'd know that a lot of great inventions will never see daylight, because the cost of development cannot be recovered fast enough. Companies are there to make money for shareholders (who don't like risks) and not to contribute to the greater good.Quote:
Originally Posted by trimmer21
I would not buy an electric vehicle any time soon, but I don't mind providing an incentive either.
Electric cars just move the emissions, they may not be coming from the tail pipe but if every single person who owns a car and works 9-5 in this province hooks up to charge at 6pm every day our system will not be able to keep up to the load and we will be burning the fossil fuels to generate the electricity for our cars.
We have the 3 Rs, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, nobody Reuses and people are doing the opposite of Reducing. The vehicles now have the same fuel economy as almost 20 years ago but they are larger with more horse power, maybe if we kept the same horsepower as the mid 90s and the same size vehicles we would actually see a reduced fuel use.
Electric cars are also almost useless for many people in Canada, the range is just too poor and the charge time is way too long, a trip from Ottawa to Windsor would take you 2 days if you had full capacity and things were in an ideal situation.
You want R&D, lets get back to looking at the most abundant element in the universe, and one which stores a massive amount of energy, Hydrogen.
I will need a new car in the next 2years likely and would buy another VW golf TDI to replace the one I have now , She is almost 12 years old with 335,000 km . I am sure I got my movies worth with the diesel upgrade as this little tank is still getting great mileage and other than the usual wear and tear items she has been awesome. Still on the original clutch.
fully agree on your conclusion on the 3R!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
H2: they are around for at least 2 decades; ever seen fueling one? Not feasible for the general public even in densely populated areas. Might work for buses and so on. And speaking of moving the emission around- how do you generate H2 (i.e. splitting the H from the O)? Certainly, no issue with spikes to the electrical network, but same problem.
Fact is burning fossil fuels to sit in traffic is dumb (considering you can use oil for all kind of synthesis and burn a lot less valuable things). Problem is, that alternatives are still far behind and continue to be for some time. Why would anyone spend as much for a E-car that feels like a go-cart as for a V8 truck?
My issue is spending money on an electric car so that the fossil fuels are just burnt somewhere else. There are ways to fill with hydrogen, lots of cars used to be run off propane and there were filling stations. Hydrogen can be dangerous but so can gasoline, propane, diesel, all fuels have their inherit issues. My feeling on electric and hybrid cars is the smugness of the people buying them, anyone who drives an electric car likes to tell you how much better they are on saving the environment but they fail to talk about the issues of producing a battery, the habitat destruction to put in that power generation system and what happens to the batteries in that car once the rest falls apart. "Green Energy" does not exist, there is always an impact no matter what you are driving, from a horse to an electric car and everything in between you will have an impact on the environment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waftrudnir
Agree on the type of people and their motivation when it comes to driving electric cars. I don't mind them paying for development that my children will once benefit from. Gas will eventually get more expensive (and if it's just because of extra taxes).Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
The only real-life H2 fueling I saw personally was a robot. Talk about safety concerns (Hydrogen has 143 MJ/kg versus gasoline with only 46.9 MJ/kg). And, you're correct: propane and gasoline are really dangerous, but nobody cares because we are so used to them. I'm sure things have changed since then (over 15 years ago).
There's more: Fuel cells had real problems in the past, they got better but are still not affordable. Supplying H2 broadly requires a complete new infrastructure; we talk about billions of dollars and decades to build.
Long story short: H2 is scientifically great, but if E-cars won't make it, there is no business case for hydrogen.
what I do not see on this list is a "Tesla" with the S line 0-100 kmhr in 2.2 seconds. Nice luxury car. If your aim is to cheap out, this is not for you. Too one out last summer, amazing to say the least. Oh and almost 450 km's before recharging.