Would you ever buy an electric car?

[ducatiz]

The greenest thing to do though is limit driving - either by living close to work, or by working remotely.  I am always surprised the number of coworkers that drive more than 30 miles each way everyday and think nothing of it.

mitt

I used to have a coworker that commuted -daily- from Cherry Hill NJ to downtown Manhattan.  2.5 hours each way.

I asked him why, and he said it very simply...

We have four kids.  Cherry Hill has nice homes for decent prices (compared to the NYC metro).  I can send my kids to public school there and they'll end up at Harvard, whereas the public schools in NYC are garbage, and what I do simply doesn't exist in Cherry Hill or (nearby) philly.

It really opened my (then single and childless) eyes.  He could not afford to live in or close to NYC and where he needed to live, he couldn't make enough money.

[DucatiTorrey]

The batteries need to be charged.

right, the car doesn't emit though. And, depending on where and how you charge, its still less polluting than everyone driving a v6 around. think of it as public transportation, everyone is sharing a power plant, no matter what kind, that is going to be there, burning shit anyway.

[NorDog]

I would be hard-pressed to disagree with you about the marketing.  Just like omitting the carbon footprint of the production of gasoline, only comparing what comes out of the tailpipes is not fair or complete.  But that is a marketing problem and not an engineering or environmental problem...

Anthropomorphic global warming is a much longer and much politicaler discussion

This sums it up for me better than I could

Yeah, but a marketing problem born of BS.  Much like the itemized list of benefits.  Sure, those are great things, but are they real?  Are they really attainable?  The problem with the AGW crowd, in part, is found in their Utopian vision which never seems to grasp the eternal reality that there are always problems.

Rather, the Utopians will tell you that the current course of action is pure folly and destruction, but their course of action is...

Energy Independence
Preserve Rainforests
Sustainability
Green Jobs
Livable Cities
Renewables
etc. etc.

Beware the Utopians.  They sell fantasies.

[ducatiz]

right, the car doesn't emit though. And, depending on where and how you charge, its still less polluting than everyone driving a v6 around. think of it as public transportation, everyone is sharing a power plant, no matter what kind, that is going to be there, burning shit anyway.

it burns shit based on load.  if everyone drives an electric car, the load increases. 

it is not a 1:1 comparison either way.  a gas powered car uses no energy sitting, whereas an electric one is either discharging (no battery is perfect) or charging (connected to the grid), thus there has to be some factoring for waste by the electrics and increased powerplant emissions.

moreover, the power grid would have to be upgraded significantly.  how many cars are on the road?  i remember reading it is something like 200 million.  if only 10% of them become electric overnight, what kind of impact on the electrical grid is that?  probably a lot worse that we can imagine.

so now figure in the cost to upgrade the grid, as well as the increased waste.

lastly, unless someone develops super-sized batteries (for the power plants to discharge into when demand drops), there will be heat discharge as power plants dump overage into heat sinks.

i do think electric is an interesting option, but it simply doesn't compare to internal combustion as a convenient and useful propulsion system outside of totally urban areas.

[KnightofNi]

i think i just solved the problem with how to make clean renewable energy.

get the energizer bunny to have kids.
everyone gets one and the only thing we have to do is sound insulate wherever you keep them so we arent' driven apeshit by the constant drumming.

[ducpainter]

right, the car doesn't emit though. And, depending on where and how you charge, its still less polluting than everyone driving a v6 around. think of it as public transportation, everyone is sharing a power plant, no matter what kind, that is going to be there, burning shit anyway.

are you playing lawyer today?

The use/manufacture of the car creates emissions...albeit less than a typical internal combustion engine. Those manufacturing emissions are figured into the averages for an internal combustion vehicle and to ignore them on an electric vehicle is ludicrous.

[rgramjet]

http://www.longdrivesolar.com/Long_Drive/Home.html

http://www.badboybuggies.com/

Think of how cool youd look rockin one of these!

[NorDog]

are you playing lawyer today?

The use/manufacture of the car creates emissions...albeit less than a typical internal combustion engine. Those manufacturing emissions are figured into the averages for an internal combustion vehicle and to ignore them on an electric vehicle is ludicrous.

Ludicrous?  I'm not so sure.  I'm thinking we just need to develop technology that allows us to capture all the pollutants from an internal combustion engine so we can take them down to the coal burning power plant and release them there.  Presto!  The Corvette and F-350 are now emmissions free!

[ducpainter]

Ludicrous?  I'm not so sure.  I'm thinking we just need to develop technology that allows us to capture all the pollutants from an internal combustion engine so we can take them down to the coal burning power plant and release them there.  Presto!  The Corvette and F-350 are now emmissions free!

You're on to something there.

[ducatiz]

Ludicrous?  I'm not so sure.  I'm thinking we just need to develop technology that allows us to capture all the pollutants from an internal combustion engine so we can take them down to the coal burning power plant and release them there.  Presto!  The Corvette and F-350 are now emmissions free!

they already have that, it's called a filter.  just put one on the tailpipe.  some diesels already use them for particulate emissions.

[NorDog]

they already have that, it's called a filter.  just put one on the tailpipe.  some diesels already use them for particulate emissions.

Now I just need to get a filter, and mount a Chia Pet next to my tailpipe to scrub out the CO2, and problem solved!

Let the Polar Bears LIVE!!

[ducatiz]

Now I just need to get a filter, and mount a Chia Pet next to my tailpipe to scrub out the CO2, and problem solved!

Let the Polar Bears LIVE!!

[Triple J]

Just a note - killing salmon and sturgeon is pollution (and all sorts of other critters that depend on free flowing rivers).  Not an attack on you, but there are trade-offs for ALL energy production.

Agreed. Nothing is free. Although I think overfishing is just as much, if not more, to blame for declining fish populations.

[angler]

Agreed. Nothing is free. Although I think overfishing is just as much, if not more, to blame for declining fish populations.

I won't argue for most marine species.  I will argue about salmon.  The single biggest problems for salmon stocks are spawning habitat degradation, damns removal of instream flow (see Klamath catastrophe).  Now low returns are definitely a commercial fishing issue.....a bit of a chicken and egg thing.  Even if fishing was shut down, we would still have low numbers due to spawning trouble.

[Drunken Monkey]

I'm holding out for the US to get off it's ass and set up the infrastructure for NG powered cars.

We've got plenty of it, it packs a solid amount of power by weight and it can be used in the engines we have today.

And if we want to get fancy we can build hybrid cars that come with NG turbine generators to keep the batteries topped off.

Sorry, but I'm not buying an electric car until you can pull into a gas station and have your drained batteries replaced with fresh ones in under 10 minutes.