Ducati Monster Forum

Anyone seen it?


I just watched it, and thought it was pretty good. Sad story about what the auto industry did to what looked like a pretty good car. I never saw one in real life, and never new that they actually made it past the concept car phase. I guess that was pretty much the premise of the film though...they killed it before it got off the ground.

I haven't seen it, but I'll add it to my list.

I've never understood why the major maufacturers could never really get their collective shit together and make a viable electric car. When I was a senior in high school (grad in 94) we built a fully functional electric car and raced it. We obviously had sponsors to fund it, the main one being VA Power, but we engineered and built the thing from a '71 240Z ourselves in about 4 months or so. The car kicked ass too. Our engineering teacher was also an SCCA racer so we approached the car from that angle. Everyone else showed up w/ Escorts and Chevettes, we brought a Z.  ;:| You could do burnouts in it.  :e:v We dominated the drag race and slalom course the first year. And, IIRC, it would run for about 3 or so hours at 65 mph. Not shabby for about 15 high school kids.

These pics are from '97 or '98, I got them off the schools website. All my pics are old school and I have no scanner.

(http://www.csvrgs.k12.va.us/Programs/EV/EVimage10.jpg)
(http://www.csvrgs.k12.va.us/Programs/EV/carpush.JPG)
(http://www.csvrgs.k12.va.us/Programs/EV/carrichmond.JPG)

the premise of the whole film is that GM built a wonderful electric car....then killed it off  :bang


i highly recomend it

A buddy of mine had an electric Ford Ranger and loved it.


Ford made him give it back. >:(

Yes, it's a good movie, however, it gives a very skewed view of the situation.  If you do some research on the subject, there is definitely another side to the story and the film doesn't do it justice. 

*not that I would ever by a GM (and I'm kinda shocked I'm defending them), but the film does a poor job of explaining GM's position.

I kinda figured it was...

the guy who made it owned one of the EV1s, so i'm guessing he was pretty biased

though, it didn't seem Micheal Moore skewed  [cheeky]

I plan to do some more research on the subject, just because EVs are something that I'm intrested in. It just made me a little sad that they destroyed all those cars. I mean, if you don't want to make more, fine...but why destroy them.


btw--TT, that race car is shweet!

Until most power doesn't come from Coal electric cars only move the pollution from the tail pipe to 300 miles down the road.
Out of site out of mind. 

That project was so much fun. It totally consumed 3-4 months of my life. We worked on it during class and every day after school till 9-11 PM. Matter of fact, I almost didn't graduate because I neglected all my other schoolwork to do that.

That car was a total rag when we got it. Typical Z car rust. We replaced the floor pans, trunk pan, rockers, frame rails and and one rear quarter. But, it was free. My job was brakes and suspension. I wish I remembered half the shit i learned from doing that. If I hadn't dropped out of college, I'd probably be working for a race team somewhere. The guy that was our "crew chief" went on to work for Hendrick Motorsports after college. Last I heard, he was on Jimmie Johnson's pit crew.

That's the thing, no one "owned" the cars, they were all leases and at the end of the lease period, GM didn't let anyone purchase them, even when offered ridiculous amounts of money for them.

That's normally common practice with car manufactures.   Toyota did that with their first hybrids, and I'm willing to be that Honda is going to take back every since hydrogen car they are leasing.  The info the gain from studying these cars after they had been used in the real world is priceless.

also IIRC GM gave 50 of the cars to engineering universities, i know University of Wisconsin has one.  in fact last summer you could see it on their SAE garage web cam  if they were trying to kill the technology, that is about the worse way to go about it. 
 

There's a long list of reaons why electric cars aren't all that feasible. Especially given that our electricicty production would be incapable of handling the load, or doing it in a "green" manner.

If I had the money, I'd get a tesla...they look great and are fast [evil]
http://www.teslamotors.com/ (http://www.teslamotors.com/)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a99/Cypherzion/tesla_stock.jpg)

according to most of the stuff i've read, that isn't true. It does produce pollution down the wire, but it's still less than driving a car burning gas.


according to the movie, you could have 30-40 million of them on the road before you would have to do any work to increase the utilities infrastructure.


btw---I'd be driving a tesla too, if i had 100k to spend on one :o

Everything old is new again ;D

Just ask Jay Leno   http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/jay_leno_garage/4215940.html (http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/jay_leno_garage/4215940.html)

check out aptera in carlsbad CA ... should be available end of this year in either full electric
or strong hybrid.

then the GM Volt is due in another year or so.  battery technology is the key.  no one wanted to have a
car on the market before the batteries were ready.

the aptera is a car I've been keeping an eye on. I think it's kinda neat looking too (though some others might not agree). too bad we don't get these cutting edge type cars out here in texas  [cheeky]

I live in San Carlos, CA (Tesla's base) and I see those cars zooming around every once in awhile  8)  Defintly really cool cars, fast and maintaince free!  I would definlty be rockin' one of those if I had that kind of cash  [evil]

The first clue to knowing if it's a Tesla or a Lotus is the lack of tailpipe, then when the light turns green, very little noise  :)

Probably under the pretense that "we'll never run out of gas" or political pressure. Either way, it's a real shame as it could have been a very good alternative.If we could get these in Europe, I'd buy one.

Here's a review and drive test from Jay Leno:
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/video_player.shtml?vid=229378

That was a good movie, but I was a bit disappointed by the conclusion they came to:  it was everybody's fault.  They were probably right, but there was no conspiracy theory money shot, so to speak.

Tesla motors has some good info about "well-to-wheel" efficiency  on their site  (http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php).  Still not carbon-neutral, but a big improvement.  I don't cherish the idea of driving an appliance (unless it's a ridiculously fast appliance), but electric seems like the shortest distance between two points - it scales more easily, we can make energy production cleaner, and it takes us out of the crossfire a of geopolitical issues.
Now that I think of it, why won't every electric car be equally fast?  Aside from weight, I mean...

Anybody seen any Electric Motorcycles? The biggest issue is that they are so silent... it ruins the fun of having a loud bike.  ;D  You can core the exhaust all you want and it still wont make any noise. he he he.

baseball cards and a clothes pin

CycleWorld was saying they should play a recording of the bike sound.  So you could go from a 4 to a twin anytime you wanted.
kinda lame but better than the sound of an electric motor in the wind  shhhhh [moto] shhhh

Not really.  It's easier to control and capure/prevent pollution from a few large sources, than from hundreds of thousands of tailpipes.

Agree that they won't prevent pollution entirely though...not by a long shot.

http://www.killacycle.com/ (http://www.killacycle.com/)